Review: An Intense, Death Defying Roller Coaster Ride!
Rating: 5 out of 5
Date: 09 16, 2012
I am starting to see a pattern in The Island (Fallen Earth) series.  Michael Stark has a fiendish tendency to have his hero, William Hill, make BAD DECISIONS, and those bad decisions lead to horrible events that reveal more about The Fever, and the nightmarish creatures that arise along with this disease.In Part 4, William Hill decides to leave the northern portion of Portsmouth Island, where the group of refugees have found shelter and food, and head to the southern portion of the island.  Why would he leave the safety of the Station?  To talk to the other island residents and try to convince them to join forces up north.  This is an obvious train wreck waiting to happen.  And Michael Stark does not disappoint.The author gleefully takes his readership down a dark, black path filled with fear and terror.  Some of the scenes that he describes in specific details are gruesome, and stomach churning.  The camps that William Hill past through on his way to the south point of the island will delight fans of the horror genre.  Others may feel a need to run to the bathroom and vomit.  My previous comparison of Michael Stark to Woody Allen is inaccurate; our author is more comparable to a Stephen King.The surprise that the author leaves for the trip back home is an intense and memorable one.  Indeed, I regard the events surrounding this trip to go back home as THE BEST SCENE in the entire series so far.  The action simply makes your heart race and pound loudly within your chest, as your eyeballs race from one line to the next trying to see if Wil-le-um will make it home alive.  Only one word can capture this scene: WOW.To read Part 4 of The Island (Fallen Earth) is to take a journey into hell.  Read it if you dare.