John Saul
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Subjects -> Literature & Fiction -> Authors, A-Z -> ( S ) -> Saul, John
Subjects -> Literature & Fiction -> Genre Fiction -> Horror -> General
Subjects -> Literature & Fiction -> Genre Fiction -> Horror -> General AAS
Customer Reviews:
Total reviews: 48
Average rating: 3.5 of 5
One of Saul's more impressive novels 4 out of 5 stars.
2 of 2 people found this review helpful.
I had my doubts about The Presence early on. Although the Hawaiian setting was a new one, the subject of human experimentation on children by a mysterious group of seemingly unfeeling men is rather standard fare for Saul. The book started off slowly, moving from an unexplained discovery of a mysterious geode off the shores of the big island of Hawaii to a rather bland account of the move by anthropologist Katharine Sundquist and her son Michael from New York to Maui. Brought there to study the remains of a peculiar skeleton found near the volcanic slopes of Haleakala, Katharine soon finds herself in a living nightmare, one which threatens to take the life of her son. She has only the help of new boss and former flame Rob Silver in learning the truth about her new employer Takeo Yoshihara. Young Michael suffered asthma as a youth and had worked hard to overcome the condition, setting his sights on joining the track team in defiance of the ailment that had made his life a solitary one. On the island, he wins a spot on the team and makes several friends very quickly, but after the group sneaks off for an ill-advised night-time scuba dive, Michael's world spins out of control. As tragedy begins to strike his friends, Michael himself begins to struggle once again for each breath he takes. The problem is not asthma this time, however, but something much more dangerous-and unnatural. The story of Michael's unhappiness over the move to Hawaii, his introduction to and contact with his friends on the track team, and Katharine's own work with Rob Silver on the unidentified skeleton are rather rough going. The plot doesn't seem to move very well, and the characters are not very compelling. Once things start moving, though, and the secrets at the heart of the plot begin to emerge, the novel becomes quite gripping and fascinating. There are some rather farfetched and seemingly unnecessary elements attached to the storyline, but they do not harm one's enjoyment of the book. All in all, the whole package is wrapped more tightly than many of Saul's other novels, leaving me with few unexplained answers at the conclusion. It's a well-told story, although one aspect of the denouement seems just a little too convenient. The setting, based on Saul's own familiarity with the island of Maui, is rich and vibrant, adding further energy to the tale. The basic idea of The Presence, secret experimentation on unsuspecting children, is nothing new, but this novel has legs to stand on its own two feet. The main characters eventually seem convincingly real, the science Saul evokes does not come across as utterly implausible, and the conclusion succeeds in tying together most of the loose ends scattered throughout the text. For my money, this is one of Saul's more impressive novels.
Editorial Review:
Beyond the sparkling Hawaiian beaches, masked by the deceptive beauty of the rainforest, evil awaits sixteen-year-old Michael Sundquist and his mother, Katharine, an anthropologist who has come to the Islands to study the unusual skeletal remains unearthed on the volcanic flanks of Haleakala, Maui.
Yet far below the black depths of the Pacific a mysterious substance snakes through undiscovered fissures in the ocean floor, as nature itself seems to portend the terror to come.
