Robert R. McCammon

A science fiction horror story, Stinger is set in a remote town in the USA in desert country. The town - Inferno - is dying after the exhaustion of a copper mine and the local youth are polarised along race lines with Caucasians versus Hispanics, characterised as Mexicans. There is a lot of racist language referring to the latter.

Into this poisonous atmosphere drops two aliens: one the fleeing leader of a watery race which is being exterminated by the race represented by the second alien. Daufin, as the first alien comes to be called, takes over the body of a little girl - which seems a bit manipulative for the "good guy" and the other alien then wrecks havoc trying to find her, with the added peril that it will probably report back and initiate invasion.

The story is very slow to get going and I found all the teen hoodlum stuff boring. Some characters such as Miranda, sister of the Hispanic gang leader, Rick, are just included as someone to be protected by the teen heroes. None of the characters seemed rounded out to me - the closest was Ed Vance the sheriff whose negative traits stem from his being the bullied fat boy at school but although he became sympathetic he then didn't figure in the confrontation between the evil alien and the bravest contingent of townsfolk which was a letdown.

I also didn't get why Daufin names her antagonist Stinger - his various manifestations have a swinging tail with a ball studied with spikes on the end. I think it would have been more horrifying if they had possessed a stinging tail. All in all I rate this as an OK 2 stars… (mer)

This was definitely a book of two halves. It started off as a very absorbing story, setting up certain characters who were going to be swept up in the imminent disaster - which, given a scene where the President of the United States is being briefed on the latest Soviet incursions against a background of worldwide conflict (this was published in the late 1980s) - is looming nuclear war. Then the war breaks out and is vividly described with scenes of destruction and semi-miraculous survival of the previously introduced ordinary people (and an extraordinary child, the Swan of the title), which the author manages to make believable. As well as the positive characters, there are also negative ones and their journeys are also depicted.

However, the book started to veer into Stephen King/The Stand territory early on because a strange and terrifying character appears in New York just before the missiles land - something which seems ancient and evil, and which is responsible either directly or indirectly for a lot of the evil throughout history. This thing thrives on destruction and begins to chase one of the characters, an ex-bag lady called Sister who has a tragic past, because she has found an artefact of glass and jewels, created by the nuclear explosion. This ring shows her visions when she gazes at it, as well as lighting up in tune with her pulse, and it can perform similar things when handled by other people. But for Sister it shows her glimpses of things happening elsewhere, which she does not understand but which draws her in pursuit. Meanwhile the reader knows she is on the trail of Swan, without realising it. The creature is made uneasy by the artefact and follows her to destroy it (and not, as the book back cover blurb says, follows Swan who he doesn't even know about until much later in the story).

This first part of the book is an exciting narrative of the perils befalling the various characters, and also an absorbing insight into the various characters. Unfortunately everything changes when Part Two begins and suddenly it is seven years later and nuclear winter is in full sway. Swan and her guardian Josh are travelling with an ex-clown they met earlier, while Sister is now accompanied by Paul, a character who saved her in Part 1. A lot of people including Swan, Josh and Sister are beset by a strange malady: a growth which by now covers most of their faces making everyday life increasingly difficult. As well as various communities which try to eke out a living, some of them squalid and lacking in motivation, there are quasi-military groups which are wandering the former USA committing atrocities and stealing any stores of food and clean water held by the other survivors. One of these armies is led by the two negative characters seen in Part 1, and becomes an increasing background threat to any community trying to hold things together.

Without giving away too much, the various characters in Part 1 do eventually come together and clash. The second half of the book is, I'm afraid, glacially slow and I found it very difficult to maintain interest. The characters have just wandered around for seven years - in the case of Swan and her friends aimlessly. Why did she do nothing with her gift, made so abundantly clear in Part 1, until fairly late on in Part 2? It is also rather unbelievable that tinned food, bottled water and fuel are still as readily available as shown, especially as the plants all appear to be dead and no one can therefore grown food. I found it hard to believe even a relatively small number of people could have lived off stores for seven years, especially as travel isn't easy either. Storylines which had been set up early in Part 1, and which I had anticipated a big pay off from, eventually fizzled out. For example, when Sister finally gives the artefact to Swan, it starts to create an impervious armour of light over her but Swan takes it off, supposedly finding it 'too much' - in reality because the author would write himself into a corner if the heroine became immune to the numerous threats which she and her friends face at that point in the story - and it plays no part in the climax.

