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| Rated: 0.00/5 | Votes: 1 | Views: 30 |Submitted: 07/12/08 |
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The Dread Syndrome by James Patrick Riser is an intelligent title that doesn’t mind getting down into the gore with its unique take on a morality message. It is a work that one needs to “give a chance” due to lack of a gripping opening, but horror movie fans, specifically torture and murder based ones, will find that Riser has taken the genre one step above and beyond the grotesque they so love and with supernatural slant.
The opening is a bit muddled and lacks anything truly gripping to pull a reader in whole-heartedly. I was a bit put off by the story being told in the past tense, with initial character interaction being dull. Confusion set in at first for me when I wasn’t even sure if the first narrator was male or female until later on, making my imagination useless at the start. The story does go back and forth from first person to third person between characters if that matters to you as a reader. Eventually you get to the first death scenario and things pick up to a degree. Once past the killer and victim section we are introduced to the crime scene photographer who I thought would be the main protagonist from the get-go. As he takes pictures of a grisly crime scene you are immediately shown that there is more creepiness to this character than there is goodness and though one may not be able to identify fully with his thought, most will probably agree with some of the ponderings. This character to me, is the guts of the story, the character arch of most interest by far. As for the crime scene itself and further blood spills: not for the squeamish. Perhaps you have visually perused the corpses to be found on websites such as Rotten.com, but if you even have a half powered imagination James Patrick Riser exploits that and gives you images that make Rotten.com PG-13. The biggest gripe I have in regards to the copy I read would be the format. The e-book I was reading lacked spaces between the lines and thus was hard on the eyes and hindered my reading speed greatly. I’m not sure if this is crappy design on Wild Child Publishing’s part or merely an aspect of my reviewer copy. Even when reading works of the proven horror masters (King, Koontz, Barker) my short attention span wants to skip along from dialog bit to dialog bit as if I am watching a movie. Due to the format it was near impossible to move at the reading pace I wished with The Dread Syndrome. When all the blood and guts hit the fan will horror fans be cool or be cooled towards The Dead Syndrome? James Patrick Riser has not reached master craftsman level just yet in storytelling structure, but it is the wet delights and interesting depths of character and horror in progress that stands out. At the current purchase price of just over three bucks, it is indeed worth giving it the chance it needs to suck in your morbid curiosity and craving for intelligent usage of gore. As his voice grows with age and experience, future fans may want to have a copy of this to look back on and not just to laugh at the cop with the cliché drinking problem. - Wes Laurie |
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