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The Five
The Five
The Five
Audiobook20 hours

The Five

Written by Robert McCammon

Narrated by Nick Landrum

Rating: 4 out of 5 stars

4/5

()

About this audiobook

With works such as Swan Song and the historical thriller Mister Slaughter, best-selling author Robert McCammon has proven himself an extraordinarily accomplished storyteller. The Five features a rock band skirting the margins of success while touring the American Southwest. Life on the road, however, takes a strange turn when they encounter an Iraq War veteran. Soon thereafter, violence descends on the group, and their lives are tuned to a terrifying pitch.
LanguageEnglish
Release dateNov 25, 2011
ISBN9781461848080
Author

Robert McCammon

Robert McCammon (b. 1952) is one of the country’s most accomplished authors of modern horror and historical fiction, and a founder of the Horror Writers Association. Raised by his grandparents in Birmingham, Alabama, Bram Stoker and World Fantasy Award–winning McCammon published his first novel, the Revelations-inspired Baal, when he was only twenty-six. His writings continued in a supernatural vein throughout the 1980s, as he produced such bestselling titles as Swan Song, The Wolf’s Hour, and Stinger. In 1991, Boy’s Life won the World Fantasy Award for best novel. After his next novel, Gone South, McCammon took a break from writing to spend more time with his family. He did not publish another novel until 2002’s Speaks the Nightbird. Since then, he has followed “problem-solver” Matthew Corbett through seven sequels, in addition to writing several non-series books, including The Border and The Listener. McCammon still lives in Birmingham.

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Reviews for The Five

Rating: 3.8372092279069774 out of 5 stars
4/5

86 ratings12 reviews

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  • Rating: 4 out of 5 stars
    4/5
    I'm a long time Robert McCammon fan. In the 80s and early 90s he was, for me, up their with King and Koontz. He wrote some of my favourite books Swan Song and They Thirst are horror masterpieces. His books are genre ending Boy's Life is a 50s memoir but with escaped dinosaurs, a body in the lake, voodoo and milkmen. His books are often set in the US Deep South and describes the humid dampness suberbly.

    On to The Five, I enjoyed it but it had its faults. The sniper seems to get triggered a little easily. The final showdown was a bit of an anticlimax. The last hour seemed superfluous to the rest of the story, it could have been shorter. I enjoyed the band stuff, I think it describes the frustrations of the musicians slogging around the country, waiting for their big break.

    I think it will be a marmite kind of book. Up like it or you won't. I did, all in all.

    A great narration. A huge cast and plenty of female characters, all had individual voices.
  • Rating: 3 out of 5 stars
    3/5
    Overall the book is a bit too long and the pace at times is very slow. There are gems throughout the book which are up there with his best novels, for me it didn't flow or enthrall the way that boy's life or swan song did.
  • Rating: 5 out of 5 stars
    5/5
    Refreshing read. It got me in the feels a couple of times.
  • Rating: 3 out of 5 stars
    3/5
    I have read quite a few his novels and this isn’t his best.
  • Rating: 2 out of 5 stars
    2/5
    McCammon frustrates the shit out of me. He writes great stuff like Boy's Life, but he writes stuff like Gone South and The Five.

    I really really wanted to like The Five. It has everything going for it. But it just never came together. And, I'm sorry, I'm more than willing to suspend my disbelief for some crazy stuff, but murders followed by attempted murders, followed by attempted rapes...and the band plays on? I don't think so. I don't care how hungry that band is.

    Then there's the song. The fabled song that the band needs to write and all the forces are fighting against. Yes, the lyrics end up sucking, but there's many a classic rock song with inane lyrics, so that's forgivable. But the entire point of the story is that this band needs to somehow survive long enough to complete that song.

    And what does it all lead to? A big, fat, boring old nothing.

