Customer Reviews

Bad Things

5 star:		(9)
4 star:		(4)
3 star:		(4)
2 star:		(1)
1 star:		(1)

 

 

I Thought this was very good. The thought of his Freakish Brother...gave me chills to read what he does. Good coverage from Youth to adult!! A Great disturbing..creepy read!!!

Tamara Thorne, Bad Things (Pinnacle, 1994)

I had thought the "classic" horror novel was dead. All the good stuff in the last decade or so has been splatterpunk, ecohorror, the horror of absence, and the like. The fine, atmospheric horror novel with one of the classic buggity-boos has been relegated to the short story, the Ravenloft novel, or (ugh) Anne Rice.

Or so I thought. Then I discovered the novels of Tamara Thorne. Bad Things is one of them. It's a novel about a haunted house, with shades of The Green Man thrown in for good measure. And it's a stunner.

Rick Piper, at the beginning of the story, is a good kid with a bad problem-he had inherited the family curse of being able to see the Greenjacks, little shadow-like creatures whose sole aim in life is to swap themselves with a human soul and inhabit the human's body. Only a few male members of the Piper clan can see them, and Rick is one of them. His twin brother Robin can't, and Robin, though basically another good kid, teases him about them mercifully. On Halloween during their seven-year-old year, Rick is attacked by Big Jack, the physical manifestation of the Greenjacks everyone can see, who can only form on Halloween night. In the process of saving Rick, Robin is knocked unconscious, and when he wakes up, he has become rather a nasty character. Has he been possessed by a greenjack, or did he suffer brain damage in the fall? The answer to this question haunts Rick, who eventually convinces himself (after fleeing the family estate to Las Vegas) that the greenjacks were all in his head, and that his brother was just an evil kid. All well and good until Rick, a widower in his forties with two kids of his own, wants to get his kids away from the easy, loose lifestyle of Vegas, and moves them back to the family estate, where he starts seeing little green men again...

Various pieces of Bad Things remided me, more than anything, of Paula Trachtman's extreme-horror classic Disturb Not the Dream (okay, it was extreme when it came out. Today it'd barely rate a PG if made into a movie. But that's beside the point). Big old haunted house, crazy relatives, secret passages, incest, dead animals (Tamara Thorne must really hate toy poodles, but then, doesn't everyone?), murky ponds, dead kids, ghosties, ghoulies, long-leggetie beasties, it's all here. While Thorne doesn't go to the same lengths Trachtman did, she adds on some wonderful twists, including the crossdressing best friend of the protagonist, Dakota, who plays combination psychotherapist and matchmaker for Rick; the old nanny, who has stayed on as caretaker and is one of the few people who really believes Rick is seeing ghosts; and, most notably, a refreshing absence of the token religious figure who faces the demons and is destroyed. (It's just too easy a cliché these days.) Thorne is one of those authors who can pen a five-hundred-page novel and have the reader turning pages and staying up late in the night to finish it over the course of a long weekend, and Bad Things definitely fits that mold. Thorne is one of the fantastic new voices in horror, and deserves to be heard by many more people than she has thus far. ****

the plot was interesting enough. and the opening was ok, though it could have been better. no problems in writing style, except i couldn't really respect some of the psychological changes. but then, we are taken to "today". and now we are talking little suspence. too little things are happening, T dwelling at some really irrelevant details, or making the plot go too slow. and that is first and foremost what this book is: sloooooooow. i couldn't believe how little was going on. "did i see something spooky?" asked after 60 pages or something, that's slower than any other horror i've read (this is counting from "today").anyway, don't read this if you don't care for slow novels.

... This book was such a disappointment to read. I picked it up based on the glowing reviews on this website. What a mistake! _Bad_Things_ reminded me of a low-budget, low-intellect horror film. It had a predictable plot, shallow characters, and little real atmosphere. Many characters, like Dakota or Aunt Jade were more like caricatures than characters. There were mere moments of promise in the novel. One scene that sticks out in my mind is Audrey's seduction of Ricky. It was funny and more entertaining than the main plot elements. If only more of the book could have been like that.

