Rating:

So Much Action It’s Samey

Author: Blake Crouch

The day before, people were normal. The day after, most of the population is driven by inexplicable blood lust and mania. Society fell before the authorities and scientists even fully realized there was a problem. Now, the unaffected people are running for their lives.

Jack Colclough is one such man. A former professor, he is now on the run with his wife Dee and their two children, Cole and Naomi. A broadcast went out on the local station, and his name was among the names of those to be tracked and killed. He had no time for supplies, no time for plans. All they had was a car and a desperate desire to survive. Thus begins the confusing, repetitive mess that is Run.

The premise has potential. I’m a sucker for the psychopaths-chasing-you storyline and am willing to go with the flow. It is, to a certain extent, realistic that an apocalyptic event, such as the zombie apocalypse, would be sudden and out of control. Those faced with a desire to survive would never get any answers, and yet . . . yet the logic here is shaky. With zombies you have a clear line of the infected: the dead are dangerous. The living are not – at least, not in the same way. Here though, the desires of the impacted are more nebulous, and unlike the zombie stories, these villains have banded together, psychotic and yet organized to do . . . something. It doesn’t quite make sense, and despite a bit of cultish flare, the explanations are tritely avoided. And so, we have organized, highly motivated, insane killers on the loose, who oddly enough don’t attack each other and are, somehow, sane enough to plan, plot, and carry out a systemic disruption. I have so many questions.

These too, however, I could quickly get over it, if it weren’t for the characters. Jack, our protagonist, is so busy surviving and repeating the find a place, get secure in that place, get chased out and nearly killed paradigm that there is never time for a personality to shine through. There is an added bad-marriage drama, but it feels fake. These aren’t people, and the few moments where the story pauses to let them speak and interact hurt our belief more than the endless rounds of crazed killers and seemingly indomitable vehicles that never have mechanical problems or run out of gas (until they conveniently do, of course).

Image by MariaD42530 from Pixabay

The same can be said for Dee – the wife whom I often mixed up with the daughter. No personalities here stand out. These are not people, but brief intervals of very forced “storyline” to break up what soon goes from chapter after chapter cliff-hangers to samey-action sequences. We don’t know what happened or why, we don’t believe it, and we don’t care about any of these people.

So, what is there to latch onto? The premise is interesting, albeit weak, but soon the action gets dull. How long can you keep the adrenaline pumping and the near misses relevant before it all blends into a soupy mess of soundtrack and bad dialogue? How many times can you drive at breakneck speed and hide without readers craving a little nap in-medias-rei? How long can your characters make the same inane decisions and put themselves in the same nearly-getting-caught positions before you no longer care if the psychos get them all. As a matter of fact, I was starting to root for the psychos.

When I first discovered Crouch, I loved his work. Dark Matter is one of my all-time favorite books. It made an impact on my life when I read it and introduced me to a different kind of novel. I feel in love. Recursion couldn’t recapture the same once-in-a-lifetime genius, but it was still freakishly good. But then I read Snowbound, and the wash-rinse-repeat of unlikely action sequences and outlandish bad guys left me bored and fidgety, stranded on a 30-hour flight no less with a book that made me want to pluck my eyes out. And now . . . now Run. I think I’m done with this author. Dark Matter was sheer gold, a once in a lifetime story of transformation, family, and inventive genius. But it was a one-off. Do yourself a favor and run, careening, away from Run. 

 

– Frances Carden

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Frances Carden
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