The Loop

By Jeremy Robert Johnson

Winner of the 2020 Wonderland Best Novel of the Year award
"Unputdownable…Fans of The Twilight Zone, The X-Files, and Stranger Things will be especially thrilled.", Publishers Weekly, starred review
Stranger Things meets The X-Files in this heart-racing conspiracy thriller as a lonely young woman teams up with a group of fellow outcasts to survive the night in a town overcome by a science experiment gone wrong.
Something sinister lurks beneath the sleepy tourist town of Turner Falls nestled in the hills of central Oregon. A growing spate of mysterious disappearances and frenzied outbursts threaten the town's idyllic reputation until an inexplicable epidemic of violence spills out over the unsuspecting city.
When the teenage children of several executives from the local biotech firm become ill and hyper-aggressive, the strange signal they can hear starts to spread from person to person, sending anyone who hears it into a murderous rage. Lucy and her outcast friends must fight to survive the night and get the hell out of town, before the loop gets them too.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Titan Books
• Release date: Apr 6, 2021
• ISBN: 9781789097269

Jeremy Robert Johnson

Jeremy Robert Johnson is the author of the critically acclaimed collection Entropy in Bloom as well as the breakthrough cult novel Skullcrack City. His fiction has been praised by The Washington Post and Publishers Weekly, authors such as David Wong, Chuck Palahniuk, and Jack Ketchum, and has appeared internationally in numerous anthologies and magazines. In 2008, he worked with The Mars Volta to tell the story behind their Grammy Award–winning album, The Bedlam in Goliath. In 2010 he spoke about weirdness and metaphor as a survival tool at the Fractal 10 conference in Medellin, Colombia. In 2017, his short story “When Susurrus Stirs” was adapted for film and won numerous awards including the Final Frame Grand Prize and Best Short Film at the H.P. Lovecraft Film Festival. Jeremy is intermittently social over at Facebook, Instagram, and Twitter @JRL_Is_Probable.

Reviews for The Loop

[whitewavedarling · Rating: 2 out of 5 stars]

I had to DNF at 20%. I think this could have made a fantastic movie, but as a book, it started out interesting (if a bit too reminiscent of a favorite movie, right from the beginning), and then varied between feeling boring and built for shock value, with a fair amount of middle-school-boy humor thrown in that didn't really feel believable of high school kids or remotely entertaining. The further I read, the more annoyed I became and the more predictable it all felt.Just not for me.

[arkrayder · Rating: 4 out of 5 stars]

received a digital copy of this book from NetGalley and Saga Press. This is a great read. It starts slowly but around page 100 it kicks into high gear and really sucks the reader in. The descriptions of violence and horror are a little detailed but where the book shines is it’s character interactions and I found the ending staying with me after I set the book down. A highly entertaining read.

[carol420 · Rating: 5 out of 5 stars]

This is a truly a horror thriller that is fueled by a story that will give the reader feelings of hopelessness and brutality. The narrative is delivered to the reader through the eyes and minds of a small cast of well-developed ....well thought out characters. What makes the story so interesting is not just its fresh take on an old theme...,but its insight on a terrifying scenario that is growing all the more realistic in today's technological society. The characters in this story are hoping for salvation from a non- existent, uncaring mega force that has created and let loose a carnivorous monster that they have lost all control over...or ever had any control over to begin with. I have never read anything to equal the horror that this book produced, and I have read A LOT. Seriously, this is not for the faint of heart or the weak of stomach.

[jwitt33 · Rating: 5 out of 5 stars]

This story takes place over the course of one night, but I have to say, there is so much action packed into that single night you don't need any more time! Lucy goes out to a party with a couple of friends, more to keep busy and get out of the house than because she's excited about it, and all hell breaks loose. It turns out, the tissue from an alien species has been replicated and implanted into a group of kids in town and has had an unexpected side effect, to say the least. It's supposed to control them but instead turns them into little killing machines with a hive mind. The worst part, which is saying a lot due to the sheer number of awful things that happen on that fateful night, is that the kids need to kill to keep them calm, even while they are salivating over the violence they are inflicting! Crazy, I know! The book started out at a nice, normal pace, introducing the characters and giving their back stories, and then before you know it, it throws you headlong into the action, and doesn't take its foot off the brake for the rest of the book. Definitely a page turner, with an explosive conclusion.As mentioned above, the pacing of the plot is very quick, making it near impossible to put the book down as you don't want to miss a thing. The characters are very well written and grow and develop throughout the book, especially our Lucy. I'm still amazed that all this happened in just one night! (Broken record, I know, but still ....)In summary, I thoroughly enjoyed this book and enthusiastically recommend it to anyone looking for a quirky, unique horror story, that moves at a fast pace without sacrificing character development. 5/5 stars.I received a copy of this book free of charge through NetGalley in exchange for my honest opinion.