Type of bind: Audio Cassette
Dewey Decimal Number: 813.54
EAN num: 9780679428619
Format: Abridged, Audiobook
ISBN number: 0679428615
Label: Random House Audio
Manufacturer: Random House Audio
Quantity: 2
Printing Date: July 12, 1994
Publishing house: Random House Audio
Release Date: July 12, 1994
Sale Popularity Level: 2643050
Studio: Random House Audio
Other books you might be interested in perusing:
Editor's Notes and Comments:
Product Description:
2 cassettes / 3 hours
Read by Cynthia Harris
Now, in his most terrifying novel yet, the author of the New York Times bestsellers Creature, The Blackstone Chronicles, The Presence, and Guardian weaves a spellbinding story of a small California community under siege from an unspeakable evil.
It will be the sweetest kind of homecoming for Karen Spellman. After years of living in Los Angeles, the pretty young widow and her two daughters are leaving urban chaos behind to return to the lush countryside of Karen's childhood: Pleasant Valley, a verdant, fertile place where Karen will rediscover not only the bounty of the land, but love. For Karen is going home to marry her high school sweetheart.
But something sinister awaits the Spellmans. Something as primal as nature itself. Something so hideous it seems not earthy, but shadowy menace once stalked the innocent. Dormant, it waits - waits for summer's heat to shimmer over the valley in a suffocating wave, waits for the arrival of its perfect victim. And now, with the dizzying descent of a nightmare, Karen's homecoming will become a confrontation with terror.
User popularity level:
Rated by buyers 
-
First and foremost,I would like to say that this book is toxic!Well,what I mean is that:if you hate insects,don't even bother reading the book,farless for this review.Don't say that I didn't warn you...Anyway,if you have the stomach for it,lets get down to business.
Main characters(Karen Spellman,her daughters Mollie and Julie,her Husband Dan,and her stepson)
Karen Spellman has run into some financial problems after her husband has passed away.
After being invited to a high school reunion,she meets an old friend of hers and falls in love.
She later takes her two daughters from the city and they all move to where her she(karen)lived as a kid.
She then marries her old friend,therby becoming his son's stepmom.
Dan's father,for no reason at all,hates Karen and her children.It is hinted that he hates them because he doesn't think they are right for the country life.
On the farm they have:horses,a dog,other animals and BEES.
NOW,let me explain what the bees are for:they are simply to help in pollination of the crops.
Now back to the story,where was I,oh right:
Mollie is bitten by a bee during the wedding ceromony.
She is taken too the local hospital where it was made known that nothing could be done immediately due too lack of facilities.And that she would have to be taken too another hospital.
She was in a critical state,I might add,she developed a bad allergy to the bee sting.
Fortunately,there was a new anti-toxin at the hospital in which she was taken.(this anti-toxin was not available to the local market yet).Anyway,she recovers fully and things returned to normal...UNTIL:
Some time later her older sister Julie is bitten by a bee and the same thing happens,but only things turn out a little worse because she was not given the same anti-toxin her sister was given but a highly mutated chemical which altered her body,making it into an "insect" internally.
Confused I am sure you are.So let me elaborate a little more on it.When the bee stung her it injected larvae into her blood stream.This larvae underwent metamorphosis and produced insects(the writer does not explain this part too in dept,he sorts of leaves us hanging,but he still gives us hints.I hope for a sequal)in different parts of her body.These insects had to be transferred to another body(host)after a certain period of time,because unfortunately the cannot live outside the human body.And the human body in which they live in can only withstand only a certain amount of invasion before being destroyed!
So this is basically what happens throughout the story:starting with Julie the "insects" spread to other children via air contact.She just breathes it onto them.They get infected,feel sick for a while and then they just start feeling different,not necessarily good.
But the strange thing is that they start too lose control over their thoughts and when they want to say that they don't feel too well or that they are feeling freaky,they just can't.Because whatever is inside of them starts to control not only their body but their minds!
The story is well written.It has all the right scares at all the right times.And it is really gross at times,believe me.
A couple of people die in this story,of course.
Julie is one,her stepgranfather is another,her step brother is anoter...They die in a fire...
Anyway,before I close off,I am sure you probably would want to know where the hell this type of bee came from?Well,I am briefly going to explain this part.
There is a serial killer.(this guy was treated badly as a little guy,especially by his sister.And as a result he grew to hate girls who has the description as his sister,who looks like his sister,who has the features of his sister).
Now this killer is no ordinary one.He is a scientist,a mad on.An enatomist,or something like that!
He deals with insects.He specializes with these things and knows everthing or almost everything about them,or at least I think so...
So,he works for the company that supplies bees to the family.(Karen's husband).
And he creates something which would make the bees smarter and better at their jobs,thereby making their pollination process easier...
So,he goes to the Spellman's farm to inject the beehive with this new chemical of his.
On his way to this beehive he approaches Julie spellman.He automatically gets "crazy" because she fits the description of his sister.So he tries to strangle her...But anyway let me be brief.Somewhere during the fight a bee stings Julie...She,as I have mentioned,is taken to a hospital.
And the thing to note here is:she is not given the new anti-toxin here sister was given...But guess what?She is given the new chemical that the killer created for the bees.Because the killer switches it because he didn't want her to report him ... Read More
Rated by buyers 
-
When I started reading THE HOMING, I wasn't exactly sure what it would be about. I had previously read, and thoroughly enjoyed, THE GUARDIAN by John Saul and was anxious to start another by this author.
