Charles Grant (1) (1942–2006)

A most excellent entertainment. More of a thriller than a supernatural novel. Think of a cross between a hillbilly slasher family and a werewolf pack story, except there aren’t any werewolves. It works, trust me. Grant sort of gives away the twist early on but you won’t catch it until it happens. Then you’ll say, “I should have seen that.”

I would have gone for four stars if Grant had spent a little more time on characters, like he usually does, but instead he goes for the full speed ahead plot. You don’t really get attached to the victims/protagonists as much as you usually do in a Grant story. The ending was a little disappointing; not bad just ho-hum.… (meer)

I see this novel is generally underrated because it seems slow to develop. This is probably because many readers are expecting Grant to read like King or McCammon, or Koontz. What they don't understand is the concept of quiet horror that Grant is the master of. Grant is every bit as good at setting the middle American context and characters while at the same time leading us on in a largely red herring plot that doesn't seem to involve much supernatural beyond some potentially clairvoyant dreaming. But Grant is just setting the trap, things are going to get way weirder before this is over.… (meer)

I'm not sure why Grant picked up this and another piece of X-Files hack work [b:Whirlwind|219479|Whirlwind (The X-Files)|Charles L. Grant|http://d.gr-assets.com/books/1172803814s/219479.jpg|1201170]. Maybe he needed to pay the mortgage or he just really liked the show. Hopefully he made a decent deal and did pay the mortgage since this particular copy I have is in the 22nd printing! Anyway, in my quest to read all things Grant, I dove into this one because I had it and it was the only thing around when I needed something to read.

I don't believe this is a novelization of an episode per se but a novel intended to mimic a X-Files episode for those that just couldn't get enough of the show. The problem with this kind of novel is what can you do? We all know the beloved protagonists are going to survive intact, so no suspense there, and we just don't care enough about all the red shirts to give a damn. We already know some of the nefarious are going to get their just deserts while others will slink away to pester the FBI in a future episode. What you are left to play with, if you are going to aspire to art instead of just entertainment, is pure weirdness and the twist(s). Shucking as many X-Files tropes as possible is also another angle. The problem is, as you aspire to art you are going to piss off the hard core X-Files fan who just wants a novelized teleplay of a "typical" X-Files episode. They are here to be entertained, not enlightened.

The ever capable Mr. Grant chooses to take the somewhat low road here and gives us what we want in a modestly literate manner (remember there's still that mortgage payment looming). There is nothing surprising here, just a bit of fun with a secret government black-ops experiment gone very bad. There will be conspirators, friends, traitors, and the ever-clueless, but Scully and Mulder will sort it out before the body count gets too high.

Grant has the advantage of two already well developed characters to start with so he doesn't have to spend a lot of time getting us to know and like them. What he must do however, is not screw-up our internal picture of the two dauntless paranormal G-men, which he doesn't. Where he could have done a little more inspiring job is with the twists. They are there but they are not all that startling when they arrive (I had figured out a key characteristic of the "goblins" but not the precise identity, pretty early on so the main twist didn't work for me).

I was a big fan of the show back when I used to watch television and films more than rarely so I enjoyed the novel as a decent entertainment.… (meer)