Rating: 
Summary: Bentley Little Returns
Review: "The Return" is the newest novel from horror author Bentley Little. Little, who also occasionally cranks out a social satire novel attacking such American institutions as chain stores or homeowner's associations, delivers a full-frontal assault on the horror genre with this book. "The Return" closely resembles "The Walking" and "The House," in that the gore and scares come fast and furious. This may be Little's eeriest book to date, quite an accomplishment for a man whose imagination explores the darkest depths of human fear and depravity.Once again, Little sets his story in the American Southwest, specifically Arizona. We are introduced to Glen, a techie visiting Arizona to clear up the affairs of his recently deceased mother. Glen decides he needs to change his life, and he begins to do so by volunteering to work on an archeological expedition for the summer. It is there that he meets Melanie, a teacher who likes to spend her summers digging up Indian artifacts. Regrettably for Glen and Melanie, they soon find themselves in the center of an ancient evil that is reawakening after years of dark slumber. This evil involves the Anasazi people, a race that disappeared along with the Mayans nearly 1000 years ago. With the reappearance of this force in modern times, cities start to disappear, people turn to murder and cannibalism, Indian artifacts become animated, and apocalyptic signs start to occur. The consequences of these activities are both horrific and gory. While Little creates a story that is scary, and consistently scary at that, he tends to bite off more than he can chew as the story progresses. Too many events are occurring, and too many people are wandering around in the story. Little has a tough time weaving all of these threads into a neat conclusion. Little sets a dark tone early on as he builds towards what should be a thrilling climax. But like other Little books, the conclusion tends to be somewhat of a letdown. The showdown between Glen and the creatures is so brief that one wonders what the fuss is all about. Since this is a phenomenon that occurs in other Bentley Little books, it seems that Little enjoys writing the body of the story more than he likes ending his books. Ultimately, there is nothing wrong with this, because Little always creates an awesome build up in his books. This build up often leads to chills and wariness about strolling about in a dark house. If achieving those effects requires the sacrifice of a brilliant ending, so be it. For Bentley Little fans, "The Return" is, well, a welcome return for Bentley Little. For those yet to experience this dark genius, "The Return" is a good place to start before you devour the rest of his catalog (although be sure to check out "The Store," one of Little's best books).
Rating: 
Summary: Scary!
Review: After reading this great book and being thoroughly terrified by some of the most disturbingly original imagery I've come across this year, I was shocked to see the low scores this book got from readers. Maybe you have to be from the southwest to appreciate the achievement here. Compared to Dean Koontz's BY THE LIGHT OF THE MOON, which seems to have taken its Four Corners info from a map, Little knows this country and creates an epic novel of horror from this epic landscape. Scary, intense and original. By the way, I liked the ending and thought it DID tie up all loose ends.
Rating: 
Summary: Disappointing...
Review: Bentley Little is one of my favorite horror authors. I have purchased every one of his books. My favorites being University and The Mailman. I even liked his collection of short stories ('The Collection'). This book, in my opinion, just wasn't that good or interesting to me. Sorry.
Rating:
Summary: One Scary Book
Review: Bentley Little is one of the few current practitioners of epic horror: horror fiction that takes place over a broad geographic area and weaves together disparate events into one large tapestry. In THE RETURN, he tackles the disappearance of the Anasazi Indians in the Southwest and marries it to a series of contemporary events that are occurring throughout the U.S. Archeologists are uncovering strange and creepy objects at their digs, artifacts are becoming sentient in museums and everything seems to be connected to a series of spooky mummies with orange afros who are suddenly appearing. It's a complex plot with some of the scariest scenes I've read in years. One spooky book.
Rating:
Summary: Bentley is the Best!!
Review: Bentley Little's work evokes strong reactions in people. Other horror writers I like receive reviews that are all over the map, with most falling in the three-sat to four-star range. But readers either love Bentley's work or hate it. He gets either five stars or one star. I'm in the camp that thinks he's one of the best writers out there, and in my book this strong polarization of opinion is the sign of a true artist.
Here, in THE RETURN, as in his earlier novel, THE WALKING, Bentley posits a wild Lovecraftian west, a history of America that is not written about in books and involves cosmic supernatural beings. Rather than Lovecraft's cartoonish behemoths, however, these evil forces show up in smaller, scarier, more intimate ways in Bentley's work. Toss in some unique observations about the effect of the past on the present (even if it's not our own past), and what we have here is a truly unique and satisfying scarefest. The most frightening book I've read all year.
Rating:
Summary: The Return, Bentley Little
Review: Did not like this book. I was waiting and waiting for some kind of explanation for all the strange occurrences that happen throughout the story. He never draws the story together. I read it to the end thinking that his conclusion would enlighten me as to how everything fit together, but he didn't. What a dissapointing read, I wouldn't recommend it to anyone.
