Risen

Excellent story! When I read that this was Jan strnad's first book I was very surprised. The first thing I wanted to do was look for any other book by this author. I recommend this book to anyone! Great job!I look forward to many more like this!

This was a very enjoyable book to read, the characters were very well developed and the story line was fun to follow. I thought I knew where the story was going but twist were put in place that I did not expect.

My first horror since Cujo.
I thoroughly enjoyed this book. Quite compelling and well written.
Believable characters and interesting, insightful relationships.

The main protagonist could have received more, but it works well as it stands.

Just finished the kindle edition of this little gem five minutes ago. This is a story that is screaming to be put on screen. The characters are interesting and engaging, the settings familiar and charming... at first, and the tale itself rolls out like a growing red stain on your childhood security blanket. So gripping and fun. Alright Jan, what else ya got?

I’m on the fence about this book. The beginning was so slow I found myself skimming pages because I hate putting down a book unfinished and will usually force myself until it gets unbearable. So I kept reading and found it picked up the pace quite a bit by the middle and got really interesting. However *SPOILER* STOP READING IF YOU WANT TO BE SURPRISED ...okay, don’t say I didn’t warn you. I understand in a thriller there have to be deaths, but I hate following a hero, or in this case two heroes, through the book only to have one of them die in the end. I also hate when they bring in an almost nonexistent character as one of the survivors, because I’m not really invested in her and I don’t really care if she lived or not. Some editing, and this would actually make a good movie.

Jan Strnad is, ironically, one of the most talented writers I've ever read and one of the most underexposed, as well. At a time when the Cult of the Celebrity is almost a religion and Brand-Name Writers crowd the marquee, Jan Strnad prefers to promote his writing instead of himself -- a rare quality these days! It's worth noting, too, that Jan's not an overnight success: He earned his stripes the hard way, cutting his teeth on semi-pro zines in the mid-seventies, then collaborating with artist Richard Corben, and finally writing scripts for major studios in Hollywood. He's paid his dues, and you as the reader benefit: He values your time and knows that if you pick up RISEN and are disappointed, you won't come back for more.
He wants you to come back for more. He wants you to pile it up on your plate. He, in fact, wants you to gorge yourself to the point of insensibility. Stuff yourself!
After reading RISEN, my friend, you will go back to the buffet for seconds. No question.
When you read Strnad's work, you will find yourself in the very capable hands of a storyteller whose sense of narrative pace, characterization, and dialogue mesh as smoothly as an automatic transmission on a Lexus automobile: It's so comfortable a ride, you don't realize that you've gone from your comfy world to Jan's world, where anything can (and does) happen, as RISEN so amply proves.
Stephen King is indeed a master of the kind of story I call "ordinary people in extraordinary circumstances." Get the reader comfortable with the fictional world, make him care about the character, and then throw the main character in peril. So, yes, there's a touch of King in Jan Strnad's work. And so too you'll find a touch of the late Tom Reamy. But mostly what you'll find is pure Strnad: the kind of old-fashioned storytelling in which the writer sits behind the wheel and takes you the reader on a car ride during which the familiar landscape will slowly transform into something quite horrific. Your complacency, which will soon be replaced with a growing sense of dread, is about to get a sudden shock, a jolt of Jan's inimitable prose.
When you finish RISEN, you will realize two things: first, this guy's the Real McCoy, the Real Deal, a writer who knows how to put words together with a skill that escapes some of the biggest names on the NY Times bestseller fiction list. Strnad, in short, can write. And the second thing you'll realize is that Jan does what every good writer MUST do: he delivers the goods.
RISEN is an impressive novel and promises even more: tapping a vein drawing fresh blood, at a time when even some of the biggest names in the field give us proven retreads on an annual basis, instead of mining their dark visions.
RISEN is, as I put it, one hell of a read. And that doesn't surprise me, since Jan Strnad is one hell of a writer.
Now let me get the hell out of your way, so you can order the book and go on a phantasmagoric ride.

The blurb on the cover of this book compares this story to those of Stephen King and Dean Koontz. While I don't necesarily agree with that statement for a variety of reasons, I must say that this was a fun book to read. There isn't anything here that is deep or philosophical--just some chilling back-from-the-dead scenes, a growing sense of doom, and a good vs. evil tale.

