| Title | : | Road of Bones |
| Author | : | |
| Rating | : | |
| ISBN | : | 1250274303 |
| ISBN-10 | : | 9781250274304 |
| Language | : | English |
| Format Type | : | Hardcover |
| Number of Pages | : | 230 |
| Publication | : | First published January 25, 2022 |
Kolyma Highway, otherwise known as the Road of Bones, is a 1200 mile stretch of Siberian road where winter temperatures can drop as low as sixty degrees below zero. Under Stalin, at least eighty Soviet gulags were built along the route to supply the USSR with a readily available workforce, and over time hundreds of thousands of prisoners died in the midst of their labors. Their bodies were buried where they fell, plowed under the permafrost, underneath the road.
Felix Teigland, or "Teig," is a documentary producer, and when he learns about the Road of Bones, he realizes he's stumbled upon untapped potential. Accompanied by his camera operator, Teig hires a local Yakut guide to take them to Oymyakon, the coldest settlement on Earth. Teig is fascinated by the culture along the Road of Bones, and encounters strange characters on the way to the Oymyakon, but when the team arrives, they find the village mysteriously abandoned apart from a mysterious 9-year-old girl. Then, chaos ensues.
A malignant, animistic shaman and the forest spirits he commands pursues them as they flee the abandoned town and barrel across miles of deserted permafrost. As the chase continues along this road paved with the suffering of angry ghosts, what form will the echoes of their anguish take? Teig and the others will have to find the answers if they want to survive the Road of Bones.
Road of Bones Reviews
-
Holy moly! This scared the freaking living daylights out of me! Brrr!!! Trembling! Tiptoeing on my fingers! Feeling like somebody will suddenly appear out of shadows and snatch me out!
I’m sold as soon as I read the opening scene: in the middle of nowhere, getting stuck in truck, slippery roads, freezing weather, barely regaining control of the car, feeling the cold slap of your death against your cheek. Our two moviemakers won their first duel against the death , moving through the wilderness of Siberia.
Teig is the brain, dreamchaser, addicted to find the best stories and share them with the audience, a documentary producer. He’s an opportunist concept creator, selling her ideas, making people invest to his dreams even though some of them are doomed to fail, money traps of investors!
His new mission is focusing on a thrilling project taking place in the wilderness of freezing Siberia! Imagine a place where nearly 600 thousand people, laborers under Stalin’s imperative to build a road, is the same place they are buried beneath. That legendary, haunted, ultra creepy road along the Kolyma is the place where Felix Teigland a. k. a. Teig and his longtime cameraman friend Prentiss are headed. They think this dreamy project could bring the reputation, fame and money they have been pursuing throughout their entire filming careers.
A very talkative but also friendly guide accompanies them. Gas, food and quick bar stop for socializing with townies later, they bump into a local woman who is stranded on the road because of car problem, eventually joins their trip to the village.
But they didn’t expect to find the entire village abandoned. Last standing person of the village is a catatonic seven years old girl who tells them a monster is coming to get her! Things are getting heated! And this little girl reminds Teig of her own sister who was captured and murdered on his watch. Of course he was also a child but he let his guilt feelings gnaw him slowly for years and now it’s time to confront his fears to help the little girl and finish what they started!
Tense, frightening, claustrophobic atmosphere, witty dialogues, heart pounding, engaging, intriguing pace makes you sit tight on your couch, face glued to the pages, fists clenched, nails biten, breaths held, reading without moving an inch, scaring to make a sound!
I love it! My kind of favorite high tension, suffocating, freaking thriller I highly recommend to genre lovers!
Special thanks to NetGalley and St. Martin’s Press for sharing this digital reviewer copy with me in exchange my honest opinions. -
It wasn’t the desolation or the darkness or even the climate that had persuaded him to invest in this trip. It was that name…Official maps referred to it as R504. It wasn’t much of a road. The pavement started at both ends but not long thereafter the pavement gave way to packed gravel…In many places, the road was barely wide enough for two cars to scrape the paint off each other as they passed. The landscape consisted of snow, skeletal trees, mountains, and the occasional guardrail, as well as settlements that were considered urban but many of which were made up of a few dozen buildings and the hardy souls who went along with them.
--------------------------------------It seemed like these people lived in a haunted, frozen hell.
The Russians have a thing for giving characters in novels, and, it appears, real-world things, multiple names. R504, for example, is also known as P504. (no idea, don’t ask). It is also known as Federal Highway R504 and The Kolyma Highway. Locals call it The Kolyma Route. Plenty? Da. Complete? Nyet. It is also known as The Road of Bones. Construction began in 1932, during the Stalin era, using labor camp inmates. It continued using gulag prisoners until 1953. Workers die during construction? Permafrost in Siberia makes digging holes problematic, so the bodies were laid to rest under and near the road. Just a few, only somewhere between 250,000 to one million. Any chance a mother lode like that might attract a ghost hunter?
To them . . . it was just home.
Christopher Golden - image from The Tufts Daily – photo by Shivohn Kacy Fleming
Not all the dead along the road were planted there due to construction. There are probably a million ways to die on the Road of Bones in winter. Run out of gas? You die. Flat tire? You die. Accident? You die. Vehicle breaks down for any reason? You die. Don’t go outside wearing glasses. They will get frozen to your face. Have a medical emergency that cannot wait three hours until you can get to the nearest ER? You die. And guys, don’t even think about stopping by the side of the road to pee. Bring a diaper or a container of some sort. Sounds fun. When are we leaving? (I love writing stories set in places where people shouldn’t live. Like WHY DO YOU LIVE THERE? - from the Dead Headspace interview)
Felix Teigland is a maker of documentaries. He has had some ups and downs in his career. He managed to build his own production company but he is still waiting for the breakout show that will keep him and his company above water for more than just now. He is a charmer and professional bullshitter, who means well, and has a rich imagination, producing a lot of interesting ideas, but far too often he is unable to make good on his promises. Felix needs a hit. But he needs a backer to fund it. Thus, his presence in this godforsaken land. He wants to take enough video, get enough of a story that he can persuade those with deep enough pockets to reach into them and toss enough rubles his way so that he can actually produce the project.Teig was a fast talker, always with a scheme he would trumpet with unfettered enthusiasm—a feature documentary from a fourteen-year-old director out of Argentina, salvage rights to a Spanish galleon, a TV series about World War II comic book artists who were secretly spies, a mock-umentary in which the history of Scooby-Doo and his gang would be investigated as if they’d existed in real life.
