| Title | : | The Freakshow |
| Author | : | |
| Rating | : | |
| ISBN | : | 0843958278 |
| ISBN-10 | : | 9780843958270 |
| Language | : | English |
| Format Type | : | Mass Market Paperback |
| Number of Pages | : | 324 |
| Publication | : | First published January 1, 2007 |
The townspeople can't resist the lure of the tawdry spectacle, though it isn't mere morbid curiousity that draws them into the freakshow's inescapable web. What waits for them behind this curtain are hardly the usual performers and tricks. The main attractions are living nightmares, the acts center on torture and slaughter . . .and the stars of the show are the unsuspecting customers themselves.
The Freakshow Reviews
-
Story 4.5/5
Narration 5/5
I liked this story very much!
But, Heather, was too exasperating. -
Having recently read
Depraved, loving it from start to finish, I had high hopes for THE FREAKSHOW.
Although significantly diminished, those high hopes weren't entirely dashed with this solidly three-star read.
The silky-smooth invisible prose of DEPRAVED is replaced with a less finessed staccato style I found much less enjoyable to read. Also made clear by this book was that the art of getting right into the action and staying there throughout is one not easily mastered, as THE FREAKSHOW cranks up the insanity a little too fast to orient the reader sufficiently and get them fully engaged.
This is a freewheeling novel to be sure.
While the imaginatively profane technicolor cartoon insanity so successfully deployed in DEPRAVED is fully present and accounted for here, it's all so untethered from reality that it packs little punch.
That being said, THE FREAKSHOW is a quick and undemanding read with one genuinely wonderful scene involving a car, a few other assorted ingenious bits, and not a whole lot else to offer.
If you're just getting started with Bryan Smith, start with DEPRAVED instead.
THE FREAKSHOW, although a less than perfect novel, has in no way diminished my desire to continue working my way through the rest of Smith's wonderfully wicked oeuvre. -
The Flaherty Brothers Traveling Carnivale and Freakshow has come to the quiet town of Pleasant Hills, Tennessee. This is not your average Freakshow by any means. Evil has come to take root and slaughter all the residents. As citizens of Pleasant Hill are picked off a small group has formed to protect their town from creatures not of this world. Smith has done it again. He created a world for splatterpunk fans like only he can. Never a dull moment as the action climbs at a rapid pace. I didn't even care who won the epic battle for control because I was enjoying the story on both sides. Excellent read.
đ»đ»đ»đ» -
I'm a sucker for carnie books but still haven't found one as good as Katherine Dunn's Geek Love.
Sadly I've given up on this one halfway through as it wasn't getting any better. It's just filled with disposal characters who we don't know enough about to care when they're getting tortured or doing nasty things for carnie/aliens who enjoy eating, tearing apart, experimenting, etc. on humans. The plot was thin, the writing not so good and the characters just weren't compelling. I have too many books sitting here waiting to be read to struggle with this one any longer. -
A couple of years ago I was a member of a horror board where Bryan Smith occasionally posted. That was good enough for me to seek out some of his work and I soon became a fan of the man's nasty, ultra-violent writing in which beautiful people were often perpetrators and victims of heinous crimes and unspeakable tortures. I had a brief exchange with Smith in which I asked him about his novel
Depraved, at the conclusion of which someone else weighed in with a query about The Freakshow. Smith's response was surprisingly candid as he remarked (and I'm paraphrasing here) he wrote this one at a particularly dark time in his life and did not want to think too much more about it.
Wait. A book the author is too disturbed to talk about unless he has to? Yep, this one shot straight to the top of my "To Read" list.
Picking up after madness has descended on small-town America in the form of a travelling freakshow staffed by hellish monsters from another dimension with the goal of slaughtering everyone and replacing them with assimiliations that will one day seek to take over our world, The Freakshow is a depraved and disgusting piece of fiction ... and one that I found all the more enjoyable for its insistence on pulling no punches.
Where other authors would spend 200 pages detailing characters before subjecting them to the soon-to-be-arriving freakshow, Smith fleshes out his characters while they are pursued, captured, dismembered, raped and murdered by the freaks who cavort about the small town of Pleasant Hills. This makes for an immediately arresting read, so much so that the entire tone of the novel is set within the first ten pages. If these opening pages disturb you overly much, my recommendation would be to discontinue reading and pick up something more cerebral in nature. But if you dig the early taste you get, then strap yourself in, because Smith wreaks carnage as he slowly lays out the agenda of the freaks, and details a small rebellion brewing within their ranks. Meanwhile, main character Heather dumps her sadistic boyfriend and then has to survive within Pleasant Hills as she tries to rescue her disabled mother ...
The horror is full on; the gore graphic. Yet the tone somehow flirts with being so pulpy it's hard to take any of it overly seriously. I read this one like I read creature features - that is, so far outside the bounds of possibility that nothing really offended. Be aware however, there are some extremely troubling themes in this one (including rape and necrophilia), so my capacity in this instance to switch off my moral barometer may not to extend to all.
