Review: The Hunting Ground by Cliff McNish

When Elliott and his brother move into the old and crumbling Glebe House they don't expect to find themselves sharing it with ghosts. But soon sinister events are unfolding. An old diary reveals glimpses of the mansion's past - and of a terrible tragedy. An old woman talks to ghosts - but is she in fact being controlled by them? And what of the sinister East Wing - a hideous labyrinth devised by a truly twisted mind? Can Elliott and his family escape the clutches of Glebe House? Or will they end up trapped in the endless maze of corridors, forever hunted by the dead?

Tired of vampires? All zombied out? Not a fan of gore? If you love horror and can say yes to any or all of these then The Hunting Ground by Cliff McNish might be for you. With the success in cinemas of The Woman in Black is would appear that the more traditional ghost stories are gaining in popularity again. Already this year I have reviewed Michelle Harrison's Unrest and James Dawson's Hollow Pike, both of which rely heavily on the creep factor rather than blood splatter, and The Hunting Ground is another book in this vein.

The Hunting Ground was first released in 2011 by Orion's Children's Books, but was re-released earlier in 2012 as part of Orion's new YA imprint, Indigo. It certainly sits better in my mind as a book for teens as it is the kind of book from which nightmares are born.

I'm trying to think of a way to describe the plot without giving too much away, as much of the impact from this book comes from the tension that Cliff McNish skilfully builds as the story progresses, with the reader constantly guessing (and fearing) what might happen next. Too put it as concisely as possible, two boys and their father move into a run-down country mansion that is in dire need of renovation. Naturally, this being a ghost story, the house has quite a nasty history. A previous owner, Cullayn, was a vicious beast of a man, and unfortunately for boys the despicable atrocities he committed have left a mark on the house that could have dire consequences for them many years on.

The pace of the story was absolutely spot on in my opinion. Cliff McNish has pulses racing with his more terrifying scenes, but knows exactly when to pull back and give the reader a little respite, before ratcheting the fear actor up all over gain. In doing so the tension in the story builds constantly throughout the book, so that when we come to the climactic closing scenes we are little more than gibbering wrecks, jumping at the smallest noise.

Cliff McNish has again proved that he is a master of dark storytelling, and I am a little saddened that he is not as widely known as the other current masters of teen horror. Much as I enjoyed Hollow Pike by James Dawson I found The Hunting Ground to be a much scarier read and I have been pushing it with the horror fans at school ever since. McNish is able to tap into a reader's psyche and seem to take great delight in playing around with their primal fears. I am not easily scared but having read this well into the night I did then experience uncomfortable dreams where I was being chased through long, empty corridors by an unknown entity.

For confident older teen readers The Hunting Ground could make the perfect entry into some of the classic ghost/horror stories by the likes of Edgar Allen Poe and M.R. James or the brilliant The Haunting of Hill House by Shirley Jackson. My thanks go to the lovely people at Orion for sending me a copy to review.

*** Contest: WIN a copy of The Hunting Ground by Cliff McNish

Yesterday I posted a great guest piece by Cliff McNish, whose latest book, The Hunting Ground, was published recently. Now, thanks to the generous people at Orion I have a copy of the book to give away to a reader of The Book Zone. In order to be in with a chance of winning this prize all you have to do is fill in your details on the form below.

The first name drawn at random after the closing date will win a copy of the book. Deadline for entries is 8pm GMT Monday 6th June. This contest is open to UK residents only.



Contest open to UK residents only.
Neither the publisher or I will not be held responsible for items lost in the mail.
I hold the right to end a contest before its original deadline without any prior notice.
I hold the right to disqualify any entry as I see fit.
I will contact winning entrants for their postal address following the close of the competition. Winners have 48 hours to reply. Failure to do so in this time will result in another winner being randomly selected.

Guest Post by Cliff McNish (Author of The Hunting Ground)

Back in January Cliff McNish wrote a short piece for The Book Zone about his then forthcoming book The Hunting Ground. Cliff has written some stunning YA books, and certainly deserves to be a household name by now. The Hunting Ground is no exception, and if you love really spooky, scare-your-pants-off ghost stories then this one is for you. Due to work pressures I have dropped behind a little with my reviews, so please watch this space as I will be posting my review for The Hunting Ground in the near future. In the meantime, over to Cliff.....

___________________________________________

When I wrote THE HUNTING ZONE I was really aware of a few things.