    I love McCammon's voice. I love his observations as he takes us on the journey. But it's absolutely unforgivable to ask a reader to put aside several hours of his or her life and to not have a point at the end of it. And don't tell me the point was family and friendship and loyalty, because that doesn't cut it.
  • Rating: 5 out of 5 stars
    5/5
    I just finished reading The Five over the weekend. I'm not ashamed to say that there were tears in my eyes as I did so.
    I really loved this book. Anyone who has ever felt like a song was actually written for them or is speaking to them personally would like this book.
    I am not going to get into the plot line as everyone else already has. Suffice it to say that by the 3rd or 4th chapter I was completely engaged with these well developed characters and I truly cared about what would happen to them. To me, that is the sign of a great writer. The characters also grew and developed throughout the entire book-a few of them were completely different people by the end. No cardboard characters here.
    As with "Swan Song" these characters will be with me for a long time and "they will be heard".
  • Rating: 3 out of 5 stars
    3/5
    After a decade of wondering if we would ever see a new novel from Robert McCammon, we were surprised with a very different form of storytelling that in the Matthew Corbett trilogy. Published over 8 years, those stories took us back to the 1700s, treating us first to a witch-trial legal thriller, and then to a pair of serial killer thrillers with some rather interesting psychological twists. Now, 20 years after the publication of Gone South, he has finally returned to the realm of contemporary horror with The Five.

    The Five is as much a book that’s about something (the quest for music) as it is one that tells a story (the impending destruction of The Five). It’s a story about making music, about writing songs, and about the power of music. This is a book that’s steeped in musical history, and often written in musical language. Music is what brought Nomad, Ariel, and the others together; it’s what sets Jeremy on their trail; it’s what carries them through their trials; and it's what, ultimately, provides their means of redemption.

    A fantastically diverse group of musicians, The Fiveare three men and two women (plus a manager) who we quickly come to care about. McCammon develops all of his characters carefully, balancing their rough edges with just enough sentiment to ensure we're fully invested in their fate, without robbing them of their grittiness. Even the deluded villain of the piece, Jeremy Pett, is a character who elicits our sympathy right from the start, even as he keeps us guessing as to his true motives. Depending on how much supernatural influence you choose to read into that motivation, his tragic fall may be just as important as the band's struggle to survive.

    Although there are aspects of the novel that remind me of many of his earlier works, it’s his classic Boy’s Lifethat most often came to mind while reading The Five. Both are rather subtle tales, relying upon anxious tension and ongoing mystery to feed the horror, as opposed to outright gore and terror. The story touches gently upon the supernatural, exploring the same themes of good versus evil that McCammon has so deftly dealt with before, but leaves the interpretation to the reader. Depending upon how one chooses to read it, this can either be a novel about the all-too-human pain within our hearts, or the inhuman fury and deception that haunts the fringes of imagination . . . or both.

    This uncertainty lends itself to a very interesting read, leading the reader to question almost every development. Without narrator who makes no effort to either confirm or deny to existence of the supernatural, and with such a wide variance of belief among the members of the band, we’re left to take sides based upon our own beliefs. It’s a brave approach to the story (especially since we're also being asked to weigh the political pros and cons of the war in Iraq), and one that demands the reader do more than just follow along, but it does make for an awkward and slightly unfinished ending.

    If your taste in McCammon’s work runs more to Boys Life than Swan Song, then I suspect this is the book you’ve been waiting for. Even if it doesn’t, this is a well-told tale that is definitely worth experiencing. Personally, I quite enjoyed the period detour of the Matthew Corbett trilogy (and would not be at all disappointed to see a return to that world), but it’s still nice to be taken to masterfully back into the present.
  • Rating: 4 out of 5 stars
    4/5
    Nominally about a band of touring rock musicians hoping for a break, what The Five is really about is music, how it speaks to us and touches our lives, about how sometimes, a song lyric seems to have been written with only us in mind, and about how sometimes, it is.

    The Five are an Austin-based rock and roll band on the “knife and gun” circuit that takes them from city to city, playing boxlike structures that long ago began to all look the same, to drunk and unruly crowds. All five have been in the business a while, playing in dozens and dozens of bands before finding each other.

    But after years of looking for their big break, of driving their van (affectionately known as the Scumbucket) throughout the southwest, of setting up MySpace pages and selling T-shirts and CDs at the back of the room, a couple of band members are tired and want out. This doesn’t sit well with John Charles, AKA Nomad, the volatile and often angry, tacit leader of the group.

    Still, he can’t really blame them, wondering himself just how long he can chase the dream before either giving up or checking out. But he has hope that their new song and video, an anti-war anthem called "When The Storm Breaks," might be the thing to put them on the map. On a swing through Texas, the band stops and does an interview with a sleazy car salesman who also hosts a music-themed late night cable show.

