Review
...A worthy heir to the mantle of Stephen King. And I don't mean the King of Under the Dome... but the master of psychological suspense who ruled the '80s with classics like Pet Sematary. --Alex Good, The National Post
"Nickle's debut novel Eutopia - an entrancing amalgam of historical thriller, dark fantasy and weird fiction - is an utterly creepy, bladder-loosening, storytelling tour de force." --Paul Goat Allen, Unabashedly Bookish
"Nickle... blends Little House on the Prairie with distillates of Rosemary's Baby and The X-Files to create a chilling survival-of-the-fittest story." --Publishers Weekly
"Eutopia is as frightening in its social message as it is with its religious themes, and features irresistable prose... A top-notch novel all around." --Nick Cato, The Horror Fiction Review
"Eutopia crosses genres in a world where folks from a rustic Faulkner novel might clash with H.P. Lovecraft's monstrosities.... (Eutopia is) one of the most original horror stories in years." --Chris Hallock, All Things Horror
Nickle sets off the tale with a quietly cautious undertone of unseen terror, gradually grinding in an almost overwhelming feeling of clinging tension to the hidden core of the story. As the plot slowly peels away its layers, with the characterization of our two principal protagonists already masterfully established, the haunting visions of this dark secret begin to emerge with the staggering impact of a charging leviathan.
Where the novel really succeeds above all else is the almost palpable and oppressive atmosphere that lingers over every page; saturating each and every word with its clinging and unrelenting gloominess. The reader quickly becomes swallowed up in this haunting cloud of constant impending doom, which allows Nickle, when the time is right and the reader is truly on edge with the tale, to suddenly delve deep into his twisted imagination, bringing forth monumental visions that haunt, terrify and chill to the bone.
Gratuitous and explicit images of the horror on hand is never overly thrust into the face of the reader, but instead is allowed to become exposed during gut-wrenching snippets of terrifying action, then laid low to smolder in the readers mind until the next exposure to the true horror of the novel is unleashed.
With that said, one particular scene does hail further into the horrific and downright disturbing than the majority of the book purposefully participates in. Here instead, Nickle wreaks havoc with the reader s senses, as he carves out a grotesque and painstakingly descriptive scene detailing the appalling labor and birth of one of the demon-like creatures unto the ravaged form of a young girl.
Eutopia is an elaborate novel, pulling together intricate interwoven subplots, with a dark and eerie mystery constantly behind it all. Mark Morris s forceful but swift visions of the grotesque, mixed with elements of early Clive Barker dark fiction, with the final all-encompassing visionary of Lovecraft knitted in for good measure.
The novel is as chaotic as it is inspired. The levels and layers that form the crux of the plot are ingenious in their creation. The delivery is gripping, enthralling and utterly engaging from the outset to the near-epic finale. Nickle never once backs away from taking on the darker route. Instead he embraces the numerous twists and turns that see the storyline fall deeper and deeper into an abyss of abominable corruption.
David Nickle has reincarnated Lovecraft and spun a new direction for the terror that is to follow. This is certainly not the last we will have heard from this talented new face in horror. --Chris Hall (DLS Reviews)
Product Description
The year is 1911.
In Cold Spring Harbour, New York, the newly formed Eugenics Records Office is sending its agents to catalogue the infirm, the insane, and the criminal—with an eye to a cull, for the betterment of all.
Near Cracked Wheel, Montana, a terrible illness leaves Jason Thistledown an orphan, stranded in his dead mother’s cabin until the spring thaw shows him the true meaning of devastation—and the barest thread of hope.
At the edge of the utopian mill town of Eliada, Idaho, Doctor Andrew Waggoner faces a Klansman’s noose and glimpses wonder in the twisting face of the patient known only as Mister Juke.
And deep in a mountain lake overlooking that town, something stirs, and thinks, in its way:
Things are looking up.
Eutopia follows Jason and Andrew as together and alone, they delve into the secrets of Eliada—industrialist Garrison Harper's attempt to incubate a perfect community on the edge of the dark woods and mountains of northern Idaho. What they find reveals the true, terrible cost of perfection—the cruelty of the surgeon's knife—the folly of the cull—and a monstrous pact with beings that use perfection as a weapon, and faith as a trap.
