'Darkness on the Edge of Town' – Brian Keene (Deadite Press)

It's looking a lot better than it did but my flat is still full of teetering piles of books and yep, I really need to do something about that; my half-arsed ideas about turning the attic into a tiny library might have to finally become a reality...

In the meantime, it's still quite cool to know that wherever I am in my flat, I don't have to go too far to find a book to read ;o) All I have to do is reach a hand out and grab whatever's there. The other day, it was 'Darkness on the Edge of Town', just the read for a Graeme who was after something familiar but also something that he hadn't picked up in a while. And that's the last time, for this post at least, where I'll talk about myself in the third person ;o) Lets talk about ';Darkness on the Edge of Town'...

One morning the residents of Walden, Virginia, woke up to find the rest of the world gone. Just . . . gone. Surrounding their town was a wall of inky darkness, plummeting Walden into permanent night. Nothing can get in - not light, not people, not even electricity, radio, TV, internet, food, or water. And nothing can get out. No one who dared to penetrate the mysterious barrier has ever been seen again. Only their screams were heard. But for some, the darkness is not the worst of their fears. Driven mad by thirst, hunger, and perpetual night, the residents of Walden are ready to explode. The last few sane prisoners of this small town must prepare a final stand against their neighbors, themselves, and something even worse . . . something out there . . . in the darkness.

I've typed out and deleted two or three sentences trying to get down how I feel about 'Darkness on the Edge of Town', and then I realised what I was trying to say... This book is relentless. It lures you with some relatively chilled out characters who have woken up to something really odd just outside the town limits; you're sat there thinking 'okay this is interesting, I wonder how they work this one out?' And that's when the book turns the tables on you. The evil outside Walden is almost incidental, what's key is how the townspeople manage this and well, they don't. 'Darkness' then becomes a read that just won't stop plumbing the depths of what humans are capable of because Keene knows that when it comes down to it and we've got the chance to let the darkness out of ourselves, well... there's a lot of it and it will come out in any number of ways. And yes, I'm thinking of the man who decided he was now a scientist. Damn that passage (and the fact that my ex recently bought a really sweet kitten)...

Keene already had the scenario nailed but it's how he builds on it that makes 'Darkness' a book that I still can't put down, even after a number of re-reads. You know what's coming but everything is built up so gradually that the tension is like fingernails being dragged down a blackboard. You know something bad is coming... But it's not here yet... Nope... Still not here... BANG! You're bang in the middle of the evil that people do, having your heart wrenched as Keene shows us over and over again that the evil we do impacts on the best among us. It's all on the bleak side but like I said up the post, I still can't help reading it. I'll read it again and feel the same way. Certain closing scenes make for really hard reason but it's a lesson that we could all do with learning.

I've got an early start in the office so I'm going to end my post here I think :o) If you haven't read 'Darkness on the Edge of Town', I'd say that it's definitely worth your time if you come across a copy. Myself, I'll try not to leave it too long before I go back for another read.