Which is to say that though is may not be for everyone, Smith's The Freakshow is a nasty, perverse trip into the sordid mind of a talented pulp writer, and earns this reviewer's recommendation.
4 Deflated Clown Monsters for The Freakshow. -
I read this book a few years ago and I highly recommend it to horror readers.
The citizens of a small town can't wait to attend the freakshow, but they have no idea they're going to be the acts. No one is safe as the freaks in the travelling show surround the town and proceed to go door to door slaughtering men, women, and children, or forcing them to participate in their bloody carnival. Admittance will only cost you one finger.
Disturbing images, a claustrophibic vibe, and a wicked woman ringleader make this a must-read novel. -
Given the title "The Freakshow" and according to the synopsis on the back cover the plot would center around The Flaherty Brothers Traveling Carnivale and Freakshow and the horror it brings to town when it arrives- I thought mayhap I would be in for a good Halloween week read. Alas, the latter was not to be as it turned out there was very little freakshow in this book, and all in all I was in for an awful read and severe disappointment on all counts. I can offer you no reasons why you should read this book- not a one. Please realize the only reason there is one star above this review is that goodreads does not allow for a zero star rating- which they should for books like this.
I have never read any Bryan Smith before and after this outing I will be staying far away from any book that bears his name, as quite simply he is quite the talentless writer. Mr. Smith's writing lacks even a rudimentary style, no nuance, and was so heavy handed I found it a chore to turn the pages. The plot and the pacing were also both poorly executed. The only time that Mr. Smith manages to write with anything even resembling style or flair is when he is handling the many scenes of gore porn that far too often populate the novel(most of these scenes are highly misogynistic as another reviewer on the site quite accurately stated). One scene involves attempted necrophilia, there are two scenes of savage rape involving the female lead (once by a car's gear shift turned monster snake and another by a freak's detachable head) in both scenes as her mind is being controlled she is also forced to enjoy the rape (so it is a psychic rape as well)- I found the latter to be particularly tasteless. I am all for horror and violence and am rarely bothered by them, but herein they were the very definition of gratuitous- all the violence existed for the sake of violence and nothing else. To my way of thinking violence is only effective when you on some level care about the characters involved, when there is some sort of emotional resonance, but these scenes of violence occur to cardboard character cut outs, so there is not one iota of emotional impact. Hence, I feel the term gore porn is exactly the right one to describe the vast majority of this book- as this book is the equivalent of a porn film but instead of meaningless sex between people you have no connection to, you are treated to scenes of meaningless, over the top, and often sexualized gore involving characters you have no connection to.
The plot of the novel was actually one of my largest complaints because when I opened this book I was expecting a creepy tale of a freakshow full of the oddities of nature that Tod Browning populated his classic 1932 feature with. Instead I was given something all together different, which is often a good thing, but not when it came to this book. The freaks as it turned out were few and far between, and the ones we get are pretty pedestrian in nature. I'm sorry a two-headed lady (one head gorgeous and one head hideously deformed), a really tall man that looks devilish, deformed giants, men who look like pirates, and metal spiders do not a freakshow make.
Freak example number one:
"A big man who looked like a seventeenth-century pirate grinned at them, displaying a mouth full of bleeding gums and rotting teeth. He was tall, well over six feet, and had to weigh at least three hundred pounds. He wore a ratty shirt that might have once been white, and a black leather vest over it. A black eye patch covered his right eye."
Wow, so a dirty pirate with bad dental work, how utterly scary that is Mr. Smith, please oh please give me more.
Freak example number two:
"It looked like Quasimodo on steroids, a huge, hulking, humpbacked thing."
Oh, how scary! I'd also like to mention Mr. Smith it is rather redundant to use Quasimodo and humpbacked in the same sentence, as in case you were not aware Quasimodo was... oh nevermind!
Freak example number three:
"The little clown looked more like some horror show nightmare than a jolly circus performer. He was freakishly round through the middle. Not fat, but round, as if someone had shoved a beachball down his throat and into his stomach...the red, white, and black clown paint obscuring his true features wasn't really paint... The colors looked fainter, bleached into the flesh, as if they were the natural colors of the clown's face."
Okay, so a fat round clown with a painted face, okay I am now scared... well I would be if I suffered from Coulrophobia.
Mr. Smith dreamed up a plot that was one part ridiculous, one part hackneyed, and one part daft. The one part ridiculous: the freaks are actually creatures from another dimension hell bent on taking over the Earth after years of warfare have reduced their homeworld to an uninhabitable nothingness. The one part hackneyed: one freak feels bad for no apparent reason and aids his human pet so that she can bring about the downfall and utter destruction of all freaks by taking the security robot craft on an interdimensional trip to destroy the freak's home dimension. One part daft: the plan of world domination by the freaks involves arriving in a small town, killing everyone in town, and then installing clones to take their place. That's right one small town at a time is how they plan to take over the world, and once all the clones are in place the "freaks" will rule- in about a thousand years (if no one catches on that is). I'm certain that Mr. Smith thought this all sounded really good in his head, and obviously there was a publisher who believed in this concept enough to publish it, but damned if I can figure out why! I mean Ed Wood's "Plan Nine from Outer Space" is a brilliant plan compared to the one featured in this book, and one that had a better chance of a success as well.
So we have a plot that is laughably stupid and no freaks to speak of, but even that could be overcome if the interdimensional beings and human protagonists had been crafted with any skill, but unfortunately they were not in the least. All of the characters were wooden and shallow with absolutely no life. The main female protagonist, Heather and her abusive would be serial killer boyfriend Craig, are Z movie quality bad. Heather we learn only stays with Craig, who has threatened to cut her into little pieces if she was ever unfaithful, because the sex is dynamite. We also learn that he loves to watch crime specials on A&E and mumble to himself that he could do better. All I can say is that must be some amazing sex to stay with someone who is clearly mentally disturbed and mayhap homicidal. We also come to find out that Heather has a deep dark secret from her past with Craig that she fears will come to light, and when it finally does at the end of the novel I laughed out loud at the reveal (a liquor store robbery, oh the horror, the horror). There are some other human characters in the book, and they are drawn in the same inept manner as Heather and Craig, i.e. crude stick figures on a napkin. The "freaks" are just as crudely drawn as the human protagonists the only exception is there are really few that are developed at all, and by few I mean one. Again we really don't have that many freaks, the few we meet make an occasional shock appearance, but they usually fail at even that. None of the freaks are given anything but a thumbnail sketch of a description and zero in the characterization department- not even the one with a heart of gold who is working with his human pet to bring the freakshow down. The only "freak" truly given any page time is the two-headed woman, rather simply described as "something from a Vargas painting, an exaggerated man's idea of the feminine ideal," with the exception she has two heads- one that matched her beautiful form and another "withered and hideous." This freak is an artlessly handled caricature of a villain which is unfortunate as with some care and planning the latter could have truly been interesting (but the latter could be said time and again about many elements of this or any other bad book). As it turned out she was simply like all the other freaks just a simple vehicle for the violence Mr. Smith relishes in painting the book red with.
Another main issue I had with the book was the dialogue as it was painful to read when it was good, and laughable when it was bad. Truly, the dialogue was some of the worst I have ever encountered, and the best way to put it was that it felt as if all the characters had the same voice, but it was just coming out of various mouths- simply unbelievable:
Craig degrading Heather:
"And that tedious f**kin' shit you read, like David Foster Wallace, like you're some kinda f**kin' intellectual. You're so godd**ned pretentious."
Alice, Heather's senior citizen mother:
"I shot it, Heather." She choked out a sob. "I shot the godd**ned thing and it blew apart like a f**king helium balloon. How can that be?"
Heather, after she has killed a man with a chainsaw and stumbled upon a truly gory scene, takes the time to lament to a new found friend:
"Lovely. It isn't enough that we have to be running for our lives from a bunch of godd**ned monsters. Now we've stumbled on a real life Texas Chainsaw scenario." She sighed. "It's just not fair."
The two-headed villain monologuing:
"We've been at it for centuries already, dear. We are a patient race. In the fullness of time your world will be ours. And when that glorious day comes, we will step out of the shadows and assume control of everything." She breathed a wistful sigh. "Your kind's illusion of normality will be shattered, and those who are different, freaks, will no longer be objects of derision or ostracization. You're all so afraid of anything that threatens your fragile sense of the way things should be."
Characters in high tension situations would ramble out long sentences that no one in their situation would even have the piece of mind to form. At other times characters would simply speak in such a staged and stilted manner (i.e. the above monologuing of the two-headed villain) it was the very antithesis of natural sounding dialogue.
I am not sure if Mr. Smith is aware that often when people are talking they do not use proper names, and this was a major source of annoyance throughout the book. An example from one page, paragraphs apart: "Are you okay, Josh?" "You're an awful trusting lady, Heather." Please keep in mind in the latter example they are the only two characters in the scene and they have by this point already established their identities to each other, so the use of names is even more inept than one might think.
Another issue I had with the dialogue was the overuse of expletives, for example- "Bulls**t, nothing. You stop being such a f**kin' c**t and tell me now what's on your godd**ned mind, b**ch." or "How in the name of sweet living f**k can you say that!? That's f**king insane!" Granted people in high stress situations are likely more prone to expletives than those in everyday life, but when it is executed so often and every time without style it becomes banal rather quickly, i.e. there is one passage of dialogue spoken that is seven sentences long and it contains the f-word six times, and this was not even in a stress inducing situation.
Again, I truly wish I could apply zero stars to this book, as one star is far too generous as it had absolutely no redeeming qualities whatsoever. For those out there wanting to read a masterful horror tale about a traveling circus may I point you in the direction of Ray Bradbury's "Something Wicked This Way Comes," which is as a superb a book as "The Freakshow" was an awful one! -
The freakshow is a place populated by man-eating "freaks" - from killer clowns, to the Dog Boy, to Pumpkin People, and once a year, it rolls into some small, unsuspecting town.
"The freakshow's a facade. You know that already. There's something much weirder than a menagerie of misbegotten genetic unfortunates lurking behind the illusion. And when I say that, I don't mean behind a fucking curtain; behind our reality, on another plane of existence."
Opening night, nearly the entire town of Pleasant Hills show up to the freakshow, as if in a trance and unable to resist. But for those that did somehow manage to elude the influence, they are still not safe; the freaks have been sent to round them up at all costs. They are taking over the world one small town at a time, and there can be no survivors.
-------------
This book was different from anything I've read from Bryan Smith so far, and it was a touch confusing at first, but it just takes a bit to understand what's going on.
I'm excited to finally have read this, so I can get to the much anticipated sequel, Suburban Gothic. I ended up enjoying this, as I do with all his books, so I'm looking forward to reading the follow up asap. -
A penny dreadful in the best possible way. The characterization is thin, the dialogue is barely functional, but you do get gore and blood by the bucketfuls. In that it's worth a read if you're into that type of thing.
And there are times when I am.
You barely remember it after you close the book, but it serves its purpose and scratches that itch. -
Sadistic in a horrifically entertaining way! Lots of gore and a sense of impending misery and doom. Great read!
-
If you're an X-Men comics fan, then you're likely familiar with the interdimensional villain Mojo, a spoof of TV network executives and reality show programming, who occasionally abducts the mutant heroes and runs them through a gauntlet of murderous challenges to satisfy the bloodlust of his Mojoverse TV viewers and chart record ratings. Bryan Smith's The Freakshow is basically an X-rated riff on this concept, only it's set on Earth and lacks any of the wry social commentary or black comedy of the Mojoverse stuff.
What it does have, however, is unrelenting excessive violence waged against characters who are the very definition of cardboard cutouts and who possess all the charm, flavor, and dimensionality of bran flakes. To Smith's credit, he is clearly more than fully capable of writing an extended, 325 page-long action scene filled with plenty of gross-out moments and reasons to squirm, but where he falters is in giving us any kind of a reason to care. Any kind at all, really.
Smith begins his story in media res, introducing us to a character named Mike, who is already in the thick of things as the titular Freakshow begins cutting its bloody swath through Pleasant Hills in shockingly gory fashion. The fact that he's named Mike is about all we have as reason to root for him, while other characters could have just been listed as MAN or WOMAN to similar effect. The only character who has any real kind of background to him his Craig, a loathsome serial killer wannabe, who is depicted as not having a single redeeming aspect to him and is thus easy fodder for the hate mill. His girlfriend, Heather, is super-hot and sticks with him simply because the sex is good, and that's about as deep as Smith gets in defining what makes her tick. Apparently, we're supposed to care for her not just because she's such a hot, leggy babe with a shitty boyfriend, but because she's a hot, leggy baby with a shitty boyfriend who is also trying to save her poor mother from the Freaks.
Everything about The Freakshow is exceedingly superficial. Joe Hill once said that effective horror isn't just about sadism and flinging intestines. Horror is not about its extreme violence, but its extreme empathy. We need characters to relate to, to root for, and to care about. While The Freakshow most certainly has its acts of extreme and wicked violence, Smith gives us absolutely no reason to care about any of it. It reeks of pointless excess, and its limp and ridiculous plot, which seriously strained my willingness to suspend disbelief on multiple occasions (again, because I simply couldn't muster a single reason to give a fuck about any of this), runs on for many more pages than it truly deserves.
Without any emotional investment, The Freakshow amounts to nothing more than shallow, tawdry violence that serves little real purpose, and it carries on to the point of dullness. While Smith cleverly came up with ways to shock, he completely forgot to give us any reason to be concerned or worried over the fates of his would-be victims. A quarter of the way through the book, I found myself having grown increasingly bored (and, honestly, if my co-hosts and I weren't covering this book for the Staring Into The Abyss podcast, and if it weren't being sequelized for a co-written production to Brian Keene's forthcoming Suburban Gothic, I would have quit this book and moved on to something else entirely pretty early on). Over the course of the narrative, such as it is, our characters are shocked and violated to the point of senselessness, at times wondering why they should care, or are bored by their isolation, or, in one instance, feel "relegated to a role as sideline observer." I'm not sure if it's Smith's subconscious writing to us and letting us know that he, too, is bored of writing this pointless shlock for what I assume must have been a contractual obligation to Leisure Books back in the day, but I'd like to think so. -
Bryan Smith has been a guilty pleasure of mine for a few years. And for the most part, I am happy to read what he writes. But be forewarned, this one is a stinker.
It starts off good enough...a creepy carnival, lots of carnage. Then it goes into territory that I think brings the book to a cheese factory, and makes it work overtime. (I hate writing spoilers, so I'll just say this goes from a creepy gore-fest to a completely different dimension.)
It's not the genre bending that I have problems with; it's the execution. For me, this story reminds me of a undergradaute course in creative writing where the instructions are: Come up with as many ideas as you can, and then try to fit them altogether into one story.
