University

Rating:
Summary: Little's Gory Little Novel
Review: "University," Bentley Little's 1995 effort, is the archetypical Little novel. Loaded with lots of humor, gore, and oddball observations about a normal American institution gone amuck, Little delivers his usual wallop to the stomach with this effective shocker about a university gone mad. It is important to classify Little's novels into two categories: the first is social satire, the second straight horror. "University" falls into satire, firmly ensconced with "The Mailman" and "The Store." For Little's straight horror novels, check out "The Walking" or "The Return." While "University" is not as gripping as Little's other satirical novels, it still offers the casual reader or diehard Little fan plenty of fun landscapes to traipse through.

The University of California at Brea seems to be your normal run of the mill university. With an enrollment of roughly 25,000 students, UC Brea serves the needs of students of all types, including ethnic minorities and the physically disabled. Like other universities around the country, UC Brea occasionally has some problems with violence, rape, or theft on campus. But something sinister is occurring at UC Brea, something that at first appears unexplainable. Why are rapes gradually increasing on campus? Why are the students in Ian Emerson's literature courses more apathetic than usual? And what in the heck is happening on the sixth floor of the university library?

Gradually, UC Brea is becoming psychotic. You see, UC Brea is alive, inhabited by a living organism slowly growing more powerful with each passing semester. The university feeds off its students, gaining greater strength as the students become crazier. Students start disappearing, either inexplicably or due to "experiments" conducted by faculty and staff. Minorities begin to experience disturbing episodes of blatant racism, especially when elections for student president result in a race riot. Finally, sickening murders and suicides become the norm as the university prepares to "graduate" with its students. UC Brea is one huge, raving madhouse with only a few stalwart souls wandering the tree shrouded campus and the hallowed halls of learning.

As is par for the course in a Little novel, we meet the few good people struggling against an unfathomable evil. There is Ian Emerson, a burned out professor trying to forget his ex-wife's infidelity while forging a new relationship with girlfriend Eleanor. Ian's only real friend in the English department is Buckley, a rambunctious Chaucer scholar with a fondness for drink and dirty movies. As the madness increases in danger and intensity, Jim and Faith join the fight. Jim is the editor of the school paper and has a front row seat to the bloody carnage unfolding on campus. Faith, Jim's girlfriend, does work study in the library while trying to avoid her dysfunctional family life. Finally, there is Gifford Stevens, a former professor on a crusade across the country to hunt down evil springing to life in our nation's institutions of higher learning. Stevens acts as the catalyst for our heroes, bringing them together to fight UC Brea's burgeoning horrors.

Little always loves inserting gore scenes in his novels, but "University" may be his most brutal novel to date. In an effort to satirize America's university system, Little injects his violence with a huge dose of steroids. The book contains scenes of animal murder, violence directed against ethnic minorities, and nauseating scenes of sadistic torture. I understand what Little is trying to accomplish here, but that knowledge does not make reading this book easy. On a lighter note, the story contains what is arguably the funniest (and grossest) description of a body falling off a roof ever captured on paper. Overall, for those with weak stomachs, be aware that "University" is chock full of sickening scenes.

In terms of style, "University" has its ups and its downs. There is a coherency in this book missing in many of Little's works, as all the story threads reach resolution and the conclusion is fully developed and lengthy (something not seen in many of Little's books). Even the characters attain greater likeability here than in his other stories, although they still are one-dimensional at times.

Regrettably, the editing job in this book is poor. At one point, the word 'perpetuated' appears in the place of 'perpetrated.' Even more egregious is the extensive padding in the book. For long stretches of the story, Little inserts repetitive statements where none should be. This complaint appears elsewhere, and those statements are essentially correct. I suspect that the story was not long enough, so the editor sent the manuscript back for beefing up. Instead of extending the storyline, Little threw in tons of dependent clauses. These revisions are unnecessary and annoying.

Despite a few glaring flaws, "University" is a prime candidate for inclusion into the top five books produced by Bentley Little. The plot ideas are entertaining, the characters are engaging (to some extent), and the conclusion works. This book is not as entertaining as "The Store," but newcomers to Little should definitely pick this one up.

Rating:
Summary: Please, Let's Get to the POINT!
Review: Although I must admit, I was taken by the book during the first half, but I was surely LOST in the last half section. I mean, the characters became uninteresing to the point that I just did NOT care anymore! And the whole concept of "The Computer Monster" became simply just stupid.

Rating:
Summary: There is no horror without subtlety and suspense.
Review: Apparently I'm not alone in having bought this book due to the glowing reviews I'd seen of it. Hmm. Perhaps I bought the wrong book somehow.

As H.P. Lovecraft says, horror works because we have an innate fear of the unknown. Great horror creators must prey on our fears within to really cause the proper response. Poe, Lovecraft, Hitchcock, King, all understand that pace and timing and establishing a general "creepiness" are essential to making the reader resort to peering over his shoulder and crawling deeper under the covers while reading or watching.

