Island Life

A Meikle tale about an ancient horror stalking a Scottish island, its inhabitants fending off cannibals with the few weapons at hand … didn’t I just review that?Yes, I did. But while Ramskull from 2017 has a similar set up, a similar structure (contemporary chapters alternating with historical ones), and, if you squint your eyes just right and ignore a lot of detail, a similar theme and end, Island Life is not the same story. Like Ramskull, it’s not boring or predictable. Originally published in 2001 (though this edition has a copyright of 2013), this is Meikle’s first novel and not inferior to his latest work.Meikle is fairly casual about introducing his many viewpoint characters. There’s Duncan McKenzie, a biologist doing research on declining fishing in the area. There’s Anne and Jim McTaggart, a couple of hippies who came to the island decades ago and who live with their daughter Meg. There’s Dick, a young assistant lighthouse keeper. There’s the obstreperous and abusive John Jefferies, local sheep rancher. Even his dog Sam gets some chapters.They’ve all got their things going on at story’s beginning. Duncan finally gets to take Meg out on a date. Dick is very interested in the girls at the local archaeology dig. Anne is faced with suddenly being pregnant again at age 44. Jefferies is, as always, angry about something, this time some of his sheep being found dead.Fear not, though, Meikle doesn’t make you sit through 100 or 80 or even 30 pages before the monster shows up.People start dying on page three. Despite the multiple viewpoint characters, this novel moves as fast as Ramskull with Meikle clever stitching a story together from multiple viewpoints that don’t describe the same events.Meikle knows that there are other ways of using history in a horror story besides old books and haunted houses and curses. Sometimes you need something visceral, something with bone and blood.Because it’s an early work, there are no bits of Meikle’s later mythology lying about – no Seton clan, none of his references to an ensnaring dance that can take you to another place, none of his Sigil and Totem ideas. There is a bit of Lovecraft at the end though.In the islanders’ fight against Calent, an immortal Atlantean priest exiled to the island, and his degenerate tribe, we again have a Meikle story of people overcoming fear to protect those they love or have sworn to protect.The fog shrouded island with its danger out of the depths of time actually put me in mind of a couple of movies also featuring old, hidden tribes threatening an isolated group: The 13th Warrior (and its source, Michael Crichton’s Eaters of the Dead) and Bone Tomahawk. However, I have no idea if Meikle has ever read Crichton or seen the film from it, and the latter movie came after this novel.

It was by sheer force of will that I actually finished Island Life and it has sadly become one of my worst kindle buys.To be fair, I realise that sometimes a book needs a specific reader... that reader was not me.Island Life started off okay, but the story was, in my opinion, quickly weighed down when the writing "style" the author adopted quickly became convoluted and the plot just became confusing to me.I really wanted to like this book, I mean with an island setting, gothic atmosphere and "unholy things", I didn't think it could go wrong.But it went oh-so-wrong.With many repetitive perspectives, for one thing; too much going back and forth, requiring too much concentration which really got in the way of the whole trying to enjoy the actual story.The reader must wade through excessive writing that's badly stylised only to be taken further out of the story by having to remember what the hell just happened a chapter ago, and yet, in all of this "detail", excitement and attention to the plot was sadly lost.Somewhere around the middle it lost me and I became very bored with it.I kept losing interest so many times that I actually went through two other books while i was reading this one, and finished them first.All I could do when I had some free time was groan that I still wasn't done with this mess, knowing I still had to finish it.It was all just too much of "the years grew long, Calent waited"...blahblahblah..."insert pointless memory during waiting period here"...blahblahblah... "days turned into weeks"...blahblahblah....repeat endlessly.It wasn't even scary or creepy, not even with remnants of an Atlantian/pre human race as the "unholy things".I do not know how on earth this could get 5 star reviews.My summary -PROS: I'm being generous here by grasping for something, but one thing positive was I got a real sense of fog on the lonely, misty island.I guess that gave it a good gothic athosphere and description of the Scottish isle.CONS: Too much backstory flashbacks of the "monster" and nothing actually exciting happening and it eventually loses the reader.All the talk about the ancient race things in the past intermingled between present day kept me too distracted from the on-going story by all the useless nonsense. Also awkward relationship moments that didn't work very well making the flow even more inconsistent. In my opinion, the story could have been good if there was a better writing style/structure.WHAT I LIKED BEST: The one thing I can say I liked was giving the dog in the story a narration. Having some of the story unfold as from the dog's perspective offered some sense of investment for me because I was almost genuinely worried for the dog's safety, while I didn't even care about the other characters.When it comes to books, I honestly never thought I would feel I didn't get my moneys worth, my whole $2.99 that it cost to read this story,but that's exactly how i feel about this novel.I found it was just not an enjoyable horror story at all and would have given it a half star if i could have.If you insist because you like Scottish island setting, pre-human creatures and ancient burial mounds so much that you still want to try this book out, I suggest reading on a dark stormy night outside on a beach, maybe that will make it scary.The scariest part for me was trying to finish it.