Although I didn't enjoy THE HOMING as much as THE GUARDIAN, it brought out many emotions even if it did go into extreme detail on a wide variety of insects. I'll never look at another bug in the same way again.
While reading, I learned that homing is an insect instinct that leads them home. You can't move a beehive within 5 miles from the previous location or the bees will return to the previous hive location hovering over the empty spot until they drop dead of exhaustion. I also learned more that I ever wanted to about larvae, pupae, etc.
Karen Spellman grew up in Pleasant Ville located outside of San Luis Obispo. After attending her high school reunion, she falls in love with a former classmate, Russell Owen, and they decide to get married. Karen with her two daughters, Julie and Molly, move from Los Angeles ready to live a happily ever after type of life. From the day of the wedding, marital bliss eludes them as one tragedy after another surrounds them.
On Karen's wedding day, Molly (her youngest daughter) is stung by a bee and has an allergic reaction. The local doctor's anti-venom doesn't work and they fly to San Luis Obispo in a friend's plane. New, experimental anti-venom is given to her and the symptoms instantly subside. Dr. Ellen Fillmore, Pleasant Ville's local doctor, asks for some of the anti-venom to have on hand for future needs, and so the evil begins...
The real anti-venom is substituted with a serum that harbors insects in the host's body until they multiply to the state that they are expelled into another host. Sounds pretty gruesome, huh? It is and it gets worse. Since Molly was given the real anti-venom she isn't affected, but when her older sister, Julie, is stung, she is given the substitute and many changes begin to take place. Julie in turn infects some of her teenage friends and the horror is multiplying faster than you can imagine.
Saul creates many believable support characters all eagerly trying to find answers to the many questions raised in this book. He even throws in an A & W owner who is the town gossip and flirt along with a small town cop who is a downright nice guy.
One of the things I didn't like about THE HOMING was that I found it depressing. It seemed as if it was disaster after disaster with few positive things happening to any of the characters throughout the entire book. After awhile it begins to wear on you, and I just wanted to finish the book and be done with it. Looking back, I'm not sure that was because of the goriness or the image of the millions of insects reeking havoc among the townspeople that my mind pictured. Whatever the reason, I read quickly so I could move on to something a little less intense. I think my subsequent book might be that Calvin and Hobbes I have on the shelf!
Rated by buyers -
I've read almost everything John Saul has written. He definitely has no problem with eliminating major characters to drive the plot. I have read other reviews, and I agree that much of the stuff was repetitive, but I did enjoy and feel for the characters, especially the doctor. Mr. Saul has no problem killing kids, and has always been unnerving to me, especially in his very first book, "Suffer the Children". Other books, like "Shadows" and "Cry for the Strangers" killed off kids as if it was a natural thing. Sure, it's not pretty prose, but Mr. Saul spares no one to move the plot along. "The Homing" had good characters, solid drive and an interesting premise, as well as the really bad requisite bad guy. I enjoyed it. Saul spares no one. Everyone is fair game. Unfortunately, just like life..
Rated by buyers 
-
I don't know why I keep reading John Saul books. It must be my masochistic streak. I got this book in a box full of horror titles at a garage sale. This is the third or fourth book I have read by him and I just keep thinking, he is so popular and so prolific, there must be a reason. However what that reason is is beyond my comprehension.
I have to agree with the reviewers who have pointed out the horrible characters. I felt no sympathy for any of them. The poor horse and dog got more reaction out of me that anything that happened to the humans. The "story" was jumpy and not well charted out. (It was sweet of the reader below to try and give the plot substance by mentioning the sister thing, but I believe they actually spoke about it more than the book itself did.) There were so many characters, it was almost as if he thought if he put enough of them in, that no one would realize how one dimensional they all were. Well, I for one noticed and from some of the other reviews, apparently others did as well.
Rated by buyers -
If this wasn't the worst novel I've ever read, then it had to be close. It started off bad and then it only got worse from there. Where to start... For one, the characters were so ridiculously unbelievable it was laughable. The emotions, thoughts, and dialogue were simple, trite, and horrifyingly bland. I've seen more realistic personalities and emotional reactions from professional wrestlers than I found from the individuals in this book. I'm amazed at how unbothered some of these characters were despite the grisly, and quite super-super-natural happenings.
The story - which in another's hands might have had potential - sloshed through some pretty well worn territory and, I thought, was predictable before the very first 100 pages and was ultimately crippled by the generic prose.
The only way I'd ever recommend The Homing is if a person had never read a book in their entire life and, being that this would be their very first experience to popular fiction, I could confidently say that everything else they read from then onwards would be a vast improvement. Not to belabor my point (which bitters and sits in my mouth like battery acid), but if this book were a movie, then it be going straight to video. Casstte I mean, not DVD. No one would waste two ounces of readable plastic for something so abominably bad. Granted this was the very first Saul novel I've ever read so I can't speak to his other work, but I'd need some thorough convincing before I ever pick up another one of his books again.
My final recommendation: Unless you're a glutton for punishment, don't buy or read this book. There are way too many good ones out there waiting for your time and attention.
If your into horror and are looking for something disturbingly different, try House of Leaves by Mark Z. Danielewski. Whether you enjoy it or not, you won't forget it.
Find other books like this one:
