[E3I]⋙ Read Gratis The Wide Game Michael West Amanda Debord Matthew Perry 9781937929183 Books

The Wide Game Michael West Amanda Debord Matthew Perry 9781937929183 Books

Download As PDF : The Wide Game Michael West Amanda Debord Matthew Perry 9781937929183 Books

The Wide Game Michael West Amanda Debord Matthew Perry 9781937929183 Books

For a first novel, The Wide Game displays a notable amount of promise. The writing is particularly strong, as if author Michael West spent a long time honing his craft before submitting his manuscript to publishers. It's also more complicated than it seems at first glance, with some surprisingly deep themes eventually being raised. And though the idea behind the book isn't anything particularly new - a bunch of high school graduates get stalked through a remote location by someone or something that intends to do them significant harm - there are some effectively tense scenes, especially through the book's middle section.

It wasn't all good though. The problems I had with The Wide Game lie with the way the story was told, and the manner in which the tale we get is quite different from that implied in the book's blurb. To illustrate this latter point, here's a paragraph lifted straight from the blurb:

Now, as he meets the survivors of that day once more, Paul makes a chilling discovery: the incomprehensible forces that toyed with them have yet to finish playing their own game.

Reading that I was anticipating the story to be about the survivors of the Wide Game from ten or so years before. Yet almost all of this novel takes place via an extended flashback. By the time we're back following those survivors in the present day, the book is about 75% over. In essence, the present day "action" serves as little more than a coda to the main meat of the tale when the protagonists were in the midst of the game. My use of quotation marks there serves to highlight how little actually happens in the present time. The reader is asked to care more about the main character and his relationship status than the threat that has been unveiled out amongst the corn rows. West does throw in a twist that adds an extra layer to the story, (view spoiler)

Perhaps West addresses these concerns in the sequels that follow this novel? I don't know, but I'm interested in finding out, mainly because he wrote the sequels years later, so I'm hoping they'll be all the better for the extra writing experience he'd have gained in that time.

3 Murders of Crows for The Wide Game.


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The Wide Game Michael West Amanda Debord Matthew Perry 9781937929183 Books Reviews

I absolutely loved this book. This was actually the second book I had read by Michael West and, like the first, it did not disappoint. He has a very Lovecraftian feel to his writing which made it all the better. I would recommend this and Spook House to anyone who is a Lovecraft fan. I do not think it will disappoint.
You will finish this book, put it down, and (had you read this before any of the other Harmony, Indiana titles come out) hope that Michael West is not done with Harmony, Indiana. This book was the perfectly paced horror novel. We are provided with a couple of key characters that we really get to know and follow although we may learn along the way that we don't know some of them as well as we thought we did. A corn field has not been this scary since Stephen King's Children of the Corn. Pick it up, but be prepared to pick up the other Harmony, Indiana titles, because you will not be satisfied at stopping here!
Michael West writes with the intense passion of Stephen King and the graphic horror of Clive Barker. Paul Rice, the central character, returns home to Harmony, Indiana for a class reunion 10 years after a night of terror impacted him and his friends. This night changed his life, or did it? West takes the reader back to recapture the events of Senior Day, developing the characters along the way and leads the reader into a night of horror that haunts Paul all those years later. Micheal West also throws in some ancient Indian lore that plays a significant role and some interesting tidbits about Indiana and Indianapolis. In trying to exorcise his demons, West takes Paul and the reader down some unexpected paths. I was mesmerized by this book until the final page.
Parts of this book were okay. He did a good job of making ordinary occurrences seem frightening. He also spent time on character development but then seemed not to read what he had written. As a surprise he threw in some horror committed by otherwise nice, gentle characters without much explanation. The book was written in a flashback but it also followed individual groups of kids but not necessarily chronologically. Honestly, this thing was all over the place. There were some good things about it but not enough. I was so happy to be done with it.
I read this with great expectations knowing how much I've enjoyed Michael West's books in the past. I do not hesitate to purchase a current work by this author. He is most prolific in horror and I still cannot think of Cinema of Shadows and Spook House without feeling that lovely tingle of fear deep inside, where I live.

This book was no disappointment most certainly, in fact has gained a place of honor on my book shelves with my favorite horror tales. The one thing different about this novel is the fact that in a million years I would never have guessed the ending. I thought once or twice I had it pegged..but, no. I did not..not at all.

It took place in Indiana and was centered around the sky high cornfields which grew in the backyards of many families and probably still do. I have been to Indiana only once in my life and while the visit was due to a death in my family, I remember how lovely the roads and the wide open spaces. It's a beautiful place on this earth. It was with that memory in mind that I could so clearly picture this setting in my head. But it was through the author's words that I was able to feel the terror of the stars of this very scary tale.

I was stunned around every corner by something I could not have imagined. Most of all by the idea of The Wide Game which was a tradition for all graduating high school students of this little community of Harmony..peaceful and boring to a point. It should have been fun for everyone involved in the game and serve as fodder to leave them a great memory as they grew up and grew old. The main characters were soon to find they didn't mind boring at all and wished to have it back more than anything in the world. Even ten years afterward.
For a first novel, The Wide Game displays a notable amount of promise. The writing is particularly strong, as if author Michael West spent a long time honing his craft before submitting his manuscript to publishers. It's also more complicated than it seems at first glance, with some surprisingly deep themes eventually being raised. And though the idea behind the book isn't anything particularly new - a bunch of high school graduates get stalked through a remote location by someone or something that intends to do them significant harm - there are some effectively tense scenes, especially through the book's middle section.

It wasn't all good though. The problems I had with The Wide Game lie with the way the story was told, and the manner in which the tale we get is quite different from that implied in the book's blurb. To illustrate this latter point, here's a paragraph lifted straight from the blurb

Now, as he meets the survivors of that day once more, Paul makes a chilling discovery the incomprehensible forces that toyed with them have yet to finish playing their own game.

Reading that I was anticipating the story to be about the survivors of the Wide Game from ten or so years before. Yet almost all of this novel takes place via an extended flashback. By the time we're back following those survivors in the present day, the book is about 75% over. In essence, the present day "action" serves as little more than a coda to the main meat of the tale when the protagonists were in the midst of the game. My use of quotation marks there serves to highlight how little actually happens in the present time. The reader is asked to care more about the main character and his relationship status than the threat that has been unveiled out amongst the corn rows. West does throw in a twist that adds an extra layer to the story, (view spoiler)

Perhaps West addresses these concerns in the sequels that follow this novel? I don't know, but I'm interested in finding out, mainly because he wrote the sequels years later, so I'm hoping they'll be all the better for the extra writing experience he'd have gained in that time.

3 Murders of Crows for The Wide Game.