There's something rotten - rotten smelling, that is - not in the state of Denmark but on a tiny Heberdian island off the coast of Scotland. Along with the telltale odor of rotting fish that seems to presage every attack, there's something exceedingly lethal in the mist that sometimes shrouds the island.Humans have long feared the fog and darkness, the natural elements of the "monsters" in this novel. Author William Meikle does an excellent job of playing on those primitive fears in Island Life. Meikle has created a race of monsters that are revealed slowly as the book progresses. In places it almost seems as if he's channeling an updated version of H.P. Lovecraft in this story of ancient gods and curses.This is a fast-paced story that keeps you reading to see what will happen next. On the whole, I can recommend it to readers in search of a thrill ride of a horror novel. There are, however, two issues I had with the novel. First, the ending seemed abrupt, as if Meikle spent the bulk of his time developing the setting, characters and atmosphere of the book, only to rush everyone through their paces to reach the conclusion. Secondly, the way the book is structured often ends chapters on cliffhangers, then picks up another thread of action in the next chapter. By the time the action returns to the first cliffhanger it's difficult to tell how much time is supposed to have elapsed. One of the most egregious examples is a chapter that ends with characters starting a two-mile trek across the island in a vehicle. Several chapters later the action returns to the two-mile trek which is only just ending. Given all the action that has happened in the intervening chapters it makes it seem like the short journey across the island must have been as epic as a wagon train across the Rocky Mountains.

On an isolated Scottish island, an ancient burial site is excavated by a group of students and their professor, the work done against the wishes of the island's local inhabitants. The locals fear the old stories of demons and horror, but the barrow is opened despite their fears. And their fears are realized. What emerges from the barrow are hungry, blood thirsty monsters, and they swarm the island leaving behind a trail of death and destruction. It's left to four survivors to face this hell head on, in a desperate battle for survival.Island Life, by William Meikle is a good read, for the most part, taking the solid horror theme of a small band of survivors trapped in an isolated area and faced with seemingly insurmountable odds. The characters are well defined, even to the tale being told at times through the POV of the island's only dog, Sam. The gore is there in bountiful doses, too, with enough blood and guts being spilled to satisfy almost any lover of the horror genre. The story even backtracks hundreds of years so the reader is able to see where these horrors of the mound really came from and why they are the bloodthirsty force they are in the book.Unfortunately, where this novel falls down is in the pacing of the story and questions unanswered.Each chapter is given the title of a character and an entire sequence of events is told through the POV of that character from chapter start to chapter end. While this does its job of giving the reader a good overall picture of all the chilling events as they unfold across the island, it also serves to lengthen the chapters and drag them out, which tears the pace right out of the story. The plot gave me questions, but these were left unresolved come the end of the story, and that was not a good feeling. There are numerous spelling errors throughout the book, as well, most that wouldn't be picked up on a spell check (for example form instead of from), but while the frequency of these were jarring at times they were easy to overlook.With that said, Island Life is a good read, if what you're after is monster gore on an isolated island. The characters pull you through the story. Their predicament, and the abundance of gore, is what makes this book the decent read that it is.

Island Life is the first book written by William Meikle that I have read, and as I'm a bit of a sucker for stories set on Scottish islands with a lighthouse, a good few murders and a bit of sex thrown in for good value, I wasn't disappointed. Meikle mixes Lovecraftian horror with some great characters who have to fight off evil to win the day and most importantly, survive.The supernatural elements come via beings that have survived through the ages of time, waiting to inhabit the world once more. Wherever Meikle gets his inspiration, he doesn't forget the essential element of telling a cracking good story. Lots of blood and guts, scary moments and monsters that will have you turning the pages long into the wee hours.

A gripping story set on one of the Scottish Isles. If you enjoy HP Lovecraft you will enjoy this - should read with a dram in hand!

The setting was fully described by the author, and each chapter represented a character, each chapter left me wanting more as I was totally gripped.It was a book that I could not put down; I was drawn in by the wonderful characters, the island and the monsters. I was constantly thinking how is this going to end? At times it was quite scary.The story flowed and was easy to read, however there were a few Scottish words that I had to look up on my kindle dictionary, but don't let this put you off.This was my first book that I have read by William Meikle, and I will definitely be reading more of his books. An excellent gripping read.

The central idea and location - strange goings on at an archaeological dig on a remote Scottish island- drew me to this book as did the reviews of Meikle's other works. However I found it overall to be disappointing; the characters were sketched extremely lightly and the events described are less than gripping.Even the descriptions of the island seemed perfunctory compared to, say, Peter May's Lewis trilogy. As a novella it might have worked quite well but it seemed somehow underdeveloped at novel length. The best stories of this type have far more ideas and themes behind them than this appeared to contain.