There is also some heavy handed moralising such as having the growths eventually break off the heads of those affected leaving the good people cured of their radiation burns etc and even beautiful while the bad people are now visibly the monsters they are inside. And it doesn't do to become fond of any of the lesser characters in the book, either human or animal, despite the fact that there is a rather unfeasibly happy ending. Which begins when the clouds that cloak the planet suddenly break up to allow the sun's lifegiving rays to reach the surface again - for no real reason. Given the extreme slowness of the greater part of the book - which runs to nearly 1000 pages - and the over the top number of psychopaths committing graphic atrocities - it's fair to show a realistic portrayal of how bestial some people would be but the inclusion of a criminally insane mechanical genius is just a bit too much - I ended up not enjoying the book much despite the promise of Part 1 and so can only give it an OK 2 star rating.… (mer)

Although I seem to recall enjoying a previous novel by this author, long before joining Goodreads, I'm afraid that wasn't the case with this book. The beginning was very promising: the Vietnam veteran who has fallen on hard times (the story is set in 1991) and is reduced to waiting around in punishing heat in a remote area outside town in the hope that someone will offer him work. But when he gets home from another day without an offer, a letter awaits from the bank threatening to impound his car and without that he can't reach any jobs he is offered. So he goes to the bank to beg for more time to make a payment but the man who used to cut him some slack has been 'let go' himself and a ruthless replacement installed. Things play out badly and the next thing he knows, he is on the run with a fifteen thousand dollar reward on his head.

So far so good, but then it all 'went south' from there with the introduction of a couple of peculiar bounty hunters one with an embedded twin in his chest and a not very good Elvis impersonator with a lapdog. The story became increasingly unconvincing and roped in just about every cliche of American Gothic. The final action shoot-em-up, reminiscient of a low budget movie was quite well written, but I found most of the characters one dimensional and the whole thing very predictable apart from the slightly odd ending. So I can only rate this as a 2-star OK read.… (mer)

A re-read after many years and not as good as I remember it although a workmanlike story. Billy is a part Native American boy who has inherited his gift of communicating with the trapped dead - those who have died violently and are unable to come to terms with their fear and pain to go onto the next part of their spiritual journey - and of taking on their suffering in order to release them. Because of this, he and his mother are pariahs in their community and face intolerance and occasional abuse at home. Meanwhile, another boy, Wayne, is the son of a TV evangelist and discovers he has a power of sorts to heal but only in a distorted manner and at great cost to himself, which leads him to fake it as the religious crusade burgeons and becomes more profitable and his role in it becomes more essential than his father's. Wayne develops an irrational fear of Billy and his mother who turn up at a meeting. Eventually the link between the two boys is revealed. I'm afraid I didn't find it particularly convincing.

The best part of the book is probably the section set in a carnival where Billy briefly finds employment in the fake 'contact the dead' sideshow that a man runs who has tracked Billy down hoping he can tell him whether his son's ghost really haunts his house as his (now committed to an asylum) wife believes. Though it ends inconclusively - it seems at first that the man who dramatically ends Billy's employment there must be important in the rest of the story, but that part of the plot is then dropped. Similarly, the shapechanging creature which causes Billy and his mother problems, and eventually targets Wayne, is apparently a legendary thing which feeds off the negative emotions of the trapped dead and resents their being freed, yet its existence is never adequately accounted for and this becomes a real problem in the final section where it takes on a more and more physical existence.

Meanwhile the story itself derails when a crime boss who has a terrible fear of germs starts to take over Wayne's organisation. I'm afraid the denoument in the desert tipped over into grand guignol when subtlety would have been far more effective. So only a 3 star read for me.… (mer)