The boy on the bridge
2017
- boys
- survival
- dystopias
- monsters
- fiction
- fiction, general
- horror tales
- zombies
- viruses
- gifted children
The story
"Once upon a time, in a land blighted by terror, there was a very clever boy. The people thought the boy could save them, so they opened their gates and sent him out into the world. To where the monsters lived."--Dust jacket.
What it’s like
Spare, forward-moving prose in a close, clipped voice, with the sensory world built from ruin: rain-soaked roads, overgrown towns, the chill of empty houses and the stink of decay. The mood is taut and bleakly suspenseful, a cold-weather read for a rainy weekend or a late-night sitting-up where you want tension without the shelter of comfort. The rhythm stays brisk, with short chapters that keep moving toward the next danger, and the emotional register is wary and watchful. Its heart is a gifted, isolated child trying to survive a world that has been overrun by the infected, and the story turns on how he learns to read his environment and the people around him. The violence is frequent and sometimes brutal, with gory attacks by the monsters and sudden deaths, and there is steady dread throughout; this is not gentle reading. It suits readers who enjoy post-apocalyptic horror, clever-child protagonists, and survival stories that trade warmth for suspense.
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