The Reckoning

Can you fill me in what these were all about? I'm sure I can look for the desriptions online, but I like hearing from others about these things plus I'm lazy...

Ah yes. Tell me, what's the Cambodian word for "Silent Hill?"

I keeeed, I keeeed! But seriously, what about "The Descent?" It sounds vaguely familiar.

Nice. How come that's not getting made first?!

Thanks, man. Once again, you come through mightily. Methinks I'll go pick up "The Descent" in a few weeks.

Maybe you should take a look at this here thread:

http://chud.com/forums/showthread.php?threadid=63768

THE DESCENT is already in the works as a movie but god only knows which one (if any) will get made first since they are set up at different studios with different people involved. David Goyer recently finished his script for THE DESCENT so I guess it's now up to Dreamworks to greenlight the damn thing ...

I agree about the Crichton comparison. Long seems to do a ton of research and use it to good effect in his novels. However, his books just kick a lot more ass than Crichton could ever hope for, at least from a horror lover's perspective.

I don't know, Crichton's DINO PARK was a great and pretty gory novel but that Spielberg came along and totally fucked it up. CONGO was also a very sold novel that got turned into another crappy film. He hasn't written much else I'm interested in. Stuff like DISCLOSURE just doesn't interest me and the same goes for TIMELINE, even if it is better than the movie. I may pick up PREY eventually, though, because nano-technology fascinates me. Have you read that one?

You really think Speilberg fucked up Jurrasic Park? I thought it was fantastic. Thats one of my favorite movies. It may not have a ton of gore but it was never really intended as true horror. Some parts might be suspensful but its more of an adventure/sci-fi movie.

Well, maybe "fucked up" wasn't the right term. He just didn't make the film I would have liked to see. He took the novel and added his patented brand of family friendly sugar-coated gee-whiz-bang storytelling. Cute baby dinosaurs sneezing all over some kid. Pompous score. Toned down ending. It was a revolution in special FX and that's as much credit as I'm willing to give that movie. For me it had none of the nailbiting suspense that made the novel so great. I'm not trying to convince you that the film is crap, though. If you like it that's fine. I wish I could say the same for myself ...

You do make a good point there. The book and the movie are very diffrent in tone. That book is one of my all time favorites. The book is better but I consider the movie one of the better adaptations. I mean, like you said, look at Congo.(shudder)

And don't forget, Dr. Ian Malcolm also survives, whereas in the book, he bites it, thus leading to Crichton trying to write himself out of a corner by saying he's not dead in "The Lost World."

On a sidenote, I really hate it when authors write sequels of their books because the studios need to make a movie sequel off of it. Retarded.

The Lost World

The Lost World novel wasn't a sequel to Jurasic Park the Novel. It was a sequel to the movie. I felt dirty reading that book.

One word, sorta: Westworld. It wasn't a book? I don't care, it rocks.

Ah-nuld was gonna remake it after doing KING CONAN. Of course then he became guv-ah-nor ...

Time to get this thread back on topic!

I received my copy of Jeff Long's THE RECKONING today and am currently 80 pages into it. It feels great to back in the hands of such a masterful storyteller! It's obviously too early for me to write a full on review of the novel but there's a few things that I feel safe to say.

THE RECKONING is quite different from both THE DESCENT and YEAR ZERO in that this time out Long doesn't aspire to write an epic. THE DESCENT and YEAR ZERO both dealt with the fate of the entire human race. THE RECKONING is much smaller in scale. It's all set in Cambodia and only has 2 or maybe 3 main characters as opposed to the multi-character plots and interweaving storylines of his previous novels.

So far there's also less supernatural stuff going on. The supernatural is there but up to page 80 it is only hinted at.

Like his previous novels THE RECKONING reads like a Michael Crichton novel with more of a horror sensibility. Long has a somewhat similar style, even though his language is more poetic in my opinion. And Long most definitely reasearches the hell out of the stuff he writes about. I don't know if he's been to Cambodia himself or has merely read tons of books about the country but he makes the place come to live starting with the very first page. The landscape, the people, the wildlife, the culture, the language, the history, it is all there in vivid descriptions and rich detail.

So that's my first impression after reading what is sadly already one third of the book. I'll be back with more as I read on.

Yes, the hardcover came out on July 1st.

I just finished this book and really enjoyed it. A much smaller scale than Year Zero or The Descent, but still trademark Jeff Long. Though to about 180 pages in, its pretty typical. Yet the ending is haunting and poignant and brings the rest of the book up with it. Which is what a good ending should do.

Overall, a little, strange haunting and memorable new book.

The good news is that, other than THE DESCENT, this book may actually work as a movie. Shooting on location would be a must, though. And if they aren't careful it could easily turn into another CONGO which we really don't need.

It gets downright creepy around the 200 page mark. I love this book!

Heh, indeed. THE RECKONING bears more than a little resemblance to Crichton's CONGO if you ask me. Long's book is ultimately better, though.

As for another novel, no word at all but I would't expect it for another two or three years, which is how long it usually takes him to write something new. Quality takes time I guess. And I can always try to hunt down his out of print adventure novels form yesteryear in the meantime. EMPIRE OF BONES sounds rather promising ...

He wrote a couple of novels before THE DESCENT but it's hard to find any kind of plot summary for them so I have no idea what they are like or if they have supernatural elements at all.

I finished THE RECKONING yesterday. How very Shyamalan of him! But I didn't see it coming and the ending worked for me.

I still think this could make a great film and that it would be much easier to do justice than the epic narratives of DESCENT and YEAR ZERO. They would have to shoot in Cambodia or a similar region, though, in order to get the atmosphere right. And make sure to hire talented people to design and build the ruins because if they are less than convincing the whole film will fail.

If you're intrested in nano-technology you are going to want to read Prey. It goes into a lot of detail on the subject. It's really fairly interesting, thou it dose drag at parts.

JURASSIC PARK has a pompous score? Since when?

I agree. I really enjoyed Jurrasic Park, and I thought it's score was really good. I really don't see how Speilberg fucked it up.

The score was that film's smallest problem. The novel is really quite brutal in parts but Spielberg turned it into another of his patented family friendly blockbusters complete with tear-jerkingly whining dying triceratops and cute baby dinosaur friggin SNEEZING all over some kid. And he also changed the ending, which was an absolutely necessary part of the message of Crichton's novel. By bombing the island and killing all the dinosaurs he pounded home that we should not fuck with nature that way. But no, the Joe and Jane Averages (and their spoiled brat children) would not have eaten up such a downbeat ending and so Spielberg let the dinos live. Well, that and he was probably already eyeing the sequel. Utter crap.

I thought the film made that message clear without needing to kill off the dinosaurs. I'm pretty sure they did bomb the island(because it was a diffrent island in Lost World), and mabye didn't film it because it would be a fairly expensive scene that wasn't really neccesary to the plot.

The book also had a cute baby dinosaur.

I just picked up The Reckoning to take with me to Maui tommorow(I'll be back in a week), because of all the good things I heard about it here. I also got The Rising. I can't wait to start them.