Here the broken landscape of Stalin's Kolyma Highway is pictured. Without a rail link to the city, the highway remains the only major land route into & out of Yakutsk… - image and text from Weather.com - photo by Amos Chapple
And what a project it is. Life and Death on the Road of Bones. Surely there are ghost stories aplenty, not to mention compelling survival tales. Teig has a background in supernatural work, having labored for several years on a TV show called Ghost Sellers.He had reason to want to find ghosts, but he’d never seen evidence of one, despite the show confirming twenty-seven “official” hauntings while he’d worked with them.
He is skeptical of such things, has doubts, but even more importantly, hopes. Maybe the ghosts he finds in Siberia will help him find the spirit he truly seeks.The grieving kid who’d lived inside him for more than twenty years had always longed for proof of the supernatural.
Teig is joined in this insane adventure by Jack Prentiss, a bear of an American, complete with a beard that would be at home in Brooklyn or the Yukon, a beer belly, and an imposing frame. Teig owes Prentiss a considerable sum of money, which gives Jack a bit of incentive to help make sure this project succeeds. Prentiss may be Teig’s only friend.
Careful what you wish for, idiot.
A view of Stalin's "Road of Bones", the route to Oymyakon (Oy-vey-myakon?) is pictured on a -50c evening - image from Weather.com. photo by Amos Chapple
You can probably leave your swimsuit at home. There are only five hours of daylight this time of year, and even when it is above the horizon, it remains hidden behind clouds. Get used to the darkness. The average daily temperature in Winter is -47F.
They begin in the port town of Magadan on the Sea of Okhotsk, heading to the community of Akhust, the coldest inhabited place on Earth. I did not find an actual Akhust in my Googling, so presume it is a made-up name, standing in for Oymyakon, a twenty hour drive according to Google directions. Teig’s journey is supposedly sixteen hours, so maybe it is somewhere between the two locations. Guess it depends on extant conditions.
They make a stop to pick up a twenty-something guide, Kaskil, an actual local. He will not be their last passenger. There is a lovely lady in distress, Nari, with “cherry black hair.” Vehicle broke down and she needs a lift. When they arrive in Akhust, the coldest place on Earth, the entire town of several hundred is abandoned. Only one inhabitant remains, Kaskil’s nine-year-old niece, Ariuna, in a catatonic state. Shock most likely.
Oymyakon, Sakah Republic, Russia Avg. temperature of 3 coldest months: -47.0 F Coldest month: January (-53.3 F) - image from USA Today - photo by Zac Allan / Wikimedia Commons
And then there are the odd things they have been seeing in the woods as they drove along. Trees moving strangely, oversized beasts, of uncertain shape, a Siberian tiger. Teig has odd thoughts urging him to give in to the cold. Whatever had driven or lured the residents of Akhust from their homes was now coming for them. And the chase is on, an army of creatures, led by a very large, human-like shaman is in hot pursuit. But why? Check, please.
The story is told through alternating POVs, not including everyone, but more than a couple. This kept things fresh, while also giving us the characters’ backstories, and reasons to care about their fates, maybe some understanding of their motivations. The action is pretty much non-stop. It is not a long book, but you might be out of breath by the time you finish reading. Lots of peril, lots of fleeing, a fair bit of fighting back. And questions. Um…why? I understand that the victims of Stalin might be pissed, but at people with no role in their killing? Are the members of this spirit army Stalin’s reincarnated roadkill? There is a character Kaskil refers to as ghost he has actually seen, who prays over the frozen dead. Does she have a role in this? The animal-like nature of the pursuers suggests also a rebellion of the natural world against a feckless humanity. Wrong place, wrong time.
Who are those guys? Or is it something else? So what is the deal? Why are these spirits-made-material so intent on catching our small company?
Gripes are minimal. While there were multiple POVs, they did not all succeed in generating much interest in the characters. One character’s deep religious feelings define a life in an interesting and unusual way. Teig’s tale is given the most ink, and creates the strongest bond. The others? Some.
This is a chilling, acti0n-filled horror story, and it succeeds very much at that level. There is a lot of creativity on display in portraying these dark forces. And enough nuance to make them less than one hundred percent evil. Sound, in particular, plays a role here, not just in the songs noted in the text, but in the way sound can get into your head.I’m…always intrigued with the idea of turning the concept of monstrosity on its head, of looking at a conflict through the eyes of the character that we would normally presume to be evil or cruel. - from the Nightmare Magazine interview
You will want to dress warmly while reading this one. You may shudder along with the characters at the death-dealing cold they must face for the entirety of the tale, and add a quiver or three for the spirits on the warpath. Consider having at hand either a mug of something very warm to drink or a bottle of Stoli. A favorite pet on your lap might help as well, at least as long as they do not start to look at you funny.Here in this little scattering of human structures they could still convince themselves they were in the world of people, but once they passed into the woods, it would have been impossible to pretend they had control or authority over anything. Hunters and herders went into those woods or up that mountain from Akhust, and when they did they were surrendering to the primal nature of the world. Akhust stood as a stark reminder of how small a thing it was to be a human being.
Review posted – January 21, 2022
Publication dates
----------Hardcover - January 25, 2022
----------Trade Paperback - December 27, 2022
I received an ARE of Road of Bones from St. Martins in return for a fair review and some extra warm mittens. Thanks, folks, and thanks to NetGalley for facilitating.
This review has been cross-posted on my site,
Coot’s Reviews. Stop by and say Hi!
=============================EXTRA STUFF
Links to the author’s
personal,
FB,
Instagram, and
Twitter pages
Golden is a monster of an author who got started, and found success, very early. He has a gazillion publications to his credit and an army-size host of teleplay credits from his years writing for Buffy with Joss Whedon, and plenty more. And then there are the comics. You may have heard of Hell Boy, among those.
Here is a list of what he has published, from Fiction DB. I personally think he has elves, or more likely, goblins chained to computers in his basement helping him crank out such volume.