Overall Idea: C-
Final Product: F
-
OMG...... so much fun!!!!!
What a ride! I always have an awesome time with Mr. Smith's books. This was no exception....What a unique and creative voice. This carnival idea could have gone a completely different way with any other author. Instead you get the taste of something completely extraordinary that you cannot put the book down until you reach the fantastic conclusion. This novel will give you interesting characters: fabulous villains, sweet and tough heroes. It will blend depraved horror with rip roaring adventure, and a touch of humour. Bravo! Let the show begin..... -
I did not like this book. I like sexy, I like scary, I like gross but not gratuitous (what seemed to me) misogynist porn-gore. There was no character development in this story other than describing who was and was not good in bed.
I swear I'm not a prude. -
Dieses Buch sollte man mit den gehörigen Abstand lesen. Am Anfang war es fĂŒr mich recht gruselig wegen der Clowns, aber als es sich langsam verloren hat, konnte ich es gut und schnell weglesen.Â
2.5 Sterne
Ich bin eigentlich besseres von dem Autor gewöhnt. Und  auf die kranken Spiele der Freaks konnte ich mich auch nicht richtig einlassen. Persönlich mag ich es lieber, wenn nicht allzu viel ĂbernatĂŒrliches in seinen Geschichten auftaucht. -
Not great, but plenty of gore. And I love a freak show!
-
The Freakshow is an action packed, fast paced carnival of gore and insanity, it swiftly kicks off and doesnât relent until itâs blood-spattered ending!
-
Rolling up in Pleasant Hills, Tennessee, the Flaherty Brothers Traveling Carnivale and Freakshow draws the attention of the townâs population â little do they know that theyâre tonightâs entertainment. Bryan Smithâs Freakshow is a deliciously disturbing book about killer clowns from Hell who plan on hunting down every last soul in Pleasant Hills.
Freakshow is packed with nightmare fodder. Thereâs a two-headed woman (one head is gorgeous and the other deformed) who can take control of your body, a 20-ft tall Ringmaster you canât outrun and a short, sharp-toothed clown who keeps dancing past your bedroom door.
On the human side, thereâs Jinx, who knows too much about the Freakshow; Michael, who wants the nightmare to end; Heather, whoâs looking for her disabled mother; and Josh, who's figured out how to keep the Freaks out of his mind.
I appreciated Smithâs unique take on the scary clown archetype and that his characters' motivations extended beyond trying to survive. On the other hand, The Freakshow is just really good splatterpunk, both deviant and gory. Is it still escapist fiction if it doesnât make you feel safe? -
This was a lot better than I thought it would be. I can't tell you how many freakshow horror books I've read, and I'm pretty tired of that particular setting. But this book is better than that. It goes to extremes that I did not expect. By the time I was done, I decided that--while I haven't read many of his books--this is the best I've read from Bryan Smith. He pulls no punches, and he doesn't take the obvious route. A character any other author would have killed in the first chapter makes it to the very end. Jinx is an unforgettable character. There is sympathy for a horrible character. The only thing that I couldn't get on board with is how unlikeable certain characters are. These are the characters you're supposed to like, but they're just awful people. Still and all, this is an excellent read.
-
*Inhalt*
"Als die Zirkuswagen mit den Freaks durch Pleasant Hills rollen, verĂ€ndert das die ruhige kleine Stadt fĂŒr immer.
Denn wenn der Vorhang sich hebt, zeigt man nicht die ĂŒblichen Tricks. Die Hauptattraktionen sind die Folterungen â und die Stars der Show sind die ahnungslosen Besucher selbst.
Fans von Extreme Horror a la Edward Lee werden ihren SpaĂ an den kranken Spielchen der Freaks haben." (Quelle: Amazon)
*Erster Satz des Buches*
"Seltsame Signale in der Nacht."
*Infos zum Buch*
Seitenzahl: 336 Seiten
Verlag: Festa Verlag
ISBN: 978-3-86552-588-8
Preis: 13,99 ⏠(Taschenbuch) / 4,99 ⏠(E-Book)
*Infos zum Autor*
"Bryan Smith lebt in Murfreesboro, Tennesee/USA. Er schreibt mit einer explosiven Kraft. In Rekordzeit hat er sich an die Seite von Richard Laymon, Edward Lee und Jack Ketchum gekÀmpft, in die Riege der Kultautoren brutaler Thriller.." (Quelle: Amazon)
*Fazit*
-> Wieso wollte ich dieses Buch lesen?
Jaja, ich und die BĂŒcher aus dem Festa Verlag. Es war liebe auf das erste Lesen und das wird es wohl auch bleiben, weswegen euch noch einige Rezensionen zu BĂŒchern aus diesem Verlag erwarten werden. "Die Freakshow" hat mich vor allen Dingen deswegen fasziniert, da ich vor einiger Zeit die Serie "American Horrorstory" gesehen habe, bei der es auch eine Staffel gibt, bei der es um eine Freakshow geht - was ich sehr spannend fand. Dementsprechend gespannt war ich, wie Bryan Smith an das Thema herangeht, denn auch auf ihn als Autor war ich sehr gespannt.
