Worst Nightmares

Worst Nightmares is by Shane Briant. BookExpo, and his publisher would like you to believe he is the next Stephen King. We spent most of the time in line for his autograph and book joking about Tommyknockers (worst King novel), and wondering how good this horror novel was going to be. The answer? Not very. I had the killer pegged twenty pages in (beating Tommyknockers by about a 100, that book was too long), and I was annoyed with the actions of the main characters by, oh, half way through. Joe Hill is the next Stephen King, for my money, though if Duma Key is any indication, we aren't going to need a new Stephen King for a long while. Okay, so the basic plot is an author is giving a manuscript by a crazy homeless looking guy called Worst Nightmares, which the author finds out actually details the gruesome murders of several L.A. citizens. When the author finds out the murders are real, and watches the crazy homeless looking guy die, he decides to pass the journal as his own fiction work. Imagine the problems that arise. Got it? Yeah, that's exactly what happens. I'm a fan of horror, done well, but these characters were so uninteresting that I can't remember their names, the plot was cookie cutter, and as I said, I had the real killer pegged within twenty pages (that may give it away a little bit, I'm sorry). If you want good horror, go early King (though as I said Duma Key was awesome, and his new one coming out is supposed to be ah-mazing), middle Koontz (he's new stuff is completely unreadable, I'm sorry). or Joe Hill, his stuff is creepy.