The residents of small-town Anderson go about their daily lives as normal until a miraculous event brings back one of their citizens from the dead. Miracle? Maybe. Brant Kettering chose to move to Anderson in order to escape his own personal ghosts in the big city. Running the local newspaper isn't exactly brain surgery, but he gets to know the locals and tries to adjust to small-town life. When his girlfriend's moody teenage son, Tom, confesses a horrible crime and an even more horrific resurrection mystery, Brant decides that he cannot just sit back and watch his new town be destroyed. Tom and Brant work together in a frantic effort to save Anderson, but with no way to tell who the Risen are, paranoia and terror quickly set in.

I like that this author doesn't pull any punches. I may have gasped a couple of times over some events in the book, but all the action is logical given the frame of what is happening in this little town. The roach scene (one of my personal phobias) was enough to make me put down the book several times before I finally managed to get through it all. No, this book is nothing like what I've long admired of Stephen King's work, but it is deserving of its own niche in the horror genre, and let's face it--really GOOD zombie novels are few and far between (if these characters can even be described as zombies, which is debatable), so it's good to have another on the shelf.

Having just finished this book minutes ago, I found it an intense and unusually innovative read, especially for the horror subgenre of zombie/risen dead fiction. I read a lot of both good and terrible novels, and with horror I often am busy anticipating the "let down," you know, the moment where you can tell the author got derailed, becomes to derivative of other, better novels or tried to neatly tie everything up per editorial demands, or to cut the page count. Risen has none of this, and a presentation, writing style, and careful approach to a terrifying scenario that left me desperately seeking more material from this author (which I haven't found yet, alas). Of the 30 odd horror novels I've read in the last year, I would rank J. Knight next to Keene and Joseph Citro as my best new discoveries in the genre.

Anderson was a small town. It was mostly peaceful. Then Madge Duffy was battered one time too many by her drunk husband. She took a knife to his throat as he slept. But he did not stay dead. As the local church bell tolled at midnight, he came back to life. That was the beginning of the horror.
Those who died came back, compliments of an evil one called Seth. Those who had risen killed others in town so they too, at midnight, could rise with Seth's blessing.
***** This one will put major chills all through the bodies of it readers! Pure Horror at its finest! *****

Alfred Hitchcock in "Hitchcock/Truffaut" talks of a story idea he tried and never adequately mastered. Its premise: what would we do if our dead loved ones returned to this life? Hitchcock abandoned the idea because he never found a satisfying story development for it. Jan Strnad's RISEN deals with the same premise and conquers it mightily. What would we do if our loved ones (and not so loved ones) came back? Strnad's relentless examination is breathlessly paced, gnawingly thoughtful and populated with an array of characters we can love, hate, fear - and fear for. To this Americana horror he adds an observant humor that is as wicked as a paper cut. Strnad the sensualist is always on the prowl too: The smell of a Methodist church, the many contortions of dying, the feeling of the Void, the psyche of aimless teens, the crustiness of aged bodies, the palpable fear of impossible horror grinning you in the face. Come to the small average town of Anderson and meet the RISEN. It will be hard to get them out of your mind. A must-read.

By Richard D. Weber. Having been fortunate enough to have read this book at its earlier stages, I can only say that Mr. Knight has done very well ... despite any disgruntle horror writers/readers who suffer from nearsighted envy (to be generous). His writing is clean, understated, and well crafted. The pacing and plotting also work well, to a fault.
Readers of the horror genre should enjoy this novel for its storyline, a return to good `ol family values: the small-town-goes-amuck premise.
What's next? Zombies invade Washington D.C.? Probably too reality based;although if Bush is defeated, Frankenstein's monster may indeed inhabit the Oval Office.

RISEN
Jan Strnad
The Creeping Reality of a Maestro of the Macabre

There must be almost as many ways to define `creepy' as there are demons in a legion.

Is Jan Strnad's *Risen* hair-raising? The back of my neck felt like there was an ants' jamboree in full swing. Does it scare the living daylights out of you? I was too pussy to turn out the lights. Does it make you suspicious about the cake the neighbours just brought round? Tell you the truth; I even secretly poured the tea my wife just made into a plant pot in case it was laced with rat poison. And it seems to me that aspidistra is wilting.

But in describing *Risen* as `creepy' I'd have something else in mind entirely. Like others of my disreputable breed - the `editorial analyst' - I'd be talking about its simmering style, its perfectly calculated pace, the steady and painstaking establishment of vivid scenes and strong characters, the small-town reality that so naturally suspends any disbelief ... and how, only having carefully and nefariously lulled you into a sense of security, does Jan Strnad hold his breath, rise to his tiptoes, and quietly creep up behind you to plant his unearthly nightmares.

