Fiends

Rating:
Summary: Unreal
Review: I had the toughest time trying not to finish the book. This is a page turner that keeps you on the edge of your seat. It has everything your heart could desire out of a story. But mostly it has raw fear. The characters are fast-moving as well as the adrenaline. If you dont finish this book in a day then you have got the wrong one. My advice to you is...read on. I loved it!

Rating:
Summary: One of Farris' Best and That's Saying Something!
Review: The "huldufolk" of the book are a truly scary creation and they are actual folk creatures from Iceland (I looked them up on the web after reading this book). The best parts of the book are set in the past, after the folk are accidentally set loose and take over a remote farming village. There are some great scares and a true atmosphere of evil and foreboding--the sort of thing Mr. Farris does so well in his books. Scenes set in the modern day (well, the '70s) aren't quite as effective, but all in all, this is one great book and is certainly well worth the effort it might take to track down a used copy. One of Mr. Farris' best books, along with _All Heads Turn as the Hunt Goes By_ and _Wildwood_.

Rating:
Summary: Outer Limits in a Book
Review: This Farris piece reads like an episode of The Outer Limits.

Things best left undisturbed become disturbed, bringing with them the usual nastinesses such things do. In this case, That Best Left Alone is the "Huldefolk," an ancient offshoot race of man that lives in the darkness and the cold. Some fool at the turn of the century woke one up, and it's been haunting the region ever since, trying to seduce lonely wayfarers into its domain to help it ring the alarm clock for the rest of its sleeping kind - which, needless to say, are rather inimical to their human cousins.

Fiends is a straightforward horror story, and one of Farris' better entries in the genre. The characters are very real and appealing, the Huldefolk genuinely gruesome and pretty frightening. For whatever reason, Farris set the central story in the 1970s, and writes the period well.

This book is long overdue for reprint. Hopefully, Farris' return to the field with his Fury sequels will bring it back. In the meantime, try and dig-up a copy.

But don't dig up any Huldefolk.