Book Review: Intercepts by T.J. Payne
Title: Intercepts
Author: T.J. Payne
Release date: April 23rd, 2019
So, this ended up being my last read finished in 2023 and if I’d have read it earlier, it would’ve definitely made it onto my Year-End-Best-Of list.
This novel has been suggested to me a few dozen times and a lot of readers who’s opinions I trust and have similar reading enjoyments as myself have raved about it. But for a long time, I was kind of hesitant to dive in for one sort of lame reason. The cover. Honestly, this cover has never done it for me and even after reading the novel, I find the cover to be bland and lacking. I’m not sure if it was a ‘mass market’-type decision to appeal to as many potential readers as possible (which, hey, is often what all writers want, right?), but this one doesn’t scream read me. It doesn’t scream – CRAZINESS AHEAD. It kind of screams ‘last minute’ and ‘meh, this will do.’
But, when I was looking to finish my year off with a horror novel firmly wrapped together with sci-fi, this one’s synopsis fit the bill and I was kind of hoping I’d end up in a Splice movie type situation. And while we didn’t go there, this one does go in some really great directions.
What I liked: The story follows shit father, Joe, who works for a clandestine organization. He is in charge of a secret place that is using doped up people to get intelligence from around the world. The place is deep underground and he’s unable to discuss what he does with anyone from the outside world. He works long hours and focuses solely on his job and the perfection of the job. Which is administering a special cocktail of nerve stimulants to ‘tune’ these prisoners to retrieve this information.
Payne does a really solid job of setting the stage. We get the ‘why’ of Joe’s divorce, his estranged relationship with his teen daughter Riley and as the first quarter of the novel goes along, we get some hints about things starting to turn and Riley struggling with seeing something. This occurs after an incident with her mother and soon enough the novel goes from a jog to a sprint for the remaining 50%.
The location of this one is perfect. While it isn’t fleshed out with full schematic blueprints for us, it is described enough in bare-bones details to have our imaginations fill in the blanks. The same goes to the people they use. Heads shaved, hospital gowns stained and emaciated bodies abound.
What begins as a moral-testing story of how far should we go to get intelligence that can prevent huge world events, turns into a story of survival. Of Joe wanting to do whatever he can to save his daughter Riley from both the organization as well as from those who have been mistreated and experimented on.
The ending is essentially three parts. The first is the wrap up of the events in the underground lab. The second is the ‘epilogue’ of how the survivor continues on. And the third is the true epilogue which in itself made for a fantastically dark and bleak short story and could potentially see more of this world in the future.
Payne kept me completely captivated throughout and the blending of sci-fi and horror was pitch perfect.
What I didn’t like: Throughout, Joe is portrayed as a callous, asshole of a dad who never cared to be there for his daughter and even shares a few memories of when he chose work over her or spending time with his ex-wife and his daughter. It made it tough, for me at least, to completely believe that he had this sudden change of heart once Riley was involved. It was even shown a few times that his ‘love’ for her was shallow, when instead of staying with her, he up and left to return to work.
Why you should buy this: As I mentioned, this novel gallops along and was a great mix of horror, sci-fi and had some amazingly brutal and graphic moments. A lot of it reminded me of how a graphic novel would’ve rolled out and the action sequences and layers of government interference and involvement was great.
Payne has definitely hit a home run with this one and I think it’s a novel that will have a long, long shelf life as many new readers discover it.
5/5
