A Place To Fear (1994)

Author G. M. Hague
Publisher Pan Macmillan Publishers Australia
Length 564 pages
Genre Sci-Fi
Blurb A shocking tale from the master of horror
Country

Talk us through it

Hickory is an out of the way town where nothing much happens and the only thing going down is the sugarcane crop. New arrivals find it hard to fit in and the locals keep their own secrets tight to their chests. Something a little worrying is starting to happen and no one in town seems to be overly concerned. There's a strange light out by the river, people are going missing, and even worse death has arrived to haunt Hickory's streets.

Three strangers will be drawn together by events. Michael Garrett, newly arrived from the city, has his own special investigation going down but is not prepared for what he discovers once contact with the outside world is shut off. Kerry Wentworth, who has just brought the town's only chemist shop, is dragged into events as things deteriorate alarmingly. And Gavin Packer, who with his family is trying for the self sufficient lifestyle, will find things becoming very personal.

When the dead walk the streets of Hickory and the Army has closed off the town its time to fight to survive.

Review

"When a man's dead, he's dead - you know that better than most" - Arnold Connors

A Place To Fear is for mine the best of the four horror novels G. M. Hague had published before he moved onto other things. There's a certain intensity to things and Hague predates the Spierig brothers use of zombies with an alien explanation in the movie Undead (2003) by more than a decade. Of course the unkind amongst us will be left wondering if the Author had perhaps chanced upon Ed Wood Jr's Plan 9 From Outer Space (1959), and thought the whole thing needed a touch up and dusting off. In the final analysis Hague has a completely different take on the zombie thing and it becomes one of a number of plot strands running through the novel.

Guess I'm getting slightly ahead of myself and should put the zombie thing in context of the overall novel. Hague is going for a number of story arcs with A Place To Fear but this shouldn't be confused with fleshing out the actual book in any fashion. So we have an Alien landing, some religious mania hitting the high notes of lunacy, the military intent on a scorched earth policy, and of course the spreading zombie plague. Toss in a ghost or two and your good to go. Remarkably all the plot threads do eventually tie up in a neat bundle though whether or not the resolution and final chapter works I'll leave to the individual reader. Like King's The Shining I could read the Writer flagging over the last thirty or so pages and just wanting to be able to type "The End". It's an abrupt finish that's going to leave you wondering if you really should have got a few more pages for your time invested.

While I wasn't expecting a number of developments in the novel, Hague does manage to spring a few surprises, his characters do tend to exhibit that strange decision making ability that horror outings seem to delight in. For the uninformed that would be the classic "dumb move" the dark genre seems to delight in. It didn't take me out of the book at any stage but I must admit to rolling my eyes on a few occasions. For example, our group of survivors decide to seek sanctuary in the town church, good on them and there's certainly some logic in the decision, however did anyone not pick what was going to go down after the first paragraph involving the Priest? This wasn't so much the spider inviting people into it's parlour, as those people opening the door themselves and entering without invitation. I know the Author has a requirement to supply the requisite thrills and spills, A Place To Fear is after all a horror novel, but some more attention to plotting might have been worth investing in.

The book is a good read as long as you put your brain into neutral and don't overly think about what's going down on the page. Clearly business as usual then in a horror novel if we wanted to be cynical.

Overall I found the novel somewhat daunting to get through though I can't actually pin point what caused that reaction. It just seemed to be too much like work to pick it up again and read another fifty odd pages on occasion. Hague has certainly written a well rounded story that keeps things moving throughout, it's just slightly slow in getting to the point on occasion, especially through the middle block. I don't often say this, but I believe this book could have been improved by slimming down the word count and perhaps jettisoning one of the story arcs. Hague may have attempted to tackle one too many ideas for his own good.

For me the major problem with the book however was Hague's handling of his three main younger characters. They just didn't ring true to me, and Hague seemed somewhat ill equipped to inject them into the storyline. We are told Ainslie McGregor is a bit of a tear away, but no where in the novel are we actually shown that, it's all hearsay at best. Hague paints his young people via the thoughts of others and never has them portray the attributes assigned to them.

This review I guess would seem to have hit the criticism highway and be headed to bad rating City, but as stated I found A Place To Fear the best of G. M. Hague's horror output. The various plot lines do drag you into the book, and everything intertwines nicely to rope the reader into wanting to find out what happens in the end. There's certainly some intriguing ideas being offered, and a clear original streak runs through most plot developments. Overall I was happy enough with my reading experience even taking into account the issues raised above. Hague knows how to tell a yarn and I was pretty happy to sit back and listen to one.

What I did note in A Place To Fear, and I'm not saying this is a weakness, is that Hague seems to have lost his Aussie accent with the novel portraying an international flavour rather than a regional one. If for the moment you forget the place names and obvious Down Under setting, then you would be hard pressed to determine if Hague was an Aussie, a Yank, or heaven forbid a Pom. It's one of those observations I made after completing the novel, and as stated it's not something I necessarily view as a weakness. I wonder if the Author was writing this one with a view toward the foreign market rather than the domestic one?

If you are after a solid horror book to read over the summer then G. M. Hague's A Place To Fear is worth seeking out. It's complex enough to keep your attention while not becoming overly convoluted. There's not a multitude of characters to try and remember, and you can drop the book on the couch one day then pick it up the next without having any trouble remembering what went down previously. It's a big expansive read that is worth the price of admission.

A Place To Fear would appear to be out of print and I was unable to source one through mainstream or speciality bookstores. Your best bet would be to hit eBay, where there seems to be a fairly regular listing of the book, or maybe amazon.com though I haven't checked to see if it's available there.

ScaryMinds Rates this read as ...

Strong novel by an established horror Author with a few minor blemishes.