The Haunted Forest Tour

By: Jeff Strand, James A. Moore

Narrated by: Joe Hempel

Length: 8 hrs and 55 mins

Publisher's summary

Ladies and gentlemen, welcome to the Haunted Forest Tour! Sit back, and enjoy a smooth ride in air-conditioned comfort as your heavily armored tram takes you through nature's most astonishing creation. The forest is packed to capacity with dangerous and terrifying creatures of all shapes, sizes, and hunger levels, and you'll get to observe these wonders in complete safety.

Howl with a werewolf! Gaze into the glowing eyes of a giant spider! Look right through a spooky ghost! See horrific monsters you couldn't even imagine, only inches away from you! Things with fangs, things with claws, things with dripping red jaws - you'll see them all!

Not thrilling enough? Well, it's Halloween, and so we're offering a very special tour through the Haunted Forest. The new route goes deeper into the woods than any civilians have ventured before, and you're guaranteed to get a good scare! Rest assured that every possible security precaution has been taken. The Haunted Forest Tour has a 100 percent safety record, and technical difficulties are unheard of. You will be in no danger whatsoever. 

We promise.

©2007 James A. Moore and Jeff Strand (P)2018 Tantor

WOW, just WOW. Great book!!!!

Jeff Strand and James A Moore have crafted one of the most fun gore feats ever. The body count is enormous. The Monsters are very interesting and original. I liked the Harpies. This is one ride that every horror fan should take.
The action is nonstop, no rest for the wicked or the innocent. Graphic groo and blood and guts and brains and eyeballs and...so wonderfully fun.
The best part is that you really feel a connection to the characters and want them to be safe. You understand the anguish Christopher feels, you can empathize with the choices Lee makes. Just great writing.

Joe Hempel once again brings all he has for an amazing performance. There was not a single character in here that did not have a unique voice or accent or nuance to it. Amazing job!!!

Right up my alley, but . . .

I know I will take a beating for this, but I don't feel like this was one of Strand's best. I usually love his books, but this one was disappointing for a number of reasons. The narration by Joe Hempel was fantastic as usual, but story wise, for me it was too much too soon. There was no suspense and no build up because everything just hit the fan right off the bat. We hardly even knew the characters before people started getting killed off in mass quantities. It was like, oh, someone else is being eaten by a monster two seconds after the last guy? Okay. In other words, no tension at all.

Character development was also comparatively bland by Strand's usual standards. There were a lot of characters here (which is good given the rate they die), but I didn't feel connected to most of them. Maybe that was intentional, to ease the disappointment at losing them? If so, I would call that part a failed experiment, because it didn't work for me.

All in all, this felt a bit like one of those late night black and white monster movies, except with 10,000 different monsters instead of one, and on speed. I guess I would still recommend you listen to it, as long as you don't expect much.

So much fun!

Whereas I was a little surprise by the overwhelming sexism... I really enjoyed this book!
I would listen to Joe Hemple read the phone book. And despite all of the monstery goodness and ripping apart of humans, there were also parts that actually made me laugh. Very entertaining, very worth the credit, very worth the time. It was like Jurassic Park on steroids.

Great roller coaster ride, satisfying ending!

I wasn't sure what to expect when I started this book. I was pleasantly surprised. Among all the gore, I found myself rooting for the characters, and anxiously awaiting their fate. Well crafted, there are not a lot of slow moments. And I felt the ending tied everything up nicely. It's a book that really holds your attention all the way through!

a fun ride what can I say.

so if your intro horror movie like me you can appreciate this tale. now full disclosure there is little suspense but a lot of thrill and action. Think of aliens instead of alien.

Ugh

This is like a cringe inducing version of Goosebumps for adults. The writing is elementary, the storytelling is childish and dull. This sounds more like video game dialogue than actual literature.

Not Happy.

