The Sentinel (Jane Harper Horror, #1)

by Jeremy Bishop

An angry clash between professional whale hunters and the environmental activists out to stop them takes a deadly turn when sabotage sends both vessels to the bottom of the Arctic Ocean. Stranded in the aftermath on a desolate island off the coast of Greenland, survivors from both sides reluctantly join forces to stay alive in the frigid wasteland. But they swiftly discover that those who perished in the unforgiving sea were the lucky ones…

Jane Harper, an undercover government agent who’s quick with her wits and fists, knows punishing cold and dwindling supplies are to be feared. But in the ruins of an ancient Nordic outpost, a centuries-old message warns of a threat far worse: the Draugar—the dreaded “again walkers” of Viking lore, the terrifying living dead that spawned the legends of vampires and zombies. Now, roused from their cursed slumber, these gruesome Viking warriors and their monstrous queen are hungry for living flesh—and eager to spread a ghoulish contagion from their long-buried prison across the globe.

• ISBN10: 1611099064
• ISBN13: 9781611099065
• Publish Date: 9 July 2013 (first published 22 May 2012)
• Publish Status: Active
• Out of Print: 6 December 2021
• Publish Country: US
• Publisher: Amazon Publishing
• Imprint: 47North
• Format: Paperback (US Trade)
• Pages: 278
• Language: English

Reviews

[Jeff Sexton]

A Long Time Coming. Let me tell you a story. It begins in 2010. Jeremy Robinson and I have known each other online for a few years now, having met in MySpace. I've read every book he's written (just a half dozen or so at this point), and he is now releasing a book he calls TORMENT - his first outright horror book. So I read it too. And it literally gave me nightmares for YEARS after reading it.

 

A year later, Robinson releases his next horror book - The Sentinel. And it becomes the first of his books that I would not read... for 13 years. Until November 2024, when he is gearing up to release the completed Jane Harper Trilogy via writing a book called THE HOST and packaging it similarly to how he did FAMINE and HUNGER: THE COMPLETE TRILOGY earlier in the 2020s.  

 

And now that my nightmares from TORMENT have faded - particularly after Robinson retconned it into his INFINITE TIMELINE event in the late 2010s/ early 2020s and weakened it significantly - I'm finally in a position that I can attempt to read THE SENTINEL.

 

And what I found... was nowhere NEAR the horror of TORMENT. Yes, it absolutely has its horrific moments - many times over. Its got an almost Carrie-type callback. Its got a ship sinking. Its got creatures. Its got the same irreverent wit that Robinson would come to develop more over the last 15 years. Truly, having read everything Robinson has released since THE SENTINEL (other than its sequel, THE RAVEN), this may as well be included in his "Origins" package, because you can absolutely see in this book the beginnings of his style to come for the next decade+ of his career.

 

So pick this book up, even now - or maybe wait until March 2025 when THE SENTINEL: THE COMPLETE JANE HARPER TRILOGY is released. You're going to laugh. You're going to cry. You might even puke a few times at the horror on the screen. But you're going to have a blast doing it, and you're going to want to have the next book available immediately at hand anyway.

 

Very much recommended.