Road of Bones

Ok, so I am biased, Chris is a friend, and I work with him on several projects and comics but I would never lie in a review. I'd rather not review something instead of leaving a poor review. But if I do love something I will definitely review it honestly. This book ticked all the boxes for me. If you're a fan of The Thing or say, Michelle Paver's Dark Matter give this book a shot. I hesitate to go into detail to spoil anything, but let's just say that it's the lovechild of Ice Road Truckers and Midsommar. If that doesn't tickle you I don't know what will.

What a read I must say this book has enthralled me finding it difficult to put down but so happy to pick back up, the only sad bit is it has finished what a story and what a writer.

ROAD OF BONES takes its title from an actual roadway in Siberia which was built by Soviet prisoners and under which thousands of hapless individuals were actually paved and entombed as they collapsed and died under the burden of their labors. It's a perfect setting for a horror story if ever there was one...cold, bleak, isolated, and furnished with a very tragic past. Unfortunately, the story itself is a mixed bag. Author Christopher Golden does a great job with the setting, and his descriptions of the Siberian landscape are tonally perfect. The prose practically shivers with frost, and the dark, unforgiving landscape through which our characters drive comes to vivid, and foreboding, life. Sadly, the other aspects of the novel leave more than a little to be desired. The characters are the biggest problem, in that they aren't particularly sympathetic, and our protagonist is especially difficult to like. The most potentially interesting character, an ailing old woman with a burden for the dead buried beneath the Road of Bones, is given too little attention and in fact her subplot is almost completely insignificant to the bigger story. The malevolent forces which rally against our characters are overly ambiguous and, while mostly derived from Siberian legends, have almost nothing to do with the fantastic setting the author chose for his story. Why construct your book around a literal road of death if that doesn't actually matter? There is a particular being in the story that doesn't even seem derived from the same mythos as the other supernatural personages that our characters encounter, and we're told almost nothing about it. While we don't need answers to every possible question, readers do want to understand certain things, but as far as this major figure goes, we're given no background, not motivation, no context of any kind. Finally, the ending is rather lackluster. I held out hope that everything would come together for an explosive climax, but all I got was a cold, rather unfeeling ending that provides little satisfaction. The action just sort of dribbles to an ambiguous close that leaves far too many loose ends. I really wanted to like this book, but in the end there was just too much that didn't work for me. I would have liked to see the dead beneath the roadway actually figure into the story, and certainly would have preferred better characters and a climax that provided more closure. As it is, ROAD OF BONES just doesn't lead anywhere worthwhile. Recommended only to readers for whom a great setting makes up for everything else.

Knowing in advance that this book is set along Siberia's Kolyma Highway, even if that's the only thing you know about it, ought to be enough to capture your interest. The setting is one of the world's most unforgiving environments and the highway itself is the site of remarkably tragic history. However, though the setting shines as one of the highlights of the book, my first word of warning is that the story does not really center on the history behind the so-called Road of Bones in the way I expected it to. While not a flaw, that did somewhat subvert my expectations. The novel itself begins as a bit of a slow burn, taking its time to introduce the characters and setting. Don't let that frighten you away, though, because the cast of characters are amazingly well-crafted and the setting, even if not highlighted in the way I expected, is alone enough to hold the reader's interest for quite a long time. But you won't be too long to wait for the action to start in earnest, and once it does, the book doesn't often pause to take its breath. Beginning with a delightfully creepy scene relatively early in the story, the novel will keep you guessing as to what's really going on while delivering a heart-pounding adventure. However, it loses a bit of steam toward the end and the climax, while certainly not bad, felt a bit inferior to the rest of the book's quality. Ultimately, though, despite a bit of a rocky landing, Road of Bones is well worth a read.