Let's start off with the ground rules here: I hate series books, period. I hate being suckered into thinking I need to read more to give this author a fair shake on the first book. I'm going to go back and drop a half-star off Ghost Road Blues just for that. If the series had maintained the same rating level as GRB throughout, I would have left it alone. That said, while the next two books were not bad, they weren't nearly as good as GRB. Maberry should have stopped at one.

I'm not sure what motivated Maberry to draw this out. I think authors fall in love with characters they have created sometimes. They don't want to let things go and aren't inspired enough (or are afraid they're not) to take the time to make a new batch. I think it is an author cop out that feeds some fans that fall in love with characters too. I don't care if they all get hit by a truck on the last page. Really, it's fiction.

I know a lot of people don't believe in this but I'm right and they're wrong.

Onward... Not a lot to say about this except we get to ratchet up the gore, the body count, the number of vampires, and werewolves, the latter by only one though. The exact details aren't important. Maberry has a make-it-up-as-you-go attitude towards our usual vampire folklore which he cleverly disguises by introducing a folklore expert who obviously knows more than you do. Garlic oil pretty much does the trick.

There are a lot of plot holes (Why didn't they just cover Sarah's Hummer with garlic oil and drive around town mowing down the living dead before they could get to the swamp?), but we can ignore those. The "monster," what they call a Boss in a videogame, is unusual but monsters aren't scary. A lot of pages are wasted describing its development until we finally get to the less than satisfactory payoff.

Maberry, in my opinion, really dumbs down the language and the plot to get through this last volume. We pretty much know all the more minor characters are going to get it in the end and he commits the cardinal sin of almost ignoring the one character we do care about from the previous books so when he gets it it is not a surprise nor are we emotionally invested any longer.

You can read Ghost Road Blues effectively as a standalone, and you should, but skip the other two volumes.
( )

The conclusion to the Pine Deep novels, that poor benighted horror-loving town, is easily the best of the lot. All the novels build and build to this epic blowout and I'm honestly rather surprised how much I got into it by the end.

Mike is easily getting most of my hero-worship, that poor abused teen, but Crow is geeky-awesome and Val kicks butt. And most of all, I enjoyed the great reveal about the weres and the vamps and the twist to the mythos. None of it would be half as good if it hadn't built so slow and steady in the telling. A mysterious big bad is always more fun than an outright tell-all, though we do get that by the end.

If I had to compare this to anything, I think of Stephen King. Just putting all three of these novels together would have been just fine. Think epic horror. The kind that goes through a few generations or a whole town. Which this does. With great detail. Fun detail. :)

Want bloody? Want an epic small-town battle against the hoards of evil? Hell yeah. :)

This is definitely either an upgrade to the previous novels or the payoff for getting through those two gives this one all the credit. :) ( )

I loved this series. It was creepy and scary and twisty. Another gem from Jonathan Maberry. Highly recommended. ( )

It was a fine wrap up to end the story. I am not sure that it can truly be read as a stand alone book (as the author states). You have to understand what Mike and the other characters have suffered up to this book for the emotion to make sense. Great epic end of the World battle. A fitting end for all to be had, the good and the bad.(I did not intend for that to rhyme)

I can honestly say if we had the continuing story of Mike and the 42, I would read that.

If you like monsters of all kinds then this series is a good one to embark upon. ( )

It was a fine wrap up to end the story. I am not sure that it can truly be read as a stand alone book (as the author states). You have to understand what Mike and the other characters have suffered up to this book for the emotion to make sense. Great epic end of the World battle. A fitting end for all to be had, the good and the bad.(I did not intend for that to rhyme)

I can honestly say if we had the continuing story of Mike and the 42, I would read that.

If you like monsters of all kinds then this series is a good one to embark upon. ( )