Intercepts: A Horror Novel T.J. Payne
Synopsis: Joe works at a facility that performs human experimentation. His work just followed him home.
Joe works for an organization known only as “The Company.” He cannot speak about what he does in public. He and his employees live in a constant state of paranoia that The Company is listening to their phones and watching their search histories. Why? Because on the bottom floor of the facility, rows of padded cells keep a group of humans in a constant state of extreme sensory deprivation. With their minds awake but their senses unable to ground themselves, they have gone insane, oscillating between vegetative states and fits of violent rage.
These experiments have a purpose, though—when the minds of these inmates transcend their physical selves, they’re able to “intercept” the sights and senses of anyone in the world. The process, however, is painful. Torturous.
Joe likes to think that his work, helping the government track down bad guys, makes the world a better place. He has no regrets. Until the day when his ex-wife dies by suicide. He learns that a woman who looks very much like one of Joe’s inmates had been haunting her. After his ex-wife’s death, Joe’s daughter Riley comes to live with him. And then she begins to have visions of the woman too...
Has Joe somehow played a role in turning the government’s most sinister weapon against his own daughter? And, most important of all: how far will he go to save her?
Review: I enjoyed this for the most part. The horror wasn't as consistently intense as I expected, but there was one scene in particular that genuinely freaked me out, lol. It reminded me of a real story I once heard, and that's the kind of thing that sticks with you for a long time. There's definitely an audience out there who's had weird, unexplainable experiences of their own, and this book taps right into that unease.
Some aspects were a little cheesy, and I'm honestly not sure if that comes down to the writing style. I noticed a pattern in this book... and honestly in a lot of horror/thriller/mystery novels/ The stacking short, single-line sentences on top of each other instead of writing in full paragraphs. I get that it's meant to build tension and emphasis, but here it felt a little overdone, to the point where it started pulling me out of the moment rather than pulling me in. Maybe I'm just not used to it!
As for the characters, I know some readers feel they fell flat, but I'd push back on that a bit. I actually thought the book did a nice job showing how organizations , especially one like the facility Joe works for (Company), install these repeated internal scripts for their employees to follow. The phrase "This is for them. Do it for them" comes up again and again, and I found that oddly convincing. It says something true about how easily people justify doing messed up things when they're told it's for the greater good, or for the people they love. That felt real to me even when the prose around it was a little clunky.
The pacing dipped a bit in the middle. There's a stretch where the story lingers on Joe and the day-to-day workings of the facility, and I found myself impatient to get back to the Antenna's perspective. How I would've wanted more of that!
When this book commits to being creepy, it's genuinely creepy. I just wanted more. Now this is where my science fiction geek comes out, there's some elements here that are very much rooted in sci-fi with the technology but MAN, I wish it went into more detail! You know what this reminded me of? The F.E.A.R. First Encounter Assault Recon which is an old early 2000s psychological FPS game. You follow a character called Alma Wade, a character who causes destruction everywhere she goes. Now that I think about it... Was this book inspired by that game? Because Alma Wade had psionic powers which mimic that of Bishop/Riley. GUYS?? I see the resemblance here. I remember playing the game here and there.
That said, the ending was wholesome? LOL. In a weird way?
Overall, this is a solid pick if you go in with the right expectations. More on the pulpy, occasionally uneven, but ultimately effective side. Good concept, a little wonky in some partys, but enough strong ideas.