Road of Bones
Ratings11
Average rating2.9
15
Ratings11
Average rating2.9
An American documentarian travels a haunted highway across the frozen tundra of Siberia in New York Times bestselling author Christopher Golden’s Road of Bones, a “tightly wound, atmospheric, and creepy as hell” (Stephen King) supernatural thriller. Surrounded by barren trees in a snow-covered wilderness with a dim, dusky sky forever overhead, Siberia’s Kolyma Highway is 1200 miles of gravel packed permafrost within driving distance of the Arctic Circle. A narrow path where drivers face such challenging conditions as icy surfaces, limited visibility, and an average temperature of sixty degrees below zero, fatal car accidents are common. But motorists are not the only victims of the highway. Known as the Road of Bones, it is a massive graveyard for the former Soviet Union’s gulag prisoners. Hundreds of thousands of people worked to death and left where their bodies fell, consumed by the frozen elements and plowed beneath the permafrost road. Fascinated by the history, documentary producer Felix “Teig” Teigland is in Russia to drive the highway, envisioning a new series capturing Life and Death on the Road of Bones with a ride to the town of Akhust, “the coldest place on Earth”, collecting ghost stories and local legends along the way. Only, when Teig and his team reach their destination, they find an abandoned town, save one catatonic nine-year-old girl—and a pack of predatory wolves, faster and smarter than any wild animals should be. Pursued by the otherworldly beasts, Teig’s companions confront even more uncanny and inexplicable phenomena along the Road of Bones, as if the ghosts of Stalin’s victims were haunting them. It is a harrowing journey that will push Teig beyond endurance and force him to confront the sins of his past.
Reviews with the most likes.
this book was so short but took forever to read. the horror in this just wasn't my favorite and there was a part of this that pulled at my heartstrings but it felt like nothing happened even tho it did. the bitterly cold atmosphere was really the only part of this book that was fleshed out
If you like paranormal thrillers set in a remote location, this will be the book for you. I was intrigued from the beginning of getting to know the MC's Tieg and Prentiss. Being a big fan of paranormal investigator shows and the like, I was excited to learn that that was the background these men had. And their goal in being in this remote part of the world was to create the next best show. So, I was a fan of the characters right away. The excitement in the plot really started right from page one. I could really feel what they were feeling being in this super cold, remote area in Siberia.
That's the next thing...it is cold. At first, I found the descriptions of the cold endearing and helpful. I can barely imagine, but I felt like this was the best I'd ever be able to get close to imagining. However, as the book goes on there is no way that you can forget it's cold. It's mentioned so regularly by every single character, multiple times. It went past proving the point to being a bit grating. However, this was only mildly annoying. I would quickly lose the annoyance of it when gripped with the issues that these characters end up facing. And those problems surmount as the book goes on.
Overall, I find this book to be exciting and unique. I enjoyed the writing style. There were times it did drag and felt repetitive, but overall a good book. The one thing that I think would have made this book so much better for me is if we got a bit more information on a big character/plot point. However, I don't feel like it was very necessary to elaborate on it for the story to be a good one.
Thank you Netgalley and St. Martins Press for this ARC for a fair and honest review.
This was pretty good. I usually balk at the fantasy / supernatural stuff, but this drew me in. I'd read more from this author.
This book will give you the chills even if you're reading it in the middle of the hottest day in summer. Set in the middle of a Siberian winter along the twelve hundred mile long R504 Kolyma Highway, two men are traveling to a small isolated community in Siberia to film a documentary about the supernatural in this sparsely populated area of the world. The Kolyma Highway is known as the Road of Bones because it is built atop the frozen bodies of the hundreds of thousands of Stalin era gulag victims that died helping build the road that then became their grave. Teig is the idea man behind the project who is trying to jump start his failing career as a producer of documentary films. He owes his one last loyal friend, companion and cameraman, Prentiss, eight thousand dollars. If successful, the earnings from the documentary will more than settle his debt. They've made arrangements to meet a guide who speaks the local language and will take them the final leg of their journey to their destination. Traveling the highway in the middle of the long deadly cold Siberian night they find and rescue a girl, Nari, whose car has broken down. When the now four travelers reach the small village destination they soon find that it has been deserted; signs that all the people abandoned their warm homes and walked through the snow into the surrounding forest, some even barefoot. But one small girl, Una, the niece of their guide, is found in a catatonic condition huddling in her home. Why she was spared is unknown but the group soon realizes that something mysterious and dangerous is lurking in the surrounding forest. Nari calls it the parnee, a thing of nature; an antlered spirit with an army of animalistic wolf-like beings that can shift from the physical to shadow. With the little girl in tow, the four travelers now find they must flee for their lives back down the frozen highway pursued in the deadly cold night by powerful supernatural forces. The terror has just begun. A fast read that somewhat reminded me of the classic Algernon Blackwood horror story, The Wendigo.
