Product Description

They call it the Academy.
A secluded, cliff-top mansion overlooking the rugged Pacific coast.
A school for children gifted - or cursed - with extraordinary minds.
Children soon to come under the influence of an intelligence even more brilliant than their own - and unspeakably evil.

For within this mind a dark plan is taking form.
A plan so horrifying, no one will believe it.
No one but the children.
And for them it is already too late.
Too late, unless one young student can resist the seductive invitation that will lead...
into the shadows.

Product Details

• Amazon Sales Rank: #1076703 in Books
• Published on: 2005-12-25
• Released on: 2005-12-25
• Formats: Audiobook, CD, Unabridged
• Original language: English
• Binding: Audio CD

From Publishers Weekly
After a very slow first half, Saul ( Darkness , The God Project ) picks up the pace and delivers aword? tense, high-tech psychological suspense thriller. Ten-year-old genius Josh MacCallum is bored, lonely and almost always angry at his older, teasing classmates. After he attempts suicide, his frantic single mother jumps at the chance to enroll him in the Academy, a school for very gifted kids in Northern California. Run by aloof Dr. Engersol and matronly housemother HildieHildie not Hidie/eed , the school, which occupies an old mansion, offers Josh a friend in another 'fellow genius' awk when describing a woman genius, Amy Carlson. Trouble surfaces when a 12-year-old kills himself, but calm returns as Hildie dispenses hugs and common sense. Soon after Josh and Amy are picked for an advanced "seminar," Engersol and Hildie are revealed as nasty and the mad-scientist plot hurtles to a violent conclusion featuring dueling brains?? Josh and Amy's? unclear You're absolutely right but i'm afraid it will have to stand as is. I can't reach the reviewer, and altho I have the galley, connected to a mainframe computer. The novel's padded beginning and only serviceable prose are tolerable 'lesser' implies comparison w greater flaws, not w virtues flaws in light of Saul's chilling conceit, Hildie's jarring comeuppance and a delightful final twist. 150,000 first printing.
Copyright 1992 Reed Business Information, Inc.

From AudioFile
This tale of evil genius illustrates the most horrifying powers of a twisted mind. Most of the story takes place at The Academy, a school for gifted children; the narrator, J. Charles, does a terrific job creating a variety of children's voices. Charles builds the tension as a hellish experiment to probe the limits of the human brain is exposed. Low tones at the end of sentences may be difficult for commuters to hear. However, the overall effect is a gripping and suspenseful reading of a nerve-jangling tale. S.C.A. (c)AudioFile, Portland, Maine

From Kirkus Reviews
Donovan's Brain meets The Lawnmower Man. Bestseller horror novelist Saul (Second Child, Darkness, Creature, etc.) lands on the money again with one of his best--or least offensive--tales of psychological suspense. What's more, he's tuned in with Stephen King's current smash movie The Lawnmower Man, with a plot that turns in part on the novelty of computerized Virtual Reality games. Even more, his ending is ``virtually'' identical with the film's. Readers with long memories will recall Curt Siodmak's once vastly well-known, thrice-filmed story Donovan's Brain, about a scientist dominated by a dead industrialist's brain that he keeps alive in his lab. In Saul's story, a gothicky California genius academy for gifted kids is having trouble with suicide-prone students, and the deaths are piling up. Ten-year-old Josh MacCallum's best friend at the academy is Amy Carlson, though he's also buddies with the Aldritch twins, Jeff and Adam, who try to suck him into their Virtual Reality game. Then Adam kills himself, throwing himself in front of a train at night. But did he? Well, his body is crushed. But it seems that the suicides at the academy were also the smartest students, which includes the twins and suggests that IQ chartbusters Josh and Amy are marked for death. But...really? Well, no--because the academy's president, evil Dr. George Engersol, and his warm-smiling, ice- water housekeeper Hildie Kramer have been faking the suicides after removing the victim's...well, should we tell you?...and keeping it alive and blooming in a secret lab where the ``dead'' are plugged into the world's greatest computer, a Croyden, and can operate it by tiny impulses and create...virtual...reality.... Small-scale but a grabber, despite bedrock banality. -- Copyright ©1992, Kirkus Associates, LP. All rights reserved.

Customer Reviews

A BOOK THAT ONLY JOHN SAUL FANS WILL LOVE...
This is a yet another formulaic horror story by the author of multiple bestsellers in this genre. Plot driven, with little character development, and a prosaically written narrative, the book is mediocre fare, at best.

This time, the horror takes place at The Academy, a school for gifted children. When ten year old, whiz kid Josh McCallum tries to commit suicide after enduring the endless taunts of his less gifted classmates in a mainstream school, his single mother enrolls him in The Academy, thinking that she has found a haven for her gifted son.

There, Josh feels at home, meeting other extraordinarily gifted children and making friends. Run by a Dr. Engersol, the resident mad scientist, and presided over by an ostensibly motherly woman named Hildie, Josh is, at first, taken in by the seemingly comfortable atmosphere of The Academy. Soon, he finds himself becoming friends with a precocious, freckle-faced redhead named Amy.

When a mysterious suicide takes place at the school, it is quickly swept under the rug. Josh and Amy shortly find themselves enrolled in a special seminar run by Dr. Engersol, where it is obvious all is not what it seems. Josh and Amy's idyllic and brief relationship soon comes to a grinding halt, when Amy is caught in the vortex of Dr. Engersol's madness, and Hildie is revealed for what she really is. It is up to Josh to set things right, a substantial burden for any ten year old, no matter how smart.

All in all, this is a book that only dedicated fans of author John Saul will love. All others will find it to be nothing more than a quick, throwaway read.

Better than most of his books!
Shadows was the first John Saul book I read, and I hungrily tried to read all of his other books in the library. However, none were as clever or as satisfying as Shadows. Yes, the character development is lacking, but the plot is very exciting and very well written, giving the reader inside knowledge that Josh, the protagonist, only discovers at the end of the story.

Mysterious details and character motives are all clarified by the end, without leaving any subplot unfinished. (For an example of such problems, read Orson Scott Card's "Lost Boys.")

Saul's other books are all formulaic, with unbelievable events striking innocent teenagers in small towns, who then "turn bad." This one is a bit different. The "evil" encountered at the Academy that Josh attends is actually plausible and even believable, unlike the science-fiction / ghost story elements of most of his stories. It is also fascinating to read this book set (And written?) during the beginning of the computer craze. What would people turn to in order to create a powerful computer? This book explores the possibilities. It is MUCH better than a typical John Saul book.

Nice little time waster
Regular readers of John Saul usually know what to expect when they pick up one of his novels; A small town setting, teenage protagonists with attitude issues and a malevolent technological experiment that is the work of some out of control corporation that threatens the peacefullness of the small town. Believe you me, Shadows does not stray very far from the formula.

Josh MacCallum is a ten year old with an attitude problem. He's constantly getting into fights at school, talks back at teachers and hates the fact he is living in a boring little desert town. His problem is that he is too smart. The curriculum at school is a joke to him and he is excluded and teased by his fellow students because of his superior intellect. His mother and principle decide to send him to a private school called The Barrington Academy for young students with gifted minds like his own. For the first time in his life, Josh feels like he belongs. But then a mysterious series of student suicides leads Josh to believe that the academy may not be all it is cracked up to be. Are all these suicides coincidental or is there something more sinister behind them?

Shadows is quite entertaining athough it doesn't offer Saul readers anything new. The book takes a while to get going but once we learn the forces at work behind the child suicides it becomes quite interesting. Fans of Orson Scott Card's Ender's Game and the Harry Potter novels ought to enjoy this one as much as I did.