The Three: A Novel

After reading the description of this book I couldn't wait to read it. Four planes go down on the same day, there are 3 (or 4) surviving children, one from each plane. Everyone is talking End of Days, Four Horsemen, Aliens and there's even a creepy android factor. It's alternatively written with

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Skype and phone transcripts, articles, IMs, and voice recording transcripts so it's a lot like researching/browsing the web which made for an easy read. I was definitely wrapped up in the suspense during the first half of the book but shortly after I felt like it was on a loop. The suspense became repetition. But, because I enjoyed the first half of the book I stuck with it... And it completely dropped off. It just dwindled into nothing. Started off big but did not deliver for me.

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I can't believe I went back to reading this, after having to set it down after a recent air disaster. The book is a frame work for another book, in which the author Elspeth, is laying out all documents, witness statements, interviews etc that will make up her account of Black Thursday. That's the

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day four planes crashed simultaneously around the world, with three child survivors. The beginning, particularly with the descriptions of people waiting for information about their loved ones, was somewhat heart wrenching. However, I didn't really like the layout of the book. I didn't feel any particular empathy after the beginning with any characters and certainly didn't think it was scary. Either from a paranormal standpoint or the possibility of a theocracy running the US. It just meandered to what I thought was an unsatisfying ending.

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Four aeroplanes crash on the same day. Investigators quickly rule out terrorism, but struggle to explain what was at fault. They are equally bewildered by the survival of three children, who come through the crashes with minimal injuries against all odds. The crashes and their survivors ignite

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global conspiracies as a right-wing preacher declares them the harbingers of the apocalypse.

After a difficult prologue (the last minutes of Pamela Donald as she records her final message), the novel presents itself as the best-selling non-fiction account by journalist Elspeth Martins.

I’ll be honest: I have a soft spot for fictional non-fiction. I think it’s an interesting format, and I enjoy the flexibility it gives authors in presenting their narrative. Lotz does a great job hear in capturing the tones of voice and vocabularies of the ‘interviewees' - arguably too good, as I found myself highlighting passages and adding angry notes in the margins. Repeatedly. Let’s just say that I don’t have a lot of time for certain political perspectives, and leave it at that. Still, it’s some good fictional non-fiction that is sufficiently realistic to cut through my belief filters quite so effectively.

The inclusion of chat logs, newspaper articles and twitter feeds were marginally less successful, but allowed Lotz to provide context and alternative perspectives that would have been hard to justify as interviews. Extra credit for her largely off-page handling of the media frenzy, focusing more on its impact than its execution.

It’s a fascinating stew. In the end, I didn’t much care whether the kids were possessed, aliens, the Four Horsemen (all three of them) or misrepresented PTSD sufferers. I just appreciated Lotz’s depiction of the irrational responses we have to things we can’t explain. The craving for patterns and clutching at the flimsiest straws is a familiar process, although It didn’t make me feel better about humanity.

However, what I liked best was the ambiguity. Was Elspeth coldly cashing in or genuinely trying to provide some perspective? (I liked that her letter in the final chapters makes it clear that even her nearest and dearest questioned this too). It’s clear that she had no agenda - her book makes her interviewees’ opinions clear, but crucially leaves room for her readers (fictional and real) to form their own (ir)rational opinion.

…which is why the epilogue left me mildly irritated. I’d have been happy for it to have formed the prologue to a sequel, moving the narrative along - but I would have been far happier with this novel if it had left the question of the children unresolved.

Nonetheless, this is an entertaining if not always easy read. I wouldn’t be surprised to see it hit the big screen as a thriller in the near future - it would translate a little too easily.

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Before I ultimately write my own review, I like to run down the list and skim some of the others, just to get a feel of what's being said, as well as the overall consensus. It's interesting how many people ripped into this book for the exact reason I loved it.

This is not a book told in a

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conventional manner. It's collections of Skypes and tweets and transcripts and excerpts. The story is never direct. Instead, it's teased out, with clues dropped in one section, only to be explored in a completely different area. It's got an international cast.

And it's fascinating as hell.

I absolutely loved this book. I laughed at one review below where they wrote, in bold, I want my motherfucking mystery. I laughed at a second who wondered why this book was considered horror. I laughed, because had they read any of the novel, they would have clued in that there's mysteries wrapped in mysteries, and the horror, while quiet, is subversive. It creeps up on you without you ever hearing it.

So. I loved the characters. I loved the narrative device used to draw out the story. I loved the actual story. I loved everything about this novel.

