Most helpful customer reviews
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2.0 out of 5 stars
Oktober, in an off year, Nov 11 2003
I read and enjoyed Stephen Gallagher's RED, RED ROBIN, so I was looking forward to getting into his OKTOBER novel. Unfortunately, I was disappointed. RED, RED ROBIN did a much better job of placing us inside the heads and minds of its characters. OKTOBER seemed much more interested in moving its players around the European settings, and I felt that the book was the poorer for it.The story begins with an ordinary man being injected with an experimental drug. Literally brought back from death, Jim Harper is now dealing with the strange side effects. Along the way, he meets various characters loosely related to what happened to him as he attempts to unravel the mystery surrounding the drug and the company that created it. He encounters various stock conspiracy scenarios, and none of them feel particularly inspired. OKTOBER is nominally a thriller, but it just feels like it's going through the motions. The book never lets us build up towards anything, as the characters are just drifting through the narrative. There are just too many aimless story elements present. There's a computer hacking subplot that goes nowhere. A possible blackmail scheme just fizzles. And the experimental drug side effects (greatly hyped by the back cover) are mere window-dressing, and, while some of the hints dropped about them are intriguing, they ultimately lead nowhere. While I can't say that I liked the book as a whole, there were definitely enjoyable pieces of it. Gallagher's prose is quite effective, and there are some passages that sparkle. In particular, a handful of dream sequences are shockingly vivid, and reminded me of why I liked RED, RED ROBIN so much. Unfortunately, there weren't enough of these to resurrect the book for me, yet there were enough of them for me to give Gallagher another chance.
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4.0 out of 5 stars
Thriller/horror synopsis, Nov 9 2003
Jim Harper had never heard of EPL- Epheteline - a drug which had been on the market for several years. But he was about to in a way which would change his life...forever.
Harper hurt ,his shoulder wrenched ina fall on a ski slope . he tried to make his way to the first aid station , but he turned in the wrong direction and stepped into a room he should never have seen. Then he came close to dying , his body shocked by a jolt from a high-voltage electric baton. That's when someone though to give him the injection. That's when Harper's nightmare began.
In a hospital ward in Southeast Asia , twelve men lie unmoving in their beds. When one begins to moan, they all do; when one is hurt they all scream.
In a kennel in Switzerlard , caged dogs pace and growl, baring their fangs when the caretaker enters the room.
In England, Jim Harper begins on the road to recovey, plagued by dreams and watched by people who cannot afford to let him out of their sight.Harper has survived the overdose of EPL, but everyone would be happier if he had died. They could have covered up his death; his life is much too obvious. And now, Harper wants answers.
Oktober is a frightening journey into a world of greed and lies a world in which the cover-up is not only a way of life , but one planned before anything happens. Step by horrifying step, Jim Harper unravels what has been done to him, and then designs the perfect act of vengeance, an act that teeters on the brink of madness.....
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