Ghostland by Duncan Ralston
Ghosts are real and everyone knows it. It’s the premise behind Ghostbusters (the 80’s version) which is one of my all-time favorite movies and it’s the premise behind Duncan Ralston’s novel Ghostland. While Ghostbusters takes a comedic look at what could happen if ghosts were real. Ralston’s novel takes the idea in an entirely different direction and successfully creates a world and a scenario that is believable and incredible to read.
While I don’t know if Ralston was influenced by the 1980’s comedy in any way when he wrote Ghostland, it’s hard to ignore the similarities. In Ghostbusters we see scientists create a new business after they encounter a ghost at the New York Public Library. Ghostland also involves the creation of a new business, but instead of catching ghosts, this new business model revolves around using ghosts as an attraction people will pay money to see. They have created a way for people to see the ghosts that haunt and inhabit the world around us. We cannot see them, but with technology to help, via a special set of glasses, visitors to the Ghostland amusement park are able to see the ghosts that inhabit it. This idea is right up my alley and when I read the blurb, I knew this was a book I had to read.
Ralston does a good job of creating a story around his phenomenal idea. Two friends, who have grown apart over the years come back together and take a trip to go through the park together. I can certainly get into this story-line but the problem for me, and my only problem with the book really, was that the characters of Ben and Lilian to me weren’t as interesting as the idea of Ghostland itself. While I was reading I felt myself longing for more information about the ghost filled tourist attraction and less information about the characters. It did not detract form the story, but I was begging for more about Ghostland while I was reading.
The book is set up differently than most novels. There is the main narrative that you can read straight through if you want. But contained within that narrative are footnotes on certain haunted buildings or ghosts that will give you more information about them. I read Ghostland on my kindle and was weary at first because in the past, this type of back and forth reading did not work very well. That was not the case at all with this book. The footnotes and my ability to read them were smooth and didn’t interrupt from my reading over the overall narrative. Normally I would shy away from buying a book with footnotes like this on my kindle, but rest assured, you can buy this book without that worry.
Overall, this book has a great idea and the premise is something that drew me in from the very beginning. There was not a problem with execution either because I felt that the Ghostland idea that I built up in my head was fleshed out enough that I didn’t necessarily have any questions about it when I finished the book. The problem for me came when the idea was more interesting than the characters. A strong, in this case very strong, idea can carry a novel most of the way, but the characters are still needed to bring that novel to the next level. Given that, this is still worth a read.
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