Rating: 
Summary: Average and Uninspired
Review: Nicholson's 2nd novel feels very uninspired. Scenes move slowly forward with predictability and very little atmosphere. Scares? There really isn't any. Just a bunch of overly descriptive scenes of gore. The repetitive actions of the creatures got old very quickly. I didn't really care about the cardboard characters and knew the ending a hundred pages before it was over. I'll hesitantly pick up Scott's new book, The Manor, where hopefully he will impress me as he did with his first book, The Red Church.
Rating: 
Summary: Hillbilly Moonshine
Review: Nicholson's second novel is a slight improvement over his first (The Red Church), but still lacking in sufficient originality or diversity to sustain its greater length. At least the sources of his derivation are good. Think Lovecraft's "The Colour Out Of Space," combined with Stephen King's "The Tommyknockers" and that grand old (and never aired anymore) 1963 Japanese monster-flick "Attack of the Mushroom People," and you've pretty well got this one.Tamara and her husband have relocated from the city to hillbilly heaven, to further his radio deejay career and give her much-needed relief from "the gloomies" - a neurotic feeling that comes over Tamara like a psychic blanket of suffocation, seeming like an unwelcome external presence. The hillbilly haven in which they now live is the target of an unscrupulous real estate developer, and the home of his wealthy, retired entrepreneur rival. A crooked fire-and-brimstone preacher's congregation nestles in the hills, nearby a few old holdout amateur bootleg still operators and average, bored housewives looking for a few extra bucks turning tricks for their sleazy former lovers. Enter the Colour Out of Space - er, I mean, the Tommyknockers - uh, the Mushroom People - oh, hell, it's a crashing green-glowing meteorite, harboring a mutagenic fungal extraterrestrial invader...and I'm betraying no surprises, here, since Nicholson literally tells you what I just did on his very first page, rather badly damaging most of the suspense for the rest of the novel, which consists really of nothing more than the subsuming of all the various local yokels by the spreading "green gloomies." Well, okay, there's a little bit more than that - but honestly, not much. Still, Nicholson has to be given credit for breathing about four-hundred pages' worth of print out of that thin an amount of material, and he does it pretty well. He creates credible characters, and writes with wonderful local color. The novel is never boring, even if its story is nothing you haven't read before. The author has a good sense of humor, and makes his extraterrestrial green goo curiously kind of interesting. I'm still waiting for Nicholson to take off, but he's sufficiently entertaining and talented to make him worth the continued reading in the meantime.
Rating: 
Summary: The Harvest
Review: Okay, so the only reason I picked up this book was due to the Steven King comparisons. I honest thought I'd get a good laugh, but found myself staying up all night, unable to put it down.
The Harvest is Invasion of the Body Snatchers meets Night of the Living Dead. The Harvest goes above and beyond the B-flick era that it was fashioned after.
Rating: 
Summary: The Stephen King of the South
Review: Scott Nicholson has been called "the Stephen King of the South." While he's not quite that good, he does have the same gift for characterization and entertaining storytelling. This novel is a bit rawer than his first novel The Red Church, but the Appalachian setting is drawn just as clearly and lovingly. This is a writer you'll want to stay with for a long time to see what happens next.
Rating:
Summary: CHILLING!
Review: Set in the Appalachian Mountains of North Carolina. Dr. Tamara Leon teaches down at Westridge. She has always had the "gift" of being clairvoyant. She called the darker feelings "the Gloomies". She lived in the little town of Windshake with her husband and two small children. Her marriage is a bit rocky, since her husband HATES hearing anything about the Gloomies. He did not believe in the mess at all. Yet the Gloomies were getting stronger lately. In fact, ever since the weird object fell from the heavens and landed somewhere in the mountains. Things and people began to change. Whatever landed in those mountains was growing and assaulting Tamara's mind in a psychic invasion. Chester Mull KNEW something was going on! His dog has been turned inside-out, literally! People he used to call "friends" have drastically changed too. Their eyes glowed an eerie green and their skin seemed to be melting. The zombies sought out other living beings to "convert". Their master, Shu-Shaaa, was hungry and must be fed. It was assimilating itself into the biosystem of the planet, slowing learning and eating everything. As it fed, it searched for the meaning of one set of syllables that seemed to nag at its core. The syllables called "Taa-maaa-raaa." ***** Stephen King and Dean Koontz fans need to sit up and take notice of this talented author. Scott Nicholson has created a new terror that will keep you up late into the night! (Don't say I did not warn you.) Nicholson seems to be destined for fame. Highly recommended reading! ***** Reviewed by Detra Fitch
Rating:
Summary: Sometimes a plant just wants to eat...Everything
Review: Something has crash landed into the Appalachian mountains, just above a tiny one-horse town named Windshake. Wounded and hungry, completely unaware of its surroundings, it begins to feed, needing strength to continue its journey. Enter the town of Windshake. It's a quiet mountain town, only just beginning to be discovered by developers. It is typically populated with a thin veneer of middle class who overlay the larger collection of dirt poor white trash. Moonshine stills, logging roads, mountain cabins and trailer parks all combine to overcome any real influence from the nearby small University, where Tamara Leon teaches. She had moved out of the city in order for her husband Robert to take a job at a local yokel radio station, the only job he could find. Bye-bye city life, hello Moose Lodge and Hog Calling. Tamara carries a heavier weight on her shoulders than just moving her family out into the sticks, for she suffers from what she calls "The Gloomies", which is nothing more than a form of ESP. The second major character is Chester Mull, a crotchety mountain man who's day is filled by drinking moonshine on his porch with his ancient hound dog, at least until the mountain begins to glow a sickly green and his friend Oscar stumbles into his yard looking more plant than man. Scott Nicholson has done an absolutely tremendous job with this novel, bringing the small town people into fully fleshed reality, and revealing Windshake as a place you can not only see but smell and taste and feel. The Harvest is one of those stories that is about the entire town, with a few foremost characters leading the hunt for what ails their community. The usual problems seen with books like this are shallow characterizations, which you certainly won't find here. The sinful Preacher, the overly religious Parishioner who is falling for the church secretary, the white trash trailer park queen, the dope smoking teenagers, the fat and lazy sheriff, the excessively arrogant mayor, the successful moonshiner; all are completely introduced as individuals who you will love to hate, or hate to love. Tamara and Chester make an unlikely team when finally they meet up, and with a couple of fellow believers they undertake the daunting task of destroying the creature that has extended its tendrils into their town. There is something to be said for a joyfully entertaining, wildly unrealistic adventure into a nightmare landscape or horror and helplessness. Not every book is a work of art, and not every work of art is entertaining, so if you want a hoity-toity art book, go pick up a Tolstoy. But if what you are looking for is a roller-coaster ride filled with aliens, inhuman hunger, green guts, bizarre plants, gaping earth-mouths, and squishy things that go bump in the night, then grab a copy of The Harvest and settle in for the ride. Enjoy!
