Terminal by Brian Keene Summary and Reviews
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Book Reviews of Terminal
Book Review: Strange
Summary: 3 Stars
Interesting premise gets into a lot of navel gazing, finally gets moving, takes a twist, finishes with another and still doesn't satisfy. Could be a good movie with a strong screenplay. Worth a look.Book Review: Suspenseful, surprising, and a rivetting thriller!
Summary: 5 Stars
Not the supernatural horror type of "The Rising" and "City of the Dead" (at least, it mostly isn't), "Terminal" is the story of Tommy O'Brien, a loving father and husband, who finds out he has cancer--terminal. The doctors give him a month, three at the most. Tommy suddenly finds himself staring at death, wondering how his wife and son will carry on without him. The small town of Hanover is stricken with poverty, divided into three camps: those who listen to rap, those who listen to metal, and those who listen to country. Everyone is poor. Tommy can't even pay the bills...and that's before he gets laid off from his job.
What is a man to do? If you are a small-town worker with nothing to lose, you decide to take care of your family. And Tommy starts eying the town bank. With the help of two friends--John and Sherm--Tommy is about to pull off the ultimate bank heist. Except things inevitably go wrong, especially when one of your friends doesn't know what he's doing, and the other is homicidal...and Tommy will meet up with a young boy, a little kid who can do extraordinary things, and may just be able to cure Tommy...if Tommy can keep him alive.
"Terminal" takes the most suspenseful novel you've ever read, and jacks it up a couple hundred notches. Rivetting, narrated by a guy most of us can relate to, this is a novel that will scare your pants off, and yet make you think about what YOU would do, when you had nothing to lose. Brian Keene has proven himself willing to tackle subjects that most authors won't dare approach, and he does it yet again in "Terminal." This is one that will appeal to the general suspense fans, as well as those who liked Keene's earlier novels. A sure-fire winner.
Book Review: Terminal by Brian Keene
Summary: 4 Stars
Tommy O'Brien is an out-of-luck working class kid with a wife, a son and terminal cancer. The doctor gave him one, maybe two months to live. His employer, one of the last still operating in the small town of Hanover, Pennsylvania, laid him off. The bill collectors are clamoring for their money and Tommy's dying.
He doesn't have the courage to tell his wife about the cancer, or that he lost his job. Tommy loves her too much to hurt her like that. He can't stand to think of his family living like dogs in their double wide with no money and no future. It hurts to think about his kid, T.J., growing up without a father, without a chance.
Then Tommy has an idea. He's going to rob a bank. He can't lose. The money will help bury him and give his small family a shot to get out of Hanover and poverty. It will give them a future. If he gets caught, he's slated to die in a month anyway. There's nothing to lose, or so he thinks. TERMINAL opens with the edge of a crime thriller. The premise is simple -- three buddies take down the local bank -- but it changes, and changes in a hurry. Tommy and his buddies, Sherm and John, don't know what they are getting themselves into. They think it will be easy, a walk in the park. Sherm plans the whole thing and he promises Tommy there will be no shooting. No death, but everything goes wrong. John ends up with a bullet in his belly and the boys find themselves in a standoff with police. That's when things get strange-in a paranormal way.
Brian Keene creates a world that is wholly believable. His characters are fleshed out, the dialogue is rich and the prose is electrifying in its simplicity. It is written in first person and has a powerful working class narrative. You can feel the pain of the characters who are trapped in the fading American dream-shrinking opportunities as large corporations uproot to find cheap labor. It has the heavy atmosphere of noir: A gritty, fatalistic portrait of working class rural America. The story also probes into the dark and very frightening subject of death-its answers are not for the weak or timid. They are scary and very real.
Reading TERMINAL is like watching a train approach a blocked track. You know it is going to crash and burn, but there is nothing you can do to stop it. You can only watch and hope for good fortune, but from the first few pages you know there will be nothing but sorrow and lose. You know this, but still you have to witness it. Follow it through to the end page by page. TERMINAL is a gem. It is high-octane horror with a crime novel mentality. Keene is the future of American horror, and if TERMINAL is any sign, the forecast looks good.
-Gravetapping
Book Review: Terminally Solid Read
Summary: 3 Stars
Though I personally thought this novel wasn't as good as Keene's zombie duology, it was still a most interesting and riveting tale.
The last 1/3 of the book kinda lost its steam for me. Not bad, just not as great and explosive as it could have been. Very character driven, though. I look forward to Keene's new novel.
Book Review: What if potential punishment had no bearing on a crime?
Summary: 5 Stars
Since I'm on a Brian Keene kick right now (thanks, John!), I took the book Terminal with me on vacation. This was an excellent read reminiscent of Koontz and King's current supernatural storytelling.
Tommy O'Brien is one of those small-town guys who works at the local foundry, lives in a double-wide trailer, and is sinking deeper in debt with no real hope of rising above it all. If it wasn't for his wife and small child who he dearly loves, you could pretty much paint him as white trailer-park trash living for beer, cigarettes, and his next one-night stand. What little he does have to live for comes crashing down when he's diagnosed with terminal cancer at the age of 25, and he's got about a month to live. He tries hard to hide it from his wife, as well as the fact that he just got laid off from the foundry too. With no way out, he plans a bank heist with two friends in order to attempt to leave his wife and child with something more than a pile of debt after he dies. But the heist goes wrong when one of his friends starts killing hostages, and the other friend (who's driving the get-away car) is shot by someone else. The situation continues to go downhill quickly as he watches his friend slowly die from the gutshot. But to his amazement, a small child who's a hostage has the ability to cure injury and illness by touching the victim. He heals the gunshot wound and cures O'Brien's cancer. But now Tommy isn't sure he can save the hostages from his other friend's increasingly erratic behavior and intent to kill everyone...
There were a number of things I liked about this novel. For one, it wasn't as "way out there" as some supernatural thrillers can get. Koontz was like that with his earlier work, where every book seemed to have a killer zombie. The current work is more "mainstream" in story-line, so you can more readily put yourself in the story and identify with the characters. Keene is at this point with Terminal, and you could identify with the helplessness of O'Brien and his situation. I also thought the pacing of the story was perfect, as well as the premise of robbing a bank when any punishment they can hand out is meaningless due to your short lifespan.
For readers who like King and Koontz, I'd highly recommend adding Keene to that list. And starting with Terminal would be a nice point of entry...