Science & Technology - Fiction, Horror

Superstition

Name: Superstition
Author: David Ambrose
ISBN: 9780446523448

by David Ambrose

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Overview

In the tradition of Stephen King and John Saul comes an intensely terrifying story of a ghost literally created by the power of the human mind. When all attempts to terminate the ghost fail, a desperate struggle for survival escalates as those who created the spirit fall victim to the heinous forces of the unknown.

Synopsis

Firmly in the tradition of horror masters like Stephen King and John Saul, this new novel brings a new touch of terror to the old-fashioned ghost story. In Superstition, a spirit spawned in the too-fertile imaginations of a group of individuals begins to wreak brutal vengeance on its creators.

Publishers Weekly

For a scientific experiment in psychokinesis, university psychologist Sam Towne assembles a group of eight individuals who, using the power of their collective consciousness, create a "ghost" with whom they hope to communicate. With ace investigative journalist (and love interest) Joanna Cross on hand to bear witness, the scientific seances at Manhattan University succeed all too well: the entity the group conjures up not only communicates with them but also becomes integral to their lives--and deaths. British author Ambrose (The Man Who Turned into Himself) takes a poor paranormal premise and eventually overcomes it with a ripping good ending. Despite the publisher's play-up of the novel as supernatural suspense and horror, the book is almost science fictional as Ambrose ultimately speculates on a time-travel theory postulating that the past comes out of the present instead of the present emerging from the past. According to Ambrose's acknowledgments, the story is based on "an experiment that actually took place" in the early 1970s. Unfortunately, the author brings neither his almost comically dated fake psychic schemers nor parapsychology into the '90s. But his well-toned technique and winning characterizations carry patient readers along to the core of the story. The plot falters slightly as it falls into a "Don't-open-that-door!" groove and a lot of people suddenly and mysteriously drop dead. Once over the low hurdles, however, Ambrose plays an unflinching mastergame of reality manipulation right through to a chilling checkmate of an ending that is genuinely frightening. Film rights sold to Interscope for $1 million; foreign rights sold in Germany and Holland. (Oct.)

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Editorials

Publishers Weekly - Publisher's Weekly

For a scientific experiment in psychokinesis, university psychologist Sam Towne assembles a group of eight individuals who, using the power of their collective consciousness, create a "ghost" with whom they hope to communicate. With ace investigative journalist and love interest Joanna Cross on hand to bear witness, the scientific seances at Manhattan University succeed all too well: the entity the group conjures up not only communicates with them but also becomes integral to their lives--and deaths. British author Ambrose The Man Who Turned into Himself takes a poor paranormal premise and eventually overcomes it with a ripping good ending. Despite the publisher's play-up of the novel as supernatural suspense and horror, the book is almost science fictional as Ambrose ultimately speculates on a time-travel theory postulating that the past comes out of the present instead of the present emerging from the past. According to Ambrose's acknowledgments, the story is based on "an experiment that actually took place" in the early 1970s. Unfortunately, the author brings neither his almost comically dated fake psychic schemers nor parapsychology into the '90s. But his well-toned technique and winning characterizations carry patient readers along to the core of the story. The plot falters slightly as it falls into a "Don't-open-that-door!" groove and a lot of people suddenly and mysteriously drop dead. Once over the low hurdles, however, Ambrose plays an unflinching mastergame of reality manipulation right through to a chilling checkmate of an ending that is genuinely frightening. Film rights sold to Interscope for $1 million; foreign rights sold in Germany and Holland. Oct.

Kirkus Reviews

Still another hypnotic paranormal thriller from the Great Ambrose (Mother of God; The Man Who Turned Into Himself) that, once again, will drag you unfailingly into the small hours. No movie or book can be taken as evidential proof that a world of spirit exists parallel with ours. But paranormal investigators press on, peering into the invisible. In imitation of a real-life famous experiment conducted 20 years ago, when parapsychologists in Toronto claimed they'd invented a ghost named Philip, a team of Manhattanites decides here to invent its own ghost, or thought-form, by pooling their mental energies and focusing them on a fictitious English-speaking character named Adam Wyatt, whose life they write, placing it in the well-researched period of the French Revolution. As psychologist Sam Towne and his group of six volunteers (including a magazine reporter) go on meeting, they become so familiar with Adam that when he actually begins table-rapping, as presumably did Philip, they're naturally elated and begin asking him all sorts of questions. Many he can't answer because they can't answer the questions: He knows only what they know, being made of their thoughts. But, as it happens, he's also made of their darker natures, and the time comes when Adam himself begins to create an alien universe parallel with their own and starts sucking them into it by leading them to their deaths. As always, Ambrose misleads us toward one climax, only to substitute a hugely inventive, jaw-dropping, bittersweet alternate climax. Features a cast of warmly attractive adult characters and no human villain in sight.