Book Review: Blackout by Tim Curran

Title: Blackout

Author: Tim Curran

Genre: Horror, Science Fiction

Age Group: Adult

Rating: 3,5

Purchase: Amazon

Review copy provided by the publisher in exchange for an honest review.

In the midst of a beautiful summer, in a perfectly American suburban middle-class neighborhood, a faraway evil is lurking, waiting to strike the unsuspecting residents.

First come the flashing lights, then the heavy rains, high winds, and finally a total blackout. But that’s only the beginning…

When the whipping black tentacles fall from the sky and begin snatching people at random, the denizens of Piccamore Way must discover the terrifying truth of what these beings have planned for the human race.

Blackout was an intriguing science fiction novella that offers an interesting development on aliens kidnapping people. Whereas we might’ve heard of some lone cases of people claiming to be kidnapped by aliens, in this novella, the aliens have started a full-out attack on the human race.

The book starts out with Jon waking up in the middle of the night after a party down his street. His wife is missing, and when he goes outside, the night is completely dark, with no star in sight. Narrowly escaping tentacles of a gigantic floating monster, he and a small group of his neighbors that survived the initial attack, group together and try to make it through the night.

The author shows the characters’ increasing panic easily, and the sense of claustrophobia the characters get as the novel progresses. There’s panic everywhere, the crisis is obvious, and everyone struggles to survive, but yet there’s also room for some character development. Tim Curran is obviously a talented author, and he shows that yet again, here.

While the writing was solid, as I’ve grown to expect, and the characters were intriguing, the book didn’t offer much originality. Abduction stories have been around for ages, and this is just another version of the alien apocalypse. Nevertheless, very entertaining and a good read.