-> Cover:
Grandios! Gruselig, blutig, schauderhaft - einfach perfekt fĂŒr diese Geschichte und definitiv eines der BĂŒcher, was ich beim lesen im Bett vor dem Schlafen "aufs Gesicht" gelegt habe, da ich nicht von diesem Monster angestarrt werden wollte. :-D
-> Story + Charaktere:
Ich muss gestehen, dass ich mit einer gewissen Erwartung an das Buch herangegangen bin - als diese schon direkt zu Beginn des Buches nicht erfĂŒllt wurden und sich die Geschichte in eine komplett andere Richtung entwickelte, tat ich mir anfangs doch etwas schwer, mich in das Geschehen einzufinden. Dennoch fand ich diese Entwicklung irgendwie interessant - aber auch verwirrend. Nicht nur, dass die Geschichte in eine ganz andere Richtung geht, als erwartet, zu Beginn widmen wir uns auch gleich vier HandlungsstrĂ€ngen auf einmal. Dabei begleiten wir die Protagonisten Heather/Craig, Mike und Braddock/Sheila, wobei sich Heathers und Craigs Wege bald trennen und beide wieder als einzelne Personen auftreten. Diese HandlungsstrĂ€nge könnten, theoretisch, auch völlig unabhĂ€ngige Geschichten darstellen, was es mir zu Beginn etwas erschwerte.
An sich sind mehrere HandlungsstrĂ€nge ja kein Problem, denn erfahrungsgemÀà kreuzen sich diese auch irgendwann im Buch, die Frage ist nur: WANN. DiesbezĂŒglich war ich wohl in diesem Buch ein wenig ungeduldig, vor allem, weil sich mir am Anfang nicht so recht erschlieĂen wollte, wo das Ganze letztendlich hinfĂŒhren wĂŒrde. Nach und nach lichtete sich das Dunkel jedoch und ich wurde immer tiefer und tiefer in den Bann dieser absolut fantastischen Geschichte gezogen.
Die anfĂ€ngliche Skepsis war völlig unbegrĂŒndet, denn Smith erschafft nicht nur eine völlig neue Dimension der gruseligen Zirkus-Vorstellung (oder die der umherziehenden Schausteller), sondern flechtet die vielen HandlungsstrĂ€nge so geschickt zu einer Geschichte, dass das Ganze am Ende nicht nur schlĂŒssig, sondern nahezu genial erscheint.
Auch wenn ich zu Beginn Schwierigkeiten hatte, mit den Protagonisten mitzufĂŒhlen und ihre Handlungen nachzuvollziehen, so legte sich das nach einiger Zeit und ich konnte wie gewohnt mitfiebern und auf einen positiven Ausgang hoffen.
-> Schreibstil:
Bryan Smith bedient sich eines sehr angenehmen, gut lesbaren Schreibstils, der ein flĂŒssiges Lesen ermöglicht. Das hineinversetzen in verschiedene Situationen fĂ€llt leicht und die bildhafte Sprache bewirkt, dass man auch ohne viel Fantasie alles genau vor Augen hat.
-> Gesamt:
Ein gruseliges, grausames und - wenn man ein wenig Fantasie besitzt - sogar mögliches Szenario in der Zukunft (oder gar der Gegenwart?), gepaart mit grausamen Freaks, fiesen QuÀlereien, ein bisschen Gemetzel und faszinierenden Charakteren - was will man eigentlich mehr?
Wertung: 5 von 5 Sterne -
Skurrile Zirkus-Freakshow mit unerwarteter Entwicklung!
Bei âDie Freakshowâ handelt es sich um ein frĂŒhes Werk des â von mir sehr geschĂ€tzten â Autors Bryan Smith.
Die Handlung von Bryan Smiths âDie Freakshowâ ist in der amerikanischen Kleinstadt Pleasant Hills angesiedelt, in welcher ein Zirkus seine Zelte aufgeschlagen hat. Doch mit Beginn der ersten Vorstellung ist die Stadt wie ausgestorben.
Zu Beginn des Buches lernen wir die Hauptpersonen Heather und Craig kennen. Die beiden wollen zu Heathers Mutter, da in der gesamten Stadt die Telefone ausgefallen sind.
AnschlieĂend geraten wir mitten in eine Flucht auf dem Rummelplatz. Mike, bangt um sein Leben und befindet sich auf der Flucht vor⊠vor den grausamen Freaks der Show!
Zu Beginn der Story wusste ich ĂŒberhaupt nicht, wohin sich alles entwickeln wird. Eigentlich rechnete ich mit einer ĂŒberaus brutalen Zirkusgeschichte. Im Grunde ist es auch. Nur wurde dies um einen âphantastischen Faktorâ ergĂ€nzt, auf den ich nicht eingehen möchte und mit dem ich definitiv nicht gerechnet hatte. Spoilern möchte ich allerdings nicht :-P
Nach und nach laufen die HandlungsstrÀnge zusammen und es bewegt sich alles auf ein bluttriefendes Finale zu. Hammer!
