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highly recommended |
Solid adventure 
For those new to this series, Repairman Jack is a man who doesn't officially exist. He has gone to great lengths to have no social security number, no tax records, etc. When people have a problem, he's available to fix it. For a price. Gateways is a bit of a departure from the norm as Jack heads to Florida after his father is injured and fallen into a coma. Rather than working for a client, Jack investigates his father's accident and soon learns that there's a lot more going on than the police had suspected. Aided by his dad's mysterious neighbor, Anya, Jack struggles against a clan of deformed criminals and their shamanistic leader.
Gateways is a bit shorter than many of the Repairman Jack novels and the benefit is a leaner story with few lulls. Things move along at a good clip and the climax is definitely satisfying. The characters are solid, if not spectacular. Jack's father is pretty interesting as he shares his military background and even proves helpful to Jack in his confrontations with the bad guys. The villains were somewhat disappointing, though. Semelee, a witch woman who can control animals, is more of a petulant adolescent than a worth adversary and her bodyguard/boyfriend Luke is a completely generic muscleheaded buffoon. The Adversary puts in an appearance, a high point to be sure.
Wilson knows how to tell a good yarn, but he has some idiosyncrasies that I dearly wish he'd address. First, he inserts social commentary into his novels that is so blatant that he might as well have a banner line proclaiming "We interrupt this novel to bring you the following public service announcement!" Thankfully, this book's dissertations on the state of the Florida Everglades and the problem of old people's fear of becoming a burden to their children were relatively brief but Wilson badly needs to stop his rants or learn how to integrate them into the story much better than he currently does. He has a few other quirks, like using a kind of gutter English for the third person narration of the scenes involving Semelee, that are also distracting and unnecessary.
Overall, Gateways wasn't a bad read. It was a definite step backward from The Haunted Air : Repairman Jack (Repairman Jack) (Repairman Jack), the prior book in the series, but is mostly solid. There is good action mixed with supernatural elements. Jack is tough as nails, but his sense of honor and decency make him easy to root for. Established fans should be happy with Gateways, but newcomers might do better to start with The Tomb (Adversary Cycle/Repairman Jack)so they can see how Jack got his start.
A nice change of pace 
This was a delicious blend of frightful supernatural and contemporary crime-buster. I am reminded often of Pendergast from Preston and Child's thrillers. I enjoyed how Gateways took the story out of the city and set it in the Everglades - it gave the series a new flavor and brought in a sizzle of adventure (hurricanes! crocodiles!) that we needed!
Rich with twists and turns 
Gateways is the 7th entry in the "Repairman Jack" series, and in many ways, is the strongest one yet. For those who do not know, Repairman Jack is not a handyman but he is a fixer - of the sorts of problems that people have that for one reason or another preclude involving the authorities. Jack is smart, resourceful, trustworthy and completely moral in his own way. But his fixes frequently involve mayhem or even murder (although he tries to avoid killing people unless it's absolutely necessary), and he has a kind of a dark side that asserts itself when something or someone threatens him or one of his loved ones.
From the very first Repairman Jack novel, written in 1984 (The Tomb), there has been a strong supernatural element in all the Jack adventures involving a sort of cosmic conflict between two super-uber entities of unimaginable power that are battling for control of all the universes. Somehow Jack has become a major player in this conflict that is an interesting twist on good versus evil; in Jack's universe (which is the same as that depicted in Wilson's "Adversary Cycle" that starts with "The Keep" and ends with "Nightworld") it is the Ally (that exhibits benign indifference to humanity) versus the Otherness (that wants chaos and the destruction of all life). Jack has been drafted by the Ally.
Although all the previous entries in the series are set in New York CIty, in Gateways, Jack flies down to Florida to see his estranged father who is in a coma after a near-fatal hit-and run traffic accident. His father lives in a sort of retirement community called Gateways. In the hospital Jack meets his father's neighbor and friend, a spunky elderly widow named Anya who seems to know an awful lot about his father and Jack himself, and who has been watching out for Jack's dad after the accident. Jack's father mysteriously comes out of his coma, Jack finds strange little voodoo like totems around the bed and the room and we're off.
