Orangefield

Come to ORANGEFIELD, where Halloween is always special...In the town of Orangefield, nestled in a glorious orange ring of pumpkin patches in the mountains of upstate New York, Halloween is the best time of year. Orangefield produces the cleanest, fattest, brightest-colored, longest-lasting-after-picking, finest pumpkins in the East, and its week-long Pumpkin Days festival, with its contests, cook-offs and decorations, is the finest celebration of autumn anywhere.But there is a darker, more secret side to Halloween in Orangefield. For the town has become the home of Samhain, the Celtic Lord of Death, whose own ancient festival became the modern holiday of pumpkin carving and trick or treating. In Orangefield, myths and stories of Samhain abound. But this year myth becomes reality as the Lord of Halloween attempts to usher in a reign of death and destruction to the idyllic town — and the world.The fate of all life rests in the hands of a little girl called Wizard, and the remembrance of a long forgotten horror...

From Publishers Weekly

This wobbly spinoff from Sarrantonio's novella "Hornets" falls short of the haunting Halloween spirit that he evoked effectively in the novel October (1990) and the stories collected in Toybox (1999). In upstate Orangefield, N.Y., the annual Pumpkin Days Festival stirs up Samhain, the Celtic Lord of Death, who has figured in centuries of local folklore. For ages, Samhain has schemed to deliver the world to his master, the Dark One, and this year he had found three perfect victims to consummate the requisite sacrifices on Halloween evening: Aaron Peters, a vet who never recovered from physical and psychological wounds sustained in Somalia; Jordie, a massively medicated borderline psychopath; and Annabeth Turner, a precociously curious teenager. Speaking in voices only they can hear, Samhain plays on their personal weaknesses and forces them down roads that lead inevitably to self-destruction. In homage to Ray Bradbury, to whom the book is dedicated, Sarrantonio attempts to write the tale as a fable that will appeal to all ages. This yields some poetic seasonal imagery, but not much of a plot. For the most part, the private experiences of the characters develop independent of the pervasive Halloween festivities, and the relationship between Samhain and his master unfolds through chatty banter that seems calculated to neutralize their menace. A twist at the climax adds a few last-minute surprises, but not enough to place this at the top of the Halloween goody sack. Copyright 2002 Reed Business Information, Inc.

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