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3.5 stars. I truly desired to rate this book as a four-star read. Believe me, I made every effort to like it more than I actually did. If that makes any sense. I was overly excited to commence reading this, and I was eager to love it. However, during the first (more than) half of the book, I felt as if I was merely forcing myself to read it. I continuously found myself thinking about other books that I would rather be reading. Oh, I was extremely disappointed, wondering, "Why don't I like this??" It is an early Robert McCammon novel, a horror one at that. I initiated reading it the day before Halloween, and it is an "epic." It should have been precisely what I was interested in, right? So, I delved deeper into my thoughts and realized the reason why I constantly had the dreaded thought of DNF (Did Not Finish). In the first two-thirds of the book, an excessive number of characters were introduced. I had no clue as to who was actually supposed to be the lead, who was the supporting character, and who was merely an extra that would be killed off later. Then, around 300 or 400 pages in, we encounter another character. And then, closer to the end, yet another character is introduced. I didn't feel as if I had spent sufficient time with Palatazin, or Wes, or Father Silvera, or Solange. They would have their 3-5 page chapter, and then it was on to someone else, then someone else, and so on. And you wouldn't return to them until 20-30 pages later. There did come a point where I felt the book improved. I suppose once McCammon started weeding out the less relevant characters and focused on the better cast, and you began to perceive the value in the remaining characters, the story started to become more thrilling. And then, the sandstorm occurred. Once that began, I felt that the book from that point forward could have effortlessly been a 5-star action/horror.
