Rating: Summary: Good vs. Evil vs. Evil Review: This pretty good vampire book poses the question: who are worse, vampires or Nazis. One might argue that the fact that both groups are such classic and obvious bad guys makes the premise too easy and unoriginal. However, it offers the interesting opportunity to compare ancient and modern concepts of evil. And I must say that it was quite satisfying to read about the SS troops soiling their pants with fear. I thought that the first half of the book was the better. Wilson does a good job writing about the Nazi soldiers setting up shop in an apparently unoccupied old keep in Romania, getting pick off one-by-one in particularly grizzly manners, and slowing coming to the unsettling realization that the offenders were not local resistance fighters or other human agents. The second half of the book focuses less on the Germans and more on a Jewish professor and his daughter, who find themselves caught between a rock (the Nazis) and a hard place (the vampire). The second half is marred by mistakes common to horror novels. First, the daughter develops a love interest, which is unnecessary to the story and takes up too much space. The book is a better read without it. (Fortunately, it's easy to skim over that stuff.) Second, Wilson fiddles too much with vampire lore, again unnecessarily. I won't go into the details for fear of giving away too much. It's enough to say that his fiddling extends beyond questions of how well garlic works as a vampire deterrent. In any event, despite its flaws, The Keep is a decent vampire book, which puts it above the vast majority of what's out there these days.
Rating: Summary: Sheer terror Review: Wilson is a master at characters and intricate fast paced plots. I read Deep as the Marrow first and know Dr. Wilson through his medical practice. I decided to purchase The Keep based on reviews by readers and was absolutely floored. Wilson's characters are full formed people who the reader can identify with and empathise with. Even the Nazis in this book, are in some ways, sympathetic figures. Something is killing the men... Eery description of the entity and a fantastic villian.. Molasar. I know how it really is spelled but why ruin it for the uninitiated. I could not put this book down and have read 4 other of Wilson's books and recommend all very highly. The Keep is one of the finest novels I have ever read.
Rating: Summary: What an Exciting Read! Review: Having read a few books by this gifted and versatile author already, I followed some of the above recommendations - and was rewarded by losing a few nights' sleep. This book has really got it all: a love story set against the desparate background of WW2, supernatural elements that will keep your skin crawling, lots of thrilling & well-written horror, and finally the fight between good and evil."The Keep" is is a book you will certainly never forget!
Rating: Summary: A mixture of dark fantasy and historical drama. Review: I enjoyed this book. From the very beginning, a classic war between good and evil. First we think it is the Nazi's, a horror created by man. Yet the evil goes deeper than that, drawing the reader into a spellbinding black tale. Page by page we learn to love some of the characters, hate others, and fear for the fate of mankind. The author superbly weaves us into the tale, until ultimately we are caught up in the battle ourselves. I was left wondering, was this a tale of mythical proportions or was it an attempt to force us to see what our very humanness is capable of? Either way, the story gets my vote.
Rating: Summary: Simply the best of its style Review: I have read this book every couple of years since it first came out, something that I have not done with any other book.
Rating: Summary: Outstanding Book! Review: I have never been a fan of horror books. This book changed all of that. Nazi troops decide to occupy an acient castle in old Romania. One by one the Nazi troops start getting killed. It gets to the point where the Nazi in charge has to send for help. When the Gestapo troops arrive they start getting killed. The Nazis seek the help of a local professor and his daughter. Into the picture steps Glen who is really G;aeken an ancient warrior. He has been doing battle with the killer of the Nazi troops for an eternity. The killer of the troops is a monster named Molosar. He comes close to escaping into the outside world but is stopped by Glaeken and Magda. The world is saved. This book has every sort of action scene. It also has an outstanding plot. But this book,you will not be dissapointed.
Rating: Summary: Basic horror made better Review: "The Keep" is really, in its basic form, a pulp horror novel and it covers some familiar territory: slimy, evil things in the dark that no one believes is there till their dead, characters getting mad at each other rather than at whatever is killing them. But "The Keep" is better than one might expect, and it is raised far above its humble horror premise. First of all, the setting elevates it: Set during world war II when the greatest horror in history was playing out, in an isolated keep that is brought into the modern world beautifully but given a hint of gothicism. Yet the "typical" scenes of horror here are elevated because of Wilson's genuine talent for giving the reader chills. The way he describes the darkness "enveloping" people is truly frightening, and there are many further scenes that induce terror, two dead men standing over a sleeping man's bed and etc. Then the characters - here is where Wilson truly excels. One might think that you can feel nothing for these characters, since they are Nazis. But throughout a large part of the book, the main character is German Captain Klaus Woermann, who despises Nazism and would really rather not be at the keep, he feels sorry for the suffering caused. He is a truly likeable character for the most part, but more importantly, he feels REAL, all the characters do. Even small characters who are only in the book for a few pages are given in an introduction, a brief history that truly makes you feel for them and for their situation. The finale gets a little to fantasy-ish for my personal tastes, as well as the final explanation behind the killing force in the keep, but thats a minor thing. There are so many scenes of spine-chilling horror in this book that it truly is a rarity of its type.
Rating: Summary: Something more evil than nazis... Review: This is a great horror novel, with genuine creepiness. When nazi troops stationed at a remote Keep in Romania start dying horribly, one for each night, their commander sends a message to High Command stating "something is murdering my men". An SS squad is sent to stop the problem, their commander convinced partisan activity is to blame. But no mortal can be attributed to the continued demise of troops. Suspicion of the supernatural at work brings the nazis to enlist the aid of an ailing history and folklore professor, who happens to be a Jew. Meanwhile, a mysterious stranger has started a journey to confront the evil in the Keep once again... This novel is extremely entertaining, the death scenes are explicit, the terror truly felt. The explanation of the evil entity is intriguing in premise. The characters are written in animated style, solid, and never shallow. When reading this I felt like I was there, which really added to the fear factor. Definitely a classic horror tale, atlhough requires a high level ability to suspend disbelief.
Rating: Summary: Mindblowing... Review: ...forget the average review. This is one of those horror novels that reminds you why you read this genre to begin with. A page turner, an addiction, the keep is worth its weight in gold.
Rating: Summary: Excellent! Review: Simply the best horror story book that I have ever read in my entire life time. It is a gripping story det against the background of WW2 that tells of a detachment of German soldiers sent to occupy a fortification in the Translyvanian Alps in Romania, to keep an eye on the Russian movements. But Captain Woermann and his men discover something so evil, something so terrible, that it starts slowly taking one of his men at a time. The SS are dispacthed to deal with the problem and the rivarly between Woermann and the SS commander, Major Kaempffer is great, it keeps more tension throughout the entire book. Anyway, it was an awesome story of horror and evil. I am sorry to say that the movie was a dissapointment, for you own sake... READ THE BOOK FIRST or you may discourage yourself from ever wanting to look at this story again, please it is a shame for such a great book to be devastated by a mediocure movie.
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