Interviews
-----Nightmare Magazine -
Interview: Christopher Golden by Lisa Morton - January 2014 issue
-----Dead Headspace -
Ep. 126 - Christopher Golden - video - 1:51:56 - this is a long, fun interview that covers a wide range of subjects. The part dealing specifically with The Road of Bones goes from about 1:20:00 to about 1:29:00
Items of Interest
-----Wiki on the
Kolyma Highway. Yes, it is a real thing
-----Weather.com -
Breathtaking Photos of the Coldest City in the World by Nicole Bonaccorso - March 25, 2021
Songs/Music
-----Prince -
Purple Rain - chapter 8
-----Bruce Springstein -
Drive All Night - chapter 12
-----Bruce -
Western Heroes - chapter 12
-----Bruce -
Rosalita - chapter 14
-----Bruce -
Somewhere North of Nashville - chapter 15
-----Elmira Terkulova -
Million Scarlet Roses - English version – chapter 8
-----Alla Pugacheva -
Million Roses - Russian version – chapter 8 -
Felix Teiglund is a documentary filmmaker. Along with his camera operator and close friend, Jack Prentiss, he sets out to Siberia for their latest project.
They'll film along the Kolyma Highway, a 1200-mile stretch of roadway known as the Road of Bones, due to the numerous bodies that lie underneath it; unfortunate souls who died during their labors and were plowed over where they fell.
It's one of the coldest places on Earth, but in spite of that, there are small communities that still exist along the road.
Teig and Prentiss are in search of a ghost story and this seems like the perfect place to capture one. How cold could it possibly be anyway?
It turns out, pretty freaking cold. Nonetheless, Teig and Prentiss are determined. They need to make this work. There's a lot riding on this project.
They have a great rental truck, made for these conditions, and a capable local Yakut guide and translator, Kaskil. They've set themselves up well, but in these conditions anything can happen.
As the men slowly make their way to their final destination, Kaskil's native community of Akhurst, they stop along the way at a small roadside bar for some rest and food.
There they have the best reindeer burgers ever and are feeling confident and happy as they depart for the last stretch of their journey.
Not long after, they come across a broken down SUV. A young woman, Nari, who Teig had noticed back at the bar is stranded.
Obviously, they cannot leave her there. She would certainly freeze to death before too long. It's at that point, the trio becomes a quartet.
Arriving in Akhurst, Teig and Prentiss just get settled into their accommodations when they hear a disturbance outside.
It's Kaskil. Something is wrong. He tells them that the settlement is abandoned. Everyone is gone. They just up and left. His whole family, gone. Doors left open, dinners still sit on tables, footprints in the snow; some indicating that some people were barefoot.
What the hell happened here?
There must be some sort of explanation. Teig and Prentiss agree to help him and Nari search. They find no one except Kaskil's nine-year old niece, who is catatonic.
Then absolute hell breaks loose. The travelers are forced to flee the settlement, fearing for their lives and something that defies all explanation is following them.
Road of Bones is an intense and horrifying story. I had such a fun experience reading this one, staying up way past my bedtime in order to finish it.
I really enjoy Nature Horror, or Eco-Horror, as well as Folk Horror and to me, Christopher Golden was giving me all of that in spades. The way this was told, it was so well done. My anxiety was definitely super high after the showdown at Akhurst.
I loved getting to know the characters, particularly Teig, and the setting was absolute perfection. I was so cold. I kept having to turn up my heat and I'm totally serious about that.
It was unnervingly realistic, the dangers of the road. That alone would have been anxiety-inducing enough, but then the parnee, an animistic shaman, and other forest spirits get thrown in, holy smokes!! It was freaking intense!!
Golden really did a great job working his way through this one. In some Eco-Horror, or Folk Horror, I have read in the past, I've had a difficult time deciphering what the author was trying to get across. I had no problems here.
There was a point behind it and I could picture it all perfectly. I loved the ending, Golden didn't pull any punches, but it still left me with a feeling of hope, which sounds really strange, yet it's true.
I also feel intrigued to learn a bit more about Siberian legends and folklore now, so that's an added bonus.
Thank you so much to the publisher, St. Martin's Press, for providing me with a copy of this to read and review.
This was a perfect Winter read for me. I may even read it again next Winter!!
❄️🦌🖤🐺❄️🦌🖤🐺❄️🦌🖤🐺❄️🦌🖤🐺❄️ -
Felix Teigland and his best friend Prentiss are traveling on Siberia's Kolyma Highway to the coldest town on Earth to hopefully shoot a documentary. Upon arriving there, they find the town empty. It looks like the residents stopped in the middle of whatever they were doing and walked into the forest. All except one little girl who appears to be cationic due to shock. They hear something huge moving around in the forest. Shadows are closing in and it's snarling. As they make their escape, it follows them in the dark, lonely Kolyma Highway.
Holy hell what a ride man. Now that is how you terrify the crap out of your readers. I lost count how many times I was yelling out loud like the characters could hear me. I would rate this a 4.5 if they would let me. My only complaint was Felix. I wanted to smack him around for all the stupid decisions he was making. I am going to have nightmares about reindeer now. Recommend! -
My thanks to St. Martin's Press, Christopher Golden and Netgalley. It's just a given. If it's A Golden book, then just thinking about it makes my heart beat in double time. I've been a fan for a very long time! Also, look at that dang cover! Beautiful! Anyone who's read my reviews knows that the freezing cold is my favorite setting. So, this was almost a given! I nearly spent more time reading about gulags and this road than on the book! What Teig set out to accomplish would make for riveting television. I remember watching ice road truckers and thinking they were mad! I loved this story. But, I'll admit that I spent so much time being tense, that it finally just exhausted me. I was happy it was a shorter book. Also, I wished it had a more definitive ending. Don't get me wrong, because I know what happened, but how long must a "certain someone" be inhabited? Is he stuck inside too? Argh!
-
Thanks to NetGalley and the publisher for an ARC in exchange for an honest review.
What if I presented to you a book set in Salem, Massachusetts and talked all about its rich history as one of the most tragic towns in New England's early history? What would you expect to see in this book? Giants? Talking mice? How about Cthulhu?
Well, when you tell me I'm going to read a book about the Road of Bones in Siberia--a highway that was literally paved over the dead gulag prisoners who fell while constructing it under Stalin's regime--I better damn well have a ghost-revenge story set in the coldest drive on Earth. Not whatever this was.