    Unfortunately, when the show runs and plays their video, showing American soldiers fighting in Iraq, it is seen by a drifting-toward-psychosis Iraqi war veteran who becomes more than offended by what he thinks he sees in the interview and finds himself with a new calling: Killing The Five. All of them.

    I'll confess while reading it and learning that an Iraqi war veteran was going to be "the bad guy" that my toes curled a little, wondering if, a) that didn't border on cliche, and b) if even I (a pretty anti-war guy) might be offended by it. I should have known better. McCammon does his usual excellent job of humanizing even someone engaging in horrific acts, and somehow, giving him his own quiet dignity.

    But I think the chase that comes afterward, the supernatural girl in the field, the story of Stone Church, the insertion of the FBI, all of that is simply a mechanism to delve into what the book is really about: music, the love of music, the sometimes heroic things people go through to write and perform music, and the transcendence -- the magic -- that can sometimes occur during live performances when musicians and audience become one.

    I’ve heard too that this book has been on the shelf for a while, that McCammon had a difficult time finding a publisher for it. After reading it, I can’t say I’m surprised, for The Five is truly a "novel" in that it’s novel; something new and different and hard to categorize.

    In fact, there’s a scene in the book where The Five face the corporate suits in the music industry, who only understand dollars and cents and not the music. In my imagination, McCammon himself faced some of those same people when trying to get this published, people who didn’t understand what they had, who didn’t smell the sweat coming off every page, people who didn’t hear the music contained in this book.

    For what The Five really is, is a rollicking rock opera, and a remarkable achievement.
  • Rating: 4 out of 5 stars
    4/5
    "The Five" is a book that will elicit a number of different emotions from its readers. I found myself frustrated, depressed, inspired, & enthralled at various times as I worked through the novel. As I read, I wasn't sure what to expect because this book was so unlike most of the others of his that I have enjoyed over the past 20 years. As his legion of fans know, McCammon has written a number of outstanding horror/thriller novels, including "Swan Song", "They Thirst", "Boy's Life", "Stinger", and "Gone South", just to name a few. A common thread of each of those books is that the reader generally knew right up front what he or she was getting into. Even though not necessarily a bad thing, I can't say that about "The Five"."The Five" is a psychological thriller that follows a rock and roll band of five musicians as they travel the country learning more about themselves than they ever expected. This relatively unknown group of musicians becomes front page news as they are determined to finish their last concert trip together even while stalked by a crazed Gulf War veteran who interprets their music to be unpatriotic. Stubbornness does not begin to describe the attitude of the band as they dedicate themselves to finishing the tour on their terms, not that of their stalker's. McCammon does an outstanding job moving the plot along while adding enough twists to keep most readers actively engaged. There is a supernatural element to the book that I found hard to connect to and didn't feel needed to play such a major role in the novel, but others might disagree. As with most McCammon books, the characterization is outstanding! He has a wonderful way of creating memorable characters by fully fleshing them out for the reader. This book has a variety of those types, ranging from quirky to straight-laced. My favorites, oddly enough, were primarily the non-band members. The other thing that jumps out with this book is that McCammon has certainly done his research of the music scene. His descriptions of musical instruments, other bands, song titles and lyrics are outstanding. It's clear that he has a great love for music. While not my favorite McCammon work, "The Five" does have merit because it provides the reader with a lasting message and fairly inspiring story about hope, perseverance, and dedication to one's craft without becoming gloppy. Most of his fans will enjoy and appreciate the novel because of those qualities. To this reader, however, what I will take away from the novel is that it demonstrated McCammon's depth as a writer and how he has grown over the years. It also made me glad that he's started to become a more prolific again.
  • Rating: 3 out of 5 stars
    3/5
    Let me start off by saying, I love McCammon. I think he's a brilliant writer and initially I was very excited about this book. However, there is no story here. Basic plot is a former army sniper is stalking a band because "the devil" told him to. It just doesn't go anywhere. The characters while 3 dimensional, aren't very interesting. I recommend skipping this one and reading "Boys Life"
  • Rating: 5 out of 5 stars
    5/5
    This is not an in-depth review. I just find it necessary to say it was a 4-star book all the way to the last chapter, which almost made me cry and gave the book another star. I've never read one of McCammon's books that I didn't enjoy very much. He's a wonderfully talented author.
  • Rating: 4 out of 5 stars
    4/5
    Terrific!! Up there with A Boy's Life, What a writer. Can't wait for his next book