<![CDATA[The Ruins]]>

false <![CDATA[The Ruins]]> http://photo.goodreads.com/books/1167323239m/21726.jpg 21726 21 In 1993, Scott Smith wowed readers with A Simple Plan, his stunning debut thriller about what happens when three men find a wrecked plane and bag stuffed with over 4 million dollars--a book that Stephen King called "Simply the best suspense novel of the year!" Now, thirteen years after writing a novel that turned into a pretty great movie featuring Bill Paxton and Billy Bob Thornton, Smith is back, with The Ruins, a horror-thriller about four Americans traveling in Mexico who stumble across a nightmare in the jungle. Who better to tell readers if Smith has done it again than the undisputed King of Horror (and champion of Smith's first book)? We asked Stephen King to read The Ruins and give us his take. Check out his review below. --Daphne Durham <hr size="1">Guest Reviewer: Stephen King <img src="http://images.amazon.com/images/G/01/books/promos/a-plus/lisey2.jpg" border="0" align="left">Stephen King is the author of too many bestselling books to name here, but some of our favorites include: Cell, The Stand, On Writing, The Shining, and the entire Dark Tower series. King also received the National Book Foundation 2003 Medal for Distinguished Contribution to American Letters, has had many movies and television miniseries adapted from his novels, short stories, and screenplays, and is a regular columnist for Entertainment Weekly. Keep your eyes peeled for Lisey's Story (October 2006), a new television series on TNT based on Nightmares & Dreamscapes (July 2007), and a graphic novel series based on the Dark Tower books coming from Marvel (2007). When I heard that Scott Smith was publishing a new novel this summer, I felt the way I did when my kids came in an hour or two late from their weekend dates: a combination of welcoming relief (thank God you're back) mingled with exasperation and anger (where the hell have you been?). Well, it's only a book, you say, and maybe that's true, but Scott Smith is a singularly gifted writer, and it seems to me that the twelve years between his debut--the cult smash A Simple Plan--and his return this summer with The Ruins is cause for exasperation, if not outright anger. Certainly Smith, who has been invisible save for his Academy Award-nominated screenplay for the film version of A Simple Plan, will have some 'splainin to do about how he spent his summer vacation. Make that his last twelve summer vacations. But enough. The new book is here, and the question devotees of A Simple Plan will want answered is whether or not this book generates anything like Plan's harrowing suspense. The answer is yes. The Ruins is going to be America's literary shock-show this summer, doing for vacations in Mexico what Jaws did for beach weekends on Long Island. Is it as successful and fulfilling as a novel? The answer is not quite, but I can live with that, because it's riskier. There will be reviews of this book by critics who have little liking or understanding for popular fiction who'll dismiss it as nothing but a short story that has been bloated to novel length (I'm thinking of Michiko Kakutani, for instance, who microwaved Smith's first book). These critics, who steadfastly grant pop fiction no virtue but raw plot, will miss the dazzle of Smith's technique; The Ruins is the equivalent of a triple axel that just misses perfection because something's wrong with the final spin. It's hard to say much about the book without giving away everything, because the thing is as simple and deadly as a leg-hold trap concealed in a drift of leavesor, in this case, a mass of vines. You've got four young American tourists--Eric, Jeff, Amy, and Stacy--in Cancun. They make friends with a German named Mathias whose brother has gone off into the jungle with some archeologists. These five, plus a cheerful Greek with no English (but a plentiful supply of tequila), head up a jungle trail to find Mathias's brotherthe archaeologistsand the ruins. Well, two out of three ain't bad, according to the old saying, and in this case; what's waiting in the jungle isn't just bad, it's horrible. Most of The Ruins's 300-plus pages is one long, screaming close-up of that horror. There's no let-up, not so much as a chapter-break where you can catch your breath. I felt that The Ruins did draw on a trifle, but I found Scott Smith's refusal to look away heroic, just as I did in A Simple Plan. It's the trappings of horror and suspense that will make the book a best seller, but its claim to literature lies in its unflinching naturalism. It's no Heart of Darkness, but at its suffocating, terrifying, claustrophobic best, it made me think of Frank Norris. Not a bad comparison, at that. One only hopes Mr. Smith won't stay away so long next time.--Stephen King <hr noshade="noshade" size="1" class="bucketDivider" /><div class="bucket"> 2453000 book 18 7 2006 The Ruins total:4048|5:554|4:1152|3:1210|2:685|1:447| 4048 12825 5041 1165 1 17 false true Sat Mar 29 00:00:00 -0700 2008 Sat Mar 08 16:51:02 -0800 2008 Sun Mar 30 10:39:28 -0700 2008 more...]]> 5 10 false false Thu Aug 30 12:31:05 -0700 2007 Thu Aug 30 12:32:07 -0700 2007 more...]]> 2 10 false false Fri May 09 14:16:45 -0700 2008 Fri May 09 14:16:57 -0700 2008
Reading The Ruins as a writer, got through the first 75 pages and asked myself how this writer managed to get me to follow these people into the jungle when I ...more...]]> 3 7 false true Fri Feb 15 00:00:00 -0800 2008 Sun Feb 10 17:19:06 -0800 2008 Sun Feb 17 19:58:54 -0800 2008
I'm really torn about what to give this one. I picked it up because I'd seen a trailer for the movie version and thought it seemed terrif...more...]]> 5 7 false false Fri Aug 22 00:00:00 -0700 2008 Tue Aug 12 07:58:21 -0700 2008 Sat Aug 23 09:36:52 -0700 2008 The Ruins is one of the best horror novels I've read in some time. It would be really easy for me to rip into it. The premise is, frankly, ridiculous, and its plot is nothing but doom and gloom. So why did I love it so much? Simply because it was completely convincing, engrossing, and ...more...]]> 1 7 false false Tue Jul 24 09:21:51 -0700 2007 Tue Jul 24 09:21:56 -0700 2007 more...]]> 2 5 true false Mon Oct 01 00:00:00 -0700 2007 Sat Oct 27 01:28:47 -0700 2007 Sat Oct 27 02:53:18 -0700 2007
The Ruins is a story of conflict between Man and Nature. In this case Man is represented by 5 sheltered and somewhat ditzy college kids, while Nature is championed by a malevolent, mile-wide, super-intelligent, highly mobile, acid-blooded plant. The Plant might also h...more...]]> 1 6 false false Wed Nov 01 00:00:00 -0800 2006 Sun Aug 12 10:53:18 -0700 2007 Sun Aug 12 11:11:51 -0700 2007 more...]]> 3 5 false false Wed Jul 16 23:18:59 -0700 2008 Wed Jul 16 23:45:51 -0700 2008 more...]]> 1 3 false false Thu Apr 17 20:03:36 -0700 2008 Thu Apr 17 20:49:34 -0700 2008
I have nothing good at all to say about this book, one of the worst stinkeroos I've ever had the misfortune to stumble across. I can't believe it was ever even published. It's junk like this that make me feel that no matte...more...]]> 1 4 false false Tue Apr 01 00:00:00 -0700 2008 Mon Apr 07 12:51:16 -0700 2008 Mon Apr 07 12:58:49 -0700 2008
My chief complaints with this book are as follow...more...]]> 1 3 false true Thu Apr 17 00:00:00 -0700 2008 Mon Apr 07 08:34:37 -0700 2008 Thu Apr 17 12:34:00 -0700 2008 more...]]> 4 3 false false Thu Oct 18 19:37:58 -0700 2007 Thu Oct 18 19:37:58 -0700 2007 I consider myself a fiend for horror stories, but this has to be the most challenging horror story I've ever walked myself through.