So Felix Teigen and his buddy Jack Prentiss are setting out to make a documentary about life and death on the Kolyma Highway, affectionately nicknamed the Road of Bones. To elaborate on the name, from 1932 to 1953 gulag prisoners in labor camps were forced to construct the highway. Since the road is set on permafrost, whenever one of the roughly 250,000 to 1,000,000 people who perished building this road died, the bones were built into or around the highway, cuz diggin' holes in Siberian winter is a bitch. Why was this road constructed in such unforgiving conditions, you might ask? Well, money! Duh! Rich uranium deposits!
Teig and Prentiss are here to document life and death on the road, they say, but also Teig is looking for ghost stories, I guess? They never specify exactly why they're there and don't talk about a shooting schedule, a script, a rough outline of their expectations, nothing. Essentially what we have is two grown men running around with an expensive camera saying, "BRO, ARE YOU FILMING THIS?!" And it gets real tedious.
The concept of this novel is fantastic. Documentarians show up someplace that people don't normally spare a thought for, the supernatural nature of the region/road pops up, and crap goes down hardcore. It's the execution that leaves a lot to be desired.
The characters are cardboard cutouts. Teig's motivation for trying to save Una reads as halfhearted and thrown-in. Nari, the girl Teig and Prentiss save from being stranded on the road, is the most complex character, but because of the stuffy main characters she doesn't get enough time to shine. Prentiss is even more interesting than Teig. By the end of the novel I hated Felix Teigen and was firmly convinced he's the kind of guy who thinks ketchup is spicy and actually believes that plastic straws are the reason climate change is intensifying.
Felix Teigen would have a man-bun and call it "cool" because he visited Japan once. He's the kind of guy who won't eat sushi because it kills fish, then buy all of his designer skinny jeans on Amazon. He only knows "Wonderwall" on ukulele and calls himself a self-made musician. He would unironically use pickup lines like, "Are you my appendix? Cuz I have this painful urge to take you out." He probably has "Entrepreneur" in his Twitter bio.
Felix Teigen is That Guy. And he is the worst.
The thing that kills me about this book is that a random character who ends up adding absolutely jack diddly squat to the story takes up such a huge chunk of it. Ludmilla was useless and I cannot be persuaded otherwise.
The author takes so much time to describe the cold that he forgets to insert the unique cultural narratives to be found in this region. We get zero taste of Siberian culture until the last 20% of the novel, when some folklore is randomly thrown in for some reason and even then some of it isn't correct.
Ugh, guys. Wrong focal points, flat characters, setting that's too vague to be one place...this one was a solid miss. -
ROAD OF BONES had me shivering in the midst of an August heatwave!
Felix Teigland, (Teig), a documentary filmmaker, and Prentiss his financial backer, head out to Siberia in the hopes of creating a TV doc and selling it to Discovery. The hook? The pair are driving the Kolyma Highway, also known as the Road of Bones. Built in the 30's, this highway travels for over 2,000 kilometres, and is said to have the bones of those who helped build it, buried underneath. After picking up their local guide, and a woman broke down on the road, they set off in the hopes of creating television gold. Their first stop, a small village not too far away. Upon arrival though, the village seems empty. What happened here? Where is everyone? What are those dark, shadowy shapes they've all seen? You'll have to read this to find out!
I loved the characters here. Christopher Golden has a way of writing people that makes me start caring for them right from the get-go. Tieg and Prentiss were clearly defined and their friendship could be a prickly one at times. I liked that. The addition of their guide and a stranded traveler added more depth to the mix, because they all had different goals-all of which soon morphed into something else altogether for all of them; the goal of survival.
The setting of Siberia is perfect for a horror story. The cold and isolation become characters in their own right-how snow often dampens sounds. How the cold will take your nose from you in a matter of minutes, if it's exposed. How the car won't start up again, if you turn it off or stall out. Small things in Siberia quickly turn into life threatening things. The dichotomy of reading a novel set in Siberia where it can get as cold as -60F, as compared to my setting of western Massachusetts at the end of a heatwave, was a bit jarring. For this reader, that dichotomy only brought the cold home even more powerfully.
I loved this book: the fast pace, the cold atmosphere, the short chapters and the perils throughout all contributed to my enjoyment of Road of Bones. Also, look at that cover! It's fabulous, right? Do yourself a favor, be at the bookstore the day this comes out. Dare you take a ride down the ROAD OF BONES? I think you'll be sorry if you don't!
Available everywhere: January 25, 2022, but you can pre-order here:
https://www.amazon.com/Road-of-Bones/...
*Thank you to Christopher Golden and St. Martin's Press for providing this ARC in exchange for my honest feedback. This is it!* -
CHILLING HORROR!
Felix "Teig" Teigland an American and his friend Jack Prentiss who is originally from England are traveling to Siberia to drive along the the eerie "Road of Bones" to create a television documentary about the road which is really a gravelly roadway built over permafrost where thousands of bodies dropped dead of the frigid temperatures or heart failure and were left there to rot as the rest of the people worked to create this highway. These people were all workers and prisoners from the Gulag that the Stalin's nazi's reined over. Teig does not believe in the supernatural or paranormal after working on many ghost hunter programs and realizing the majority was all fluff but he still has hope to someday experience some type of paranormal activity especially since a certain ghost has haunted his heart for many years. (Be Careful What You Wish For.) Prentiss is Teig's cameraman as well as his travelling companion and financial producer for the project. The men are stopping at a way-station to pick up their guide (Kaskil) who will take them to a town outside the Arctic Circle called Akhust (the coldest place in the world) where he will translate and hopefully they will get many ghostly stories and superstitious tales and legends about the region and also the spooky "Road of Bones".
While the three men are driving they find a stranded young woman whose vehicle broke down on the desolate highway where they were able to save her from an unwelcome and most definite painful, frozen death since temperatures can reach up to 60° below zero and life cannot be sustained very long in that really fridgid, brutal environment so now they must be bring her to Akhust with them. Occasionally they witness wolves running back in the trees while driving and Prentiss thinks he saw a Siberian tiger (What?) but they will soon find out that these aren't normal wolves for they are very hungry but not just for food. When they arrive at Akhust where they will be staying they find the town completely abandoned of human life until they find a nine year old little girl who happens to be their guide Kaskil's niece. Unfortunately the child is in severe shock and seems catatonic so they cannot find out any information from her. As the group roams from house to house looking for signs of life they finally notice the strange wolflike creatures getting closer and closer and glimpse some other type of large creatures with the largest antlers ever seen and realize they must leave this place immediately but Akhust is not going to make it easy for them because now they have to worry about their truck starting again while the creatures are getting ready to attack and not having any type of weapons to defend themselves. Sometimes legends are much more than dark folk lore!
