Book Review: The Bridge by John Skipp & Craig Spector
Title: The Bridge
Authors: John Skipp & Craig Spector
Release date: September 1st, 1991
In the Splatterpunk world of fiction, there are a number of authors and books who defined and launched the genre. Since it’s beginning, Splatterpunk has forged ahead on the tenement that any extreme violence or graphic events are specifically in the book to move the story forward. That is one of the major differences between Splatterpunk and Extreme horror, though that definition has seemingly become diluted and blended over the last few years.
I’ve had ‘The Bridge’ on my Kindle for a number of years, but it wasn’t until back in September of this year (2024), when I was discussing the books that seemed to have launched Splatterpunk with Nick Cutter, that he said I needed to bump this book up my TBR and read it. According to Nick, this is one of those books that launched a thousand books and influenced his own releases as Nick and Patrick Lestewka.
So, with that in mind, I dove in recently, excited to see where this one went.
What I liked: At its core, the novel is an environmental story about man’s destructive ways. It follows the events in a small town after years of toxic waste has been dumped in the creek and on this particular day, a storm rages and conditions are perfect for the waste to transform into a sentient killing beast.
Within that overarching narrative, we get smaller stories of many of the people who live in the town, their roles in the toxic waste mayhem, as well as those who’re innocent and deal with the repercussions of what those have done behind closed doors.
It’s a fascinating examination of what happens when some do whatever they want for power, money, greed and control, while also investigating the trickle effect of those stomped on. That metaphor works well to be applied across any time period, which makes the main story line almost timeless.
The gore is plenty and brutal, the setting is great and well developed and many of the characters are vividly created, making the reader either love them or loathe them almost immediately.
The ending is solid, if not a bit suggestive of a sequel (though I don’t believe one was every made), and worked well to showcase the power that was unleashed.
What I didn’t like: I found the novel to be too scattered and often anti-climatic. Early on, we get somebody introduced with paranormal powers. That then is left behind for a lengthy time, when at first it seemed like it was going to be a driving force of the novel.
Throughout, we get new people introduced – and thoroughly introduced – to only be killed off. Time and time again, pages and pages of backstory are described for characters that really play no role in the story, other than something happening at that location. It made it so that the main characters of the novel are missing from the story for chapters and chapters and chapters and the minor characters who are there at the beginning are easily forgotten about, and when they return, you feel like you’ve missed something.
And because of that introduction of so many characters, we often get a cliff hanger at the end of chapters that doesn’t go anywhere. I’m not sure if this a case of the time period it was released – which might be how some things were done back then – or because of the two different authors, but it became a reoccurring ending to each chapter.
Why you should buy this: The main component of the novel was fantastic, and I wished it had stayed with just that – the story of the barrels being dumped, the news folks discovering it and them trying to get to the bottom of it, but too many other elements continued to get introduced, which ultimately slowed this one down for me.
Saying that, if you’re looking to read some of the books that formed the Splatterpunk and Extreme Horror Genres that so many read and love these days, then definitely give this a read. The town is great, the gore is solid and you can definitely see the influence all these years later.
3/5