When I'd rubbed away the goose flesh, I realised and could fully appreciate and admire just what expert, `creepy' authoring I'd just experienced.

The little town of Anderson, as real as your own neighbourhood, the characters at the diner, in the street, on the farms, so undeniably flesh-and-blood you wouldn't be surprised if they popped by to borrow a cup of sugar, are so skilfully made familiar that when Anderson turns to an outpost of hell and its inhabitants into blood-lusting monsters from the pit, it's all as utterly believable as if Strnad had introduced an outbreak of measles into his storyline rather than a plague of the undead.

This triumph over rationality and scepticism prompted me re-evaluate a decision I'd made forty years ago to turn my back on the `horror' genre with its cardboard spooks, zombies and vampires. My own wee publishing house won't even consider submissions that skip into the fright fantastic.

Maybe we should think again with scribes like Strnad around. Perhaps we'd do well to remember the 1956 movie, *Invasion of the Body Snatchers*, and the panic that followed the all-too-real CBS radio adaptation of HG Wells' *War of the Worlds* read on Halloween night 1938 by Orson Welles. Time to forget Ed Wood's 1959 *Plan Nine From Outer Space* and the B-movie-style pulp novels that rode on the back of the YA appetite for fast-food zombies and vampires and that took hold of the slushpile end of the books market.

Much more than King and Rice ever did (reading them is put down to `research'), Strnad has reminded me that a story is a story, that fiction is fiction, and that all we read and savour is as real as it is unreal if presented by a creeping master of his craft.

Knowing its genre - the pigeon hole into which every novel is wickedly forced - I opened this book reluctantly. A generous 400+ pages later, I closed it even more reluctantly, and in a cold sweat. The pages had turned almost supernaturally. There had been no point at which to comfortably stop and draw breath.

This is such a rare gem of a chiller, not because you can wind up believing the horror could happen in your home town, but because there are times when you can't help feeling it already has!

I'm a `convert'. And if you read Jan Strnad's *Risen* - which I highly recommend you do (well before midnight) - you'll know that claim is a lot creepier than it sounds.

Neil Marr. Ed. BeWrite Books

Just finished Risen.
An enjoyable read and hard to put down.
Early in the book, I felt I knew the characters intimately. And, I felt as though I was walking the avenues, visiting the homes, seeing the countryside and experiencing the emotions (high and low) with each person in the story. And the characters weren't just people in a story, they were human--so fleshed out that you could swear you have, yourself, met them at some time, someplace, but you just can't put your finger on where.
High action, intrigue and humor. Delicious descriptions of horror. Great use of metaphors and similes. Evocative imagery!
A marvelous ride into a world of chaos, where you are never really sure what to believe, who to trust . . . just a step away from reality . . . and you are there!
Kathy Anne Harris

Read this book for free through my the store Prime membership. Was an awesome book, especially for not having to pay a thing. Wasn't super scary but it really held my interest and had some good comedic parts in it as well. Highly recommend it and am looking forward to the authors next venture. Great book to read on the Kindle Fire as well!

This was a great horror thriller novel. Characters were well developed and interesting. I laughed and cringed. Really hoping he'll write more like this. Hard to find a good scary book anymore but this is one of the best.

J. Knight's impressive first novel gives us a cool spin on the theme of the undead. He knows what horror fans want, and does an excellent job of delivering the goods. I'm genuinely looking forward to his next effort, he's really talented.

Risen pulls off a neat trick. It starts out Dave-Barry droll. Then it darkens. Then the turns and shocks come, climaxing with a twist that seems unthinkable in a thriller of this sort -- until you see Strnad's set it up so well it's perfect, logical, and emotionally acceptable, despite its horror (it happens in the church scene). I read several thrillers a year. This is in the top rank.
This is the same Jan Strnad of comics fame. He even got buddy Rich Corben to do his cover.

Jan Strnad's outstanding debut novel Risen proves that he belongs right up there in the ranks of the horror masters King and Koontz. While based on a premise creepy enough to raise goosebumps, Risen's fast paced narrative and realistic characters make this novel highly appealing to fans of the Suspense/Thriller genre as well. A thoroughly satisfying read, Risen keeps you riveted from the very beginning and its disturbingly chilling impact will linger long after the last word is read.

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