The four Americans are pretty stereotypical characters, and they are all very unlikable, but I think this works well for the story. T...more...]]> 4 2 false false Wed Nov 01 00:00:00 -0800 2006 Tue Jan 15 15:11:04 -0800 2008 Tue Jan 15 20:23:59 -0800 2008 more...]]> 3 2 false false Sat Dec 01 00:00:00 -0800 2007 Fri Nov 02 11:08:33 -0700 2007 Thu Mar 06 23:27:42 -0800 2008
Scott Smith has written a most unusual book ...more...]]> 2 2 false false Thu Nov 01 00:00:00 -0700 2007 Sat Sep 29 15:54:43 -0700 2007 Sat Nov 03 06:51:16 -0700 2007 did get better, for about the last 50 pages where everything just goes crazy and finally we get some consistent action.

The characters (a group of fai...more...]]> 4 2 false false Wed Aug 01 00:00:00 -0700 2007 Thu Sep 06 13:30:41 -0700 2007 Tue Sep 11 19:05:07 -0700 2007 The Ruins also attracted me because it's set in the jungle of the southern Yucatan, not far from the Coba ruins. ...more...]]> 5 3 false false Sat Jul 28 14:11:58 -0700 2007 Sat Jul 28 14:13:47 -0700 2007
Four young Americans about to enter graduate school or begin new jobs back home are relaxing in Cancun, Mexico, soaking up too much...more...]]> 3 2 false false Tue Apr 08 00:00:00 -0700 2008 Sun Aug 05 19:21:30 -0700 2007 Tue Apr 08 16:39:36 -0700 2008
These tourists aren't particularly brave, which makes this horror novel int...more...]]> 1 2 false true Sat Jul 01 00:00:00 -0700 2006 Sat Dec 15 08:57:51 -0800 2007 Sat Feb 09 12:20:38 -0800 2008 more...]]> http://www.goodreads.com/book_link/follow/8?book_id=21726