Nachdem ich schon mehrere Werke von Bryan Smith gelesen habe, wurde ich auch von âDer Freakshowâ nicht enttĂ€uscht. Sein Schreibstil ist, wie gewohnt, leicht verstĂ€ndlich, detailliert und brutal. Die Story ist durchzogen von kranken und originellen EinfĂ€llen, mit denen ich definitiv nicht gerechnet hatte.
Sein Hang zu Cliffhangern kommt der Spannung, die er in âDie Freakshowâ aufbaut definitiv zugute!
âDie Freakshowâ hĂ€tte meiner Meinung nach auch in die Festa Extrem Reihe gepasst, da mit Grausamkeiten definitiv nicht gespart wird und ich kann es bedenkenlos den Extremhorror Fans an Herz legen! Herrlich abgedreht, brutal und verstörend!
Ein klarer Bonuspunkt ist das geniale Cover!! In meinen Augen passt es perfekt zum Buch ist sieht megamĂ€Ăig aus! Aber das bin ich eigentlich vom Festa Verlag gewohnt ;-) -
Mit diesem Buch konnte mich Bryan Smith schon mehr ĂŒberzeugen!
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Die Freakshow hÀlt Einzug in Pleasant Hills. Ein Zirkus + Jahrmarkt der nicht ganz so normalen Sorte.
Das Highlight dieser Show sind die Freaks. Aber die Hauptakteure sind die nichtsahnenden Zuschauer, die sich in diesen Zirkus wagen. Folterungsshows stehen hier an erster Stelle.
Aber nicht nur das, hinter der Fassade eines harmloswirkenden Zirkus verbirgt sich was viel grausameres!
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âDie Freakshowâ ist mein zweites Buch des Autoren. âRockânâRoll Zombies aus der Besserungsanstaltâ hat mir leider nicht so zugesagt. Dieses erschien in der Festa Extrem Reihe. Ich fand bei weitem dieses Buch extremer als das eigentliche Extrem Buch.
Wir lernen hier sehr viele Charaktere kennen. Der Autor hÀngt sich nicht nicht so sehr an Charakterbeschreibungen auf, deshalb blieben diese eher blass. Es sind viele Charaktere in dem Buch enthalten und dadurch auch mehrere HandlungsstrÀnge, die sich aber mit der Zeit inneinander verflechten, was ich als sehr spannend empfand.
Der Autor beschreibt zwar die Charakter kaum, dafĂŒr liebt er die detaillgenaue Beschreibung von Folterungen oder sexuellen Szenen. Darin versinkt er förmlich. In so ziemlich jedem Kapitel spritzt unmengen von Blut.
Der Schreibstil ist flĂŒssig und angenehme, die KapitellĂ€nge war ebenfalls in Ordnung und endet immer mit einem Cliffhanger, so dass
man einfach weiterlesen musste.
Es ist aufjeden Fall kein Buch fĂŒr Zartbesaitete es wĂŒrde meiner Meinung sehr gut in die Festa Extrem Reihe passen. -
Wow!! This story was awesome. It was very creepy, gory, gruesome, and twisted. It was full of action from start to finish. No rest period at all.
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I really enjoyed the concept of this, however, the over-use of expletives (yes, I would be swearing too in this situation but it seemed over the top) and the overly sexual nature (everyone is super horny??) kinda took me out a bit.
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I had just finished Depraved by Bryan Smith, which I thoroughly enjoyed. So I decided to read The Freakshow by him right after Depraved and to be honest, I couldn't even finish the book. I realise that a lot of horror books are unrealistic but if they are done well they are very enjoyable, which sadly wasn't the case with this book in my opinion. I read 25% of it and just couldn't finish it, I honestly tried to keep going and get back into it but it just wasn't happening. What bothered me about the book was when the decapitated clowns head started using it's teeth to pull itself along the ground to chase after people and I just wasn't feeling it, it just didn't sit well with me. If for instance, the head was decapitated and then grew legs and started going after people then that would make more sense and I realise that these things weren't human and tried to give it a bit of slack but couldn't. After the teeth thing, which to me made no sense at all, I just couldn't continue reading it. It totally took me out of the story and once that happens, that's it for me.
In saying that though I refuse to give up on the author, I really enjoyed Depraved and I am sure there will be more of his books that I will really enjoy. I have favourite authors and there has atleast been one book of theirs that I didn't think much of, doesn't mean you don't try more of their stuff, I will definitley be giving more of Bryan Smith's work a go in the future. -
Sex, clowns and freaks -- oh my!
Okay, so freaks may not be the most politically correct term, but then again neither is carnies.
I really enjoyed this read. I wasn't confused and I was really freaked out by the suicidal, balloon exploding clowns. If you don't like sex in your reads then this one is definitely not for you. If you like sex in your reads, but that special touching, romantic sex then this one is not for you.
This was a down-n-out, gore-fest, raw sex filled read with some really great elements.
