Rating: 
Summary: Fear good, not great
Review: 'Fear' is a good read, but far from the spine-tingler the reviews claim it is. I was left a little confused at the ending. I reread it twice but still couldn't quite understand what happened. The reader is left to guess.
Rating:
Summary: Review of Audio Book version
Review: 1) Roddey McDowall is such an enjoyable reader of books. His voice inflections appropriatley matching the fear, excitement, etc of the character is so well done. Not to mention his voice overs for different characters makes it easier to keep track of who is who.2) Very interesting and gripping story. Something of a supernatural flavor with demons and spirits...or so it implies. The story leaves you guessing until the end what is actually going on. The story is definitely one of the spookiest stories I've read (heard) in a long time. 3) By chance my local library has 75% of their sci-fi/fantasy audio books all from this author. I've never been a L. Ron Hubbard fan but the more I hear his books the more I'm enjoying his fictional writings. This was more supernatural than sci-fi but in all the author's pieces so far the characters are interesting and engaging.
Rating:
Summary: A spooky little treat...
Review: After reading the back of the book, I decided that I'd give it a try. Smart decision. I read the book at night. Not smart decision. The book covers a college professor's loss of four hours time. You'd think, "hmm...real sinister plot." You'd be wrong. At first the book seems like an average science fiction story, then we're taken inside of James Lowry's thoughts and dreams. What we see is a mushroom cloud of dimensia...or so we think. The more the story progresses, the more we see James Lowry decay. Its scary to think that the loss of four hours, something that appears so trivial, can drive a man towards insanity. Though its science fiction, the thought does cross your mind, "What if it happened to me."
Rating:
Summary: An intellectual exercise in suspense
Review: At the risk of seeming dim-witted, I have to admit that I initially didn't really "get" this book. This is not to say that Fear isn't a good book. I enjoyed reading it, and the strange journey of Lowry was presented strikingly and richly, giving me a great sense of the growing mania afflicting the protagonist, inspiring my sympathy and inculcating my own dislike for Lowry's friend Tommy Williams. Lowry's surreal journey down a disappearing staircase outside his door was a little overblown for my tastes, but the more tangible effects of Lowry's situation, from the sublime to the overt, struck me as very well done. I wanted to know what happened to Lowry's missing four hours almost as much as he did. My problem was that I just could not reconcile the ending with the story as I had read it. I understood the ending, although perhaps not at every level the author intended, but I just didn't find it fully acceptable. It was like a splash of cold water hitting your face, awakening you to the realization that everything you just experienced was not quite real. Perhaps it is this sudden splash of "truth" that makes this book so wonderful to many readers (including the likes of Stephen King, Ray Bradbury, and Isaac Asimov), but I initially found it disappointing. A day later, I have found my thoughts returning to this little tale, and a new sense of appreciation has begun to take root in my mind. Bits and pieces, particularly the oft-repeated frantic calls of Lowry's wife interspersed throughout the action, have begun to coalesce and make more sense to me. I must say that the ending is no longer so unsatisfying as it was at first. My visceral reactions have given way to more philosophical musings, so I must credit the author with producing a work that stays with you and makes you think. Having said that, though, I still find that, whichever way I look at the novel, I have questions that are not answered and can point to incidents that still don't make perfect sense to me. As such, I cannot go so far as to declare this book a classic. This book can quite easily be read in the course of a single sitting; in fact, it probably should be read from cover to cover nonstop in order to achieve the fullest effect possible on the senses and thoughts of the reader. The most compelling aspect of the tale is the way it draws the reader into Lowry's mind and taps the reader's emotions; to fully experience the journey, one really should read the book without pause. As for the scare factor, I did not find this book scary or unnerving at all, nor can I really understand why some readers obviously do find it frightening. The tale is gripping, it does draw the reader into the story, and the ending, while not necessarily surprising, is refreshing in its nonconformity with most readers' expectations, so I would certainly recommend this book to anyone interested in the suspense and horror genres. I would also urge future reviewers to wait a day before writing a review complaining about the ending; many of my impressions of the book changed dramatically after a day's thought.
