Product Description

This is the United Kingdom, but it's no country you know. No place you ever want to see, even in the shuttered madness of your worst dreams. But you survived. One man. You walk because you have no choice. At the end of this molten road, running along the spine of a burned, battered country, your little boy is either alive or dead. You have to know. You have to find an end to it all. One hope. The sky crawls with venomous cloud and burning rain. The land is a scorched sprawl of rubble and corpses. Rats have risen from the depths to gorge on the carrion. A glittering dust coats everything and it hides a terrible secret. New horrors are taking root. You walk on. One chance. Praise for "The Unblemished", winner of Best Novel, International Horror Guild: 'Building relentlessly from intense, intimate terror to something on another scale altogether ...this stark, gripping novel will stay with you a long time' "Guardian". 'Reminiscent of Poe and the early stories of Clive Barker. Not for the squeamish, but no fan of literary horror should miss it' - "The Times". 'Top-notch writing skills, poetic vision and beautiful prose raise this way above your Hammer House of Horror ...highly accomplished terror' - "Sunday Express".

Product Details

• Amazon Sales Rank: #5510 in Books
• Published on: 2009-04-02
• Original language: English
• Number of items: 1
• Binding: Paperback
• 400 pages

From the Back Cover
This is the United Kingdom, but it's no country you know. No place you ever want to see, even in the shuttered madness of your worst dreams. But you survived. One man.
You walk because you have no choice. At the end of this molten road, running along the spine of a burned, battered country, your little boy is either alive or dead. You have to know. You have to find an end to it all. One hope.
The sky crawls with venomous cloud and burning rain. The land is a scorched sprawl of rubble and corpses. Rats have risen from the depths to gorge on the carrion. A glittering dust coats everything and it hides a terrible secret. New horrors are taking root. You walk on. One chance.
Praise for The Unblemished, winner of Best Novel, International Horror Guild:
'Building relentlessly from intense, intimate terror to something on another scale altogether … this stark, gripping novel will stay with you a long time' Guardian
'Reminiscent of Poe and the early stories of Clive Barker. Not for the squeamish, but no fan of literary horror should miss it' The Times
'Top-notch writing skills, poetic vision and beautiful prose raise this way above your Hammer House of Horror … highly accomplished terror' Sunday Express

About the Author
Conrad Williams sold his first short story at the age of eighteen and has gone on to write over 80 more novels and anthologies. In 1993 he won the British Fantasy Award for Best Newcomer. His work has since been shortlisted for awards by the British Fantasy Society and the International Horror Guild. The Unblemished was the winner of the International Horror Guild Award for Best Novel 2007. He lives in Manchester where he teaches creative writing at a local university.

Customer Reviews

That was a strange one...
I'm not sure what to make of this.

I'm no stranger to apocalyptic fiction, and this one was a new path to venture down. It's gritty, unforgiving and brutal. What a nightmare.

But it isn't complete, I don't think. I understand that our 'hero' doesn't know what happened to cause the apocalypse, therefore we the reader don't know either, but there's more to it than that. We find out who the biggest threats are, and we're told how they came into being and what they're about. We're told what a struggle it is for humans to function and what makes things difficult to survive. We're even told how the rats have somehow thrived and taken on a new mantle of bold and fearless hive mentality. But there is a bit of cloak and dagger going on with the mysterious people with white scarfs and tattoo's and six fingers that seem to be lurking in the background. Who are they? Where did they come from? Are they good or bad? Why? What is their story? Should I pay them more attention. It's just doesn't add up.

At the conclusion I'm left wondering what actually happened. I sometimes like a bit of ambiguity at the end of a story, where you wonder if it will all come right in the end, beyond the final page - but with this tale I'm actually wondering what happened DURING the final pages. Was it the human survivors that ran to the rescue? Or the mysterious white scarfs? Or a combination? Seriously, if you know, please let me in on it because it's annoying the hell out of me.

So, in summary......I liked it enough to keep turning pages but I'd have liked it more if I wasn't asked to guess certain element's significance and role in the story.

Read it, it's quite good. But then come back and fill me in on all the missing bits. Please.

Awesome first half, average second half, poor final few pages
Richard Jane is a diver working on an off-shore oil platform in the North Sea when something happens and he loses contact with the surface. He finds that a terrible accident has occurred and that the whole crew is dead or dying, with everything burned. It becomes apparent that 'The Event' isn't restricted to the rig when he reaches the mainland.

The first half of the book concerns Jane's journey from near Aberdeen to London, where he hopes to find his young son alive. The author does a great job at portraying the desolation left behind (event if the effects of the 'fire' are somewhat inconsistent) and we really start to feel Jane's desperation that his son is OK. This part of the story is great, and a good example of a post-apocalyptic novel.

However... without spoiling things, the second half of the book gets a bit silly in my opinion. There is a fairly drastic change of pace and the story becomes more of a horror story. This would be fine in itself, but the two halves of the story don't really hang together.

On top of that, like others reviewers have said, I really didn't understand the ending. The last few pages felt like the author was late for something and just scribbled down the ending quickly, with little care, which I'm sure wasn't the case. I'm sure he understood what was going on, but I felt a bit let down.

In summary, not a bad book. There is a conclusion of a sort, but don't expect an amazing ending.

Let down by the ending 2.5 stars
A post apocalyptic novel might have been the wrong thing to read on the verge of a swine flu pandemic, but anyway.

Richard Jane is an oil rig diver and he surfaces to find that during his dive, an apocalyptic event has occurred which has killed nearly everyone and destroyed the infrastructure. No cars, no electronics and not much sign of life. Jane has a young son in London and decides to travel to London from Scotland to see if he survived, this is obviously unlikely but it does give him a goal and a reason to survive.

This could so easily have fallen into the usual trap of marauding bad guy survivors but is more about a man's journey through the ruins of the UK. Yes there is the occasional bad guy and dark side to the journey, but this is, in essence, a pilgrimage through a world torn apart. As we read we assume that the likelihood of the son being alive is very low but we do understand that in the fire torn new world, Jane needs to cling to the hope of finding his lad.
The first half of the book deals with the walk to London and then on arrival we switch forward a few years to find out what London now looks like, how the survivors are coping and the dangers that now lurk on the London streets. A slight switch here as we see more horror and SF influencing the story, but still interesting and gripping as we see humanity not doing too well.
So far so good and it was looking like an enjoyable three star book, but then the last fifth let me down as the author ramps things up and lost me completely. I re-read the last bit a few times and either I am dense (quite possible) or the time invested in the book was let down by a poor ending that lacked clarity. A bit like when you watch a film and it is not resolved well in the final fifteen minutes and you are left unsatisfied. - Lots of potential but in the end I felt a little let down.