 July - September 2003
Thunderland
by Brandon Massey
Brandon Massey's latest offering is a psychologically unbalanced supernatural thriller following along the premise of what Stephen King or a Dean Koontz would write, but with enough potential to make this a believable tale. This is not to say that the book is not without salient points that wouldn’t render it a good read for those that are into paranormal literature. I found it to be disjointed in places and quite moving in others. This type of inconsistency normally would present any novel from being viewed in a unfavorable light, but the author here gives reference that a lesson in patience is in order as this novel attempts to prove a point.
This is about a bright, precocious 14-year-old protagonist whose family life is in shambles with all of the ingredients for social malfunction. Jason is the name of our hero who has an alcoholic mother, trying to make amends in her topsy-turvy world. His father uses any excuse imaginable to stay solvent and sane to escape his fractured marriage. Using his dreams and nightmares as a backdrop to introduce a nemesis to his existence, Jason tries to give credence to having a normal childhood but knows that there’s no normalcy to what he’s experiencing. The author gives Jason meaningful insights to his problems by allowing the interactiveness of well-constructed scenes to further illustrate the familial reference to chaos. This is the fluidity that I spoke of earlier, but when compared to any reference to the supernatural context of the storyline, things doesn’t move as fast. The plot, however, is heavily flavor toward horrid references of what we’re familiar with in today’s film offerings. When writing a book dealing with this type of theme, I’d like to think that surprises would be instigated to give more imaginative renderings to spare the reader of predictable endings and uninspiring climaxes.
To the author’s credit, there is enough action and suspense along the way for one to want to know the ending to this spectacle. The plot twist and conflict to Thunderland is the inclusion of compelling interactionary relationships between his immediate family and those that traverses to all other relations that tend to wander from reality to imagery. Brandon Massey will only get better with time, and if this novel is any indication of his arrival, then sustained experience in this genre will serve notice there’s more to come! |
