A Book Review: 'Messenger of Fear' by Michael Grant

Messenger of Fear by Michael Grant; Book Review

Published by Egmont, 2014, 309 pgs

Messenger of Fear

'My eyes opened...a mist pressed close, the color of yellowed teeth and it moved without a breath of breeze, moved as if it had a will'

Michael Grant can certainly write some intense, gruesome action scenes. In his latest book, Messenger of Fear, the first, introductory episode in what I hope becomes a full series a la the Gone novels, our protagonist Mara wakes up knowing nothing, enshrouded in a mysterious mist. With no exposition to get through, with Mara having no memory, Grant gets straight to the action. All I will say is that Mara becomes acquainted with this mysterious, enigmatic boy going by the title of the Messenger of Fear, whose job it is to make evil-doer’s (who’ve gotten away with their sins) atone by making them face their worst nightmare. And by worst nightmare, I mean, things can get pretty gruesome and sadistic, but what can I say, I loved it. Be warned, it can be quite intense.

Messenger opens up some interesting moral dilemma’s regarding good and evil, and how good-hearted people can make ill-made decisions. Is it right to make someone face their fears, irrespective of what they've done? Is it an ‘eye for an eye’, or is one as bad as the other? This moral confusion, as well as action-packed plotting makes this adrenaline-ride of a book a great read.

Go and read it, and then come back and read the rest of the review afterwards *SPOILERS FROM HERE-ON-IN, YOU HAVE BEEN WARNED* 

First off, the writing: Michael Grant’s best qualities as a writer is his ability to get the pacing and plotting of his books right. Similarly to the characters at the opening of Gone, Mara's confusion mirrors that of the readers- we, too, don’t what’s going on- whom is the Messenger? How can he warp time and space? What significance to other (intriguing) secondary characters, like Oriax and Daniel have to do with the narrative? I don't read much fantasy, so I'm no expert on world-building, but I sometimes fear that keeping information hidden is just a convenient charade to allow for action scenes whilst hiding a load of plot holes. Not so in Messenger of Fear. As you go along, you build up a trust in Grant as he carefully peels back layer upon layer of information, allowing things to gradually make sense. I found this a sign of a really confident writer, able to hold up an engaging storyline whilst still keeping the reader in the dark.

Sexy black pages; great design!

Messenger of Fear was mainly plot-oriented, but still had a small cast of characters that held my attention. I’ll talk about Mara in more detail later on, but, for me, the Messenger himself was most interesting. I liked that he didn’t remain detached the whole way through- ‘taciturn’, as Grant likes to call him- but his gradual warmth and empathy towards Mara made him more likeable, and a more emotionally complex character. There was sadness to his nature that gives me the impression that there’s a past to him that will be interesting to explore later on in the series. The book is quite introductory and felt quite brief, which meant I would have liked to have learned more about Oriax and Daniel and their significance to the plot. They were sort of on the fringes of the story which was a tad bit frustrating- I think Oriax has the potential to be my favourite character from the series, but again, you get the feeling that more of this is being saved for the next books. Dude, I really need Book Two in my life right now, I'm telling you.

Another aspect of the book was the amalgamation of high fantasy and horror-straight-out-of-Stephen-King with real life issues, particularly bullying and suicide. There's no watering-down for the teenage market in Grant's books; this absence of bullshit is so refreshing in the sparkly-vampire-filled, PG-rated YA genre. Let me share with you my favourite passage from the book, a quaint little passage I'm sure you'll agree: 

'There was little smoke at first, though the burning varnish made an acrid smell. For the first few seconds Derek seemed amazingly unharmed. But then the hair on his legs singed and curled and fell away. The flesh of his legs reddened...Bare flesh went from the red of a sunburn to something purplish and then black as the fat beneath the skin sizzled and popped like eggs on a too-hot grill. The skin burst open, like a time lapse-video of rotting fruit. There was a nightmarish hissing, whistling sound as superheated gases escaped. Steam rose from flesh turned molten, flesh that ran down like rivulets of lava..'

Oh yeah, baby, that is one well-written description. I suppose the fantasy element allowed any sort of horror to happen without any logic other than it being the individual's greatest fear, allowing the horrors that Derek, Emma and Liam to come thick and fast, whilst also being diverse. One minute, sadistic games involving severed limbs, the next minute burnings at the stake. Brilliant stuff. Reminded me, in this way, of Stephen King's It.

I've read other reviews that claim to have spotted the Big Twist involving Mara/Kayla's identity, but I didn't and it really flipped my idea of Mara's character on its head. Yes, I knew she must have done some wrong in the past, but my goodness, she was evil bullying Samantha. Evil. For most of the novel she'd always appeared morally-upstanding, condemning of Messenger. But the twist makes me uncertain of her; how much of her wants to atone, and how much her remains the bully she was? It's an interesting personality dichotomy, good with evil, and in future books I'd hope this inner-conflict of Mara between good and bad continues. Maybe I'm getting too into it but, yeah, I was surprised how much I thought about this book.

Play or Pay

Overall, I'm glad I gave this book a shot. I'm giving it a rating of 4 out of 5, purely because at the moment I feel I've only read one small part of what will ultimately become a much larger tapestry, but, for what it is, an introduction-of-sorts, it was really good. I'm very much looking forward to meeting Michael at his London talk/signing next month and telling him in person how much I enjoyed, along with desperately pleading for the next installment. 

Thanks for reading. 

Rating: 4/5