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The Homing

The Homing

List Price: $7.99
Your Price: $7.19
Product Info Reviews

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Rating: 2 stars
Summary: John Saul--The Homing
Review: ...What begins as a chilling story about a widowed mother who returns back home to a nightmare of confusion and fear quickly turns into another one of Saul's usual thrillers. Karen Spellman returns to her hometown after twenty years of trying to be an actress and raising kids, but now her new life begins--she's now going to marry her high school sweetheart and everything is going to be great. Unfortunately, killer bees have taken over the farm, Karen's daughter Kelly starts to act really strange, and other teenagers come up missing throughout the small town. Something awful has surfaced in Karen's town of Pleasant Valley, but no one knows exactly what it is and how it can be stopped. Saul does a fine job of coming up with original, bizarre thrillers that will certainly keep readers guessing, but in "The Homing", he fails to create characters that seem truly believable or intelligent. ... "The Homing" jumps around too much from character to character, revealing that Saul does not really know who he wants his main characters to be and ultimately he has created a story that is much too advanced for them.

Rating: 2 stars
Summary: More children in supernatural danger.
Review:

THE HOMING
by John Saul
Fawcett Crest, ISBN 0-449-22379-5, $6.99

Sometimes coming home is a good thing. Karen Spellman is returning to marry and make a home for herself and her two daughters. Little did she realize that her dreams could turn into a nightmare that she couldn't fight.

I used to read John Saul's books when I was younger. I quit when I got tired to reading the same theme over and over -- usually children in danger from ancient evil. Then he brought in tech as a method of endangering them. I am a mother and have nightmares enough about my children's safety.

I enjoyed this book -- kinda. I would have enjoyed it more if he could have decided on one plot and stuck with it. Dealing with the serial killer should have been enough -- some of that was chilling. However, I found much concerning the homing silly and hard to suspend disbelief. The ending seemed too much a relief and a let down.

--Reviewed by Elspeth Sapphire

©199

Rating: 4 stars
Summary: Very Fast-Paced and Exciting!
Review: Actually I would give The Homing an overall rating of 3 1/2 stars if Amazon's system allowed for this. The intensity with which the story is told deserves a 4-star rating, as your eyes will fly across the page to see what happens next. However, the quality of the writing, dialogue and character deveopment deserves only a 3-star rating. If you can accept the implausibility of the plot (which I think you have to do to enjoy a book in the horror-SF genre) and put aside any strong desire for literary quality, The Homing will provide you with several hours of excitement and horror. I'm pretty sure that after you read this book you'll never think the same way about bees again. I know I won't be able to!

Rating: 3 stars
Summary: Creepy Creepy Creepy
Review: After a long absence from horror, I have started again with John Saul et al. This one made my skin crawl. The writing is his usual fast pace with just enough character development to move the story along. A madman bug scientist creates a new strain and experiments on a teen girl who reminds him of his abusive sister. He has her injected with larvae and of course she turns into a queen monster bug turning her friends into monster bugs also. This was "B" movie type creepy. It would have been more interesting if I hadn't had to suspend what I know of physiology. Saul should have given more explaination as to how these eggs could have taken over the body without symptoms from a immune system response. Horror fiction is scarier when it is closer to reality.

Rating: 1 stars
Summary: good idea ...poor execution
Review: As with all John Saul's books they have good ideas but they're poorly executed. Imagine a 70's (B)movie with: cardboard characters, cheesy stilted dialogue, add predictability, a splash of gore, drone on for 100's and 100's and 100's of pages, throw it in the overheated oven, remove... let logic evaporate and voila! you have another run of the mill Saul horror novel.( The good thing about (B)movies are they usually take 90 min. of your time and it's over.) Try Simon Clark instead.

Rating: 1 stars
Summary: Glutton for Punishment
Review: I don't know why I keep reading John Saul books. It must be my masochistic streak. I got this book in a box full of horror titles at a garage sale. This is the third or fourth book I have read by him and I just keep thinking, he is so popular and so prolific, there must be a reason. However what that reason is is beyond my comprehension.

I have to agree with the reviewers who have pointed out the horrible characters. I felt no sympathy for any of them. The poor horse and dog got more reaction out of me that anything that happened to the humans. The "story" was jumpy and not well charted out. (It was sweet of the reader below to try and give the plot substance by mentioning the sister thing, but I believe they actually spoke about it more than the book itself did.) There were so many characters, it was almost as if he thought if he put enough of them in, that no one would realize how one dimensional they all were. Well, I for one noticed and from some of the other reviews, apparently others did as well.

Rating: 4 stars
Summary: Great!!!
Review: I have begun to read more and more John Saul books, and this one, by far, is the best I've read yet. As I read it, I kept recalling scenes from the recent movie "The Craft," especially the part when insects, maggots, and other creatures mentioned in this book are everywhere. It took me only 3 days to read this. I couldn't put it down. I've found, though, that John Saul books are somewhat repetitive. In the end, the culprit is always caught and punished in some way or another, and a few "good guys" usually die before it's all over. I definitely would not recommend this book to those who shudder at the sight of a cockroach. It would make a great movie, though.

Rating: 4 stars
Summary: Great!!!
Review: I have begun to read more and more John Saul books, and this one, by far, is the best I've read yet. As I read it, I kept recalling scenes from the recent movie "The Craft," especially the part when insects, maggots, and other creatures mentioned in this book are everywhere. It took me only 3 days to read this. I couldn't put it down. I've found, though, that John Saul books are somewhat repetitive. In the end, the culprit is always caught and punished in some way or another, and a few "good guys" usually die before it's all over. I definitely would not recommend this book to those who shudder at the sight of a cockroach. It would make a great movie, though.

Rating: 3 stars
Summary: Better than Average
Review: I just finished this book - it was my first John Saul book. I can tell from the other reviews this probably isn't his best work. Since I knew nothing of Saul, from the beginning I thought it was a book about a serial killer. Then, it suddenly switched into a horror/sci-fi thriller, which came as a surprise. I enjoyed reading it, but parts of the book were quite redundant, such as the symptoms each victim experienced were virtually the same and yet described in full detail each time. And I wasn't crazy about the ending, either. However, there is more good than bad in this book, and thus the 3 stars.

Rating: 2 stars
Summary: Well-written, poor plot
Review: I love John Saul's books, but this one was not worthy of my time. I found the plotline extremely silly. I mean, people turning into insects and running off to the hills? Come on, John Saul, write something along the calibur of Second Child and Hellfire.


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