Review: Intercepts

Intercepts by T.J. Payne
My rating: 3 of 5 stars

I picked this book up after reading, and loving, My Father’s Basement, also written by author T.J. Payne. Unfortunately, Payne just failed here to live up to the expectations set by his previous work. Intercept attempts to combine elements of sci-fi and horror and never truly engaged me on either front.

The story centers around a facility that houses human subjects referred to as “antennae”. Their purpose, however, is revealed so late in the game that I had stopped caring what it was they actually DID or even why they were there. The institution supervisor, Joe Gerhard, emerges early as the main character, but his personae is one I just couldn’t bring myself to like. His focus is work, at the expense of family, and his eventual change of heart (the underlying theme of the book) is accomplished at great personal cost.

The writing here is profoundly different from Payne’s almost poetic approach to My Father’s Basement. In this piece, some of the techniques used are almost elementary in execution. The most excruciating example was Payne’s overuse of onomatopoeia. Auto door locks BZZZZZ, elevators DING!, and other objects WHUMP!, RIIIING! and CLICK. It’s a distracting literary device, utilized to the point of tedium.

If bloody horror is an allure, there’s plenty here to keep the reader up to his elbows in gore, as bodies are repeatedly shredded in great detail. Beyond that, however, I found the entire book an exercise in mediocrity.

Payne is a brilliant author, able to tell a tale that is both engaging and horrifying. Unfortunately, this just didn’t reflect that incredible talent.



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