Most scenes showed little real character development. The Ewebean family was completely one-dimensional and no scenes with Aunt Jade showed any kind of motivation for her actions. Even characteristics like Ricky's affinity for metal artwork seem to only serve as a poor metaphor for Ricky's position and say nothing about his character or other aspects of his life. Can anyone honestly say Thorne's dialogue for her characters was believable? I can't...P>The changing point of view was really annoying as well and seemed like a poor writer's crutch. Instead of having to work to portray character through dialogue and actions, Thorne reveals their thoughts directly. What ever happened to the writer's maxim of "Show, don't tell"? They say that genre writers can get away with poor writing because their fans don't care. Thorne seems to support that. ...Read at your own risk.

One last note - Most of the plot elements in this book involved or suggested incest and child abuse. ... If Thorne is so interested in child abuse and incest, why not make that the real subject of her book instead of this pitable horror story? I think she may have done a better job with it.

In BAD THINGS by Tamara Thorne, the author combines the elements of nature folklore, Halloween, dysfunctional families, and a good bit of perverted sex to weave a dark supernatural thriller that centers on two brothers, Rick and Robin Piper (descendants of the Scottish Piper clan that has for centuries been able to see the mythical and mischievous "greenjacks" of British folklore). The story starts out during the early seventies in the Southern California community of Santo Verde where the Pipers have lived for several generations. Though Ricky's just a boy, he's the only one in the family who now has the sight and is able to see the nature spirits known as greenjacks. Not even his deformed, legless twin brother, Robin, is able to see these small, ethereal beings. Each year on All Hallows Eve, the small jacks join together to create the giant, Big Jack, out of broken limps and leaves. This hideous creature attempts to help them take over the body of any Piper child caught defenseless, or near death. Because of a Halloween prank gone terribly wrong, Robin is almost killed by Big Jack as he saves Ricky's life. Instead of dying, however, Robin's body becomes inhabited by one of the greenjacks, and he turns into an evil, manipulative creature whose one desire is to kill his brother. Jump to the present as Rick-who's now a widower with two children-decides to finally leave Las Vegas and return to his old home in California, hoping to offer his kids a better living environment. Rick's parents (supposedly murdered by a burglar) and his brother, Robin, have long been dead. With the help of Carmen and Hector (the housekeeper and gardener for the estate), he will once again face the nightmares of his childhood and have to overcome the fears that have haunted his life for so long. Rick will eventually have to put everything on the line in a final confrontation with Big Jack and with a murderous relative who won't be satisfied until he's finally dead. The power of BAD THINGS lies in the author's ability to make the reader care for Ricky Piper as a young boy and the insurmountable obstacles that he has to face when Robin's body is taken over by a greenjack. Rick's fun-loving brother turns into the purest form of evil, delighting in the misery, misfortune, and death of others. When the children's parents are mysteriously murdered and Aunt Jade moves in with her mean, hard-drinking husband and her sleazy teenage daughter, things grow progressively worse for the young boy. It takes little time for his brother to sexually seduce the older niece, as well as the aunt, impregnating both of them with his sense of evil. To my surprise and pleasure, this is where the author delivers the goods with full force, allowing the darkness within each of us to come out in all of its wicked manifestations. Tamara Thorne never holds back in her description of how evil and perverseness can choose to express itself. The only problem I had with the book was with Rick's character and his inability to face the obvious. I wanted him to have more backbone in order to deal with the situations as they arose. Fortunately, the characters of Carmen and Hector, Rick's pre-opt transsexual friend, Dakota, and Dakota's sister, Audrey, helped to balance out the main character's ineptness at perceiving danger and how to deal with it. I even found myself buying the greenjacks, though I had a hard time picturing "Big Jack" in my mind. Still, some of the scenes at night with Big Jack and the little jacks were scary enough to give me goose bumps. The author has a great way of carrying you right to the edge with anxiety whenever she puts children in danger. BAD THINGS is definitely a novel I would recommend to anyone seeking something to read at night when the blinds are closed, everyone's asleep, and strange noises are emanating from the other side of the house. This is the kind of book that would add greatly to your unease. In fact, I liked this novel so much, that I've already purchased three others (ETERNITY, THE FORGOTTEN & CANDLE BAY) by Tamara Thorne to read in the near future.