Bentley Little appears to have no such clue. He begins the book by having a variety of characters essentially say, "Hey, there's something really creepy about this University. Boy, I sure am uncomfortable." Then he proceeds to intersperse a series of violent, generally sex-related, incidents with our protagonists saying, "Man, it sure is getting creepier than I thought around here. Wow."

His character names are insipid (Jim Parker? Hunger Hut?) his descriptions of casual events are far too bland to be interesting and far too detailed to serve any purpose ("he bought a burger, criss-cross fries and a large chocolate shake"). It feels just like reading a Hardy Boys novel with lots of violence and rapes thrown in.

He's an amazingly average writer, mishandling what SHOULD be a great plot. Had he done it right - letting us meet the characters, get used to UC Brea as it USED to be, then let US figure out that something weird is happening, that might get it.

If his characters weren't disfunctional, cliched excuses for horror-movie stereotypes, whose dialogue is as flat as his descriptions of the campus, that might be OK.

"Master of the Macabre" (King quote emblazoned on the cover) - hardly. Master of cheese, perhaps. Why 3 stars instead of two (or 1)? Mainly because he's got such a strong premise, however badly it's mishandled. Also, he's got at least one decent characterization in Ian Emerson, the English professor with a special affinity for porn and horror literature.

Don't bother with this one unless you can buy it for $2 in a second-hand bookstore and have lots of free time. Read something good instead, like Phil Rickman's _Curfew_.

Rating:
Summary: MESSAGE TO LAYMON FANS?
Review: At the time I read the book it was under the name "NIGHT SCHOOL", University is the best *Little* book i've had the previlege to read, *Richard Laymon* used to be the only writer I would read untill I came across *Bentley Little*. *Little* has like a kinship with *Laymon* at being not able to write a bad or boring book, I've seen the reviews saying *Little* is no good, but i think thats a personnal opinion, anyone liking *Laymon* will in no way be disserpointed with the almost at times freakish style that is *Bentley Little*.

Rating:
Summary: Shocking!
Review: Bentley Little is no masterful literary writer. I think that's clear. But, after reading "University," "The Ignored," and "The Walking," I see that he has some good stories and some frightening, if somewhat unoriginal, images. The problem with "University," however, is that Little throws out all these interesting plots, but he fails to bring them together in the end. "University's" first half is nice and suspenseful, I'll give it that, but by the weak climax, the story blows up with the campus. This novel steals too much from "The Shining." So do yourself a favor and stick with Stephen King.

Rating:
Summary: Some Nice Shock Images--But No Direction
Review: Bentley Little is no masterful literary writer. I think that's clear. But, after reading "University," "The Ignored," and "The Walking," I see that he has some good stories and some frightening, if somewhat unoriginal, images. The problem with "University," however, is that Little throws out all these interesting plots, but he fails to bring them together in the end. "University's" first half is nice and suspenseful, I'll give it that, but by the weak climax, the story blows up with the campus. This novel steals too much from "The Shining." So do yourself a favor and stick with Stephen King.

Rating:
Summary: Killer!!
Review: Epic horror is becoming a lost art. With King focusing on smaller more intimate stories, McCammon in retirement and Koontz doing his wacky conspiracy theory crap, Bentley Little is one of the lone practitioners of this type of fiction. And UNIVERSITY is a classic. Anyone who longs for one of those big sprawling novels with lots of characters and lots of different manifestations will love this book. Anyone who's ever been to college should also appreciate Little's dead-on characterization of students and faculty. A remarkable achievement.

Rating:
Summary: Bentley Little is unlike any author I've ever read.
Review: He has an amazing talent. Most like new authors, he has a few duds but University is definitely another winner, as was his book The Revelation, which recieved the Bram Stroker Award.

Rating:
Summary: Excellent premise ruined by the lack of coherency
Review: I bought the book because I'm a college student and the synopsis seemed really interesting. I enjoyed the first 100 pages or so of this book, but later on, the story just failed to interest me that much anymore. Mr. Little placed too many unrelated characters and too much pointless gore into the story to a level where the story was totally off track. Yeah, I got the point how violent the students had become, but nobody seemed to do anything about it besides making repetitive remarks like "the university is evil." It's a shame that the brilliant premise of this story is totally obscured by the author's attempt to "shock" the readers.

Rating:
Summary: The second and last Bentley Little book I'll ever buy
Review: I bought this book and The Store (also by Bentley Little) at the same time. Based on the reviews I saw here, I had high expectations. After reading The Store, I posted the first negative review that I have ever done on a book (although I have yet to see it posted here). Unfortunately, the excessive violence, sexual perversity and lack of ANY meaningful content were not isolated to Little's book, the Store. If these two books are any indication, it must be a plot devise of the author.

So, I am posting my second (and hopefully last) bad review in the hope that it will lower this book's overall rating and give someone pause before wasting their time and money on this drivel. I would say this is junk food for the brain, but that's an insult to junk food. The WORST book by Stephen King or Dan Simmons would be a far better purchase. To sum it up, it may not be the worst book I have read so far, but it's definitely at the bottom of the stack.