Not like the Passage at all. I am glad I read this.
A beautifully crafted story of love and travel to parallel universes. The story seems to meander on a bit longer than necessary, but the well-fleshed out characters and gorgeous descriptions kept me turning the page.
The beautiful land serves its name right because it's just plain beautiful in a creepy kind of way but beautiful indeed. If you love The Passage you will definitely love this novel.
I don't know how Averill earned the right/ability to wield black humor - gallows humor, war humor, whatever you want to call it - but he has the knack of it. At first I was reminded of Generation X, then Snow Crash, with some Rudyard Kipling and World War I poets thrown in for good measure, then a dark variation of The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy, even a little bit of The Magician's Nephew, and The Blues Brothers.
I haven't read sci-fi for a while, but this book caught my attention right from the start - and wouldn't let go. I planned to read it slowly, but wound up finishing in a day.
Like many others, I read the excerpt from Averill's winning entry to the Breakthrough Novel contest and I was captivated. Leading off with two grim scenes involving two characters well-fleshed out in limited words, I felt suspense over the fates of Tak and Samira...
When reading the book, I kept thinking, "This is tailor-made for a savvy director to turn into a great film." Averill's writing is cinematic in sweep and intensity, and once you start the book, it becomes impossible to put down.
The Beautiful Land is one of the most inventive and well-written sci-fi/horror novels I've read in a while. It's a little genre-bending (If you read sci-fi, think Dan Simmons) in that it's science fiction but with elements of horror.
The Beautiful Land starts off odd and only gets weirder from there. As Tak and Sam jump between realities readers will be both engrossed and confused, constantly waiting in eager anticipation to see what happens next.
I agree with the other one star review...where is the rest?
I just could't buy the romance between Tak and Sam. Leaving them as BFFs would have greatly improved the story.
Wow... This book pulled me in from the very first page.
Solid writing and great character development. Tak and Samira were both fully realized characters - almost like Averill was writing about friends and family members.
The beautiful land serves its name right because it's just plain beautiful in a creepy kind of way but beautiful indeed. If you love The Passage you will definitely love this novel.
