The Light at the End

De: John Skipp, Craig Spector

Narrado por: Chet Williamson

The 25th Anniversary Edition of the Original Splatterpunk Novel.

An adrenaline-charged tale of unrelenting suspense that sparks with raw and savage energy... The newspapers scream out headlines that spark terror across the city. Ten murders on the New York City subway. Ten grisly crimes that defy all reason -- no pattern, no m.o., no leads for police to pursue. The press dubs the fiend the “Subway Psycho”; the NYPD desperately seeks their quarry before the city erupts in mass hysteria. But they won't find what they're looking for.

Because they all think that the killer is human.

Only a few know the true story -- a story the papers will never print. It is a tale of abject terror and death written in grit and steel... and blood. The tale of a man who vanished into the bowels of the urban earth one night, taken by a creature of unholy evil, then left as a babe abandoned on the doorstep of Hell. Now he is back, driven by twin demons of rage and retribution.

He is unstoppable. And we are all his prey... unless a ragtag band of misfit souls will dare to descend into a world of manmade darkness, where the real and unreal alike dwell in endless shadow. A place where humanity has been left behind, and the horrifying truth will dawn as a madman's chilling vendetta comes to light...

Filled with gripping drama and harrowing doomsday dread, The Light at the End is the book that ushered in a bold new view of humankind's most ancient and ruthless evil; a mesmerizing novel from two acknowledged masters of spellbinding suspense.

©1986 John Skipp & Craig Spector (P)2012 David N. Wilson

Greatest Horror Novel Ever

Or close enough. It should rate up there with all-time classics from Frankenstein to It. And exactly the right narrator. Just try and ever forget Rudy Pasco and Joseph.

Entertaining

While the story lacked anything original, it was still an entertaining Vampire story including all the cliches. The narration and acting are superb.

Ugly Vampires

What I liked: Narration. Very clear, very even, flows.
The setting. Authors describe NYC extremely well, Always see it clearly in the mind's eye.
Concept. The concept of the vampire plot is good, and original for the time it was written.
Technique. The writing is excellent, you always know what the characters want and where they are in space, and what they look like. Descriptions are super vivid, cinematic.

What didn't work so well for me: Too many characters. Very difficult to keep track of them all. And they all seem to have the same weight in the story. So storytelling here suffers from clutter. I get why the authors do it that way, they want it to seem like a horror movie, where characters are introduced just to then get killed. This adds to suspense and dread in a movie, but in a book it doesn't work as well. Still, I think this book will be very satisfying to certain readers. It is dated firmly in the 1980s, and there are references to 80's popular culture that may be over the heads of younger readers. A couple of respectfully rendered LGBTQ characters.

Loved it

If you like your vampires gritty and violent this is for you
Well narrated and a splatterpunk classic highly recommended
I received a free review audiobook and voluntarily left this review

Blood, Murders, & Suspense

A great, grungy vampire story that keeps you on the edge until the end. The narrator does an excellent job bringing all the characters to life.