The Loop

Jeremy Robert Johnson's THE LOOP is a tightly coiled horror thriller. It reads like an action packed wind-up trap with multiple rows of serrated teeth. The expository narrative is revealed to the reader through the eyes and minds of its compact cast of well-wrought characters. We learn of the horrific consequences of a biotech firm's experiments through their direct observations and experiences, and we gradually discover the nature of the firm's unethical research & development mostly from the imperiled character's sharply realized, intelligent deductions. When this nightmarish scenario gets confirmed with some insight from one character who worked for the corporation responsible, the reader feels the relentless machinations of the trap getting locked into place. What makes THE LOOP so satisfying is not just its fresh take on an old trope, but rather its topical insight on a terrifying scenario growing all the more plausible in today's expanding technological market. This is a book so carefully and tautly executed that it propels the reader toward its dizzying, irrevocable climax and delivers a remarkable and gratifying ending. There's a good chance you'll want to read it all over again right away to verify what you just finished reading really happened that way. At least, that's the feeling it left me with. THE LOOP is fated to become an action-packed cinematic sensation, so read the book now before it hits theaters in the wake of the pandemic. THE LOOP is a novel that deserves all its accolades. It's not just a well-executed story, but a cautionary fable tailor-made for our present day and age.

Savage stuff. The scenario here might feel familiar in a mid-career Stephen King-kinda way, but when it gets cooking you get the feeling the author could take any well-worn genre situation and inject it with jarring realism. The main kids, particularly Lucy and Bucket, are messy in a Richard Linklater (sometimes Larry Clark) kind of way, occasionally real skeevy like every teen boy you knew (Bucket's casual jawing about animal cruelty early on rings true and sets you up with a nice pit in your stomach for things to come). But the book's POV is attached to Lucy, and this character's interior tussle with previous trauma is handled in lucid and heartbreaking detail. Some of the banter will sound like genre echoes, sure, and the sorta Puppet Masters/Disturbing Behavior plot machinations are well-worn territory, but then someone will say or think something that's so damn real that it's haunting, off-putting, or like looking too close into that teenage mirror (sometimes all three at once). I admit to being slightly disappointed when adults showed up to Explain Things, but we get back into Lucy's past and present struggles soon enough (and that exchange of ideas happens at "The Exchange," which gets a lot of nostalgic screen-time here, so all is forgiven). Big life-or-death action and some car chases keep it all flying along at breakneck speed, and tight (literally!) setpieces like the cave and the gallons of Savini-level gore here really keep you on your toes, making Johnson's crossover into mainstream feel more like an infiltration. As I said, it's a very simple story, but you're deep into it for the zingers, those breathless paragraphs where the author cuts loose. In short, if you're into movies, it's got a Crazies vibe (both versions), or if you like music, it would be one of those tunes where the singer screams with the microphone in his mouth, and if you like books, there are few like it.

For fans of body horror, this novel is a decent quick fix. However, with that being said it is more in line with the movie "Virus" opposed to John Carpenter's "The Thing." The real horror when it comes to body horror is the psychological factor opposed to just the gross out factor.

This a cool story with characters that have grit. There’s nothing rosy or perfect about this fantasy world and the ending is exactly how it should be. I’ll definitely be reading more by JRJ.

The topic of biotech as a tool for collective mind control has been in heavy rotation for a decade or so. Also how claiming to help humanity the tech companies are mostly driven by megalomania and basic urge to dominate ffor profit. This time JRJohnson takes a swing at it with some octopus tissue-driven neural net attempt that went horribly wrong.A great companion read for books like 'Blood Music' and some neuropunk classics. The poignancy of JRJ's prose gives it a bleeding heart.Not cosmic horror per se, but that's the beauty of weird fiction: it gives you the program code for your graphic engine to render the rest of the picture, and enjoy the multitude of possibilities.

I've read my fair share of horror and sci-fi books and this should be used as kindling. Unnecessary scenes followed by an ending which is wholy disappointing.Spoilers:Love wins and everyone dies. The end.