This was a phenomenal horror book! I loved the everything about the story from start to finish. This is the way horror books should be written, beginning nice and easy with an air of creepiness and foreboding settling in the background while continually building the tension, the eerieness and then the horror just suddenly drops and fills the reader with stomach and heart wrenching terror that never gives up until the last page. I must mention that the author "Christopher Golden" has created an extra special horror masterpiece since there is no predictable sequence to this book and the reader has no way to figure out what will happen next or where the story will take all the characters on their journey or even make it out alive. The quality of this book was exceptional. I enjoyed all the characters and grew very attached to them while this in itself is unusual to have so many likeable characters in a story. This book was truly an outstanding read for me and I will continue to seek out more of Christopher Golden's books. If you are a true horror lover don't miss out on this book. I loved this novel so much I will probably read it again one day!
I want to thank first the author "Christopher Golden", the publisher "St. Martin's Press " and Netgalley for the opportunity to read this complimentary digital copy and any thoughts or opinions expressed are unbiased and mine alone!
I am giving this Brilliant book a rating of 5 DELICIOUSLY CREEPY AND CAPTIVATING 🌟🌟🌟🌟🌟 STARS!! -
The badlands of Siberia. It really gets dark and killing cold out there-- and if you have car problems on this road it is all over. The Kolyma Highway lies on the bones of maybe six hundred thousand prisoners who died while building it. This is the most menacing place on Earth. In "Road of Bones" the hostility is cranked up as something beyond evil has been unleashed onto this sinister landscape.
"Teig" Teigland is a documentary filmmaker out to create a series about life along the highway. He and his partner Prentiss are desperate to sell to National Geographic or The Discovery Channel, desperate enough to risk the dangers of this world. Teig is plagued by guilt over the sister he could not save in their childhood and this provides motivation as he and Prentiss find themselves tasked with rescuing others stranded in the morass.
The intensity throughout is perfect-- a creepy nightmarish mood blankets everything. There is a bit of a letdown when the forms of the monsters are revealed--just as the shark in the movie Jaws is more terrifying before we see him. When the supernatural evil is exposed physically here it loses some potency. Still, this is quite a solid thrill ride from start to finish.
Thank you St. Martin's Press, NetGalley, and Christopher Golden for providing an advance reader copy in exchange for an honest review. -
Rating: ⭐⭐⭐⭐
Genre: Horror
Road of Bones is about a documentary producer called Teig whose latest mission is to make a film about the history behind Road of Bones. A road that is present in Siberia where the bones of the people who built that road are buried beneath. Along with him, Tieg takes a cameraman called Prentis. Prentis is not just a cameraman but also Tieg’s longtime friend. What awaits the two of them in that chilling and freezing atmosphere is something not pleasant.
The first thing I have to mention here is that I love this trope. The trope of being in an isolated place that is freezing and too cold for survival. When I knew about this trope I had to read this book. This trope reminds me of several films and TV shows that I adore like The Thing and The X-Files. The story is not too long but it packs lots of action and adventure that is filled with chill and horror. All the characters were interesting and well developed. I don’t have a favorite here but I loved the friendship between the two main characters. Tieg feeling sorry that he dragged his friend into this mess is something I appreciate. It shows a different side of his character. The little girl Una felt very creepy to me. She is very well written.
Christopher Golden has created a wonderfully creepy atmosphere throughout the book. The climate itself plays a significant part in the story. It is like a character of its own. The cover of the book is fantastic as well. I enjoyed reading this novel a lot. Road of Bones will be released on January 25th, 2022. If you love the horror genre with a spooky atmosphere, then don’t hesitate in picking it up.
Many thanks to the publisher St. Martin's Press and NetGalley for providing me with an advance reader copy of this book. -
2.5 stars rounded to 3.
Thanks to NetGalley and St. Martin's Press for the ARC for the Bone Road, a supernatural thriller in return for an honest review. The Kolyma Highway (Bone Road)is a 1200 mile stretch of dangerous road in Siberia. In their dark winter, it is ice-covered, and in their short summer months, it is often covered by mud. Its history is evil, and it must truly be haunted.
An estimated 250,000 to one million prisoners of Stalin's gulags died there while forced to construct the highway in average winter temperatures of -50C. As the road was built on permafrost, the dead bodies were deposited within the material used to form the road or dumped alongside it to save the difficulty of a proper burial in the frozen earth.
Teig, a documentary filmmaker's career, is in a slump. He feels that making a documentary about the Bone Road's obscene history will restore his reputation. What can be a better setting for a horror/supernatural story either in Teig’s film or in this book? He is also interested in meeting a guide to take him to the settlement of Oymyakon, the coldest inhabited place on earth. His guide is from the northern Yakut tribe, known as reindeer herders. The town's record low temperature was -71.2 C (-96.2 F). Strangely their temperature soared to 31.6C this June 30th, 2021, a high never recorded before.
The reader can learn much horrifying history about the Bone Road and life in Oymyakon on the internet, along with many interesting photos.
Teig is travelling with his friend and cameraman. His Yakut guide takes them to Oymyakon, which is the home of his family. They find the settlement mysteriously deserted when they arrive, except for a 9-year-old girl left in a catatonic state. Then things get weird, very weird! Personally, I found that the over-abundance of horror and supernatural elements with non-stop action, terror, injury and death left me numb. With so much frantically going on, frenzied and over the top, I failed to engage in the horror or suspense that was well-described. I regret I am in the minority here and am sure many readers of horror and supernatural thrillers will be riveted to the pages. It just wasn't for me, but I struggled along until its end but wasn't feeling the thrills and chills I was hoping for. -
2.75 Stars — ROAD OF BONES is a paranormal horror/thriller set during winter along the Kolyma Highway in Siberia. Until this book popped up on my radar, I had never heard of this road or its cruel, gruesome history. Possibly up to a million gulag prisoners died building this highway and their bodies were buried underneath, victims of Stalin’s cruelty.
A documentarian and his cameraman head out on this desolate highway looking for ghost stories on their way to Akhust, the coldest town on Earth. Once they get there, they find the town has been abandoned except for one little girl, and a pack of murderous wolves, that are now after them.
