This review first appeared on scifiandscary.com

‘Stranded’ is a short horror novel about the filming of a reality TV show where six ordinary people have to survive in an icy wilderness. This being the horror genre, they don’t just have the elements to contend with, there are also some supernatural monsters. It’s a fun premise, and the book kept me entertained on a long cross country train journey. The problem is that if you spend 5 minutes thinking about what a book with that premise would be like, you don’t really need to bother reading ‘Stranded’.
I loved Miller’s deranged psycho story ‘Cats Like Cream’. It surprised me and creeped me out enormously and I thought she did a great job of getting into the mind of the main character. ‘Stranded’ feels a bit of a let down by comparison. There’s a lot to enjoy here: it’s tense and thrilling at times, the characters are diverse and there are some creepy moments. It’s all just a bit obvious though, and ends up playing like a low budget horror movie rather than challenging the reader like ‘Cats Like Cream’ did.
Let me focus on the positives though, because this is a nasty, fun read and worth your time, especially if you have Kindle Unlimited. Miller’s take on the exploitative nature of reality TV is interesting. The unscrupulous producers of the Stranded show are enjoyably oily and the set up works well, The six contestants are split into three teams, each comprising a man and a woman, to maximise the chances of on-screen shenanigans to supplement the icy peril. The fact that one of the men is a dangerous sociopath adds to the tension. The premise of the show has the teams having to undertake various challenges, but the events of the book quickly overtakes things and they never really get the chance to do this. I was a little disappointed by this. It felt like a good way for the reader to get to know the characters and the dynamics between them. Instead the build up is fairly slight and whilst there are some scenes about the contestants just trying to survive in the wilderness, the action moves pretty quickly into more traditional monster mode.
Miller mixes things up a bit by including the camera crews filming the contestants as characters/victims. She keeps the body count high and does a good job of providing a range of dangers for the characters to face. There are the obvious environmental perils, the supernatural monsters and treacherous humans trying to cover their backs. The issue is that in 126 pages there isn’t really time for the reader to get to know the characters well enough to really care about them. The book ends up feeling a bit rushed, which is a shame because the monsters are creepy and some of the characters are good. The psycho, Max, is believably self-obsessed and creepy. Likewise the ratings focussed producers are enjoyably nasty. Unfortunately many of the other characters ended up blurring together a bit more me. They became “contestant 1” or “crew member 3” rather than living people.
I normally bemoan the fact that modern books are too long, but ‘Stranded’ felt too short to me. The action is solid, but there’s too little sizzle beforehand to get the reader hungry for the steak. I’d love to see an expanded edition, that spent a bit more time building up the characters so that I really cared about them by the time shit hit the fan.
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