READER REVIEWS:

The Bridge: A Horror Story by John Skipp, Craig Spector, March 4, 2002
Reviewer: Andrew B. Bosma from Paterson, NJ, USA. - Simply put, The Bridge is one of the finest horror novels I've ever read. If you enjoy your horror on an epic, apocalyptic scale, then this is one book that is sure to delight. There are only a handful of books in this genre that deserve to be mentioned in the same breath as The Bridge: The Stand by S. King, Phantoms by D. Koontz, Swan Song and They Thirst both by R. McCammon, Deus-X by J. Citro, Imajica by C. Barker (although some might argue that this title is better classified as fantasy). However, make no mistake, The Bridge is an altogether unique effort. I refuse to give any particular plot points away. In brief, The Bridge deals w/ the ultimate ecological nightmare scenario. It is absolutely riveting and features and ending that creeped me out for days-weeks-months! (Heck, I read this book over a decade ago and IT STILL CREEPS ME OUT!!)

If you a remember a rather [bad] horror movie from 1979 called Prophecy w/ Talia Shire(not to be confused with The 1995 film The Prophecy starring Chris Walken) that dealt with the monstrous consequences of man's reckless polluting of the environment and suspected that there was real potential for a truly great story embedded deep within that cheesy...film, then this book confirms those suspicions!

I truly believe that if adapted for the screen by the right filmmaker - Kubrick would have been my ideal choice, - it could potentially scare today's jaded and desensitized audiences on a level heretofore reached only by the likes of The Exorcist.

Trust me! If you're looking for THE wild ride, then this is it. This is one of those books. I simply don't want to see any of you folks miss out on · a true horror classic.

Reviewer: A reader from Hotel Elysium, Hamtramck, MI This is far and away the greatest horror I have read. Nailed clean in the style that Skipp and Spector mastered so well, a craftily ironic tone that your own mind uses in its more honest moments, this constantly claustrophobicly narrowing vision of the environmental haulocaust to come grabs you by the short and curlies demands that you should SIT RIGHT BACK and hear of the coming tribulation. The deftness which with it was handled, the delicate suspension of disbelief holds even with the fantastic swirling and gelling. They were the best horror going in the '80s and early '90s, no debate and bar none. I miss them all the time, and boys and girls, this is as good as it got. Maybe the best it could get.

Awesome Ride to the end of OUR World, October 4, 1998
Reviewer: John Priddy (Skinsfan@gte.net) from Dallas, Texas An Absolute MUST-READ, this one grabs you by the throat and doesn't let go until it has shredded your sensibilities and made you think twice about even turning on the water faucet. With characters you care about, Bad and Good, and an inexorable march to destruction that seems to have No savior...heroes still emerge and save what they can in a hopeless situation. The writing is excellent with details that are vivid but never diving into gore overdrive.....well, maybe a little but what the hell. These guys bring the goods and not only do they not "pull any punches"...they punch through your skull and rip out your cerebral cortex.......If you find it .....BUY IT......

THE BRIDGE John Skipp & Craig Spector
Bantam, 1991, 419 pages, $5.99 Can. pb, ISBN 0-553-29027-4
A drum filled with toxic chemicals falls from a truck into a body of water. It breaks open, releasing nasty industrial waste into the wilderness. Then a horrible mutation takes place and people start to die! The above is the initial story trigger for The Bridge, a gore-filled horror novel by John Skipp and Craig Spector.

The problems start early on in this quasi-earnest tale of environmental catastrophe. You thought that type of plotting went out with comic books and B-movie from the fifties, but no, Skipp and Spector seem determined to play this concept in a relatively straightforward manner.

Suffice to say that in a few dozen pages, our evil toxic dumpers are severely punished and that a toxic overmind is attacking a small town in Northeastern America. Even at this point, the level of nastiness exhibited by the authors is impressive.

There's a steadily mounting glee at seeing Skipp and Spector overturn almost every tradition in their quest to kill as many characters in the messiest ways possible. The last few pages will have even the most jaded readers go "eew" as the novel moves far, far away from the watered down simulacrum that passes as "horror" nowadays. -- 2003, Christian Sauvé


daysleeper