Product Details

• Amazon Sales Rank: #69441 in Books
• Published on: 2009-02-01
• Original language: English
• Number of items: 1
• Binding: Mass Market Paperback
• 285 pages

Customer Reviews

Wow!
This is by far my favourite Brian Keene novel, I was extremely impressed with it!

The plot revolves around a group of around a dozen people who are on a tropical island as part of a reality TV show called Castaways. However, there is a storm due so the crew of the show set off on a ship for safety leaving only the contestants, along a few remaning crew members to record how the Castaways deal with the storm. However, we soon learn that our Castaways are not along on the island as they thought, when they are systematically attacked by a group of cannibalistic inbred savages who inhabit the island.

We mainly see things from the point of view of our protagonists, Becka and Jerry and also get a few chapters from other charcaters' (mainly in suspenceful stalked-by-the-savages type scenes). The suspence starts off right from the first chapter and doesnt let up untill the end so there are no boring parts, and I found the characters of Becka and Jerry to be both realistic and likeable so that you really hope they survive.

Deffinatly his goriest and most frightening book so far. He dedicates this to Richard Laymon, stating that the cannibals in this novel were inspired by the creatures from the Beast House books. Laymon is my favourite author and I think he would be proud of this book. Very highly reccomended, I read most of it in one night because I could not put it down.

Interesting concept with cheap horror
Keene presents his own origin of the hairy brutal killers that appeared in Ricahrd Laymon's Beast House trilogy. The narrative is similar too, featuring a cast of mostly unlikeable characters, numerous of promises of death, mutilation and sexual torment, and an easy to follow plot. The glimmer of hope for Castaways is the basic premise of the a TV reality show, akin to Survivor, which offers a fresh angle for a slasher novel. Alas the concept is never fully realised and after the early chapters Castways becomes just another gore-laden horror novel. Of course, Keene and Laymon fans will lap it up.

Very good, but a little on the short side.
Having read lots of Stephen King and Dean Koontz over recent years I felt like a change and decided to take a chance with Brian Keene's 'Castaways'. This only took me two days to read and this is the only thing that's stopped me from giving the book 5 stars. The plot is original and very fast paced. Keene is excellent at writing dialogue for his characters and the action never stops throughout. Having read this I will now give a few of his other novels a try. 'Lost' + Michael Crichton's 'Congo' + Reality TV's 'Survivor' = CASTAWAYS.