This book is pure nostalgia. It's '80s slang, cliches and backdrops. Probably because that's when it was written.

The main themes of Stinger left me feeling a little weird. There are huge streaks of '80s hopefulness. Normalizing race relations, protecting the environment, a healing of the generation gap that was such a big part of the '70s, friendly aliens, the idea that moving on sometimes meant moving up in the world, and an "as luck would have it" financial recovery after the recession disasters that plagued small towns the 1970s. Here's to hoping that the youth of the 2020s/2030s generation can experience what we did in the '80s.

Some of the cliches were tiresome though. I'd forgotten how many slang terms there were for women with big boobs.

I understand even less why McCammon didn't reach my bookshelf until now. He's full of the same writing styles as Stephen King. And I loved King back in the day.

I'll keep reading McCammon. He's so much fun. ( )

A science fiction horror story, Stinger is set in a remote town in the USA in desert country. The town - Inferno - is dying after the exhaustion of a copper mine and the local youth are polarised along race lines with Caucasians versus Hispanics, characterised as Mexicans. There is a lot of racist language referring to the latter.

Into this poisonous atmosphere drops two aliens: one the fleeing leader of a watery race which is being exterminated by the race represented by the second alien. Daufin, as the first alien comes to be called, takes over the body of a little girl - which seems a bit manipulative for the "good guy" and the other alien then wrecks havoc trying to find her, with the added peril that it will probably report back and initiate invasion.

The story is very slow to get going and I found all the teen hoodlum stuff boring. Some characters such as Miranda, sister of the Hispanic gang leader, Rick, are just included as someone to be protected by the teen heroes. None of the characters seemed rounded out to me - the closest was Ed Vance the sheriff whose negative traits stem from his being the bullied fat boy at school but although he became sympathetic he then didn't figure in the confrontation between the evil alien and the bravest contingent of townsfolk which was a letdown.

I also didn't get why Daufin names her antagonist Stinger - his various manifestations have a swinging tail with a ball studied with spikes on the end. I think it would have been more horrifying if they had possessed a stinging tail. All in all I rate this as an OK 2 stars ( )

This is another good vs evil story......evil being out to destroy humanity in some way and good fighting to prevail. I usually enjoy these type novels and this one didn't disappoint. Although its not as amazing as Swan song, in my opinion, it is a great read. This closely resembles Stephen Kings " Under the dome. Fans of books such as the before mentioned, along with The stand, Swan song, etc. would appreciate this book. ( )

Pretty fun monster fest. The plot is all formula disaster: take a bunch of people, throw them together in an isolated disaster, Inferno, TX, and no matter how much they love or hate each other they are going to have to work together to overcome the threat, here the alien Stinger. People die, loves and lasting friendships are made, there are tons of heroics and new frights and lots get killed.

What saves McCammon's better efforts like this are characterization. His characters at least start out believable if not sometimes the stuff of melodrama. They become real for us and we care about them. There are lots of asides from the main plot to develop new and existing relationships good and bad.

It's not great art are but it is a lot of fun and McCammon knows what to do and lays on the seemingly unbeatable monsters thick. How is anyone going to get out of this before dawn? Gradually there are some chinks in Stinger's armor and things don't look quite as hopeless. McCammon brings the whole thing to a nice satisfying conclusion, which we already knew he would, just not exactly how.

Three stars doesn't mean I hated it, I like a good monster mash as well as anyone, but it didn't aspire to be anything more than what it was which as they say, was real good. ( )

I ended up mostly enjoying this. The first third was basically getting everything set up, and was rather boring. I found the high school gang war stuff over the top, out of place and.....just plain annoying.

There were moments where it felt like there was violence just for the sake of having violence. A great example of 80's horror.
The second half is where things really pick up and was just plain fun.

Definitely a unique read, it wasn't bad it just missed the mark for me. ( )