eShop USA > Books > The Ruins (Vintage) (Vintage)
The Ruins (Vintage) (Vintage)
Our Price: $7.99 Prices subject to change.
Availability: Usually ships in 24 hours
Buy 4 eligible items in the 4-for-3 promotion offered by Amazon.com and get 1 of them free.
Binding: Mass Market Paperback
Dewey Decimal Number: 813.54
EAN: 9780307389718
ISBN: 0307389715
Label: Vintage
Manufacturer: Vintage
Number Of Items: 1
Number Of Pages: 528
Publication Date: March 25, 2008
Publisher: Vintage
Release Date: March 25, 2008
Studio: Vintage
Related Items: Featured Listmania!
Editorial Review:
In 1993, Scott Smith wowed readers with A Simple Plan, his stunning debut thriller about what happens when three men find a wrecked plane and bag stuffed with over 4 million dollars--a book that Stephen King called "Simply the best suspense novel of the year!" Now, thirteen years after writing a novel that turned into a pretty great movie featuring Bill Paxton and Billy Bob Thornton, Smith is back, with The Ruins, a horror-thriller about four Americans traveling in Mexico who stumble across a nightmare in the jungle. Who better to tell readers if Smith has done it again than the undisputed King of Horror (and champion of Smith's first book)? We asked Stephen King to read The Ruins and give us his take. Check out his review below. --Daphne Durham
Guest Reviewer: Stephen King Stephen King is the author of too many bestselling books to name here, but some of our favorites include: Cell, The Stand, On Writing, The Shining, and the entire Dark Tower series. King also received the National Book Foundation 2003 Medal for Distinguished Contribution to American Letters, has had many movies and television miniseries adapted from his novels, short stories, and screenplays, and is a regular columnist for Entertainment Weekly. Keep your eyes peeled for Lisey's Story (October 2006), a new television series on TNT based on Nightmares & Dreamscapes (July 2007), and a graphic novel series based on the Dark Tower books coming from Marvel (2007). When I heard that Scott Smith was publishing a new novel this summer, I felt the way I did when my kids came in an hour or two late from their weekend dates: a combination of welcoming relief (thank God you're back) mingled with exasperation and anger (where the hell have you been?). Well, it's only a book, you say, and maybe that's true, but Scott Smith is a singularly gifted writer, and it seems to me that the twelve years between his debut--the cult smash A Simple Plan--and his return this summer with The Ruins is cause for exasperation, if not outright anger. Certainly Smith, who has been invisible save for his Academy Award-nominated screenplay for the film version of A Simple Plan, will have some 'splainin to do about how he spent his summer vacation. Make that his last twelve summer vacations.
But enough. The new book is here, and the question devotees of A Simple Plan will want answered is whether or not this book generates anything like Plan's harrowing suspense. The answer is yes. The Ruins is going to be America's literary shock-show this summer, doing for vacations in Mexico what Jaws did for beach weekends on Long Island. Is it as successful and fulfilling as a novel? The answer is not quite, but I can live with that, because it's riskier. There will be reviews of this book by critics who have little liking or understanding for popular fiction who'll dismiss it as nothing but a short story that has been bloated to novel length (I'm thinking of Michiko Kakutani, for instance, who microwaved Smith's first book). These critics, who steadfastly grant pop fiction no virtue but raw plot, will miss the dazzle of Smith's technique; The Ruins is the equivalent of a triple axel that just misses perfection because something's wrong with the final spin.
It's hard to say much about the book without giving away everything, because the thing is as simple and deadly as a leg-hold trap concealed in a drift of leaves…or, in this case, a mass of vines. You've got four young American tourists--Eric, Jeff, Amy, and Stacy--in Cancun. They make friends with a German named Mathias whose brother has gone off into the jungle with some archeologists. These five, plus a cheerful Greek with no English (but a plentiful supply of tequila), head up a jungle trail to find Mathias's brother…the archaeologists…and the ruins.
