Clickers

Clickers by J.F. Gonzalez

My rating: 3 of 5 stars


Writer Rick Sychek plans on spending time in remote Phillipsport, Maine, to write his newest book, but his plans are derailed when he wrecks his car trying to avoid something in the road. Before Rick knows what's happening, Phillipsport is swarmed by the Clickers, strange scorpion-like crabs from the ocean's depths. Carnage ensues and the town fights for survival, not knowing that the Clickers are the least of their problems...

Clickers is a tribute to B-movies by J.F. Gonzalez and Mark Williams, and reads as such. There's violence, cursing, and tons upon tons of gore, the hallmarks of a good b-horror flick. The Clickers were suitably scary and the Dark Ones even more so. People got picked off left and right. While I had a feeling Rick would be left standing at the end, I had no idea who'd be left standing with him. Clickers is a good example of survival horror at work. The entire time I was reading it, I kept picture Roland on the beach in Drawing of the Three, trying not to get eaten by the lobstrocities.

Guy Smith, killer crab enthusiast and Goodreads folk hero, was mentioned in both the introduction and the text. I felt nostalgic for some of the references to 80's and 90's music and culture, although I snorted a bit when Rick was looking through his VHS tapes.

So why did I give it a three? Well, most of the characters were pretty thin but the thing that really dragged Clickers down a couple notches was that there was way too much going on. If Gonzalez and Williams had just focused on Sychek and the Clickers, it would have been an easy four. As it stands, there were way too many supporting characters, and too many of those had names starting with the letter R. The Dark Ones diminished the Clicker threat and felt like they were added on for padding or something.

While it has its flaws, Clickers does what it sets out to do: recreate the experience of a B-movie in book form. It was an enjoyable read and I'll probably cave in and grab Clickers II one of these days.



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