The Fall - A Sequel Just As Good as the Original
The Fall is the sequel to Alan Baxter’s book released year year titled The Gulp. I reviewed The Gulp last year and loved it so naturally, when I heard there was a sequel on the way, I was excited to get back into the world of Gulpepper.
The Fall takes place in the fictional town of Gulpepper which is like Baxter’s version of Castle Rock for the Stephen King fans. It is a collection of novellas but is really more like a mosaic novel where all of the stories interconnect a little bit, but they also stand on their own.
Like the previous book, this one has a bunch of great stories. While I connected with some more than others, they were all fast-paced and easy to get into. There were two that stood out to me as the best of the bunch. The first is Gulpepper Curios about a wealthy man taking a motorcycle tour of Australia. Of course he ends up in Gulpepper and as fans of the first book know, things do not go well for him. The second story and probably my favourite of all of the Gulp stories over the two books is Cathedral Stack. This story follows a group of fishermen as they head out for a day of fishing on their boat. Things happen on the water and they get stranded leaving them to explore an area of the Gulp that is never seen. Again, Gulpepper-y things happen and the story is phenomenal.
I picked out those two stories, but in all honesty, there is not a bad story in this book. Baxter does a great job of creating the tension and suspense in every single story. You know going into this book that some seriously strange shit goes on in the Gulp so the tension is already there on the first page and you want to know what crazy shit is about to go down.
The imagery in these stories is off the charts. There are great visuals and complex characters that make you root for them with every turn of the page. Another great effort form Alan Baxter and I hope we get another Gulp book in the future.
