The Chill
Ratings6
Average rating4.1
15
Ratings6
Average rating4.1
'This is one terrific horror/suspense/disaster novel. Characters you root for and a story that grips from the first page' STEPHEN KING 'The Chill is an eerie dive into the murky depths of the supernatural. A story that has you looking back over your shoulder on every page' MICHAEL CONNELLY In this terrifying thriller, a supernatural force set in motion a century ago threatens to devastate New York City. In upstate New York a drowned village lies beneath the dark, still waters of the Chilewaukee reservoir. Sacrificed a century ago to bring water to the millions living downstate, the town's destruction was for the greater good . . . at least that's what the politicians said. Years later an inspector overseeing the dangerously neglected dam witnesses something inexplicable. It seems more than the village was left behind in the waters of the Chill; some never left at all. Now a dark prophecy comes to fruition. Those who remember must ask themselves: who will be next? For sacrifices must be made. As the dark water begins inexorably to rise, the demand for a fresh sacrifice emerges from the deep . . .
Reviews with the most likes.
I don't think I realized I was missing a horror novel about dams and reservoirs, but apparently I was. Scott Carson takes an interesting idea - the drowned town that is replaced by a reservoir and builds an impressively crafted supernatural tale around it. In some ways the supernatural here is only used to enhance the feeling of mounting peril - they could be seen as a metaphor for mundane things and that underlying ambiguity gives the story its power.
A significant proportion of the worlds population must live downstream of dams. Whilst dam bursts are incredibly rare they are terrifying events, that really are not brought into literature that much. The Chill focusses on a fictitious reservoir within the very real Catskill water catchment system for New York. Funnily enough I had just recently watched a YouTube video on this very system so was already a little familiar with this somewhat niche and esoteric subject. Here we a c0nfronted by the events leading up to and the aftermath of a dam collapse, driven in part by the myths of an old village swamped beneath the reservoir.
I thoroughly enjoyed this one - it read a lot quicker than its apparent length. Always a good sign in my mind! An intriguing subject for terror, and one that probably more people should be aware of!
I really enjoyed Scott Carson's The Chill. Although describing this book as horror might leave some readers disappointed, I throughly enjoyed this merging of supernatural and thriller elements. This story seemed both fantastical and plausible, and provided some great character development, especially in the character of Aaron. While Carson could have probably written a shorter book and told the story equally or even more effectively, I throughly enjoyed The Chill.