A great premises that didn’t quite deliver

I really like the idea behind this story: a “haunted forest” just appears out of nowhere and after the initial shock the people who happened to own the land it sprouted out of turn it into a tourist attraction without ever really understanding what it is or why it’s there. It has air of ‘magical realism’ where the incredible and fantastic is quickly accepted as reality and eventually considered mundane in a surreal kind of way. Unfortunately as the story progresses and the mystery of the forest is revealed that quality disappears with it and the plot becomes fairly generic and unremarkable. The only other thing this story has going for it is a considerable number of descriptions of monsters killing or at least trying to kill a lot of hapless victims - so if you're into that than this book might be for you.

One additional critique, which I normally wouldn’t make but it really stuck out to me here, is that I was very aware a man (or more accurately two men) wrote this story. Pretty much all the female characters are gratuitously sexualized by the male characters (Mark and Hannah being by far the most tedious example). The male characters never (or at least rarely) actually express these feelings but since most the story is told from the perspective of various male characters you get a ton of it through their inner monologue and after awhile it just started to wear on me. Even when a situation is entirely unsexy the potential sexual nature of the situation has to be pointed out. For example: ‘Normally Ben wouldn’t have minded Sally falling on top of him like that, but the bloody stump of her severed head sort of spoiled the moment.’ This isn’t actually from the story, but there is a lot of stuff like this. I don’t know if the writers were playing off of that whole “men think about sex every 7 seconds” thing/myth for authenticity or what, but I found this theme incredibly annoying and immersion breaking.

In terms of performance it was fine, the reader’s voice was good though occasionally a bit snarky in tone and didn’t do much to add additional horror to the overall story.

Ultimately if you are really into many different monsters killing people over and over again (Cabin in the Woods style) then this story might be for you, otherwise you’ll probably be disappointed.

Great performance- okay story.

Performance is very good, I just lost interest about 4-5 hours in. Maybe I had high expectations for the book, maybe i imagined it was going to be more interesting. Idk. The performance is great, and the story has a strong start but somewhere along the way I just lost interest. I hate to give a bad review and since the story does start strong I gave it 3 stars, the performance I have a 5. Very well done.

fun and exciting adventure

Very creative and action packed with great twist and turns. Would turn my hair white to even see a sketch of some of the creatures. Very fun and spooky read.

Fun story, great premise, quick listen.

This was a fun audio book to listen to in the pre Halloween season. A little over the top but fun premise with solid characters. Not for the faint of heart and those unwilling to suspend their disbelief.

Talk about a terrifying tour!

This book answered all my requests for a seriously scary horror. It's one of those books you can read, knowing you're at home, safe, and it doesn't really exist! I think if I'd been there, I'd have had a heart attack before anything else could happen to me! I read a reviewer on Amazon, and I totally agree. After reading the tour guide blurb on the cover, I just had to read it! I love haunted houses etc, but that is something else! There were parts which made me cry, without giving away any spoilers! I also really like Jo Hempel, the fact I think he has a nice voice aside, he is a very good narator, and he really brings this to life, and you could almost believe you were watching it all happen. Although nowa days with health and safety, I don't think this would ever happen in real life, even if such a thing existed! I asked myself before reading, would I go on this tour? Answer is, probably not, as I'm blind so wouldn't see anything, but would I even if I could? To be honest, I don't care how safe their trams are, answer is probably still no! You want a horror book which doesn't skimp on the detail, read this. It doesn't take long to get started! I would definitely recommend this book to anyone who loves horror! But don't read before sleep! Enjoy!

Eh

I ended up returning it. I loved the premise - it's novel and interesting. Unfortunately every female 'character' (by which I mean that they have zero personality and are walking stereotypes) is rated on her looks and nothing more. Every male character is either an objectifying ass or an idiot, it's stereotypes only right from the start. There's also an unhealthy dose of fatphobia in there too. Either the writer has no idea how to write three dimensional characters or this was badly written satire on the objectification of women. Unfortunately it seems likely to be the former. I'd give it a miss.

Not a ghost story

What can I say? I enjoyed it but not really my sort of thing. My fault I should have read the synopsis. But if you are into monsters, other dimensional transference, plots of world take over then you are in for a rare treat. And what ever you don't get too attached to attached to characters!

