Green River Rising

Rating:
Summary: Savage, compelling, intelligent journey into hell
Review: HEAT, HUMIDITY, HELL: ANARCHY AT GREEN RIVER© by Carolyn J. Seeley. Reverse your image of a prison, like the negative of a photograph. What could be more safe than a glass enclosure, dedicated to the reform and social reengineering of convicts? What happens to men when light is punishment and discipline? Green River State Penitentiary in East Texas, imagined by English author Tim Willocks in his novel, Green River Rising, is a facility that sentences men to prison lives without darkness, to be scorched clean by light. Now, what happens when the prison warden's nineteenth century philosophy of prison reform meets twentieth century East Texas taxpayers, parole boards, politicians? This is Willocks' stage for his drama of a violent uprising, spurred by a warden with a failed dream and crumbling mind, who touches off the uprising for the sake of it--to achieve change through force, to move life along through sacrifice and blood, the more senseless and arbitrary, the better. Green River Rising is savage yet compelling; a page turner, an intelligent book. Well plotted, with memorable characters, Willocks' writing conveys the stifling sense of entrapment in a prison gone amok. However, the underlying themes of loyalty, survival, friendship, and love transcend the gore and give the book its depth. It is not light reading, but a gripping, intense tale rumored soon to be brought to a theater near you. Although Willocks wrote the screenplay, read the book before Hollywood gets its hooks in.

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Summary: THE BEST PRISON FICTION BOOK EVER WRITTEN
Review: I dare you to read "Green River Rising" and then the "The Green Mile" back to back. You will probably throw "The Green Mile" in the toilet after going 1/4 the way and then re-read "Green River Rising".

If you like books like Stehen Hunter's "Dirty White Boys" or Mr. Willock's other book "Bloodstained Kings" (has there ever been a cooler title?) then you will love "Green River Rising".

I enjoy guys like John Connolly, Stephen Hunter, Brian Keene, James W. Hall, and the Child/Preston collaborative novels. if you are familiar with these guys and you like them, then give Willocks a try. He's an original, creative genius.

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Summary: Prisonthriller
Review: I think it's stupid to put Stephen King and Tim Willocks on the same level. Green River Rising is a thriller. It reminds more of an actionmovie. Stephen King on the other side writes horror. Green River Rising doesn't have any mysterious elements, and has much more action then King books. Kings books are very detailed, and GRG on the other sides has a pretty quick developing story without pagelong descreptions of for example rooms. To me GRG was like a good actionmovie. I read the german translation, and I thought that the bad language and all the violence fit in the atmosphere of the book. The books lives off his sick crazy characters. And I think that it's really interesting to read chapters out of views of mentally ill people. If you like movies like "Face off", but you like deeper stories and complexer characters you should read this book. It's one of my all time favorites. And people that complain about the dirty language and the violence should not even write a review about this. It's about a prison with mentally ill people. So what do you think what they are doing, maybe playing with puppets and drink tea?

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Summary: Undoubtedly one of the worst books I have ever read
Review: i was not offended by the totally unnecasary sex, the constant foul language and the graphicly extreme violence. These things don't offend me. What did offend me was the useless plot, offensive characters and the lifeless writing. Oh yeah and the shameless homophobia, sexism and racial bigotry. The plot starts fairly effectively but then disappears into mystic mumbo jumbo, and ridiculous situations. It is also a mess of cliches (from the writing, at one point the phrase "her heart melted" is used, to the plot, of course the main hero is innocent of his convicted crime) and I think worst of all the sole female character is trapped alone in a prison while the mother of all riots is raging, and decides to have sex with two (two? ) inmates. It'll probably make a fairly effective film though with major rewrites.

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Summary: gross, dull prison story
Review: Nothing compelling here. Just a prison. I have never been to
or in a prison so can not comment there. But the story is lacking and the characters are dull. The broad is flat out stupid. The
main character doesn't even belong there, so it's just ridiculous. Who wants to read about violence anyway. All violent
criminals should be put to death, in my opinion. And the fact that the author is a "young British psychiatrist who has never been
to Texas, or to a prison" .blows any credibility.