I have mixed feelings about this book, and I think it’s because I was expecting something different based on the synopsis. There was a fast-paced “chase” element, interesting Siberian folklore, and a few creepy moments. But where were the ghosts? Unfortunately the “road of bones” and its tragic history were lost in the chase, except for a couple of odd disjointed parts.
ROAD OF BONES is heavy on the folktale, without a lot of whys, but I was enthralled with the descriptions of the bitter cold! (Again, where were the ghosts?) Borrowed from the library. -
I’m not sure how to begin to talk about this book. If I could compare it to another I’d say maybe The Only Good Indians by Stephen Graham Jones? 🤷🏻♀️🤦🏻♀️ I keep falling into the trap of books being marketed as one thing and it turned out to be something else. Is it just me? I did really enjoy the horror aspects of this book. It was creepy and atmospheric and the plot twist was strange. Read it for yourself and you tell me! 😂
Felix Teigland is documentary film maker and is hyped to learn of the story about The Road of Bones. In Sibera, the Kolyma Highway is about 1200 miles of road where the word cold doesn’t describe it. Under Stalin’s rule, prisoners tasked with building gulags along the road. Many of the workers perished and were buried where they lay, under the road.
Felix thinks he hit the jackpot with this story. He hires a crew and a Yakut guide to take them to the city of Oymyakon. They meet a bunch of interesting people along the way and come upon an abandoned village where they pick up a nine year old girl.
Then it gets crazy! Ghosts, animal spirits, forest spirits! Freaky wolves and men with antlers! They all chase the crew through the coldest spot in the world. Will the crew become just another bunch of bodies along The Road of Bones? -
I was expecting more from this - I like a few of Christopher Golden's novels - but it felt like it was written more for a screen than for a page. That would probably have worked better for me, honestly, because it's not necessarily a bad book, just one I didn't get pulled into. It's tense where I wanted suspense instead, bloody where I wanted whispers in the wind and mystery. Plenty of positive reviews from people who were able to appreciate it, so don't write it off on my account - just not a book I engaged with.
-
One of the most immersive, atmospheric books when it comes to actually feeling freezing cold while you read it. Gives new meaning to "thrills & chills*. One of my favorite tropes ala "Last Days" by Adam Nevill, a couple of guys making a documentary wind up getting more involved in the research than they initially plan on.
Tieg and his best friend are in Siberia to cover a legend called Road of Bones. They have a near-death experience in the freezing elements and find themselves in an uninhabited village where they learn that the townspeople have all fled to the forest. This is when both the protagonists and the reader realize things will only get worse for the duration of the novel and it is sublime!
Golden is a fantastic storyteller. I absolutely loved his novel RED HANDS from 2020. Will read all his books. -
Nope. Not scary. Not some haunted-abandoned-town thing I was hoping for.
I really wanted to like this book a lot more than I did. I wish I could pinpoint what I didn’t like about it… it disappointed, honestly. The concept sounded cool, I started reading it during a “cold snap” while images of blizzards were coming at me via the news… I thought it would suck me in right away… nope.
I feel like it just took a while to get going… then finally did… then didn’t again. IDK. The characters were lame, the ‘story’ was pointless. I wanted it to be un-put-down-able. It wasn’t. I put it down several times in fact. -
First off, huge, huge thanks to Netgalley, Christopher Golden and St. Martin’s Press for approving me with an advanced digital copy to read. When I got the approval email, I grinned like a maniac for a solid five minutes, never once expecting to be approved! So, thank you!
Now, as for ‘Road of Bones.’
I hate to do this, but have you read any of my own releases? Or my reviews? You know, the one’s where I share time and time again that the cold, the desolate mountains and crazy, creepy creatures are my favorite things of all time? If so – you could ignore the rest of my review and just go preorder.
If not – well let me share!
What I liked: ‘Road of Bones’ follows Teig and Prentiss. Two Americans who’ve travelled to the most remote (and cold) place in the world, in Russia, to try and film enough footage to sell a potential show to Discovery. The Road of Bones or more accurately, R504 Kolyma Highway was constructed in 1932 and stretches for over 2,000 km’s through some of the most uninhabitable wilderness in the world.
The coldest I’ve ever experienced is -51 C (-59.8F) and most winters here, we get temperatures that drop to -40C. This will be for days or sometimes weeks on end, but never for prolonged periods of time, such as they have where the Road of Bones lies. The Kolyma Highway received this name, because it is estimated anywhere from 250,000 to 1 million people died while constructing it. Due to the cold, the remote location and the conditions, those who died were buried beneath the road.
It is with that context that Golden begins the story by ramping up the tension and reality that one small mistake, one little error, and you’ll freeze to death in a matter of minutes. If the truck stalls, if you go too fast, hit ice and go off the road, you’ll become a block of ice.
The banter between Teig and Prentiss was great, showing the kinship of two filmmakers who’ve struck out a number of times, but have the shared experiences between them to know what buttons they can push. Golden made both instantly likeable but also both instantly frustrating. You want to see them succeed but also you see why they haven’t.
Once our guide joins the group and a female character comes along, we arrive at Akhurst, the last stop before Yakut, then on to Oymyakon, the coldest settlement on Earth. It’s at Akhurst where Golden really turns the narrative on it’s head. We find abandoned houses, food still on the tables and doors thrown open. Tracks lead into the woods. And it’s what’s in the woods that transforms this from a simple survival story to a creature-feature survival story.
The tension was palpable throughout, Golden pushing the reader to our max.
What I didn’t like: It’s odd, because I LOVED this book, but I almost feel like it would’ve been great to see more of everyday life and how people live in such cold and extreme, but we don’t really get that. We arrive at Akhurst and everything goes Pete Tong and it’s a race to stay alive after that.
Why you should buy this: This was a top notch novel of terror by a writer who knows how to write action but also to create characters that feel like life long friends. The folklore that arrives is stunning and me pausing to Google things as I went. Loved it and it really heightened the frightening reality of the fact that the characters will either die from the cold, or what lurks just beyond the frost. Outstanding. -
I really wanted to love this one! It had a great, spooky premise, heavy and foreboding atmosphere, and it even had a fairly intriguing start, but boy did this one lose me at about page 100. For it being a relatively short novel, at 225 pages, it felt incredibly long. Not sure what exactly it was that made it so hard to get through, and I'm possibly in the minority here, but I can confidently say I was incredibly disappointed. It could be the whole reindeer thing. This was my first read by this author, and even though it was a miss, I'm still willing to give him another try. I did split this one between printed hardback and audiobook. Perhaps I lost a bit of the story while listening to it, idk?! I may go back and read his previous work, as I've always heard good things!
