Multiple Bram Stoker Award®-nominated author John F.D. Taff’s highly-anticipated epic supernatural thriller, The Fearing, begins with Book One: Fire & Rain where humanity faces a series of catastrophes spawned by a worldwide event that unleashes all of mankind’s greatest fears.In the American high desert, vacationers returning from a road trip are thrust into a heart-stopping flight from … heart-stopping flight from death as they try to avoid a cataclysmic end. In rural Missouri, the lives of a group of high school students are destroyed after their small town is devastated and they’re forced to confront the end of everything they’ve ever known.
And on the eastern seaboard, there’s someone else. An enigmatic man who thrives on despair and embraces all fear. A man with his own dark and sinister goals. Someone who wants to ensure humanity goes out with the biggest bang possible.
Praise for John F.D. Taff:
“The Fearing isn’t only John F.D. Taff’s best book to date, it’s the kind you put on the shelf reserved for the ones that really did something to you, emotionally, intellectually, physically. A modern master at play..” – Josh Malerman, Bram Stoker Award®-nominated author of the New York Times bestselling Bird Box
“Of the current breed of authors riding the wave of digital liberation, John Taff is a standout talent. Literary, affecting, chilling, and indicative of that old-school mentality meets new-school daring.” – Kealan Patrick Burke, Bram Stoker Award®-winning author of The Turtle Boy, Kin and Jack & Jill
“John F. D. Taff has rapidly become one of my favorite writers in the horror genre. His horror is grounded in our day-to-day lives, in our families, our work, our most private thoughts. His stories vibrate with emotion and life and his prose is cathartic, deeply satisfying, like popping the bubbles in bubble wrap.” – Ray Garton, Grand Master of Horror and author of Live Girls and Ravenous
Proudly presented by Grey Matter Press, the multiple Bram Stoker Award-nominated independent publisher.
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Really enjoyed this novel-as-a-series-of-novellas. Great post-apoc yarn.
Finished Book 1 wanting immediately to start Book 2! The author draws you in as you join 3 different groups of people as they experience apocalyptic horror as, it appears, their fears become reality! In one group is a man that seems to wield some kind of power he is just beginning to realize he possesses! Mr. Taff leaves you wanting more…
In May, I was fortunate enough to hear John F.D. Taff read the opening chapter from book one of his serialized novel, The Fearing, at StokerCon 2019. It clearly establishes the character of Adam Sigel and his plethora of fears, and hinges on a remarkable twist that sets the trajectory for what follows. As Taff read the final words of chapter one, you could feel the momentous nature of the work itself and he left those of us in the audience completely wowed.
Reading it myself at home some weeks later, even knowing the reveal, it lost none of its impact. It’s still a sucker punch of a reveal — and it’s only the beginning of the book, damnit!
As much as the book’s opener works to set the stage, it also doesn’t adequately prepare you for what, exactly, The Fearing is or the sheer range of scope this story is being told through. As this is but the opening of a much larger work, Fire & Rain raises a whole lot of questions, ones that I want answers to immediately. By the half-way mark, I was already cursing the wait for Book Two, and wishing I could binge read the whole damn series, but such is the nature of good serialized fiction. And The Fearing is very, very good indeed. It leaves you aggressively wanting and demanding more, itching for your next fix.
At the core of it is a wonderfully imaginative premise, but one that also asks some scary questions of the reader. What are your largest, most secret fears? And what would you do if they started coming true? What if, on top of all that, you found yourself trapped in the nightmares of your friends and neighbors most frightening, awful, apocalyptic worries? Such is the issue Taff sets about exploring in this opening volume, and it looks like The Fearing is going to be a wonderfully epic, high-concept horror disaster story. It’s such a wonderfully delicious premise, and I’m eager to see where Taff is going to take all this as his story unwinds over the course of four novellas.
Like Stephen King’s The Green Mile, Taff and Grey Matter Press have opted to break up the story into a handful of character-driven narratives that will see release from July to November 2019. The schedule looks like this:
Book One: Fire & Rain — July 9
Book Two: Water & Wind — Aug 20
Book Three: Air & Dust — Oct 1
Book Four: Earth & Ember — Nov 11
Half the fun with The Fearing, of course, is in the painful anticipation! Hell, I’m already dreading September’s bye month…
The Fearing has been a long time coming (Taff, I believe, has been writing it on and off for five years) and the author, Grey Matter, and their readership have been doing a marvelous job of kicking the hype machine into full gear over the last several months. Thankfully, this is one of those rare instances where the final product (or, at least, part one of the final product) fully lives up to, and exceeds, the hype. And now, thanks entirely to Taff, I’ve developed a new phobia and now find myself slightly afraid the world actually will end before I get to finish the story.
This series should be at the top of your tbr if you haven’t read it already. John Taff knows horror. This is a writer that will transport you into a world in which there is no escape from things you fear most. I am so thankful I finally made time to start reading this series and I’m mad it took me so long to do so. Don’t let this happen to you. Buy the book, buy the series, face your fears.
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