Well, two out of three ain't bad, according to the old saying, and in this case; what's waiting in the jungle isn't just bad, it's horrible. Most of The Ruins's 300-plus pages is one long, screaming close-up of that horror. There's no let-up, not so much as a chapter-break where you can catch your breath. I felt that The Ruins did draw on a trifle, but I found Scott Smith's refusal to look away heroic, just as I did in A Simple Plan. It's the trappings of horror and suspense that will make the book a best seller, but its claim to literature lies in its unflinching naturalism. It's no Heart of Darkness, but at its suffocating, terrifying, claustrophobic best, it made me think of Frank Norris. Not a bad comparison, at that.
One only hopes Mr. Smith won't stay away so long next time.--Stephen King
In the wild interior of the Yucatán, far from the lazy beaches of Cancún, two young couples and some new-found friends venture to the site of an ancient Mayan temple, in pursuit of another in their group. What started out as a day trip spirals into a nightmare when they reach the ruins . . . and discover the terrifying presence that lurks there.
Customer Reviews
Average Rating: 
Rating:  - An Insult To Struggling Writers
I'd heard mixed things about this book and only read it because my kids and grandkids got it for me as a father's day gift. After just the first page, I was appalled. It was the most passive and telling work I've ever read. Still, I wanted to see if things got better, so I slogged through it.
This goes to show that in the publishing world, it's not who you know, but who you blow. Mr. Smith had success with his book and movie, A Simple Plan, and apparently that's all the clout he needed ... Read More
Rating:  - Perfect plane reading
Hey check it out, I read a fiction book! I was kindof hoping it would have some stuff about ancient Mayan culture in it, which it totally doesn't, but it's a terrific book anyway - one of the best novels I've read in years. I wish I'd saved it for a plane trip; it's the kind of book that you want to just blaze through in one sitting, so it'd be perfect for a long flight. Smith draws clear characters, puts them in a starkly simple situation, and then lets their personalities decide their fate, like ... Read More
Rating: - This book is just plain awesome
One of the quotes on the back says "Do not pick up a copy ... if you have anything else you need to do in the next eight hours or so". That is oh so true. I did not want to put this book down; I had to know what was going to happen next. I also liked following the reactions of the characters, each reacting according to their unique personality. This book goes on my most favorite list.
Rating: - A page-turner that I would recommend skipping
The Ruins, like the Simple Plan, is a real page-turner. It is a gripping story that unfortunately is unsatisfying. As a horror story, the main problem is that the culprit is a plant and some backward mayans who somehow can run a highly disciplined militia when necessary. I thought the writing was excellent and had many positive traits but that does not make up for a plot that becomes stagnant and just feeds off itself until there is nothing left to write about. The story does create suspense and interest ... Read More
Rating: - A Real Page Turner!!
A group of friends on holiday in Cancun, decide to travel to the site of an archaelogical dig in the Mexican jungle. A brother of one of the groups members, has left on a note giving directions, to the site and has left a few days earlier. When they arrive at the site, which is on a hill completed covered in flowering vines, their troubles really begin.
I'm not too sure as to why this book is getting so many negative reviews. I found it a real page turner. There was always something happening to ... Read More
Related Categories:
Recently viewed PC Hardware:
Toshiba Portege R100 Laptop (Pentium M Processor 733 (Centrino), 512MB RAM, 40 GB Hard Drive)
|
Sony VAIO VGC-RA820G Digital Studio PC (Intel Pentium 4 Processor 540, 1 GB RAM, 200 GB Hard Drive, DVD+/-RW Dbl Layer, DVD-ROM Drive)
|
Gateway 450X Notebook (1.4-GHz Pentium M (Centrino), 256 MB RAM, 40 GB Hard Drive, DVD/CD-RW Combo)
|
Samsung SyncMaster C793DF-T/T 17" CRT Monitor (Silver/Black)
|
HP 6515b 14.1 Inch Laptop, AMD Turion 64 X2 TL-64 2.2 GHz, 2 GB DDR2 SDRAM, 120 GB Hard Drive, Genuine Windows Vista Business 32
|
| |
 |
