Book Review: The Broken Places, by Blaine Daigle
Three bros on a hunting trip to the Yukon, terror in the deep, dark woods.
Wicked House Publishing, 2023, 240 pages
When Ryne Burdette inherits his family's old hunting cabin deep in the Yukon wilderness, he wants to say no. Nothing much is left in that place except for unpleasant memories and the smoke of old burns. But after a tragic year, he sees a weekend trip to the cabin with his best friends as a way to recuperate and begin again. But there is something strange about these woods. As a winter storm moves in, the animals begin acting strangely, and the natural laws of the wilderness seem to fall apart. Then, the soft voices start whispering through the trees. Something is watching them. As the storm gets worse and the woods get darker, the three friends must dive into the darkest waters of the Burdette family lineage. Because the horrible truth is deep, resting in the shadowed places no one wants to look.
The Yukon is a natural setting for horror. You don't need to add the supernatural to make the place scary. It's remote, it's dark, it's cold, there are bears and wolves, and the natives don't like you.
Add the supernatural and you've got the makings for some pretty good horror if done right.
The Broken Places is okay, though it never quite achieved the necessary level of creep-you-out or jump-out-of-your-skin or shocking-twist to make it great horror. We get hints early on that the main protagonist, Ryne Burdette, has a creepy family history. His father and uncle used to bring him out to their family cabin in the Yukon for hunting trips, and Ryne saw and heard just enough to know there was some weird shit going on, though he was too young to put it together.
Now, Ryne and his two best friends Sean and Noah are going back to his family's cabin for a hunting trip, just ahead of a winter storm that's going to cut off almost all communication with the outside world. Right away they run into a weird, scary deer who just stands in front of their vehicle and won't be moved. This encounter is the first of many that goes terribly. The three of them end up trapped in the cabin facing nature that isn't acting natural, and local villagers who just need gills to resemble Innsmouthers.
Interspersed with the unfolding horror story in the Yukon are flashbacks to each of the men's lives. Ryne, Sean, and Noah have all survived recent tragedies in their lives, so we get a bit of character development to develop some sympathy for each of them, but I actually found it a bit distracting, as only Ryne's story is immediately relevant, and the others were just a bit of extraneous background detail. Sean is a former pro baseball player whose dreams were shattered when a knee injury wrecked his leg. Noah survived almost being suffocated in a grain silo. Ryne's wife had a miscarriage, leading to the end of their marriage. They're all traumatized in different ways. Going out into the snowy tundra to shoot things is a very male way of bonding and trying to get over shit, but since this is a horror novel, you know it's not going to end well.
The supernatural ramps up pretty quickly, and although there are no direct Lovecraftian references, it's obvious this book was written in Lovecraft's shadow. The existential horror of a cold, uncaring universe filled with hostile entities who either don't care about humans or see us as food, the bleak setting, the creepy villagers, the horrors of the Old World cast against horrors imported from the New World, and the protagonists struggling against cosmic forces, would all fit right into his universe.
This was not a bad winter's read, but it just wasn't original or gripping enough to thrill me.
My complete list of book reviews.
Wicked House Publishing, 2023, 240 pages
When Ryne Burdette inherits his family's old hunting cabin deep in the Yukon wilderness, he wants to say no. Nothing much is left in that place except for unpleasant memories and the smoke of old burns. But after a tragic year, he sees a weekend trip to the cabin with his best friends as a way to recuperate and begin again. But there is something strange about these woods. As a winter storm moves in, the animals begin acting strangely, and the natural laws of the wilderness seem to fall apart. Then, the soft voices start whispering through the trees. Something is watching them. As the storm gets worse and the woods get darker, the three friends must dive into the darkest waters of the Burdette family lineage. Because the horrible truth is deep, resting in the shadowed places no one wants to look.
The Yukon is a natural setting for horror. You don't need to add the supernatural to make the place scary. It's remote, it's dark, it's cold, there are bears and wolves, and the natives don't like you.
Add the supernatural and you've got the makings for some pretty good horror if done right.
The Broken Places is okay, though it never quite achieved the necessary level of creep-you-out or jump-out-of-your-skin or shocking-twist to make it great horror. We get hints early on that the main protagonist, Ryne Burdette, has a creepy family history. His father and uncle used to bring him out to their family cabin in the Yukon for hunting trips, and Ryne saw and heard just enough to know there was some weird shit going on, though he was too young to put it together.
Now, Ryne and his two best friends Sean and Noah are going back to his family's cabin for a hunting trip, just ahead of a winter storm that's going to cut off almost all communication with the outside world. Right away they run into a weird, scary deer who just stands in front of their vehicle and won't be moved. This encounter is the first of many that goes terribly. The three of them end up trapped in the cabin facing nature that isn't acting natural, and local villagers who just need gills to resemble Innsmouthers.
Interspersed with the unfolding horror story in the Yukon are flashbacks to each of the men's lives. Ryne, Sean, and Noah have all survived recent tragedies in their lives, so we get a bit of character development to develop some sympathy for each of them, but I actually found it a bit distracting, as only Ryne's story is immediately relevant, and the others were just a bit of extraneous background detail. Sean is a former pro baseball player whose dreams were shattered when a knee injury wrecked his leg. Noah survived almost being suffocated in a grain silo. Ryne's wife had a miscarriage, leading to the end of their marriage. They're all traumatized in different ways. Going out into the snowy tundra to shoot things is a very male way of bonding and trying to get over shit, but since this is a horror novel, you know it's not going to end well.
The supernatural ramps up pretty quickly, and although there are no direct Lovecraftian references, it's obvious this book was written in Lovecraft's shadow. The existential horror of a cold, uncaring universe filled with hostile entities who either don't care about humans or see us as food, the bleak setting, the creepy villagers, the horrors of the Old World cast against horrors imported from the New World, and the protagonists struggling against cosmic forces, would all fit right into his universe.
This was not a bad winter's read, but it just wasn't original or gripping enough to thrill me.
My complete list of book reviews.