First, almost no one is writing what I would call genuinely frightening ghost stories of novel length for teenagers. Don’t get me wrong – ghost novels are being written, but the best of them tend to be fairly wistful mood-pieces like MY BROTHER’S GHOST by Allan Ahlberg – which is a wonderful piece about two brothers, one of whom dies (you’ll love it), but it’s a quiet contemplative piece. Nor do I have any objection to lighter ghost stories. There are loads of those – you know the type, where the ghost is more likely to go boo! from behind the fridge than scare anybody.

And there’s another point I’d like you to consider here – people THINK there are lots of ghost novels out there because they often appear as a secondary character in stories that are primarily not ghost stories. An example would be the minor characters Nearly Headless Nick/Moaning Myrtle (note they are funny ghosts again) in Harry Potter or, say, the creepy Victorian ghosts in the wardrobe in Coraline by Neil Gaiman.

But novels with a genuinely scary ghost at the heart of the story THAT ARE ANY GOOD are rarer than football books about kids secretly wanting to become ballerinas. The reason (having done two ghost novels now) is that ghost stories traditionally depend on suspense and tension, and it’s hard to sustain this over a novel. To combat that I turned both of mine into supernatural thrillers, with everyone being threatened with death.

Or worse than death, actually. One of the great things about a ghost novel, of course, is that as soon as you write something that supposes GHOSTS EXIST then automatically there must be an afterlife, a place where the dead, well, hang out. The really fascinating question for a writer or reader then is what is this place like? Is it like a traditional Heaven or Hell? Or something else?

In my last ghost novel BREATHE I wanted to create an absolutely terrifying afterlife place where you might end up – a region where you just get blown forever across a great plain by the wind, bits of your body slowly being destroyed. I called it the Nightmare Passage, and I’m pleased to say that many people remember that place more than anything else about the novel.

In my latest, THE HUNTING GROUND, I wanted to create another terrifying place, but this time one where the ghosts might trap the living. I came up with the East Wing – a huge part of a mansion house that is a labyrinth of similar rooms and corridors. You keep getting sucked in but you can’t get out – and it’s so dark you can’t see either. If you’re trapped in there all you can do is hold your nerve and try not to go crazy. I knew I needed a really strong boy to cope with that – so I created Elliott. But he’s not superhuman, he’s only a 16-year old boy who grits his teeth and gets on with doing what he has to do to survive and help his trapped brother.

It was obvious almost at once to me as well what sort of ghosts I was going to pit against Elliott and his younger brother, Ben. First, a male ghost of awesome power who exists only to terrify and hunt. He’s a classic bad guy, and I wanted him to be absolutely ice cold terrifying. But then what? As a contrast to him I knew what I needed – and I saw her right away in my mind. A little girl. A corrupted little ghost girl, bristling with terrifying power. Somehow it’s even more scary to wonder what a little girl might do if she can do almost anything to you, because she’s not going to think like an adult. She’s going to be more unpredictable, isn’t she? One minute she might want to play with you, the next she’s bored and dragging you to your death, and you can’t predict when that might happen. You end up talking to her very nicely, because you still think there’s a little girl in there you can appeal to – but is there? Or is she as bad as the male ghost who’s been developing her as his little protégé, his killer in waiting?

