Offspring

The hills are alive with the screams of mothers - or at least that is what the evidence points out as one horrifc crime scene turns to two and as people begin to go missing once more. The numbers of people are small at first, however, and the law enforcement officers think nothing of it considering what they saw once upon an ago. but then a family is sluahgtered in a style that is hard to ignore and certain things are found that seem to say "We are back." This gets some hearts pumping, too, especially one that was there when the first people were found, and he begins to imagine the landscape of the past. He sees the woods and the caves, the unexplored regions and the ease that would be the foundation for the movements he is noticing, and that scares him. It scares him enough, in fact, to make him join in a search for someone that ends up becoming a struggle for life and death. Add in other people to the fray, some just owners of homes and others more vile people, and you have the repeat that the law wants to avoid at all costs. While some people found this book lesser in content, i liked the way Ketchum put this tale together. He writes so well and gives you mindsets that almost make him seem like a monster with a mask on, and i love that about him. here he explains a lot of things to us, too, from the small remains of a clan making it through thanks to their "cow" and their determination and their sheer will to be nature's finest. The night before was chaos anyhow and, thanks to that, the mother managed to slip out with some of her brood and make a new clan. She also teaches them how to do everything, how to hunt and how to take, and it all seems to be going so well. then there is an incident he describes - he is so good here because he captures thoughts and pins them to the pages like butterflies - that leads people to come looking for them. This makes her mad but, like all mothers, she just wants the love of her family. That, and a little jerky for the road. Read Off-season, the uncut version, and see what you think. It is a great read and should have been one of the best books of its time, but it was largely forgotten until word-of-mouth revived the book and made people see what they missed. It has so many elements that make it strong and, more than anything, it is stunning graphic and yet filled with writing that goes well beyond what you expect from even the best horror writer. If you like this book then you will like a contiuation of the book, and that is what we have here. It is good, too, and mademe happy when I got it. I actually was a fraid considering some of the things i read about it beforehand, but the beforehand was just smut that missed out on how precious children can be when they are nibbling at a thighbone. Yeah, Ketchum is a master and mastery makes readers like me and you (if you try it out) happy. this, coupled with Red, The Lost, Cover, Peaceable Kingom, and a drove of other books says that he is grand. Check him out and

I can't even begin to say how much I loved this book. Jack Ketchum is fantastic. I'm not going to go into details of the story, like a lot of "reviewers" do. I'm simply going to say that Ketchum is one of the best horror writers I've ever read. The thing that I like most about his writing is that you actually care what happens to the people in his tales. Other writers, Bryan Smith for example, have such shallow, one-dimensional characters who are totally unrealistic...you really can't cheer for any of them. And that doesn't make for an exciting read. Do yourself a favor. Get into Ketchum.

They eat your liver, but no fava beans or chianti. They are helped in their murderous rampage for part of the book by the stereotypical Evil Yuppie (a fairly overused, stock villain, but still effective). Between extremely graphic descriptions of human dissection, and some suspenseful moments of chasing, hiding, and hunter-becomes-hunted, there are some ruminations on evil that are quite substantial and complex. Consider how the cannibals are presented in such a way that we never feel any sympathy for them: a less careful author would've succumbed to the temptation to make these monsters more sympathetic, to give them a hint of caring or affection, at least for one another, if not for their victims. And also consider how flat they would've been if they were unregenerately evil, but w/o a glimpse into their inner thoughts (as they would appear in a torture porn movie version of this) - cackling clowns whooping it up around the fire as human entrails bubble away in the pot. But with their inner thoughts revealed, we have a look at what the author considers the essence of evil - selfish, almost solipsistic brutality (and here the use of the Evil Yuppie as comparison is effective).

I've read some reviews here that mention that Offspring contains the same basic plot as "Off Season", and well yeah, it sure does. But so does about a thousand other horror offerings from Richard Laymon's "Midnight's Lair" and Tobe Hooper's classic "Texas Chainsaw Massacre." What makes Ketchum's "Off Season" and "Offspring" different is Ketchum's strong prose and great characterizations. Ketchum can make characters come alive with a few simple sentences enough to make an impact when bad things happen to the good people in the novel. And when bad things happen to bad people, you're both satisfied that justice has been served but repulsed by the horrors that happen. "Offspring" may not blow you away some of Ketchum's other work does (i.e. "Girl Next Door"), but it is an exercise in mounting dread and quickly turned pages. If you enjoyed "Off Season", there's more than enough here to keep you entertained.

Thanks to Overlook Connection Press for releasing this signed, limited hardcover edition of one of Ketchum's out of print novels. This sequel to Off Season is a fast paced follow-up to the original with some of the same characters returning to fight against some more nasty cannibals. Sure, parts of it seem like more of the same, but Laymon's "Woods Are Dark" cannibal novels had four in the series plus mentions in other stories and all of those were good as well. Isn't that how most sequels go? Haven't you seen all of those Chainsaw movies that are virtual remakes of each other? Bonuses for the limited edition of Offspring include the unexpurgated text and two afterwords by Ketchum. I would recommend this one for your Ketchum collection. I'm glad it's back in print again, and hope to see Leisure release a mass market edition.