-
Make no bones about it, antlers and snow have never been more terrifying.
Road of Bones invites you to take an unforgettable ride through the forbidding wilderness of Siberia. And no, just because there are actual paved roads there it doesn’t make it any more inviting or welcoming. And yet the legendary road along the Kolyma is exactly where two longtime friends Tieg and Prentiss are headed, seeking fame and fortune, or at least a someversion there off.
It’s Tieg’s idea, one of the many ideas which over the years have made and often cost him and his friends money. Tieg’s an optimist, always on lookout for the next great story to make a documentary out of and he believes he found it here, in the snowed in remoteness of Siberia. The place is, of course, beyond haunted, with something like 600 000 people buried along it and beneath it, dead while laboring under Stalin’s imperative to create the great road. But what is such superstition to the cynical seen it all pair of first world adventurers.
And so off they go. And that’s where the novel’s first scene finds them. Nearly careening off to certain death. Regaining control, they finally arrive to meet their local guide and proceed to their destination, a tiny town at the end of the world, but once they arrive there, they find all its denizens gone, all but one small girl. And there’s something hungry out there after her, after them.
Time to get heroic, especially for Tieg, who has never gotten over his baby sister being abducted and murdered while on his watch, when they were both kids. For Prentiss and a local woman they pick up along the way, it’s more of an along for the ride sort of thing. And what a ride, the frying pan into the fire nightmarish trajectory through the snowed in place where every single thing, natural and otherwise, is trying to kill them.
At first it seemed like it might be too action forward of a story for me, but it quickly settled into proper and more measured psychological frights and turned out into an excellent production overall. Don’t know why I don’t read more of this guy. The writing’s really good, very dynamic, very vivid, has a certain cinematic quality to it, all while maintaining the appropriately bleak atmosphere and tone. Loved the use of real life events and local culture, customs and mythology. It’s Siberia, people… it doesn’t need a sign saying Lasciate ogne speranza, voi ch'intrate. It’s understood. Didn’t quite help with surviving the latest heating wave, but certainly distracted from it. A Great fun read. A well crafted literary supernatural thriller.Recommended. Thanks Netgalley.
This and more at
https://advancetheplot.weebly.com/ -
Odd.
I'm about 90% into this one and have just gone back and read the blurb.
A stunning supernatural thriller set in Siberia, where a film crew is covering an elusive ghost story about the Kolyma Highway, a road built on top of the bones of prisoners of Stalin's gulag.
No, they're not.
Kolyma Highway, otherwise known as the Road of Bones, is a 1200 mile stretch of Siberian road where winter temperatures can drop as low as sixty degrees below zero. Under Stalin, at least eighty Soviet gulags were built along the route to supply the USSR with a readily available workforce, and over time hundreds of thousands of prisoners died in the midst of their labors. Their bodies were buried where they fell, plowed under the permafrost, underneath the road.
Brilliant. Fascinating. But... nothing to do with the actual story.
Suffice to say, this book did not turn out to be the story I'd expected. I'd go as far as to say the author handed it in and the editor came back where's the stuff about the Road of Bones? so the author had to add another thread with an entirely unrelated old woman walking the road and praying for all the ghosts. Hands this revised version in. Editor now comes back with how does this link to the main story???? so author adds bit where MCs take old woman's car. There two storylines joined.
I will finish and update, but this started with such great potential. I mean come on, gulags, snow... I need no more.
Well, I think I finished. To be honest, by the end I'd entirely lost the thread of the narrative. This one just didn't work for me. -
I'm not sure what it is about Christopher Golden's writing that so perfectly immerses you with immediate effect into whatever narrative he is presenting to you but whatever it is I want more of it.
Road of Bones is such a clever book, lulling you into a false sense of security then BAM, knocking you sideways with the force of a freight train and sending you right to the edge of your seat. And basically it keeps doing that from first page to last.
I really don't want to give anything away so I'll describe it as the most deliciously dark fairytale I've read in forever, an actually scary horror folklore themed story that is packed to the brim with superb characters, emotional trauma, a kind of twisted road trip that is hugely satisfying. I absolutely loved it.
Don't miss this one. Simply superb. -
Christopher Golden is the master of the horror thriller and Road of Bones might be his best. Set on the Kolyma Highway in Siberia, Road of Bones is a tightly-wound tale of survival and redemption. Lovely and sympathetic inclusion of native folklore, and atmospheric as hell. The perfect read on a wintry night when you're snowed in.
-
A down-on-his-luck documentarian is hunting for that one job that will finally pay off... one that takes him to super cold Siberian roads... one that ate over 600,000 lives to build it.
This Road of Bones is a perfect setting for a ghost hunter and his best friend.
Honestly, I think I loved the first half of this novel even more than the second, where the really creepy stuff happens. I enjoyed the characters and the situation and the funny stories and their hopes and dreams.
Later on, I was genuinely freaked out and loved getting frightened by the *no spoilers* and the desperation that led to *no spoilers*.
This novel was very workmanlike and a joy to read even if it wasn't everything I would have wanted to see in horror, but I will mention this: I had massive flashbacks to that old NBC TV production of Hannibal, and pleasurably so. Muahahahahaha -
I came across this book because Stephen King gushed about it on his Twitter accound and thought if he liked it, it must be good. And indeed, it was!
We follow American documentary producer, Teig (his nickname), and his cameraman to Siberia where they plan to film the ominous Kolyma Highway, also known as "Road of Bones", a 1200 miles long road through Siberia.
Fun fact: the road really exists and it is indeed true that Stalin had at least eighty Soviet gulags built along the route in order to supply the workforce - a workforce numbering in the hundreds of thousands of which most probably all died during / because of their labor. It is equally true that the bodies were buried where they fell, hence the name.
Thus, the two Americans are seeking thrill and adventure and therefore plan on visiting (and filming) Oymyakon, the coldest settlement on Earth (also true location).
They hire a local guide but as you probably already expected, things already go badly when they arrive at the settlement.
The remotest places on the planet always invite superstition and myth and I've always loved such "what if" stories. :D Here, we get old Russian tales coming to life, ghosts haunting an entire road and all places alongside it. We get horrific attacks and ... more.
