Review: `Warn them. We all must be warned....'
Rating: 5 out of 5
Date: 05 29, 2014
Handsome young author J.S. Patterson takes advantage of his peripatetic life in his gathering of global, sociologic, climatic, and philosophic information for his novels: he was born and raised in South Africa, moved with his family to the Czech Republic, and form there emigrated to Alberta province of Canada. Inspired by nightly dreams and frequent nightmares he now allows these to surface in his writings, acknowledging that his stories are glimpses into a writer's mind painted subtly on the canvas of his Mural Chronicles. Thus far three volumes have emerged - REVELATION OF THE FALLEN ONES, SOUNDNESS OF DEMENTIA, AND THS VOLUM - UNEARTHING.Patterson qualifies his stories as horror stories and with good reason. We begin to understand his comment about relating past nightmares in his PROLOGUE: 1553 AD when the Conqueror, a Portuguese ship head by a Captain Braxler, struggles with a sea storm that decimates his crew followed by a nighttime horror of a monstrous hanging and gutting of the remainder of his crew. Patterson then jumps in Chapter one to contemporary times as two students James and Samantha, a psych major, meet at a gym and agree to go spelunking (cave diving) with another friend named Guy. He cave is a far distance from their home and during the journey there is a obvious attraction developing between James and Samantha. They enter the destination cave, discover an almost inaccessible large cavern that holds a wall that fascinates Guy to the extent that he becomes wholly mesmerized and possessed. From there the plot gradually becomes a horror story. The Czech Republic becomes involved in a British Columbia emergency discovery, the Inuits are involved and the story becomes very complex - governmental corruption, thwarted love, an ancient evil, and more - and the entire story becomes like an unfolding nightmare.Patterson does such a fine job of making his story credible, despite the bizarre incidents and details, that the tale becomes more of a possibility of the future than simply a well-sculpted horror story. He has the gift: there will be more! Grady Harp, May 14