Rating:
Summary: An intellectual exercise in suspense
Review: At the risk of seeming dim-witted, I have to admit that I initially didn't really "get" this book. This is not to say that Fear isn't a good book. I enjoyed reading it, and the strange journey of Lowry was presented strikingly and richly, giving me a great sense of the growing mania afflicting the protagonist, inspiring my sympathy and inculcating my own dislike for Lowry's friend Tommy Williams. Lowry's surreal journey down a disappearing staircase outside his door was a little overblown for my tastes, but the more tangible effects of Lowry's situation, from the sublime to the overt, struck me as very well done. I wanted to know what happened to Lowry's missing four hours almost as much as he did. My problem was that I just could not reconcile the ending with the story as I had read it. I understood the ending, although perhaps not at every level the author intended, but I just didn't find it fully acceptable. It was like a splash of cold water hitting your face, awakening you to the realization that everything you just experienced was not quite real. Perhaps it is this sudden splash of "truth" that makes this book so wonderful to many readers (including the likes of Stephen King, Ray Bradbury, and Isaac Asimov), but I initially found it disappointing. A day later, I have found my thoughts returning to this little tale, and a new sense of appreciation has begun to take root in my mind. Bits and pieces, particularly the oft-repeated frantic calls of Lowry's wife interspersed throughout the action, have begun to coalesce and make more sense to me. I must say that the ending is no longer so unsatisfying as it was at first. My visceral reactions have given way to more philosophical musings, so I must credit the author with producing a work that stays with you and makes you think. Having said that, though, I still find that, whichever way I look at the novel, I have questions that are not answered and can point to incidents that still don't make perfect sense to me. As such, I cannot go so far as to declare this book a classic. This book can quite easily be read in the course of a single sitting; in fact, it probably should be read from cover to cover nonstop in order to achieve the fullest effect possible on the senses and thoughts of the reader. The most compelling aspect of the tale is the way it draws the reader into Lowry's mind and taps the reader's emotions; to fully experience the journey, one really should read the book without pause. As for the scare factor, I did not find this book scary or unnerving at all, nor can I really understand why some readers obviously do find it frightening. The tale is gripping, it does draw the reader into the story, and the ending, while not necessarily surprising, is refreshing in its nonconformity with most readers' expectations, so I would certainly recommend this book to anyone interested in the suspense and horror genres. I would also urge future reviewers to wait a day before writing a review complaining about the ending; many of my impressions of the book changed dramatically after a day's thought.
Rating: 
Summary: Hubbard's best work
Review: Fear is by far Hubbard's best work of fiction, and it's of a style he never wrote in, horror. It's much better than the stuff he wrote last decade, which is not the place to go for really good Hubbard fiction. A man loses four hours of his life and risks his sanity (and loses) attempting to figure it out. The progression of scenes as they become truly bizarre and finally enter a world of paranoid fantasy is something I've never seen matched. Foolishly, I read this book at night. It is truly hypnotic reading, and I recommend it to anyone looking for bloodless horror. My one complaint is that the characters were not terribly well-developed, but they were much more believable and realistic than most of Hubbard's fiction. Interestingly, however, I have noticed that in new editions, the voices of the two demon siblings have been purged. I wonder what else has changed in these new editions. I guess the Church of Scientology doesn't just stick with his "non"-fiction when they're altering (without notice) his writings. For Hubbard critics, it is definitely a keen look into his psyche.
Rating:
Summary: FEAR is fearsomely intense!
Review: FEAR is fearsomely intense. The only thing I didn't like about it was that it was too short. But then again it is a difficult task to hold a story together for any great length of time considering the surprise ending it had to deliver. Still, the novel, whether it was bad to exclude the little devil voices in the later editions or not, delivers the premise that our greatest fear is indeed what has happened to the main character to have caused those missing four hours of his life. (Makes me wonder about some of those UFO abductees, what with their "missing time.") However, given the sophistication of our current modern reading audience, if the bit about the little whispering demons was left out of the current edition, it is because that would give the story away too soon, I believe. This is a surprise, kick-your-face-in type story, and any old fashioned methods left in the story that would only serve to screw up its powerful element of surprise should be excised.
Rating:
Summary: Forget all you know: this book is scarier
Review: I bought this book because my favourite bookshop didn't receive the one I ordered and I didn't have anything to read. Started it at 11pm... Couldn't sleep for 2 days. The preamble tells that the story is logical... "OK", I thought... And started reading. The book is good and scary as hell. But then I remembered what the preamble said: Yes, the story is really logic and the fantasmagories inside it are absolutely possible. Then I felt really terrified.
I've never been scared of anything. Except this book... And I loved that...
Rating:
Summary: Lives Up to Its Title And Then Some!
Review: I consider Fear one of the best-written, most spellbinding books I have ever read. And I am not generally an avid reader of Thrillers or Sci-Fi or fiction in general. I read Fear in one night because it is a real page-turner if ever there was one. The author does a terrific job of creating and maintaining a mood, and narrating the plot which I will not spoil by giving away. There are at least a few morsels of Food For Further Thought mentioned "en passant" such as the philosophical problem of "other minds." This does not in any way detract from the magnificent gem of a yarn being spun. It adds depth and "quality" in my opinion and sets the book apart in a special class. I was planning to list Fear as one of Ten Books to Read on a Plane Trip. I also like Roddy McDowell's narration on the audiocassette version.
Rating:
Summary: An excellent story....
Review: I could only imagine what would happen/could happen to me if I lost time in a day. It seems to me to be impossible...but it happens and Hubbard keeps you on edge the entire time - wondering what in the world could be next!?! I loved this book. I read it all the way though till the morning!
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