The Totem: Complete and Unaltered: Amazon.ca: David Morrell: Books

Product Description

Ingram

Hoping that he has left behind his violent experiences as a Detroit cop, police chief Nathan Slaughter settles in a tiny Wyoming community only to find his peaceful plans shattered by an evil force that rises with the full moon. Reprint. PW. --This text refers to an out of print or unavailable edition of this title.

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Customer Reviews

15 Reviews

5 star:		(3)
4 star:		(3)
3 star:		(4)
2 star:		(5)
1 star:		(0)

Average Customer Review

3.3 out of 5 stars (15 customer reviews)

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1 of 1 people found the following review helpful

5.0 out of 5 stars Makes time pass much quicker!, Mar 30 2003

By

T-Rexx (France) - See all my reviews

This review is from: The Totem (Mass Market Paperback)

I bought this book for the same reason you tend to buy a book at a train station or an airport: to pass time. I actually found myself unable to put it back down. Although the story line is pretty thin, the meat on the bone comes from the density of all characters, largely an effect of good human descriptions by the author. Also, Morrell is capable of diffusing a sense of fear in the reader's mind by cleverly opposing the beauty of pristine nature to this insanity that human beings are typically capable of displaying. Suspense and mystery have the reader "eat" one page after the other to get quicker to the conclusion of the story.

On the negative side, the writing itself is littered with missing rational elements and sometimes contradictions that act pretty much as gaps and holes in the overall framework. Like this: how come that a sizeable group of human beings reverts back to such a wild, animal-like condition whereas still capable of speaking (the guy found wandering on the road) and living in a semi-orderly social organization? I saw this as a real contradiction. Where did the virus -or whatever rage-bringing factor- come from? Why wasn't Slaughter infected when cut across his cheek? Also, the conclusion of the book comes way too fast. The final "battle" runs through a mere couple of pages.

But overall, this is a real, good, fast-paced horror book.

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1 of 1 people found the following review helpful

2.0 out of 5 stars What happened to the horror novel?, Aug 25 1999

By A Customer

This review is from: The Totem (Mass Market Paperback)

This book is a five-star novel for about 75% of the way, then completely degenerates. I was alerted to it by a book called "the 100 greatest horror novels," which gave me some good reading tips (Dan Simmons' Song of Kali) and bad ones (Whitley Streiber's The Wolfen). This book was somewhere in between. The first 150 pages or so are wonderfully creepy and disturbing. It's amazing that Morrell could have given something as apparently benign as a camp of hippies living in the woods such a sinister aspect (Blair Witch Project parallels are perhaps in order--there's something out there in the woods, we don't know what it is, but don't go out there.) But right when things are getting really good, the horror ends, and we have, as another reviewer commented, an action/adventure tale. It comes as no surprise that Morrell is the creator of the Rambo character. In The Totem, it's zombies getting blown away, instead of "commies." Overall, a great beginning and then a big disappointment.

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2.0 out of 5 stars Not that great......from a great author, Nov 11 2003

By A Customer

This review is from: The Totem (Mass Market Paperback)

I went to Half Priced Books one day, while rummaging around I came across this book "The Totem" it was praised for being one of the best horror novels ever written!, Imagine my excitement!!!. The Totem starts off pretty good(comes across as a supernatural thriller) but as you reach the middle of the story, it becomes a medical disaster story and not a very good one at that. David Morrell is a terrific writer, this must be one of his first novels. (I wonder if while writing The Totem someone said while halfway through that if he writes a horror story he'll be pigeonholed and won't be able to write anything else and so decided to change it), Oh well... who cares just skip it.

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Most recent customer reviews

2.0 out of 5 stars May not be the worst book I ever read
Hmmm . . . How can a complete unaltered version of a book originally published in 1979 contain references to events occurring in 1993? Read more

Published on May 26 2003

2.0 out of 5 stars SLOPPY SECONDS
In the introduction to this so-called "horror" novel, Morrell explains quite egotistically that the original version of this book was rejected by his publisher and so Morrell... Read more

Published on Oct 17 2002 by Michael Butts