Sarah Lotz, I now have to read everything you've written. Thanks, because I haven't even caught up on all the stuff Lauren Beukes has written, because she had the same effect on me after reading Broken Monsters.

It's nice to see intelligent horror making a comeback.

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Ain't it fun to hate on Americans?

I saved The Three for a recent trip to China, deciding a novel about multiple simultaneous air accidents was just the thing to read while flying, and how right I was - it made the hours go by very fast.

This is a fictional non-fiction account by journalist Elspeth Martins, called Black Thursday:

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four aeroplanes crashed in different parts of the world – Japan, South Africa, The US, and the sea near England – with almost complete loss of life.

In Japan, passenger Pamela Donald survived just long enough to leave a disturbing voice mail and, in addition three – or is it four? - children survive, one from each plane.

Told in the form of multiple first person perspectives – using chat logs, twitter feeds, newspaper articles, on-line diaries, and other autobiographical forms – Elspeth Martins tries to piece together the events of Black Thursday, and to address the mystery of the children, whose miraculous survival has given rise to a cult, labelling them the Four [or Three] Horsemen of the Apocalypse, harbingers of Armageddon.

It soon becomes obvious to those who are looking after them, that the youngsters have change in some fundamental way which while not necessarily bad, is not good either. But what does it mean? The Three is entertaining, very exciting, and just a little bit unsettling – ideal aeroplane reading.

Night Music: Nocturnes, Volume 2, by John Connolly, Hodder & Stoughton, 2015 ***

With his delicate and slightly chilling prose, John Connolly is a writer of distinction, best known for his beyond-excellent Charlie Parker series where excitement, melancholy and belly laughs make for a thrilling read.

That Connolly is also a dab hand at the short story is proved by this, his second volume of tales that are magical, unsettling, supernatural and funny – but never quite horrifying.

Take Lazarus whom, although raised from the dead by Jesus, is not really alive; or the Caxton Private Lending Library and Book Depository where famous literary characters go when their original creator dies – imagine what happens when the resurrected Sherlock Holmes and Moriarty meet?

And then there is the little Irish girl who can perform miracles: her parents are delighted to welcome Vatican investigators - even if they do arrive a day early - never verifying that these are priests, not something more sinister.

A superb collection for readers who prefer having their imaginations stimulated rather than their spines tingled.

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Three children survive three plane crashes on the same day. A sign of the end of the world?

I took this with me to Finland to read during a convention. I had no intention of reading it during the journey – for that I had DH Lawrence’s The Rainbow – but I started it shortly after I arrived in Mariehamn, and had finished it by the Sunday so I left it on a table for someone else to,

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er, enjoy. The central premise is, well, pretty much the same as James Herbert’s The Survivor (an awful book, but actually quite a good film). Four planes crash within minutes of each other around the world – in Japan, the US, the English Channel, and South Africa – and a child is the only survivor in three of the crashes. No one survives the fourth. An enigmatic phone call by an American passenger on the plane in Japan, shortly before she succumbs to her injuries, prompts a US evangelist to declare the three children the, er, Four Horsemen of the Apocalypse. Um, yes. He claims there’s a child who survived the fourth crash, and various hints suggest this may be true, but… Why? Why base the plot on the Four Horseman but only have three of them? It makes no sense. The kids are certainly not ordinary and who, or what, they are is never categorically stated. The novel is also presented as found documents, the research materials of a journalist writing a book on the whole affair. Lotz handles her voices impressively well, and for commercial fiction this is a well put-together piece of work. But the premise is weak and over-stays its welcome by a couple of hundred pages. Oh, and definitely don’t read this book when travelling by air…

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This is one of the scariest books I’ve read in a long time, mostly because I tend to avoid Stephen-King-like novels. And this definitely fits into that category.

The Three tells the story of four airplane crashes on the same day, which came to be known as Black Thursday, resulting in the deaths of

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over a thousand people. There were, however, inexplicably, three survivors - all young children, one from each of three planes. But something is “off” about these children, and the global reaction intensifies with each new piece of information about them.

This very clever book is told in the form of a book within a book called “Black Thursday: From Crash to Conspiracy: Inside the Phenomenon of The Three” by Elspeth Martins. The book consists of testimony from a variety of people affected by the crashes - some of it in the form of interviews conducted by Martins, and some in the form of internet messages and other documents collected by Martins.

Evaluation: This book gave me nightmares for days. It is realistic enough to be very, very frightening on several different levels!

Note: Not recommended for airplane reading!

