The Hike
A Novel
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4.5 • 153 Ratings
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- $13.99
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- $13.99
Publisher Description
“The Hike just works. It’s like early, good Chuck Palahniuk. . . . Magary underhands a twist in at the end that hits you like a sharp jab at the bell. . . . It’s just that good.” —NPR.org
“A page-turner. . . . Inventive, funny. . . . Quietly profound and touching.”—BoingBoing
From the author of The Night the Lights Went Out and The Postmortal, a fantasy saga unlike any you’ve read before, weaving elements of folk tales and video games into a riveting, unforgettable adventure of what a man will endure to return to his family
When Ben, a suburban family man, takes a business trip to rural Pennsylvania, he decides to spend the afternoon before his dinner meeting on a short hike. Once he sets out into the woods behind his hotel, he quickly comes to realize that the path he has chosen cannot be given up easily. With no choice but to move forward, Ben finds himself falling deeper and deeper into a world of man-eating giants, bizarre demons, and colossal insects.
On a quest of epic, life-or-death proportions, Ben finds help comes in some of the most unexpected forms, including a profane crustacean and a variety of magical objects, tools, and potions. Desperate to return to his family, Ben is determined to track down the “Producer,” the creator of the world in which he is being held hostage and the only one who can free him from the path.
At once bitingly funny and emotionally absorbing, Magary’s novel is a remarkably unique addition to the contemporary fantasy genre, one that draws as easily from the world of classic folk tales as it does from video games. In The Hike, Magary takes readers on a daring odyssey away from our day-to-day grind and transports them into an enthralling world propelled by heart, imagination, and survival.
PUBLISHERS WEEKLY
In this peculiar literary odyssey, Magary reexamines some of the same themes he covered in The Postmortal while throwing in some fascinating dream imagery, assorted video game tropes, and a story structure that's deliberately predictable (with nods to many other tales of wandering through strange lands before returning home) but still surprising. A man named Ben wanders from a hotel for a hike, gets attacked by a bizarre man wearing the skinned head of a rottweiler, and soon gets lost in the woods. As he wanders, he slips into dreams where he relives missed opportunities from his life. In his waking hours he meets various fantastical creatures, including a talking crab and a gorgeous, polite, human-eating giant. Magary throws plenty of humor into the tale the giant has a "death matrix" that measures how painful or slow Ben's death at her hands will be but keeps the focus on Ben's efforts to get home to his family and confront his own demons. Magary smartly doesn't answer every question Ben's journey raises, and the story is more satisfying as a result. The sense of disjointedness doesn't always feel intentional, and the journey is occasionally uneven, but it's always fascinating and worthwhile.
Customer Reviews
Interesting, page turner
Not exactly a comedy as it is billed but it was interesting and kept me wanting to find out what happened next.
Grimm fairytale for adults
But with a better ending. Delightful read.
Thank you for that ending
What a delight