..she could have done a whole lot more and go more deeply into the greenjacks legend. She barely touched on the subject of the greenjacks. Rather, she wrote a book about twins, one is a cripple and the other is normal. The crippled twin almost dies and a greenjack takes over, therefore putting the other twin through hell. Another story about a hero who is a wuss and doesn't know when to kick out his crazy Aunt. My opinion? Read it only if you have nothing better to do.

Ricky and Robin are identical twins. Well, they are almost identical. Okay, they are identical except for the fact that Robin doesn't have legs. Now there is another difference as well: Robin has been possessed by a greenjack, a kind of hellish nature-sprite, and he wants Ricky to be possessed also. (Gabba gabba hey!)

Fast forward several years: Rick is all grown up now with children of his own. He moves his family back to the family home and to the greenjacks.

I absolutely loved this book! Tamara Thorne can be one sick (albeit creatively) puppy, and she must really dislike poodles, but this book was a great read. There is a demented humor undercurrent to the book that I enjoyed, and the book is genuinely creepy --- and, at times, disturbing. I'll never look at little old ladies and poodles the same way again, or want to have a house with secret passages and a big yard. Did I mention that I love this book?

Fast paced read. Keeps you entertained till the end. I couldn't put it down. Tamara's style of writing is wonderful. A truely enjoyable author. I will now continue to read the rest of her published works.

The premise is interesting and not your typical run of the mill horror novel, but is clearly obvious this is a new author learning her craft on the fly; the plot is original, but moves slowly at times and the dialogue is a bit contrived.

I am a big fan of Tamara Thorne and love her recent work. This was published back in the early 90's along with Thunder Road by Pocket books. Some of her great novels include Moonfall, Haunted, and Candlebay.

Thorne writes with passion and reckless abandon. She is one of the best female's in the field writing horror. There are very few that can keep up with her; including one Anne Rice. Thorne is a contemporary horror writer with an easy style and flow to it. She is the female version of Douglas Clegg; meaning she does not recycle the same old, same old. She comes up with creative, cool, ideas.

The only novel I haven't read is Eternity and I am looking for it. Her new upcoming novel in November, The Forgotten looks awesome.

Keep your eye on this great gal!! Oh and she responds to fan mail. SOME writers don't, writers that are too big for their britches and (hint) they call him the master of horror today and his name rhymes with Ring. I know, I know, he gets a lot if mail, but hey if wasn't for the fans, where would us (yes, I have an upcoming novel to be published at iuniverse.com)writers be?

The premise is interesting and not your typical run of the mill horror novel, but is clearly obvious this is a new author learning her craft on the fly; the plot is original, but moves slowly at times and the dialogue is a bit contrived.

I am a big fan of Tamara Thorne and love her recent work. This was published back in the early 90's along with Thunder Road by Pocket books. Some of her great novels include Moonfall, Haunted, and Candlebay.

Thorne writes with passion and reckless abandon. She is one of the best female's in the field writing horror. There are very few that can keep up with her; including one Anne Rice. Thorne is a contemporary horror writer with an easy style and flow to it. She is the female version of Douglas Clegg; meaning she does not recycle the same old, same old. She comes up with creative, cool, ideas.

The only novel I haven't read is Forgotten and I am looking for it. Her new upcoming novel in November? looks awesome.

Keep your eye on this great gal!! Oh and she responds to fan mail. SOME writers don't, writers that are too big for their britches and (hint) they call him the master of horror today and his name rhymes with Ring. I know, I know, he gets a lot of mail, but hey if it wasn't for the fans, where would us (yes, I have an upcoming novel to be published at iuniverse.com) writers be?