The Return

Rating:
Summary: Scary!
Review: Mr. Little, if this book is anything to go by, you are one of the laziest writers around. You didn't even make the effort to tie up any of the loose ends. And the ending!!! I think the image of the popped balloon zooming around the room was more appropriate to what happend to your brain. If you can't think of anything good to write, don't write!

Rating:
Summary: Utter drivel
Review: Mr. Little, if this book is anything to go by, you are one of the laziest writers around. You didn't even make the effort to tie up any of the loose ends. And the ending!!! I think the image of the popped balloon zooming around the room was more appropriate to what happend to your brain. If you can't think of anything good to write, don't write!

Rating:
Summary: Not a book I'd return to
Review: No matter how hard I tried, I couldn't absorb myself in this book like I have been able with most of the other books Little has written. By desciption alone, the plot isn't bad, but it's not terribly interesting to read about. There was just no magic here. I read the events, didnt care about them, didnt care about the characters, and didnt really care about the outcome. This was one of those novels I read for awhile, and kept coming back to after reading another book to finish. I was just bored...I can't put my finger on why exactly, but it's a truth. The pace would speed up, then slow down again, repeating it's vicious cycle.

My advice? If you're wanting to sample Little, try one of his other books instead, like the House of the Revelation.

Rating:
Summary: The Return - Little
Review: Since picking up a copy of The House several years ago, I've been a Bentley Little fan. Despite the fact that I had several of his earlier novels sitting unread on my bookshelves, I was excited to see The Return hit shelves. I immediately picked it up and started reading. I'll admit to being mildly interested in the beginning however The Return quickly became tedious - at best.

I don't expect realism in a horror novel - let me get that out of the way upfront. Little, however, has consistently written novels in which normal, everyday people and places have become gradually sinister - haunted houses (The House), homeowners associations (The Association), discount store chains (The Store). Because of this subtlety, I was surprised when The Return featured such blatantly outrageous action. For example, while reading The Association, it was conceivable to me, in the manner in which it was presented, that residents of a community could be terrorized by an evil homeowners association and find themselves with little recourse. Its more difficult for me to believe that, as was the case in The Return, entire towns could be wiped out across the Southwest with little more reaction from the country than a little bit of news coverage.

The Return is the least enjoyable of the Little novels I've read so far. In a shorter format, The Return would have been at home in his recently published collection of short stories, The Collection. Its too bad - many of the short stories collected there would have been far more successful as novels than The Return.

Rating:
Summary: "The man in the hip hop shorts was still alive..."
Review: The book is built around a great idea, the Mollongonville Monster, but the novel itself isn't very satisfying. The writing is weak and stilted. (Much like this review, actually.) The creatures don't make any sense--what they are, what they are doing, and how they are defeated the way they are are details never really explained. In fact, pretty much anything interesting is not explained. I gets old after a while. It's like a book written by a young person, where details aren't provided. Things Just Are. Then there is an embarassingly bad sex scene.

As for being scary...some scenes were effective, others were not. The creatures being described deadpan as having "afros" pretty much moved them out of the realm of being scary into being laughable.

My favorite line from the book (which I have memorized): "The man in the hip hop shorts was still alive, but he was screaming."

Oh, and I was particularly annoyed with the dig at Bigfoot researcher Grover Krantz. I mean, honestly.

Rating:
Summary: Bentley scores again!
Review: The Return is a great horror novel in the classic vein. Yet, when it is touched with Bentley's wonderful wit and imagination, what could become mundane is transformed into something special. When Glen's mother dies, he is at a loss for what to do with his life. So he quits his job, takes off and ends up working at a archaeological site where they are excavating Indian burial ruins. From here, there are interlocking stories leading to the conclusion which pits a small band of immune people against a timeless evil. There is a little romance, lots of horror and a great plot that never disappoints.

From Arizona to Colorado, there are walking artifacts, towns go insane and become tribal and horrifying mummies take on a life of their own. There are burial grounds, predestination and a battle with eternal evil. All of those things are what makes a classic horror novel work. And this is great from beginning to end. My only wish is that it might have lasted longer and there might have been more history on the Mogollan monster. Still, it was A+ and pure Bentley.

Rating:
Summary: weak
Review: The Return started out as a seemingly very promising horror story. Once I got further into the story I realized that it was turning into a very weak offering from Bentley Little. A mummy with a red afro?? Come On!! Very unrealistic even for a horror novel!

Too many questions were left unanswered. Such as what happened to the town that dissappeared? What happened to the people that dissappeared? What exactly was the Mongolon Monster??? The answers to these questions were very vague in the story.

Also the end of The Return seemed to be rushed. The build up to the supposed climax was satisfying enough, however, the climax of the story itself was anything but!

Skip this one. Bentley Little has written some excellent horror novels. Try The Store, The Revelation and The Walking.

Rating:
Summary: Don't return again...
Review: This book is just not very good, in my opinion. The story was totally unbelievable, in a way that even most horror stories cannot approach. I forced myself to finish it, to see if it ever became interesting, but it never did. Disconnected, implausible storylines fail to mesh throughout the book. Stephen King is not my favorite author, but his horror fiction is certainly always much better than this. If you are interested in Southwestern mystery-type stories, read any of the excellent works by Tony Hillerman. I can't recommend this one, and won't read any others by Bentley Little.

Rating:
Summary: Yawn........zzzzzzz.....zzzz....ewww.
Review: This book was soooo boring. It took me a week to finish this book and I usually read a book in 1 or 2 days. It seemed to be a long nasty movie of the week with gross paragraphs randomly tossed in in the attempt to make it more interesting. It built to a very unsatisfying conclusion that was totally ridiculous in how the "monsters" were vanquished. It also never told what they were or why these things happend to my satisfaction. Just don't waste your time. This the first and last book I will read by this author.

Rating:
Summary: So much potential but, only a bust
Review: This is my 4th Bentley Little book I have read. The others were The Association, The Walking and The Store. I was excited to see The Return was now available. His stories can take a little getting use to, but he does a great job of using peoples daily qurkes and turn them into serious and scary issues. The Return at first struck me as similar to The Walking. This is not suprising, as his stories generally carry a familar feel. However, The Return quickly lost track and became distorted, confused and finally a huge disappointment.

First of all, he did a very poor job of explaining details. We have the Anazzi Indian story, a story about a guy going through a mid-life chrisis, a story about a monster, towns and people disappear, strange things happen for no rhyme or reason and people apparently start doing things to which we have no clue as to why. I almost got the feeling Mr. Little knew enough about the Anazzi Indians to get the story started, but failed in his research to tie up lose ends or half explain what the heck is going on. I kept asking myself, what the...? Where did that come from? How is this part of the story? Okay its gross and graphic, but this relates how?

The ending was the worse part of all. Your being lead up to Little's typical fantastic finish, but in The Return the evil, horrible, thousands of years old monster is simply knocked off with so much ease you sit wondering what the heck was the big deal in the first place. I swear Mr. Little had no idea how to end this story or a deadline was approching and so he simply ended it with absolutly no thrill what-so-ever.

Like I said the ending was pathetic and this book in general was very poorly done. He needs to go back to his roots and write stories about people and their strange ways. The Association was absolutly awsome. The store was decent (expect for the hint of incest which has no bearing on the story) and even the Walking (whose ending was kinda lame) were much better books.
In the end, this story was horrible. If your looking to start reading Bentley Little's works, I would highly suggest something else. If your not a huge fan and you still want to read his stuff, read something else. This book was a major put-off. I will await the next one and hope he does a better job, his 3 other books I've read at least gives him a 2nd chance!