Gateways reveals a lot more of the backstory of Jack's father, and his relationship with his son than we have seen before. There are also very interesting and explicit tie-ins with the Adversary Cycle and villains old and new, and many plot twists and turns. I'll say no more about the plot because I don't want to include any spoilers, but from the blurb on the back of the book I thought this was going to be on the boring side. Rather, it turned out to be one of the most revealing, interesting and exciting Repairman Jack entries yet.
All the Repairman Jack books stand on their own. but they are so much richer than simple novels if read sequentially. Either way Repairman Jack and Gateways are great and highly recommended.
GATEWAYS to GREAT READING!
Now this is the way to write terrific and superior action/adventure!
F. Paul Wilson's 7th Repairman Jack novel is much better than the last one - The Haunted Air - with Jack finally getting away from New York and going into the wilds of Florida's Everglades. A fantastic setting for a fantastic romp full of misfits and witches hiding out in a secret locale in the Glades, coming out every three months to prey on senior citizens in a nearby old folks home called - Gateways.
Here is probably the best all around adventure since the 1st novel - The Tomb. Jack helps his dad who is the next victim for the magical misfits of the hidden Glades, thus giving the readers an inside look at Jack's dad, Tom. And he is so much more than he seems! And eventually, he and Jack team up to battle the forces of evil during a hurricane.
Gateways never lets up, never gets dull. And F. Paul Wilson never gives his fans rehash from previous novels. (Something another writer who pens the Outlanders series must learn.)
But like literary giants of this genre such as James Rollins and Laurence James and Brian Lumley, just to name a few, F. Paul Wilson always seems to deliver all-new material with each and every new novel. Never rehash!
There is much mystery and suspence here to balance the action and adventure, with rich characterizations of both Good AND Evil. Something you don't often find.
The plot and pace reach and peak finale here, with Jack finally cementing his estranged relationship with his colorful dad, revealing his identity and the truth of his revenge upon his murdered mother. Great stuff, this!
If you love top-notch storytelling, along with ever-growing characterizations, as well as hair-raising action and adventure with touches of sci-fi-horror-fantasy, then this series is for you.
But according to the sales rankings, the high-mark reviews, it seems that the vast majority of people already know. And that my wife and I are the late-comers. But better late than never, eh?
Hollywood and/or cable TV conglomerates really outta take a look at this awesome series, and think about making it a major motion picture movie event. It would make a mint!
We can't wait to read the next installment of Repairman Jack.
Jack goes to Florida
This here is 7th Repairman Jack novel, and the first to leave the New York City area Jack makes his home ground. Responding to a emergency with his father, Jack travels south and gets involved with deformed Southerners. Excellent ending to this one, while Jack fights the Otherness in the midst of hurricane Elvis.
reviews: page 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6
In F. Paul Wilson's 7th Repairman Jack novel, GATEWAYS, Repairman Jack learns that his father was involved in a car accident in Florida and is in a coma. He and his dad have been on the outs, but he heads south. In the hospital he meets one of his father?s neighbors, Anya Mundy. She?s a weird old duck who seems to know an awful lot about his father, and even about Jack. Jack?s arrival does not go unnoticed. A young woman named Semelee, who lives in an isolated area of the Everglades with a group of misshapen men, senses his arrival. She senses that he's "special," like her. Anya takes Jack back to Dad's senior community, Gateways South which borders on the Everglades. Florida is going through an unusual drought. There's a ban on watering; everything is brown and wilting, but Anya?s lawn is a deep green. Who is Anya? Who is Semelee and what is her connection to the strange deaths of Gateways residents?killed by birds, spiders, and snakes?during the past year? And what are the "lights" Jack keeps hearing about?lights that emanate twice a year from a sinkhole deep in the Everglades? These are questions Jack must answer, and there are secrets he must uncover if he is to protect his father from being the next fatality at Gateways. Along the way he learns that even his father has secrets.
gateways
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based on 27 reviews