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The Three tells the story of three children who survived three plane crashes on the same day around the world. There were actually four planes that crashed that day, fueling speculation that there is a fourth child that escaped detection. One American woman is able to leave a very short and cryptic

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message before dying and on the basis of that message, conspiracy theories run rampant.

I stumbled across this book by accident but am really glad I did. The writing style is unusual with each chapter based on an interview with someone affiliated in some way with the crashes, but it does a really good job of building suspense. Is there something wrong with the children?

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Really interesting premise, but this was written as a series of interviews and emails and I never engaged with the story. I kept waiting for the big reveal of what it all meant, but it ended with a whimper.

Four planes crash simultaneously in different parts of the world, three children survive and behave strangely afterward, and conspiracy theories run rampant, including a cult of Christians who believe this signals the End Times.

This book had quite an interesting structure: a nonfiction

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book-within-a-book made up of interviews, newspaper articles, chat logs, and the like that gradually unfolds the aftermath of Black Thursday, as it quickly came to be called. This story is rife with ambiguity: Is there really something off about the surviving children, or are folks just going nuts and trying to make sense of a senseless coincidence? I am comfortable with the ambiguity, although I think the end of the book does offer a pretty clear resolution, if you read between the lines. For the most part, I read through this at a fast clip, wanting to see how things would turn out, but I do think the unusual structure lent itself to a tad too much repetition and the whole thing could have been edited down without losing much in the process. Some of the scenes included didn't seem to advance the plot all that much. Those were minor flaws; this for me was a very readable thriller, and different enough from the norm to keep my attention.

The author is South African, and careful readers will note that her Americanisms aren't entirely accurate, but we'll forgive that as well.

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3.5 An imaginative and compelling read with a unique structure. The book follows the messages, interviews and articles from an non-fiction book that is published in response to the events in the book's summary, in essence a book within a book.

It follows very realistically what happens when a major

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event strikes the world, at least this is how it is the United States. Many, many news commentators cover the story, they interview anyone they can, they bring in professionals, talking heads, to comment, cover-up and conspiracies are batted around and all the nuts come out of the woodwork.

The real story, besides all the suppositions, are those who are now responsible for the three children. Are they the same children? How could they survive? Those taking care of these children all notice that things are not quite right with them. In the case of Paul and Jess, it is intriguing to read his mental descent. At the end the questions remain, what is real and what was not. While this was at times suspenseful, it was not really a horror story. While I am not sure that the events written about could ever happen, the rest of it was very realistic.

Good and very different read.

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I do think some of the narration is less than great - some of the characters sound too similar, even though the structure of the novel allows for them to be as completely idiosyncratic as you'd like - but it just keeps getting better and better until that last page, which is just about perfect.

This is a very strange and fascinating book. Four planes crash on the same day and the three children who miraculously survive become the poster children for a fundamentalist end-of-days movement. I don’t want to go into too many details as part of the fun of this book is trying to guess just

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what is going on. I thought the format which included interviews, transcripts and electronic messages was interesting and I read it all compulsively. I am not sure all the details always made complete sense but overall, it was an enjoyable summer read. I received this book from NetGalley in exchange for an honest review.

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The Three is the type of novel which is difficult to categorize. It is suspenseful and futuristic in some aspects. It creeps towards a dystopian model as those touting the coming apocalypse gain traction and become more powerful. Yet, one could easily construe the last few scenes as nothing but

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pure horror. There are lines interspersed throughout the narrative that leave a reader with chills at their eeriness, and yet, how one interprets them is completely up to each reader, his or her belief system, and/or ability to suspend disbelief. It is this last aspect which is another fascinating aspect about the book. Someone with an evangelical belief system will have a much different opinion about the book and about the Three than someone with no set beliefs than someone who subscribes to every conspiracy theory out there. The Three incorporates aspects from all believers and from all scoffers so that it is truly a book that will be different for each and every reader.

One of the fascinating things about The Three, in a novel in which there are many fascinating things, is the fact that Ms. Lotz wrote two novels, as The Three is a novel within a novel. More accurately, it is an exposé within a novel. Within the narrative lies the full-length version of From Crash to Conspiracy by Elspeth Martins, an investigative reporter who gains insight into the tragedy through eyewitness testimony, transcripts, interviews, and other media stories ranging from social media to newspaper articles and more. The intention of From Crash to Conspiracy is to pull together all of the facts and allow readers to separate the wheat from the chaff and make up their own mind about the Three and the meaning, if any, behind their miraculous survival. However, as one reads these so-called facts as presented by Elspeth and then reads what follows, the story takes an unexpected turn that is quite literally a game-changer. A reader must all but reexamine Elspeth’s entire book and view it in light of this new information in order to determine the truth. However, that truth is still deliciously ambiguous and will generate much discussion among fans as the summer progresses.