Rating:
Summary: Sometimes a plant just wants to eat...Everything
Review: Something has crash landed into the Appalachian mountains, just above a tiny one-horse town named Windshake. Wounded and hungry, completely unaware of its surroundings, it begins to feed, needing strength to continue its journey. Enter the town of Windshake. It's a quiet mountain town, only just beginning to be discovered by developers. It is typically populated with a thin veneer of middle class who overlay the larger collection of dirt poor white trash. Moonshine stills, logging roads, mountain cabins and trailer parks all combine to overcome any real influence from the nearby small University, where Tamara Leon teaches. She had moved out of the city in order for her husband Robert to take a job at a local yokel radio station, the only job he could find. Bye-bye city life, hello Moose Lodge and Hog Calling. Tamara carries a heavier weight on her shoulders than just moving her family out into the sticks, for she suffers from what she calls "The Gloomies", which is nothing more than a form of ESP. The second major character is Chester Mull, a crotchety mountain man who's day is filled by drinking moonshine on his porch with his ancient hound dog, at least until the mountain begins to glow a sickly green and his friend Oscar stumbles into his yard looking more plant than man. Scott Nicholson has done an absolutely tremendous job with this novel, bringing the small town people into fully fleshed reality, and revealing Windshake as a place you can not only see but smell and taste and feel. The Harvest is one of those stories that is about the entire town, with a few foremost characters leading the hunt for what ails their community. The usual problems seen with books like this are shallow characterizations, which you certainly won't find here. The sinful Preacher, the overly religious Parishioner who is falling for the church secretary, the white trash trailer park queen, the dope smoking teenagers, the fat and lazy sheriff, the excessively arrogant mayor, the successful moonshiner; all are completely introduced as individuals who you will love to hate, or hate to love. Tamara and Chester make an unlikely team when finally they meet up, and with a couple of fellow believers they undertake the daunting task of destroying the creature that has extended its tendrils into their town. There is something to be said for a joyfully entertaining, wildly unrealistic adventure into a nightmare landscape or horror and helplessness. Not every book is a work of art, and not every work of art is entertaining, so if you want a hoity-toity art book, go pick up a Tolstoy. But if what you are looking for is a roller-coaster ride filled with aliens, inhuman hunger, green guts, bizarre plants, gaping earth-mouths, and squishy things that go bump in the night, then grab a copy of The Harvest and settle in for the ride. Enjoy!
Rating:
Summary: Creepy tale is lots of fun
Review: Sort of a cross between Stephen King's "The Tommyknockers" and the classics "Invasion of the Body Snatchers" and "The Blob."
Nicholson has a feel for the genre. He may not be at the level of Stephen King's early works, but he compares favorably to recent efforts by the master of the macabre. Move over Maine, the North Carolina mountains are the place to watch your step these days.
I really enjoyed the characters and got some nice chuckles to break the tension when things got nasty. "The Harvest" is a tad bloated, but my biggest complaint is how Nicholson showed us the bad guy right at the start. I would have preferred a little more mystery about what is REALLY out there in the woods.
Still, I wouldn't want to read this one sitting alone in a mountain cabin at night -- and that says it all.
Rating:
Summary: Good horror fun
Review: The Harvest is a good old-fashioned alien invasion horror story, but this time, with great characters and some very intense moment. There isn't a dull moment in this book that moves along at the speed of a freight train. Everything is quick, and the ending result is quite entertaining. An alien life form lands on earth and begins to possess every single person in a North Carolinian town. The alien takes over the body and turns them into mush, using these host to infect the others in town. You have the requisite mean and clueless town mayor, the stupid town sheriff, the woman with paranormal powers and the old crazy man who might not be all that crazy after all. Predictable? Yes. Fun? Heck yeah. Nicholson knows how to write fiction and great characters that are both colorful and completely realistic. He knows how to draw a story, bringing his readers right into the plot of the story with the characters. The only major problem with the book is that it might be a bit too busy at times. There are many characters to follow, and many plot points to go along with. After a while, the whole scenario becomes just a bit too overwhelming. The Harvest is a fun horror, old-fashioned horror novel that will work as a quick, entertaining read. Give the book a try, and you won't be sorry.
Rating:
Summary: The Harvest
Review: The interesting Appalachian setting is not enough to rescue this clumsily written, devoid-of-tension imitation of The Tommyknockers. There's no mystery about the source of weird events -- right there on page one, it's an alien -- and since the characters are unengaging, curiosity about their fates doesn't keep the pages turning either.
| 
