Second Chance

Rating:
Summary: Tough Topic Handled Well
Review: Chet Williamson was given a hand-full by his muse, and somehow managed to handle it well. There is a lot that happens in this book that could be characterized as unbelievable in the hands of a less skilled writer. That's not the case here. Williamson handles real life horror and fantasy with ease, and builds believable and likeable charcters. His style is easy to read, and Williamson keeps the pace moving by switching quickly between perspectives.

Rating:
Summary: Second Chance
Review: Here we have fairly effective use of time travel, in a horror novel. I've been a fan of Chet Williamson's since reading his forgotten novel called Lowland Rider, though I didn't like Soulstorm, and Second Chance also entertains.

Woody Robinson wants to re-live the past--specifically the late 1960's--and he puts out the call to several old college buddies, all "ex-hippies" who, in twenty-four years, have all sold out to the Establishment to one degree or another. He invites his circle of old friends to a party, where the decorations and the costumes, and even the marijuana, will recreate that special time in their lives when they thought they could actually make a difference.

But it's this private, innocent get-together in the 90's which changes the world more than anything Woody and his friends--plus his longdead lover, Tracy--ever did in 1969! Somehow, Woody and company are transported back to the real 1969, before poor Tracy, and troubled buddy Keith, died tragically while trying to plant a bomb in the ROTC building that offended them by its very presence on campus.

Williamson handles the accidental time-trip back to 1969 with dexterity, and with wonderful sinister touches (ie. the paralyzing cloud of darkness that hovers outside the room where it all happens), but keeps things moving snappily here, because his real agenda is to get his characters back to 1993--along with a few stowaways: Tracy, who of course never dies in the 1960's and thus gets a new chance at happiness with Woody, but also Keith, who grasps at his new life as a way to upgrade his acts of violence against a world he sees as on the brink of environmental collapse due to human greed and negligence.

So, Woody has resurrected lost love, but also sets an evil man loose on a world that should have been spared his mad visions back in a 1969 bombing. Woody also discovers that he has significantly altered the timeline simply by preventing the deaths of a few friends, and he begins to lament the history he has erased. But what's done is done--no?

The time-travel angle is then quietly dropped for a while, as the novel focuses on Keith's effect on the world; he commits several murders meant to send a message to those whom he sees as threats to the environment, and when that doesn't create a new global attitude, he returns to bombings--and finally he seeks employment at a secret laboratory where rascist fanatics are collaborating their efforts to create a deadly virus that would target certain ethnic groups; he wants the virus for himself, before it has become discriminating. Technically, though, I should not say the time-travel angle is dropped; many of Keith's crimes are presented as part of a new timeline that he lives through in the years between 1969 and 1993, and the flipside of this is the new pasts that have to be accepted by Tracy and Woody, who have kids and a happy history together that got created in place of the old one that got erased by Tracy's time-displacement. For a horror novel, then, Williamson, runs a pretty sophisticated time-paradox scenario that intrigues as much as many of my favourite SF books that mine the same ore.

It's the thriller angles that may pull the book down a bit...Keith's predictable run of destruction as the terrorist dubbed "Pan", the lab full of fanatics working on yet another ultra-virus, a few plot twists that may seem somewhat familiar, or else can be guessed at, mostly involving Keith's decision to go after his former friends so that they can't track him down first. As a horror novel, Second Chance actually makes a better thriller, or an even better timeslip romance (er, with violence and a hovering apocalypse).

The ending delivers, I will say. Williamson has a lot to resolve in the final stages: a love story, several interrelated time-paradoxes, a madman's final fate, the question of whether or not humanity will be wiped out--plus, a compelling look into Woody Robinson's psyche, as he commits some questionable acts while trying to find and stop Keith, and preserve Tracy's very existence.

Well worth reading despite, or maybe due to, inherent complexity brought on by a desire to be all things at once. The result is a horror novel that isn't always that horrific, but is disturbing when it isn't just plain fun for time-travel book enthusiasts. Heartily recommended.

Rating:
Summary: Second Chance?
Review: I found this novel to be a smooth read. I did enjoy its content. The author uses minor supernatural elements to bring forth situations that could very easily happen in real life. Sort of time travel via the supernatural but with a more serious twist. Also, one can easily see how time should not be delved with. The past should be left to the past. Let the dead bury the dead and let the living continue. Well worth the time taken to read. Great story line.

Rating:
Summary: Psychological horror of the highest caliber!
Review: It isn't too hard to make a decent living in the horror field by throwing in a lot of blood, gore, supernatural monsters and, if there are movie rights to sell, screaming nude females. Fortunately, Chet Williamson doesn't need to use those hackneyed devices.

True horror lives in the human mind. True horror lies in the discovery that a good friend is a monster, or in the realization that a wonderful dream is about to be shattered. True horror waits in the pages of "Second Chance."

Williamson has created a group of very believable, very real characters, and it's very easy to get swept up in the events which soon surround them and the choices they eventually must make. Give it a read. I guarantee, the story will stay with you for a long time to come.

Rating:
Summary: Phenomenal apocalyptic novel!
Review: This is one of the most intriguing premises in a horror novel I've read in a long time. The concept of time travel is interesting, but might have been made ridiculous in the hands of a different author. Mr. Williamson crafted it just right and made the unbelievable seem possible. Its the story of a group of friends who recreate the sixties during a party and wind up going back in time to save the lives of two friends who died in a bombing. Woody loves his college girlfriend so much he is happy to have her back in his life, with a new reality and children. But they unknowningly brought back a friend who ends up being the catalyst for possibly destroying the human race.

This book has everything: time travel, bioterrorism and interesting thoughts about our environment and the way it is slowly being destroyed. It will make you think and in light of September 11, it is relevant for the times. The writing in this is literate and top-notch and the story so interesting you will find yourself unable to put it down.

All in all, a great novel that is beautifully written, thought-provoking, and good to the last page. Excellent!

Rating:
Summary: Phenomenal apocalyptic novel!
Review: This is one of the most intriguing premises in a horror novel I've read in a long time. The concept of time travel is interesting, but might have been made ridiculous in the hands of a different author. Mr. Williamson crafted it just right and made the unbelievable seem possible. Its the story of a group of friends who recreate the sixties during a party and wind up going back in time to save the lives of two friends who died in a bombing. Woody loves his college girlfriend so much he is happy to have her back in his life, with a new reality and children. But they unknowningly brought back a friend who ends up being the catalyst for possibly destroying the human race.

This book has everything: time travel, bioterrorism and interesting thoughts about our environment and the way it is slowly being destroyed. It will make you think and in light of September 11, it is relevant for the times. The writing in this is literate and top-notch and the story so interesting you will find yourself unable to put it down.

All in all, a great novel that is beautifully written, thought-provoking, and good to the last page. Excellent!