The book didn't shatter my world and didn't creep me out the way I had hoped after the glowing recommendation it received. Might also have to do with the weekend during which I've read the book - I was on the road myself (I thought it would be perfet therefore) but without snow and ice (technically a good thing) and the company I kept was, sadly, not eviscerated. *lol* Nevertheless, it was very atmospheric, there was a mystery as well as blood and gore and so I enjoyed it quite a bit. -
REINDEERS THAT UNBEND THEMSELVES! Yes please!!!
-
3.5 Stars
I enjoy a good road trip horror story and found this one to be fairly standard. I appreciated the historical aspect because I remember learning about the road back in high school history class. The actual story was a quick, fast paced read. I found the characters and plot to be a be shallow and predictable, but it was a reasonably engaging story. -
Actual rating 4.5/5 stars
Reading Road of Bones was a TON of fun for me! I practically read it in one sitting as it is a very faced paced story that gets going quickly and isn’t too long. Going into the book I didn’t know much about it, which I liked because I was kept on my toes the whole time. Road of Bones is one of those books I can tell was written specifically for horror fans and I greatly appreciated it. Not to mention I think this would make an excellent horror film too as it felt very cinematic.
Road of Bones is set in Siberia, which is a fantastic setting and one that is portrayed very well in the story. The author really created a bone-chilling, foreboding, and almost claustrophobic atmosphere that felt very distinctive and memorable. All of the little details really added to the strong sense of place in this novel. I wouldn’t be surprised if the author has actually visited Siberia. If he hasn’t, he must have done a lot of research which helped make the story feel distinctive and authentic. He captured the terror of being outside in one of the coldest places on Earth masterfully, and it fits the story perfectly. Plus, it’s extra chilling reading this book and knowing that the setting is a real place. The Kolyma Highway, nicknamed the Road of Bones, actually does exist in real life and has a very dark and tragic backstory.
In Road of Bones we follow two friends, American Felix "Teig" Teigland and his friend/ cameraman Jack Prentiss who is British. They travel to Siberia with plans to collect footage along the Kolyma Highway in order to pitch Teig’s reality TV show idea. Teig has been down on his luck with finances and keeping his film production company in business and owes Prentiss and other people lots of money. He has a lot riding on whether or not he can successfully pitch and produce his show idea. After hiring a local Siberian guide, he and Prentiss travel with the guide to the guide’s hometown, which is where the plot takes off as something is very wrong there. I won’t say anymore about the plot because you should pick it up to find out what happens next!
Pacing wise, I thought it was practically perfect for a horror novel. From the opening scene onward, there is no filler or fluff and creepy things begin happening very quickly. The sense of foreboding and something ominous being in the air is with you from page one onward. Road of Bones doesn’t dawdle with ramping up the intensity. From the get go, there’s tension that only escalates as the novel progresses. The plot was solid too. Though it took a different direction than I expected, I still found myself enjoying the ride and trying to figure out what would happen next. In fact, I’m actually glad it went a little different than I thought it would because it made it less predictable. There’s also some very unique mythology and supernatural elements that were very neat to read and learn about.
The characters are well done too. Road of Bones is not the kind of novel that goes in depth on character development because there isn’t enough time for a deep dive, but for the time the book had I thought it did a good job. You get a good feel for the kind of people Teig and Prentiss are and even the Siberians who end up joining them in their fight for survival. Teig and Prentiss’s relationship is complicated but you can tell they are true friends. There’s enough background information to understand why the characters act and think but not too much that the present story gets bogged down.
My reason for giving this book a 4.5/5 stars instead of a full 5 stars has to do with a spoiler involving the main character and is very much a “me” problem. To keep it as vague as I can (but tread carefully here on out), it involved his stubbornness and reluctance to do something/acknowledge something very obvious that really bothered me. I get why he was that way and why he’d be so blinded by a certain drive and ethical dilemma, but it was ultimately a decision that cost lives and I don’t know if that sits well with me or not. This is really an ethical/philosophical question and it’s one people could debate for hours. How much is one human life compared to another human life? How many human lives would you sacrifice for a principle? However this is ultimately a small criticism and one I can overlook because I really liked the rest of the story.
Overall, this was a very entertaining and well done horror story. It’s one I’ll be adding to my horror collection soon as I picture myself rereading it when the weather starts to get cold again. I’d be pretty excited if it was turned into a horror film so long as it didn’t deviate too much from the original material. I recommend it for horror fans but also think readers who like spooky stories based on real places and those interested in being exposed to different mythology would like it. -
This book dragged on for days, focusing on how cold it was. There was nothing eerie about this book. I love horror books and this was not it. It was so far fetched. I don't know what book Stephen King read that he said it was creepy as hell, sure wasn't this one. I would say don't waste your time on this one.
-
Review to come :)
-
4.25/5
Road of Bones by
Christopher Golden has a bit of a slower start, but I was invested immediately, and I finished it in one sitting! The story gradually becomes creepier and creepier, and I don't know if I would want to read it at night all alone. It had a nice mix of elements for me and felt part supernatural suspense, part horror, and part thriller while also having a great ghost aspect as well. The cover of it is what immediately caught and held my attention and now after having read the book, makes perfect sense and is quite fitting. I virtually felt like I was in Siberia the entire time myself, and I loved Teig and his cameraman Prentiss as well as their banter in the first part of the story. While we start with just Teig's viewpoint, that does change, but I honestly loved the book from every viewpoint. After reading the acknowledgments I also went down the rabbit hole that is the Kolyma Highway trying to find the article that Golden mentions. After reading the book and the Googling I did, I am now really fascinated with this tragedy of a road.
The pacing did start out a little on the slow side as previously mentioned but picks up as the story goes on, and by the time I was at the end, it felt very fast indeed. The audiobook is a real winner here, and the narrator Robert Fass did an unbelievable job. Between his narration and Golden's writing, I was practically glued to the book and couldn't wait to see where it would go next. It does get a little on the gross and violent side which is where it started to give me those horror vibes, and I don't think anyone with a weak stomach will be able to handle it. Road of Bones also got more than a little weird and there was a lot going on, but it all worked together for me in the best possible way. I have no idea why I am only just now reading Golden but now I will most certainly be reading more of him and can't help but agree with Stephen King's blurb about this being atmospheric and creepy as hell.
I received a complimentary copy of this book. Opinions expressed in this review are completely my own.
