 A supernatural apocalypse breeds a new type of fear in five-part epic beginning with Fire and Blood (1) and Wind and Water (2)  There has been considerable buzz surrounding John F.D. Taff’s The Fearing, which is currently being dropped in five parts, a few months between each, the second of which has recently hit the shelves. It is often the case that hyped books fail to meet expectations, but on this occasion there is no let-down and at the time of writing I’m waiting with interest the arrival of the third instalment. If you’re a stranger to Taff, who has one of the coolest nicknames in horror; “The King of Pain” I recommend you check out a couple of podcasts over at the excellent Ink Heist site run by Shane Douglas Keene and Rich Duncan. Episode 101 covers Taff’s career in general, The Fearing and where that outstanding nickname originates. Episode 104 is a discussion which focuses specifically on The Fearing, but don’t worry, it’s spoiler free and is well worth listening to for an intelligent discussion on the book, its origins and development. Keene and Duncan’s podcast chew over a lot of ground detail with Taff; but what I found particularly fascinating listening was the complex journey The Fearing had making it into print. Taff had originally shopped his 500+ page epic to several publishers, who although they were positive about it, did not believe he was a big enough name in the industry to sell a book of that size. When it was eventually bought by Grey Matter Press it was editor Anthony Rivera who suggested releasing the book in four bite size chunks. The story remains the same, but it went through some major restructuring to make it a better fit for this new format. I bought Fire and Blood (book 1) on the strength of the Ink Heist review and upon completion tracked Rivera down for an ARC of Water and Wind (book 2) as the first finished on an almighty cliff-hanger and I was desperate to see how the story developed. For a book which is being released in parts, it did exactly what it was supposed to do, sucked this reader in for the second part. This review will briefly take in both parts one and two and will follow the example of Shane and Rich by being light on spoilers. Loaded with cryptically cool chapter titles, The Fearing is a highly enjoyable apocalyptic horror novel with the central theme of fear running through a series of survival sub-plots which will inevitably link up somewhere further down the line. It opens with a young man, who drifts in and out of the story, Adam Sigel, who is both fearful and isolated, but seems also able to sense individual fears within other people, and more crucially, be able to do something very dangerous with this fear. This guy might just be the most dangerous human alive and whilst other cataclysmic events are happening Adam and his taxi-driver sidekick Jelnik leave New York behind, and with good reason. In all the best apocalyptic novels we have a host of characters battling for survival and The Fearing is no different. Whilst Adam is abandoning New York crazy stuff is happening all over America and parts one and two develop stories around several small groups of characters. In Missouri there is a massive tornado which destroys a town and we follow three very different teenage survivors Sarah Langford, Kyle DeMarco and Carli Robinson who struggle to relate to what has just happened and fight amongst themselves. Bridging the age gap, the next group of survivors are elderly travellers on a bus heading to Phoenix when a huge earthquake forces Marcia and Glen Schlimpert and Charles and Wanda Trammel to put their lives in the hands of a bus driver who tries to find an alternative route, but instead finds destruction everywhere. They might be aged, but this group of versatile and quick-witted old-timers quickly band together into a tough group of survivors and are very good company. Earthquakes, tornadoes and all sorts of crazy stuff are only the beginning of their problems and Taff blends it all nicely in a well-judged and paced story. As Fire and Blood bleeds into Wind and Water with a mouth-watering ending Taff expertly expands upon his ripple effect of diverse apocalyptic events into something more coherent which is interconnected through fear and begins to slowly layer in more details beyond the isolated incidents. Make sure you do not read part two before reading its predecessor as there is nothing in the way of introduction and the characters begin to have deeper inklings that what they are experiencing is something more than localised disasters. As well as continuing with the original characters Wind and Water also introduces a few new faces including Reverend Mark Hubert who refuses to abandon his Baptist church when a massive hurricane batters the coastline and questions his sanity when he sees creatures flying through the sky, as well as people who have been sucked up into the atmosphere by the wind. Afterwards a teenage girl named ‘Monday’ is introduced along with Jennifer Cho, and John and Cynthia Martinez. There is much to digest in Wind and Water and by the conclusion the reader is more than ready for Air and Dust (book 3) and I am intrigued to see where the story is heading. In the Ink Heist podcast the author Taff insists nobody will be able to predict where its ultimate direction! Thus far it has a solid mix of engaging characters, action, and an apocalypse with a very strong supernatural feel. In the Ink Heist podcast there was some discussion about comments made, here and there, about similarities with Stephen King’s The Stand and Robert McCammon’s Swan Song, which Taff disputed and was slightly prickly about. Ultimately every supernatural apocalyptic horror worth its salt is compared to these two gold-standards of the genre, whether the plot is similar or not, and thus far The Fearing is very much its own beast and stands on its own two feet and it is not something the author should take to heart. But only time will tell whether it has the juice to mix with the King and McCammon masterworks. It certainly deserves to pick up momentum (and hopefully readers) as new parts hit the shops, with section three next up in October. Bring it on! 4.5/5 Tony Jones    Comments are closed.
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