Title: The Haunted Forest Tour
Authors: James A. Moore & Jeff Strand
Publication Date: September 26, 2017
Publisher: Createspace
Pages: 378
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Ladies and gentlemen, welcome to the Haunted Forest Tour! Sit back and enjoy a smooth ride in air-conditioned comfort as your heavily armored tram takes you through nature’s most astonishing creation. The forest is packed to capacity with dangerous and terrifying creatures of all shapes, sizes, and hunger levels, and you’ll get to observe these wonders in complete safety.
Howl with a werewolf! Gaze into the glowing eyes of a giant spider! Look right through a spooky ghost! See horrific monsters you couldn’t even imagine, only inches away from you! Things with fangs, things with claws, things with dripping red jaws — you’ll see them all!
Not thrilling enough? Well, it’s Halloween, and so we’re offering a very special tour through the Haunted Forest. The new route goes deeper into the woods than any civilians have ventured before, and you’re guaranteed to get a good scare! Rest assured that every possible security precaution has been taken. The Haunted Forest Tour has a 100% safety record, and technical difficulties are unheard of. You will be in no danger whatsoever.
We promise.
I started reading The Haunted Forest Tour as part of Fraterfest this year, but ended up not completing it, so it carried over after the read-a-thon. Unfortunately taking extra time to battle through it didn’t help very much.
This book is about a forest and really that’s about all. It definitely isn’t about the characters. I made it 40% in and I honestly couldn’t tell you the name of a single one of them. The action begins on the first page and the initial sequence is fascinating! I truly wish we’d gotten to stay in the creation of the forest much longer. Instead, the book jumps to the tour and from there it feels a bit Jurassic Park, but without the tension.
In Jurassic Park, we knew the characters and came to care about what happened to them. When the cars die in the forest of The Haunted Forest Tour and monsters come out of the woodwork, it’s very difficult to feel any kind of way about the characters who die. I’m not sure what happens later in the book, but at the point where I gave up, there had been a lot of running and monster kills and very little emotion.
I’m sure there was a great idea here and it’s possible that it was better after the 40% mark, but I just couldn’t care any less about the characters or what happened to them. A book can have tons of action, but without any attachment to the characters, it’s a whole lot of nothing.