Brian really could have done more with the Ring Master, who started out as a really creepy, fantastic character and then just faded off.
If you're into horror, clowns and sex -- go for this one.
- Dan. -
A fun little fast paced story. It does contain a ton of gore, some gratuitous "Freaky" sex, and not much depth in the characters. Could have made better use of some other characters in the story (Ringmaster, and the Freak who "owned" Jinx, for example), but other than that I liked it. If you are the least bit squeamish about violence and gore, I would not recommend this. But if you are into two headed freaks having sex while they lick the goo out their lovers empty eye socket, then this one's for you!
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Pros - plot was unique, creative, and quickly paced. Characters were convincing. Bryan Smith writes with a style that's a joy to read. Cons - just isn't really my kind of book, too in your face shock factor and a bit too much torture/dread. Too much dulls it for me a bit, not because I become too disturbed, but it just makes it all blend together with less impact. I love circus and freak themes and he certainly didn't fail to disappoint with the villains in this one!
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Had I have known the main plot of the book I wouldn't have read itâbut, saying that, once I had figured it out I couldn't put the book down. An enjoyable read, I found it engaging and scary. Clowns freak me out, and the ones in this book were freakier than most.
The freakshow that goes from town to town isn't your average carnival. It'd be a good idea to leave townâforever. -
A year or so before I finally succumbed to Goodreads, I sent several horror novel reviews to friends and family under the general banner of âMass Market Mayhem.â Since Iâve already met my goal for the year (so it doesnât feel like cheating), Iâve decided to copy those reviews here. Iâve edited them only lightly.
Mass Market Mayhem â Episode Two
Bryan Smith was another heavy hitter at Leisure Horror, although I never read any of his stuff back in the day. I see on the interwebs that he's worked as an elementary school teacher and school counselor, and in addition to his many horror novels, he's written a series of kid's books that "teach children how to plan, organize, manage time, and maintain self-control."
That seems as good a segue as any into ...
The Freakshow by Bryan Smith
I'd forgotten how much casual misogyny there is in horror. Of course there's plenty of overt misogyny as well, but I think maybe the throwaway stuff bothers me more, because it makes it harder to say, oh, that's just the character. The casual stuff feels more like, oh, that's the author himself, why am I reading this jerk?
Full disclosure: I stopped reading this particular jerk after a hundred pages and then skimmed to the end.
The pitch: Aliens in the form of circus freaks go from small town to small town in a traveling carnival, killing all the inhabitants and replacing them with clones. Or something like that. Because, reasons.
Weirdly, Bryan Smith is probably a better writer than Brian Keene. Technically, I mean. His prose is more intentional, and you get the sense that he probably even went back and maybe even polished a sentence or two. Unfortunately, it's just not any fun.
There's a subset of the paperback horror genre (or there was) all about killing and gore and destruction and blood. The characters don't matter, the story doesn't matter, even the villain doesn't really matter: everyone is just meat. I think splatterpunk is the term that was popular at the time, but there's nothing remotely punk about these books: for all their "edgy" blood and guts, they couldn't be more pedestrian.
Smith begins with a prologue that basically lays out the entire book. Like, you could literally just read the prologue and know every single thing you need to know about what's going to happen in the next three hundred pages.
Then, the book's basic pattern emerges. Each chapter introduces a character, either vaguely defined or actively unpleasant, who has some sort of unpleasant or depressing interaction, memory, or desire before meeting one or more of the alien freaks and then suffering a grisly demise. Or seeming to, because generally the first apparent demise is only a tease for the character's later, actual demise. Some chapters contain a grisly sex scene instead of a grisly demise, and probably a few contain both but I wasn't paying close enough attention by that point to say for sure. The sex scenes are neither graphic enough to be shocking nor creative enough to be funny. More's the pity.
Smith somehow manages to mash together elements from Something Wicked This Way Comes, Invasion of the Body Snatchers, The Tommyknockers, Salo, and IT ... and make every damned one of them boring. The cardinal sin of horror. The cardinal sin of writing!
The characters are interchangeable, the violence trite, and the payoff ... well, what I wouldn't have given for a nice giant earthworm or murderous mermaid long before hitting my endpoint ...
Grade: I didn't finish it, so F on all levels.
In the final pages, even the author gives up. I mean, CLEARLY gives up. Here's one of the two surviving characters talking to the other:
"I don't know. But I think..." â he hesitated a moment before going on â "I think somebody did something. Somebody we'll never know did something amazing. They were the real heroes tonight, whoever they were. And we'll never fucking know them." Heather sniffled. "That's so goddamned sad." Josh sighed again. "I know."
Unbelievably, it goes on for two more pages and gets even worse:
âProof of the truth was out there. It was everywhere, most prominently in the form of the thousands of still functioning clones populating the assimilated towns. But it was ignored and dismissed as a hoax. But the people in power knew the truth. And they learned some things. Some secret laboratories began experimenting with these things. New and exciting weapons were being developed. Just in time for the winds of war to begin blowing again...â
Bryan Smith continues to make his living as a writer to this day.
