Review: You'll enjoy Mr. Freakshow's show
Rating: 3 out of 5
Date: 04 18, 2012
The Nightmare Within by Glen Krisch is about a man named Maury who has the unique ability to pull dreams and nightmares from peoples heads and trap them in the real world. He uses his ability to create a museum of dreams and nightmares. One particularly nasty nightmare named Mr. Freakshow, a dream from a small boy's imagination, escapes and sets all the other nightmares free to cause havoc on the city of Chicago.This story mostly takes place in the city of Chicago at the museum of dreams called Lucidity. Other parts take place at the home of the boy's grandmother where the mom and son move after the murder of the boy's father. The story is well written and easy to follow. It is also blessedly free of typos and formatting errors. The author definitely put his time in to present a professional product.The characters in this story are well developed and have extensive histories. On occasion, it's too developed. I found myself getting bored as the characters rambled on about their pasts that had no connection to the plot, especially the part where the boy returns to his home town and reflects on his past every time he sees something familiar. Some readers may disagree enjoying the extra information. I found that it slowed the pace of the novel especially toward the end when events could have moved much faster to keep it exciting. I found myself skipping through paragraphs to get to the good stuff.The plot is a tight one and well developed even if it is predictable. Nothing surprising happened, but I did enjoy the idea of this story which was unique from my perspective. I even think this book would make an interesting movie, especially if the same people who filmed, The Cell, made it.I thought the ending dragged too long. There was an entire chapter about the major I felt could have been cut and a part about a serial killer on a train that didn't tie into the bigger plot in any way and could have been cut. Although, I did enjoy the contrast between how the serial killer viewed himself and how others around him viewed him. IT would make a great short story on its own, but wasn't needed in this story.Overall I do recommend the book for its unique idea using dreams, and its professional writing style I enjoyed reading.