Rating:
Summary: Dumb and Dumber
Review: Geez.
I've read a couple of Little's books, and was mildly entertained with them. I picked this one up, full price, due to a lack of anything else to read at my local mall bookstore and, by the time I finished it (and it took a *really* long time to wade through the last half), was really annoyed that I'd blown the price of a first-run movie ticket on it.
It started out pretty well, and had what looked to be an interesting premise, but by the time Little described the first "walking" mortar and pestle, I knew it was going to be a grind. Walking medicine bowls are ridiculous enough, but throw in fast and loose science, amazing events that would've brought the media (among others) en-masse to their neck of the woods, and numerous, nay, infinite plot gaps, holes, and blunders and you have the makings of a throwaway paperback (tossing a paperback in the garbage is darn near sacrilege). Wrap all that up in a neat little package with cool cover art and top it off with an atrocious, laughable ending and too many plot threads that never got off of ground-zero and you've got terrible fiction that I wouldn't dare donate to the public library.
With apologies to Little fans, do yourself a favor and read Laymon instead.
Rating: 
Summary: Definitely Not His Best Work
Review: Glen Ridgeway's mother dies so he travels from California to his hometown of Kingman, Arizona to sell off a property investment his father had made years ago. Once out on the open road, he decides he isn't in any hurry to return to corporate life. While touring the Huntington Mesa Ruins in Springerville, he meets Vince a museum guide and takes a job on a dig at the Bower Ruins under Professor Al Wittinghill of ASU. There he meets Melanie Black, a history teacher at Bower Junior High School. The dig has been far from normal as odd out of place artifacts have been surfacing: a bag of Greek coins, a Saxon toy, a piece of pottery with Melanie's image on it and a badly misshapen horse jawbone. Cameron is a boy scout away at scout ranch. He's told the legend of the Mogollon Monster, a bigfoot-like creature. The next day his scoutmaster if found murdered in the same way as this Monster killed in the past. After returning home, Cameron sees the monster lurking outside his home. Pets become twisted and finally his parents and neighbors disappear. Vince, Cameron's uncle, comes to take care of him. Pace Henry, an archeologist on a dig at Chaco Canyon in New Mexico, is Al Wittinghill's research partner. Glen and Melanie are sent to take the skull to him for analysis. While there the skull disappears and when they return to Bower, they discover that their archeological team has also vanished. Finally the town of Bower disappears all together. Artifacts in museums all over the Southwest come to life. People are murdered. Artifacts start turning up in people's yards. Two kids dig up an underground burial chamber while digging a foundation for a new addition to their clubhouse. Many people are drawn to aboriginal sites where they disappear into some sort of vortex. Glen and Cameron's likenesses were found painted on the wall of a church making it seem as if they were part of an ancient prophecy. It's up to Glen, Melanie, Cameron, Vince, and Pace to solve the mystery of these events or the world will cease to exist. This was definitely a weird tale but not one of Bentley Little's best. To me, it seemed like three different stories ideas the writer tried to make fit together. It just didn't come together for me!
Rating:
Summary: BIG DISAPPOINTMENT FOR A LITTLE FAN
Review: Having read every Bentley Little book, including Death Instinct, I can honestly and regretfully say that this is his worst book. After the first hundred or so pages, I could tell that Bentley had lost his inspiration .... Ridiculous scenes involving dancing pottery killed any horror or suspense that could have built from this complete mess of a story that dragged on and on. I love this author, don't get me wrong, but this is one to skip. I recommend The Ignored, The Mailman, and The Association.
Rating:
Summary: keep the lights on day and night
Review: He leaves his job in California on Friday fully expecting to return on Monday. However when Glen Ridgeway travels to Kingman, Arizona to sell some land his parents left him he decides he wants to do a little traveling and take a vacation from his life. In Springerville Arizona, he sees some Indian ruins and accepts a job as an intern on an archeological dig in nearby Bower. The dig is unusual even before Glen arrives. The site has yielded up a pouch of Greek money, a Saxon children's toy and a figurine with a mummified children's hand attached to it. The day Glen starts working, a woman finds a shard of pottery with her face on it. Glen finds the head of a being that is neither human nor animal but something evil. All across the southwest, strange events are occurring at Anasazi ruins, and museums and digs housing their artifacts. Glen and others are coming to believe the thing that wiped out the Anasazi is coming back and they must find a way to deal with it or become eradicated too. Bentley Little is a master of horror on a par with Koontz and King (perhaps if he changed his name to Kittle he would obtain the sales and praise he deserves). The RETURN is one man's theory of why the Anasazi civilization was wiped out and his imagination is so powerful that readers will believe it too. After reading this novel, the audience will keep the lights on day and night. Harriet Klausner
|
