Rating: 
Summary: EFFECTS OF GLOBAL WARMING...perhaps
Review: An excellent plot for a novel: Man has abused the environment until our subjects are forced to move to a wilderness area in Canada to survive. The characters, in spite of a valiant effort on the author's part, are all shallow and one-dimensional. The good guys aren't that good, the bad guys aren't that bad, and I was left puzzled about what the catastrophe was that caused the breakdown in society. A society which has no governing authority, yet currency is still in use? Too many unanswered questions...
Rating: 
Summary: promising synopsis, but disappointing payoff
Review: Everyone's glowing review prompted me to purchase and read this novel, but I was quickly surprized by how stereotypical every character was portrayed, and at how badly written it all was.Bed hopping, cheap twilight zone twist, even a "super-drug" that the majority of the population is now addicted to made this a silly R-rated Goosebumps knockoff. Sorry, Mr. Cave, but this stink bomb cleared the room at my house.
Rating: 
Summary: Feel like a 359 page environmental sermon? Me neither . . .
Review: Hopelessly predictable. Nauseatingly preachy. Cookie-cutter characters that would make Betty Crocker proud. Ridiculous B-movie monsters (one can just imagine the zippers on the giant frog costume.) Sound like a book that you want to read? Then please consider: there is no "horror" in this "horror" novel. The sacharrine-sweet characters could not be any less realistic ("Have you finished packing yet, love?" "No, dear, but I soon will be, then we can talk, hold hands, and pet the puppy." "That will be sunshine, love." You get the idea . . .) After about five minutes of reading, the reader will pretty much no where this one is going, and it's no place very interesting. I stuck with this book and read it fairly voraciously in the hopes that something surprising would happen. No such luck. There is not a single surprise in it. Not one. It is one long environmental morality sermon, with some Native Americans thrown in for apparently no reason at all. (One has to wonder what nature has in store for Hugh Cave to pay him back for all the poor trees that have been killed in order to publish his books!) The climax of the book, and I use the word loosely, is a full 20 pages before the ending of the book. The final 20 pages are spent rehashing the plot in case the reader is too much of a dunce to get it. We get it, we get it already! People bad, nature good. Sorry to be so negative but golly-whiz! My recommendation: forget this book and pick up something by Richard Laymon for a ride that will leave you gasping for breath.
Rating:
Summary: DON'T KILL THE THREE EYED FROG
Review: Hugh Cave must be a good writer..this is my first dose, and I found it to be a passable, if somewhat predictable, book. THE DAWNING takes place in some forseeable future when man has corrupted the earth so much, that it decides to strike back. A group of survivalists decide to go out and start all over, getting back to nature and away from its violence and waste. There's not a character who isn't derived from some other book, no scenario that can't be predicted and no fresh look at anything. It's not suspenseful enough to be scary and it's preachy and there's one character who keeps calling his wife "love" so much, it's saccharinic to say the least. A livelier pace may have helped, but if Cave is one of the grand masters of modern horror, this is not a book that showcases that talent.
Rating:
Summary: DON'T KILL THE THREE EYED FROG
Review: Hugh Cave must be a good writer..this is my first dose, and I found it to be a passable, if somewhat predictable, book. THE DAWNING takes place in some forseeable future when man has corrupted the earth so much, that it decides to strike back. A group of survivalists decide to go out and start all over, getting back to nature and away from its violence and waste. There's not a character who isn't derived from some other book, no scenario that can't be predicted and no fresh look at anything. It's not suspenseful enough to be scary and it's preachy and there's one character who keeps calling his wife "love" so much, it's saccharinic to say the least. A livelier pace may have helped, but if Cave is one of the grand masters of modern horror, this is not a book that showcases that talent.
Rating:
Summary: Should have been called "The Yawning"
Review: I'm a great fan of appocalyptic fiction, but the story, characters, and writing falls into the same category as a lousy made for t.v. movie. The story is really about a small band of people under the supervision of a college professor and a drunken bigoted outdoorsman. Look at the outdoors man as a Archie Bunker on steroids. The small band leave the rat race behind with the threat that civilization is soon going to meet an impending doom from pollutions, mismanagement of government, and high crime. They sell off all their posessions and hike off to the Great White North of the Canadian wilderness. While stopping at different portages along the trail, the survivalist are picked off one at a time by some freak of nature, in the form of either a giant hawk, frog or skunk (I'm not making this up). I'm guessing that this is Hugh's first book, since the character developement was left somewhere on the back burner along with a decent plot. The situations where quite predictable, and by page 10 you figure out who in the group is going to be the "bad guy that gets it in the end". The thought of earth itself being the deadly antagonist was promising when mentioned on the back cover, but how the idea was handled within the book was very slipshod. Over all, the story the story stops short with a 2 page epilogue of what happens next. Like the author didn't really know how to end this abysmal story. My recommendation is to skip this clunker.
Rating: 
Summary: An interesting novel that I couldn't put down!
Review: The Dawning is not the typical horror novel at all. In fact, its a character study of sorts with spookiness thrown in. It tells the story of a world that is dying, where there is crime, drugs and pollution taking over. A group of people decide to leave their city life behind and start a new life in the wilderness. Only there's something waiting for them there. I found that I liked the way he took all of these different characters and put them together. The way they interacted was realistic. Cuyler was definitely stereotypical but unfortunately, I have a couple of neighbors who could be his evil twin. There's plenty of adventure and a little romance thrown in all the while telling a story that could possibly come true someday. The concept of nature striking back is a rather interesting and thought-provoking one. It makes you take a look at the way humans treat the planet and reminds us that what we have been doing is not good for our earth. This book won't appeal at all to people looking for traditional horror but can be enjoyed immensely if you have an open mind. I literally sat there for hours glued to this book and found myself almost wishing that I was there in this new fictional world at the end. I loved it!
Rating:
Summary: An interesting novel that I couldn't put down!
Review: The Dawning is not the typical horror novel at all. In fact, its a character study of sorts with spookiness thrown in. It tells the story of a world that is dying, where there is crime, drugs and pollution taking over. A group of people decide to leave their city life behind and start a new life in the wilderness. Only there's something waiting for them there. I found that I liked the way he took all of these different characters and put them together. The way they interacted was realistic. Cuyler was definitely stereotypical but unfortunately, I have a couple of neighbors who could be his evil twin. There's plenty of adventure and a little romance thrown in all the while telling a story that could possibly come true someday. The concept of nature striking back is a rather interesting and thought-provoking one. It makes you take a look at the way humans treat the planet and reminds us that what we have been doing is not good for our earth. This book won't appeal at all to people looking for traditional horror but can be enjoyed immensely if you have an open mind. I literally sat there for hours glued to this book and found myself almost wishing that I was there in this new fictional world at the end. I loved it!
Rating:
Summary: Not Bad
Review: This is the first book I've read by Mr. Cave. Even though it is predictible; I couldn't put it down. The writing is probably one of the most natural I have ever come across. Another for me is Nancy Kilpatrick's writing. The Dawning surprised me on how easy it was to read. I didn't find it boring or scary. But, it does make one think!
Rating:
Summary: Actually 2 1/2 stars...
Review: This was my first novel by High Cave and it was a "decent" book. It had a different end of the world premise than most others, so I give it points for a unique storyline. However, it just didn't captivate me like most good horror novels. The characters were fleshed out fairly well and the plot moved smoothly along, so I guess I could classify it as an interesting read, but not great. Buy it but don't expect miracles. I don't want to come down too hard on the writer since he seems to have accomplished a lot with all the awards he has won. His novels on occult and witchcraft are much, much better.
| 
