Review: Island Red

Island Red by Matt Serafini
My rating: 4 of 5 stars

Review of ISLAND RED by Matt Serafini


ISLAND RED is at once sci fi, adventure thriller, horror, and emotionally involving. Commencing explosively as a courting couple enjoying a nighttime swim witnesses, to their eternal regret, a fireball plummeting from the sky into the ocean. From that point, the horror and adventure are nonstop, as the inhabitants and visitors of a tiny island called Crystal Key, 20 miles from the Florida Keys, come under attack by quadruple, somewhat unrelated threats, every one promising fatal consequences.

This is not one of those adventure thrillers in which a happy hero rides to the rescue, saving the damsel and many bystanders. This is far more nihilistic, and believe me, some of the humans are more monstrous than the marine threat or the newly-arrived (via fireball/meteor) threat. Wildlife, after all, acts on instinct, following the evolutionary imperatives. Humans, however, choose to act, so I think the greater onus is on the human monsters in this story.



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