Violent to the point of numbness

I like a good gritty story with the right amount of violence and the right amount of character development, AND the right amount of monsters. But that's the thing, there's too many monsters, so many that it's hard to remember all of them and all of them are so ungodly violent to the point of absurdity that the horror is completely muted.

Now that might seem odd to say, but there is a point where the threat of violence and death happens so much that it just stops meaning anything and you just become numb, you stop caring for the characters 'cause they die too quickly to really connect with them and you stop caring about the monsters 'cause so many just get thrown in all at once that it fogs the mind and stops being scary.

There isn't enough quiet moments to really let any one emotion or any sense dread sink in which is shame. I liked the idea of this story and it had a strong start, but after 3 hours in it lost its appeal.

A little corny but enjoyable

I honestly picked this one at random it sounded a little corny but I honestly enjoyed it, the narration was good. I would chalk it up to a nice simple listen.

The Jurassic Park for horror fans

This book was very cool. So long as you think horror stories with a dark sense of humour and grizzly dememberments are cool. I do. If you like Evil Dead 2 then you'll probably enjoy this. I'm not saying Evil Dead 2 is anything like this book. only that it would have the same amount of blood and gore and probably leave you smirking wickedly from time to time. Enjoy.

Nothing more than a very poor man’s ‘Jurasic Park’

One should always be balanced in a review, start with the positives and then finish with the negatives and after that sum up so here are the positives. it ended. End of positives. This book was drivel from start to finish. utterly implausible and Halloween? Oh please. A colaboration apparently, so why didn’t the authors colaborate? Why didn’t they compare notes so that, for instance offices didn’t suddenly become office? Plenty of blood and gor but the people did all this in one day neither getting hungry or thirsty or needing to take care of any bodily functions? You’d have to be a pretty stupid person not to see the holes in this plot. there are as many holes in the plot as there were trees in the haunted forest if you ask me.

Great, fun listen

Loved the book, the narrator was great! Lots of fun monsters. Can highly recommend!

A tour for history

I’m so glad I randomly stumbled across this book through Goodreads and seeing what my favourite authors have read recently.

What a journey this book was. Honestly didn’t know what to expect every chapter was interesting and unravelled more of the story. I didn’t know how they were going to close the book I actually thought on a few chapters that it had ended because it would have been an amazing cliff hanger for a second book or if it was a tv series (way to much to fit into a film so I’d want it as a tv series if anyone ever wanted to make something so grotesque)

Narration meh it was good and there was passion and intrigue behind the voice but I feel like some voices were to similar or actually changed as the book went on

The story was fantastic. 5+ stars I was entertained from the sample to reading it completely
Overall it’s a fantastic book worth the read if you want to go on a horror filled tram ride through unimaginable horrors

Very dark, but enjoyable monster-romp.

Disclaimer: I was provided a copy of the book free of charge in exchange for an honest review.

For once, I was pretty sure what I'd get when I started this book, and I was not disappointed.

Trapped in a forest that appeared suddenly several years ago when a tour goes wrong, the tourists have to try and survivor relentless attacks while seeking a means of escape.

Now there's not a lot to this book beyond the running, screaming and dying. Characters are not hugely deep or developed and, while there is more going on than first appears the case, the overall story was quite shallow, but this is not to say it's a bad thing.

For one, the monsters are brilliantly described and imaginative. I found myself thinking of the Devil-Man Manga at times due to the vastly different types of creature and they always entertained. Secondly, while not all well developed, there were one or two characters I was rooting for, and the book pulls no punches on who lives and who dies.

All this screaming, and crying and dying would be irrelevant without a good narrator and Joe Hempel does a fabulous job of voices everyone, be them a child, man or woman or terrifying creature. Each one is identifiable and different and he presents emotions really well making for a great thrill ride.

In the end though, this book will come down to taste. If you like horrific deaths and an oft sense of hopelessness then this book is for you but, if you expect a Jurassic Park style tale of danger and whimsy, this may not be for you.

Thoroughly enjoyable jaunt through a monster infested forest and, being a standalone, has a very clear story that it fulfills very nicely.