From Library Journal
In the tradition of Stephen King, this novel combines an author overcoming writer's block with a macabre tale?here the siege of an idyllic town by a trainload of murderous, inhuman passengers. As the writer types toward the conclusion, the characters seem to exist outside his imagination. Vivid descriptions and characterizations will attract King's readers. Highly recommended for horror and sf collections.Copyright 1996 Reed Business Information, Inc.


From Kirkus Reviews
Very long fantasy/horror debut novel that doesn't pick up steam for 250 pages, then becomes passably inventive of its kind. Crowther and Lovegrove's story burdens itself with a dreary, clich‚-strewn opening (a novel-within-the-novel) about an old, self-pitying, burned-out Manhattan novelist suffering with writer's block. When he does suddenly begin to write again, he tells about the arrival of a mysterious train at Escardy Gap, an idyllic village. For the next several hundred pages, the authors paste together genre banalities; Escardy Gap itself is a flimsy site, filled with stereotypical townsfolk/murder victims. The train brings a fairly (by contrast) distinct crew of demons, called The Company, who are deceptively pleasant before they begin maiming, disembowelling, or poisoning the innocent people who welcome them into their homes. Their leader is the aimless but murderous Jeremiah Rackstraw. His troupe includes Mr. Olesqui, a midget who kills with tobacco smoke; Boy, whose handless arms create their own forms of energy; Buzz Beaumont, who spews great fireballs of electricity; Agnes Destiny, who trails bunches of limp phalli (her own) along the floor; Clarence, a shapechanger who can mimic anybody or reinvent himself as a monster; Felcher the poisoner; and rhymester Neville N. Nolan, Rackstaw's Ariel, who can transform himself into a giant horsefly with gemlike eyes, capable of finding anyone anywhere. Also appearing: Alecto, Atrops, and Aegle, ravishingly beautiful Man-eaters who give new meaning to the term vagina dentata. The more-or-less heroine is beautiful young Sara Sienkeiwicz, who publishes stories in Weird Tales and, like Faulkner's Eula Mae Varner, drives all men mad. Her role is entirely passive, since the old writer (who increasingly loses control of his own story to The Company) tries to frustrate the efforts of his own youthful hero, Josh Knight, to save her, preserving Sara for himself. Lighthearted butchery, an intermittently lively dance around the maypole staged in an abattoir. -- Copyright ©1996, Kirkus Associates, LP. All rights reserved.


Review
"Absorbing and clever."--The Orlando Sentinel

"In the tradition of Stephen King...Vivid descriptions and characterizations will attract [Stephen] King's readers. Highly recommended."--Library Journal

"Escardy Gap is a carnival of wonders and horrors....A feast for anyone who loves fantasy and language, created by two writers who make a new magic between them."--Ramsey Campbell



Review
"Absorbing and clever."--The Orlando Sentinel

"In the tradition of Stephen King...Vivid descriptions and characterizations will attract [Stephen] King's readers. Highly recommended."--Library Journal

"Escardy Gap is a carnival of wonders and horrors....A feast for anyone who loves fantasy and language, created by two writers who make a new magic between them."--Ramsey Campbell



Review
"Absorbing and clever."--The Orlando Sentinel

"In the tradition of Stephen King...Vivid descriptions and characterizations will attract [Stephen] King's readers. Highly recommended."--Library Journal

"Escardy Gap is a carnival of wonders and horrors....A feast for anyone who loves fantasy and language, created by two writers who make a new magic between them."--Ramsey Campbell



Book Description
A former bestselling author sits at the typewriter day after day, fearing his talent spent, unable to produce a sentence. The typewriter taunts him, and he abandons it for days until the night he hears the sound. It is faint, at first, but grows louder. It reminds him of something he can't quite place. He begins to type, describing the sound - the first words he's written in months. On the page, a train appears far in the distance, speeding across the plains. As he continues to write, the train's destination appears on the horizon: a small town from the 1950s - Escardy Gap. Escardy Gap is a re-creation of the writer's hometown in the Midwest. The characters that begin to appear - Mayor Raymond, Station Master Walt - are all memories from his childhood. A pack of boys abandons their baseball game, running toward the unexpected train, and with a start the writer recognizes himself as one of them. Who or what is on the train and why it has come to Escardy Gap does not seem important. The words are flowing faster than they ever have. But the writer has a terrible sense of foreboding, and though something doesn't seem quite right about this train and its passengers, he can't stop writing. This may be the blockbuster novel that saves his career. Or it may be the beginning of his descent into madness as the disturbingly real creatures of his imagination threaten to take over both the story and his life.

FROM THE PUBLISHER

A former bestselling author sits at the typewriter day after day, fearing his talent spent, unable to produce a sentence. The typewriter taunts him, and he abandons it for days until the night he hears the sound. It is faint, at first, but grows louder. It reminds him of something he can't quite place. He begins to type, describing the sound - the first words he's written in months. On the page, a train appears far in the distance, speeding across the plains. As he continues to write, the train's destination appears on the horizon: a small town from the 1950s - Escardy Gap. Escardy Gap is a re-creation of the writer's hometown in the Midwest. The characters that begin to appear - Mayor Raymond, Station Master Walt - are all memories from his childhood. A pack of boys abandons their baseball game, running toward the unexpected train, and with a start the writer recognizes himself as one of them. Who or what is on the train and why it has come to Escardy Gap does not seem important. The words are flowing faster than they ever have. But the writer has a terrible sense of foreboding, and though something doesn't seem quite right about this train and its passengers, he can't stop writing. This may be the blockbuster novel that saves his career. Or it may be the beginning of his descent into madness as the disturbingly real creatures of his imagination threaten to take over both the story and his life.

FROM THE CRITICS

Journal Library

In the traditoin of Stephen King...Vivid descriptions and characterization will attract [Stephen] King's readers. Highly recommended.

orlando Sentinel The

Absorbing and clever.

WHAT PEOPLE ARE SAYING

Escardy Gap is a...feast for anyone who likes fantasy and language, created by two writers who make a new magic between them. — Ramsey Campbell