A bottomless shaft appears in a cemetery in Stoneridge, Kansas. Townspeople are attacked by things that look like their friends and pets and neighbors ... but aren't.

I'm an indiscriminate watcher of horror films, and I keep thinking that should translate into a love of horror literature as well. But most horror books just haven't worked for me. There are enough exceptions (Lovecraft, James, Matheson, and some King, Barker, and Koontz) that I keep trying to find more. This wasn't one.

So my comments should be prefaced by acknowledging that I am probably not the book's intended audience.

That out of the way, I admit that some of the monster-attack scenes have a certain Body-Snatchers creepiness. But there are too many of those scenes, all of the same format, and they quickly get repetitive.

Our heroes are mostly oblivious to what's going on around them, carrying on wooden conversations on random subjects, with every "Okay," "I see," and "Go on" tediously recorded.

(SPOILER maybe)
Andersson also can't seem to decide what kind of menace he's writing about, extraterrestrial terror or angry Scandinavian deity, so the monster turns out to be an incoherent mix of the two.

Still I think the story, mess though it was, could have worked for me on film. So if this sort of book is your sort of thing, maybe the book works too. But for casual readers of horror, it's not recommended. ( )