The writing within The Three is outstanding. Ms. Lotz uses all types of writing for both the “non-fictional” From Crash to Conspiracy as well as for the surrounding narrative, and she is effective in each type. One gets a feel for each interviewee’s language, personality, age, and other quirks. This is quite a feat when the interviewees cross the globe, cross generations, and cross socio-economic milieus. Not only that, one also gets a clear understanding of each interviewee’s motivation in participating in Elspeth’s novel. In addition, that which each interviewee does not say becomes just as clear as what he or she does say. She not only keeps each voice separate and distinct, she transforms each character beyond the one-dimensional interviewee into a fully-developed person with hidden agendas and motives. Similarly, while suspense builds naturally from the very first scene, she keeps adding to it with each new piece of information she reveals. The final result is a novel consisting of multiple, well-developed characters that keeps readers glued to their seats as they race to finish this heart-pounding thriller.

At times utterly terrifying, The Three is completely haunting and will have many a person thinking twice about getting on an airplane. It also raises the question as to the true scope of influence in today’s media, something increasingly important as the media infiltrates every aspect of today’s life. The story itself is extremely compelling and surprisingly plausible, and the characters are all too realistically flawed. That they are so realistic serves the purpose of muddying the waters of truth even more than they already are, something fans of ambiguous endings will thoroughly enjoy. Yet, she leaves enough concrete facts for those who want a more defined ending. Because of its universal appeal and the amazing writing, there is no doubt that The Three is going to be one of the hottest books of the summer.

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This was an intriguing book that kept me reading until the end. The children were very creepy, but it didn't fully explain what happened by the end which annoyed me. Overall though it was a good book and I will read the second book.

I liked the format of this novel, consisting of newspaper reports, interviews, conversations from an Internet forum and information from other sources, which have been collected by a journalist who has already written one successful and controversial book about the child plane crash survivors known

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as the Three, who are believed by some to be the horsemen of the apocalypse.

I enjoyed it more than Day Four, although that book does clarify what is actually going on.

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(3 1/2 stars)

On the same day at different sites around the world, four airliners crash, their only survivors between three (relatively unscathed) children. A miracle? Or are these children not what they appear? Ghosts? Aliens? Harbingers of the biblical apocalypse? Or even something else.

This is a

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pretty clever book. Actually, it's written as largely a book-within-a-book, containing the text of an "event book" by a journalist who documents interviews, articles, and testimonies of those affected by the airline crashes--and their three survivors--in the months afterwards. And what the book essentially portrays is how the same event with its mysteries and ambiguities can be interpreted in quite divergent ways depending on the "baggage" any particular interpreter is bringing to it. At the same time this portrayal is being painted, however, we readers are set in the same position: what do we expect from the book? A horror story? A socio-psychological tale of how people react in crisis? Indeed, in the end we are led to question how objective the journalist was in her reporting--how much did she skew her reportage due to her own inclinations?

The book had me guessing and turning pages . . .

As for my criticisms: given the tilt the story takes, it contains elements of a liberal's paranoid fantasy of how religious fundamentalists are bound to take the upper hand and impose their repressive ways. Myself a liberal, I question the premise. Fundamentalists always have and likely always will occupy but a slight minority of any population, and given the escalating secularizing trend in the USA particularly, I doubt a "Christian caliphate" is in our future. Evangelicals may win battles, but they themselves are too schismatic among themselves to win wars.

Secondly, the author is South African, and though she general does a good job conveying an American vernacular, she does slip occasionally. Americans don't say they're going going to do something "straight away." Also, they take elevators, not "lifts." But the editor's probably to blame here, allowing such errors to get through.

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interesting premise, particularly relevant given the grim year of air crashes we have had, which then got lost in meandering subplots, and failed to really get resolved. Was left wondering what the point of it all was.

I loved this, but it fell apart at the end in my opinion.

I’m a bit puzzled to categorise the book but let’s call it mystic thriller. Unlike lots of others I liked the ‘book in the book’ style building from interviews and I liked the ending as well but I understand if it caused disappointment for some. The strongest facet of the book is the

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realistic description of the religious fanaticism in which we easily can recognise our world.

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I loved the premise of this story and the style the author chose. It was very original, but I really needed closure and the novel did not deliver that. I realize there is a sequel, but I'm not sure if I'm going to read it.

A lot of build up for very little payoff. YMMV.