I feel vaguely guilty giving this a bad review, since the publisher's social media people encouraged me (and about a dozen others on Goodreads) to read it, and they were really helpful when I asked them questions.

As much as I've liked some of L. Ron Hubbard's sci-fi, this just didn't click with me at all. Written in a simplistic style, Fear has a broad, but promising, premise. But, alas, only pays off in a series of disjointed non-events, only some of which are interesting. It's "and then . . ." storytelling, and it frustrates.


There was a twist near the end that got me excited for the closure of the book, but it was a red herring, and the actual end was much less satisfying and very abrupt. ( )

Lavishly praised by great horror authors (Robert Bloch, Stephen King) and critics (Groff Conklin) alike, Fear failed to excite me. As a total stranger to Hubbard's fiction (though I had read his famous self-help tome Dianetics with an open mind), I approached the book with no prejudices and was, in fact, looking forward to an enjoyable experience on the basis of all the glowing reviews. Boy, was I disappointed.

The premise is workable, but it's essentially a short story premise; Hubbard padded the living shit out of Fear to stretch it to novel length. This was not an uncommon practice in the author's day, but here it hobbles the suspense he might have been able to maintain in a shorter format. The central character, a university professor who has just been fired, is unable to remember a four-hour period from the day his employment was terminated. This mystery could have been brought to a satisfactory resolution in the course of twenty-five or thirty pages, and in a story of that length, it would not have been necessary for Hubbard to venture too far afield from the initial premise. But the professor finds himself surrounded by whispering, mocking spirits, and when he is presented with a vast phantom staircase to descend in search of his hat (and the missing four hours), Fear suddenly ceases to be a half-hearted psychological horror novel and becomes a half-hearted fantasy quest novel. I abhor this kind of "anything goes" plotting; it's a momentum killer, and conveys the impression that the author's only goal was to fill up space on the page. (Which, in this case, was absolutely true.) When the denouement finally came, I was bored and no longer invested in the story.

I wasted my time on Fear. Don't waste yours. ( )

Di rado l'orrore nella letteratura narrativa popolare raggiunge punte agghiaccianti come in questo romanzo, ogni parola, ogni pagina grondano lacrime di paura, fremono di terrore. Il romanzo narra la tragica avventura di James Lowry che, in preda alla febbre contratta nello Yucatan durante scavi archeologici di grande impegno, ha la mente sconvolta dall'umiliazione, dalla gelosia, dall'amore per la sua povera Mary, dall'ossessione di un mondo demoniaco che la sua scomposta immaginazione gli raffigura con un'intensità lancinante; e le voci, le risate, le allucinazioni, durante la sua disperata ricerca d'una verità che il suo subcosciente respinge e rinnega, fanno di questo romanzo un autentico capolavoro di fantascienza "gialla". Per usare le espressioni dell'Autore stesso: "Si tratta di un romanzo totalmente logico, nonostante le apparenze contrarie". E' soltanto nell'ultima pagina che scopriamo che cosa abbia fatto James Lowry nelle quattro ore della sua vita che non riesce più a trovare, così come non trova più il cappello; soltanto allora le sue avventure nel mondo diabolico degli spettri e degli incubi assumono un senso logico definito. Ma non vogliamo dire di più, o le 4 ore della sua vita che James Lowry ha perdute non sarebbero più le 4 ore di Satana!

Stephen King considers this a classic but I just don't see it myself. Ray Bradbury called it "a true scare" but I didn't feel it. It was ok. ( )

Stephen King considers this a classic but I just don't see it myself. Ray Bradbury called it "a true scare" but I didn't feel it. It was ok. ( )