{"id":93302,"date":"2017-01-12T01:00:24","date_gmt":"2017-01-12T01:00:24","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.scifinow.co.uk\/?p=93302"},"modified":"2016-12-01T11:58:52","modified_gmt":"2016-12-01T11:58:52","slug":"under-a-watchful-eye-by-adam-nevill-book-review","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.scifinow.co.uk\/reviews\/under-a-watchful-eye-by-adam-nevill-book-review\/","title":{"rendered":"Under A Watchful Eye by Adam Nevill book review"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>A writer as cynical as he is jittery, an old acquaintance who may be magician and a whole heap of wyrd history leads us into Adam Nevill\u2019s utterly fascinating tale, <em><strong>Under<\/strong><\/em> <em><strong>A Watchful Eye<\/strong><\/em>. While recalling titans such as Stephen King and Edgar Allan Poe, it is original, surprising and (at times) eyes-to-the-side terrifying.<\/p>\n<p>As with Nevill\u2019s Lost Girl, the story is set in the safety of recognisable locations in Devon and student-land London. From this landscape of genteel idleness, it is totally believable that a rag-tag cast of reprobates materialise. Chief among them is Ewan, a sometime nemesis that everyone has met at some point. Long descriptions of Ewan establish a will-driven sense of menace that makes the fantastical elements believable.<\/p>\n<p>Language shifts between bloke-talk and vocabulary so rich that calling to the invisible seems natural. Indeed, horror fans may recognise references that convey paranormal paranoia perfectly while also raising a snort for anyone who has stumbled the internet into strange places; a nod to the sublime-ridiculous in south London is \u2018true\u2019 regardless. Group mentality is described via evocations of pretty words and saliva-stained sheets that make you itch.<\/p>\n<p>Structurally, early passages drag a little, though they establish the tone for terrifying action sequences and result in tragic resonance. While genre boxes are ticked, Nevill alters the narrative voice to feel like a spiritual journey, while sardonic meta-sections stop things from getting too downbeat.<\/p>\n<p><em><strong>Under A Watchful Eye<\/strong><\/em> makes the reader despise, despair of and desperately want everything the narrator experiences. It\u2019s a staggeringly ambitious work that questions the goal of the human<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Take a trip into the wyrd world of magic in Under A Watchful Eye<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":37,"featured_media":93304,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"quote","meta":{"MSN_Categories":"Uncategorized","MSN_Publish_Option":false,"MSN_Is_Local_News":false,"MSN_Is_AIAC_Included":"Empty","MSN_Location":"[]","MSN_Add_Feature_Img_On_Top_Of_Post":false,"MSN_Has_Custom_Author":false,"MSN_Custom_Author":"","MSN_Has_Custom_Canonical_Url":false,"MSN_Custom_Canonical_Url":""},"categories":[1624,8],"tags":[3699,5506],"acf":[],"jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_featured_media_url":"https:\/\/www.scifinow.co.uk\/wp-content\/uploads\/2016\/12\/9781509820405Under-a-Watchful-Eye-scaled.jpg","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.scifinow.co.uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/93302"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.scifinow.co.uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.scifinow.co.uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.scifinow.co.uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/37"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.scifinow.co.uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=93302"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.scifinow.co.uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/93302\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.scifinow.co.uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/93304"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.scifinow.co.uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=93302"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.scifinow.co.uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=93302"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.scifinow.co.uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=93302"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}