I very much enjoyed racking up the tension in THE HUNTING GROUND about as far as could. I hope you enjoy it.

~~~

Huge thanks to Cliff for taking the time to write this great guest post for The Book Zone. I for one would love to see more chilling ghost stories published for young people, especially those who think horror is all about blood and gore. Yes, these elements might make you go yuck, and cringe a little, but that isn't real horror that chills you to the bone and has you jumping at every little bump and creak during the night. The Hunting Ground will definitely have this effect on you. Please come back tomorrow when I will be giving you details about how you can win a copy of The Hunting Ground.

Coming Up in 2011 #6: The Hunting Ground by Cliff McNish

We've had vampires. Werewolves too. Zombies are currently a hot subject for kids and YA books, but in 2011 it looks as if things are going to go old school and we will see the return to mass popularity of the ghost/haunted house story. And if Cliff McNish's previous work is anything to go by then I reckon The Hunting Ground should be amongst the very best in this genre in 2011. I first discovered Mr McNish through his brilliant Savannah Grey, a science fiction story with a great undercurrent of terror, and I have since  hunted out some of his other books. This new one looks like just my kind of thing, and my thanks go to Cliff for taking the time to write a short piece about The Hunting Ground for us:

I’ve always loved ghost stories. A few years ago hardly anyone was writing any good ones, so I decided to write BREATHE, where I put a boy who can talk to the dead in a lot of danger. I made it as scary as I could. In THE HUNTING GROUND two boys, Elliott (14) and Ben (12) move into a new house, but there’s something in there with them. It’s a little girl, but she’s not alive and she’s not innocent and behind her is a murderer who has been waiting a long time for new blood to arrive.

Cliff is right - there has been a disappointing dearth of good ghost stories for the younger market in recent years, and so I am really looking forward to reading this one. The Hunting Ground is scheduled for a May release, and I am sure a review will appear here on The Book Zone at some point in the future.

Review: Savannah Grey by Cliff McNish

It's a difficult time for fifteen-year-old Savannah Grey - she's settled into her latest foster placement, but her body is acting strangely. Then other strange things begin to happen: nature, it seems, is exerting an overpowering force on the world. Birds behave erratically; gusts of wind blow leaves so fiercely they seem to lure people away. And Savannah discovers she has supernatural powers. Meanwhile, she feels drawn to the new boy Reece whose life is even stranger than hers. Quickly Savannah and Reece realise that nature has a purpose for them both. For they are on course to meet the vile and evil Ocrassa, who wants to destroy the world by corrupting nature. And it wants Savannah Grey to help realise its savage intent.

Why do publishers do this? On the front cover of Savannah Grey are the words "A monster's out there. Only one girl can stop it. But will love get in the way?" Cool, there is a monster. Only a girl can stop it? You have just lost a number of boy readers. But will love get in the way? OK, that's the majority of your remaining boy readers reaching for their PS3/X-Box/game console of choice.

There has been much discussion on The Book Zone and elsewhere as to why boys don't like female main characters, and one argument put across is that it is not actually female main characters that put them off, but instead a pre-conceived idea that such books may be a little heavy on the romance. From experience, I know that one sentence on this book's front cover will seal its fate as far as boy readers are concerned, and if I'm totally honest I nearly didn't read it myself. However, I decided to skim read the first few pages and very soon I was completely captivated by Cliff McNish's haunting and powerful prose. 

What we have here is a genuinely creepy horror story, with elements of science fiction, fantasy and romance, but don't worry boys, although the romance plays an important part in the plot, it is by no means the principle theme - this honour most definitely belongs to the horror. Or should I say the Horror, for Cliff McNish's most memorable creations in this story are its monsters, one of which is known as the Horror, a petulant, hyper-active childlike monster who we first come across on page one:

"Reaching number thity-three, Savannah Grey's house, the Horror dropped its star-shaped head on one side, knotted its murderous claws behind its back and tried to work out the most entertaining way to reach her bedroom. There were many ways available, but the Horror was young and like all young things it liked to use its teeth."

The other two monsters in the story are the chameleon-like Nyktomorph and the alien Ocrassa, a parasitic entity that arrived on earth as a tiny seedling having spent millions of years travelling across the universe. The Ocrassa is the perfect organism, able to adapt to its surroundings, modifying its anatomy and abilities by adopting those of other organisms it encounters. It is also able to create other organisms, the Nyktomorph and the Horror being two such examples. The Ocrassa is on a quest to become the dominant life form on earth and ultimately have the ability to master genetic engineering and create copies of itself, and send billions of seed-pods floating trhough the universe. However, there is one huge hurdle standing in the of the Ocrassa'a goal - Mother Nature herself.

At regular intervals throughout the book Cliff McNish provides his readers with a little back story, in this case a history of the planet Earth and its organisms, and how Nature has created many of these in its endless war against the Ocrassa. Evolution, therefore, becomes Nature's weapon in this war. Throughout time Nature and the Ocrassa engage in a tug-of-war, with varying degrees of success for both parties. However, when Nature finally presents its enemy with Man the Ocrassa realises that this could become the tool it has long required to master the science of genetics, and instead of fighting it changes tactics, and fosters creativity, innovation scientific advancement across the ages.

Although exceedingly creepy, and occasionally gruesome, Savannah Grey does not contain the levels of gore that we have seen in many YA and kids' horror books, and it is all the better for this. Cliff McNish uses dramatic tension, and fear of the unknown to hook his readers. Savannah is a very believeable heroine, and we share her feelings of confusion and terror as she gradually deduces that she is more than just a normal girl, but is instead some kind of weapon created by nature to defeat an as yet unidentified foe.

Boys, please don't judge this book by its cover. If you like intelligent, creepy horror stories, or science fiction with an undercurrent of terror, then you just may love Savannah Grey. Yes, it has an important romantic element to its plot, but it does not come with all the girly frills that may detract from other stories in this genre.