Author Brian Keene
Year 2006
Series Stand Alone (Part of Labyrinth Mythos)
Pages 104
Reading Time 08 August 2012
Synopsis
All across the world, people suddenly vanish in the blink of an eye. From their cars during the rush hour commute. From the shopping malls. Their homes. Their beds. Even from the arms of their loved ones. Airline pilots. World leaders. Teachers. Parents. Children.Gone.Steve, Charlie and Frank were just trying to get home when it happened. Now they find themselves left behind, and wishing they'd disappeared, too. Trapped in the ultimate traffic jam, they watch as civilization collapses, claiming the souls of those around them. God has called his faithful home, but the invitations for Steve, Charlie and Frank got lost. Now they must set off on foot through a nightmarish post-apocalyptic landscape in search of answers. In search of God. In search of their loved ones. And in search of home.Deadite Press is proud to make Brian Keene's long out-of-print critically-acclaimed Take The Long Way Home available to readers once again Includes an introduction by New York Times-bestselling author John Skipp
Review
Brian Keene has done it again.
Yet another story that links to the Labyrinth Mythos. Deadite Press publish this novella that Keene wrote almost a half a dozen years before. And it was without time. It's a shame for the price. 6.99£ for a novella with only 80/90 pages it's kind of too much. I want to read two other novellas Deadite Press published but I don't know if I am going to pay a price for a novella without even 100 pages.
This was an interesting tale (vision) about the Christian myth of Rapture and Keene really knows how to give life to his characters. Unfortunally this novella ended in a clifhanger in such a way that I thought that this was the first part of a larger story (maybe another novella) but I don't think so. Well I have read most of the stories by him (some novellas excluded and short stories) and none was interlinked unless with small references like far-right movement "Sons of the Constituition" or the reference of the madmen Carlton to the Labyrinth that says that this is level 6. (Carlton as Carlton Mellick III)?
The characters are a sort bunch: Steve the Jew, Charlie the Gay & Frank a Polack.
The story itself is simple. A trumpet roars and most of the people on earth vanish. Of course there are car accidents, fires, plane crashes and such. After that incident the trio start heading to civilization so Steve can find his wife. As they went they meet other people with theories of what happenend and people who start behave like people would behave if chaos erupted in our mist. Everyone for themselve and the law of the jungle.
The ending itself it was as expected and as I said before I think a follow up would do nicely because I really wanted to know what happened to him and the world.
In the end it was a nice quick reading. To all who follow Brian Keene you should read it but if you want to read for the first time a Keene novel then try other novel like The Rising or City of the Dead (Well read them both because they are a duology) 8/10
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