A Stir of Echoes by Richard Matheson (Audiobook Review)

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Title: A Stir of Echoes
Author: Richard Matheson
Narrator: Scott Brick
Publisher: Blackstone Audio
Duration: 6 hours, 48 minutes
Copyright: 2009
Genres: horror, psychological, paranormal
Filed in: Audiobook Reviews
Copy for audiobook review provided by Blackstone Audio.

SUMMARY: A group of neighbors gathers together for a small cocktail party. In standard cocktail party fashion, conversations leap-frog from one topic to the next, until someone mentions hypnotism. At this, one of the party-goers claims to have learned the technique when he was in college. With growing interest, the group begins to draw closer, eventually egging the man into a demonstration. Tom Wallace, believing himself to be un-hypnotizable, volunteers to be the test subject. When Tom awakes, 45 minutes later, he can’T exactly recall the point at which he went under, and is amazed as the group recounts the experience to him. During the discussion, Tom abruptly gets up from the table, and places his left shoe in the refridgerator, not at first sure why everyone is laughing at him.
That night, Tom cannot sleep at all. When he finally gets out of bed in the middle of the night, he encounters a terrifying vision of a young woman in his living room. At work the next day, Tom suddenly reels from a sharp pain on the top of his head. He staggers to his desk calling his wife’s name, and soon discovers that she was knocked unconscious when a can of tomatoes fell onto her head from a high shelf. The day after that, Tom comes home from work with a bag of sugar, and is not quite able to explain to his wife how he had known they needed it.
Day by day, the latent abilities that have been unlocked in Tom’s mind begin to overwhelm him. He begins to hear other people’s thoughts or feelings, and dreaming about things which later come true. And through it all, the ghostly woman continues to appear to him. When Tom begins receiving messages from the woman, written by his own hand, or from the voice of his young son, Tom finally begins to understand that the only way to put an end to his waking nightmares, will be to figure out what this woman is trying to tell him.

AUDIOBOOK REVIEW: Oh yeah! Richard Matheson knows suspense. He starts out nice and slow, but then keeps piling it on, and piling it on, until you think your head might explode from the tension. This was a really creepy story, and I’m just dying to tel you how it ended. But I won’t. I will tell you this however, it involves a fireplace poker, an unsolved murder, and something that is buried beneath the house. I’ll also tell you this, Matheson wrote a nice little twist into the ending that I never expected. This is the best horror audiobook that I’ve read in quite a while.

NARRATOR: Not even Scott Brick could ruin this audiobook. I’ve never cared much for Brick’s narration, but I have to admit that I’ve read a couple of his more recent audiobooks, and it seems like he may be getting better. He still has a way to go, in my opinion, but at least he’s making progress.

FINAL WORD: Well, I could go on and on about how much I enjoyed A Stir of Echoes, but I won’t. Pick up a copy and see for yourself.

CHECK OUT THESE OTHER AUDIOBOOK REVIEWS:
The Shining by Stephen King
I Am Legend by Richard Matheson
The Turn of the Screw by Henry James

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If you like this audiobook review, you can purchase the audiobook here:
Get “A Stir of Echoes” by Richard Matheson (Unabridged Audiobook) from Blackstone Audio.

This audiobook review is based on the unabridged audiobook.
Audiobook review by Steven Brandt
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