Rating:
Summary: gross, dull prison story
Review: Sure as a debut it may be good. I had read this book upon a zealeous advice from one of my work pals, describing the author and book a "new Stephen King in the sense of riveting writing and character development" as well as "future bestsellerdom-king". So I grapped it excitedly...started...but disappointed. The story is interesting; but the language is extremely foul (may be necessary to create a compelling sense of location in prison you know) but even then it was very extreme and not offending but simply boring and taking you out of the story. Not riveting also as well as a King book (I am a huge fan of King and I know well when he becomes riveting) so this guy falls short of catching up with King. Character development?No. A woman foolishly wandering around and in prison where even men survive just to remain alive, or having foolish sex with one of inmates just because of a pity on him while monsters are pounding on the door; a man with a bleak past, ie, a philosopher doctor, a cool one, almost too coool you cannot help but wonder why he is in such a pit of hell... full of blacks and whites against each other bla bla bla. No I did not like, it did not captured me and the author will be bestseller-king like our beloved King? No way...He is too philosophic (but not a deep one)and has too much sexual (prison) fantasy. I gave it three stars just thinking that if perhaps I should not have started it with huge hopes, it might have been a nice pass-time reading

Rating:
Summary: Not impresed
Review: The book started off really well & I thought I was going to enjoy a good read.

Unfortunately I found that the main characters of Klein & Devlin were basically totaly unlikeable & unrealistic so I didn't care what happened to them. It didn't help matters by the plot being so transparent that you could guess exactly what was going to happen - way too predictable. It also had 'make me into a Hollywood Blockbuster please' written all over it.

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Summary: RAW AND GRITTY PRISON THRILLER...
Review: This an intriguing debut novel, set in a prison. Written as a thriller, it is slightly uneven and, at times, implausible. Still, it grips the reader's imagination with its savage, relentless violence and raw and gritty language. It is definitely not for the squeamish, as there is a good deal of carnage and foul language interspersed throughout the book. It is, most certainly, an acquired taste. If you enjoy the acclaimed HBO television series, "Oz", you will probably enjoy this book.

The drama takes place in a Texas prison called Green River State Penitentiary. The atmosphere is tense, and the prisoners are grouped along racially divided lines. The prison is run by Warden Hobbes, an intelligent, erudite man, who is not wrapped too tight. He sets the stage for a prison uprising that is bloody and violent. There are a few good guys, and a lot of bad guys in this prison. One of the good guys is Ray Klein, a medical doctor who was sent to prison for a rape that he did not commit.

Ray works in the prison infirmary while doing his time, and while there, he has made the acquiantance of a visiting doctor, Juliette Devlin. There is a very strong attraction between the two, and it is safe to say that they are falling in love. Unaware of the looming uprising, Ray learns that he is to be paroled the next day. Suddenly, that news is eclipsed, when all hell breaks loose in the prison. The uprising has been started by a sociopathic prisoner, aided by a host of seriously deranged individuals, who are in prison for crimes they actually committed.

Unfortunately, Dr. Devlin finds herself stuck in the prison infirmary during the uprising. Her presence becomes known, and she becomes the object of lust for a number of prisoners, most of whom have lacked female companionship for an extended period of time. She locks herself in the infirmary, hoping to keep out the sex starved hordes of prisoners, who are eager to party with her, should they be successful in gaining entry to the infirmary. Ray hears of this and is off to the rescue, no longer content to sit out the riot in his cell, waiting for his parole day to arrive. The problem is that the author opts for self indulgence at this point and gives in to his own male fantasy. He has Dr. Devlin voluntarily have sex with two prisoners, while wild hordes of others are battering down the infirmary door in hopes of making her their girl toy. This is highly implausible and makes the book go on somewhat of a downward spiral. Nonetheless, this is still a solid debut novel.