CHARIOT

By Charles Grant

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Charles Grant is a very prolific writer & editor- Primarily known in the horror field, he has also published studies on religions and a lot of other stuff, Including X-FILES books and scripts.

CHARIOT Is the third in the Four Horsemen of the Apocalypse / Millennium series, and the first one of his books that I have read. However, it was so enjoyable that I have already started another.....

Trey Falkirk is a part-time gambler, but one of an unusual type- No real professional gambler plays slot machines, but Trey does; he has a real affinity for machines- They tell him when they are ready to pay off.

Living in a kind of odd-ball real-estate development on the outskirts of Las Vegas, Nevada, Trey is just one of the unlikely people living here. It is not easy to effectively describe the his neighbors- They are a diverse crew- No one is quite wierd, but none are quite normal either.

While most of the rest of the world is being ravaged by disease (The Plague), Las Vegas seems immune.

Trey Lives an unchallenging and uncomplicated life- hitting the casinos whenever he needs a few bucks, and just "kicking back" the rest of the time. That is, until Sir John, an elderly British "cowboy" and his young wife Beatrice show up to complicate things. First, they tell Trey that it is all coming to an end- His easy life, and indeed life in general, because the Plague is coming to Vegas. Then they take him out in the desert, shoot him in the leg and leave him to walk out. All to prove a point. Which is..... Well, you just have to read the book.

It is kind of difficult to explain the feeling of this book- It is very low key, laid back and "normal", but with a constant underlying current of tension and abnormality. I never found it particularly exciting, but it was constantly intriguing.

Although not a nightmare producing epic like Steven King's The Stand, Chariot is in some ways quite similar. Although this book stands alone as a good story, I think it would be better to read it's predecessors in the series: SYMPHONY and IN THE MOOD.