John Saul (born February 25, 1942) is an American author from California, specializing in suspense and horror novels akin to Dean Koontz and Stephen King.
A lot of Saul's books tend to be a little...repetitive, especially in his earlier works. Therefore many tropes apply to all his novels, frequently in the same context every time.
The man has an official website, which can be reached here
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He ultimately retired after publishing thirty-one books.
Bibliography:
- Suffer the Children (1977)
- Punish the Sinners (1978)
- Cry for the Strangers (1979)
- Comes the Blind Fury (1980)
- When the Wind Blows (1981)
- The God Project (1982)
- Nathaniel (1984)
- Brainchild (1985)
- Hellfire (1986)
- The Unwanted (1987)
- The Unloved (1988)
- Creature (1989)
- Second Child (1990)
- Sleepwalk (1991)
- Darkness (1991)
- Shadows (1992)
- Guardian (1993)
- The Homing (1994)
- Black Lightning (1995)
- The Blackstone Chronicles (adapted into Blackstone Chronicles):
- An Eye for an Eye: The Doll (1996)
- Twist of Fate: The Locket (1997)
- Ashes to Ashes: The Dragon's Flame (1997)
- In the Shadow of Evil: The Handkerchief (1997)
- Day of Reckoning: The Stereoscope (1997)
- Asylum (1997)
- The Presence (1998)
- The Right Hand of Evil (1999)
- Nightshade (2000)
- The Manhattan Hunt Club (2001)
- Midnight Voices (2002)
- Black Creek Crossing (2003)
- Perfect Nightmare (2005)
- In the Dark of the Night (2006)
- The Devil's Labyrinth (2007)
- Faces of Fear (2008)
- House of Reckoning (2009)
Tropes commonly found in his works:
- Academy of Evil: Punish The Sinners features St. Francis Xavier High School, where events transpire to drive the students to suicide.
- Abandoned Hospital: The Blackstone Chronicles revolves around an abandoned mental hospital, where evil happened.
- Boarding School of Horrors: The Devil's Labyrinth and Punish the Sinners.
- Creepy Child: That Other Wiki quotes Saul as saying "I always find ... that when you have a scary scene, it broadens the scope of possibilities if you have children involved."
- Evilutionary Biologist: The God Project, Creature and Brainchild.
- Exactly Exty Years Ago: The prologue to nearly every Saul book is a scene from 20, 30, 50, or 100 years ago explaining the origins of the evil to follow (the prologue is often even labelled "X Years Ago"). The book then jumps to the present.
- Follow the Leader: The Blackstone Chronicles, a Serial Novel, was published less than a year after Stephen King's Serial Novel The Green Mile became a runaway success.
- Genre Blindness: Most of the main characters, with a healthy dose of It's Probably Nothing and Arbitrary Skepticism thrown in.
- Hereditary Curse: Again, lots of 'em.
- Here We Go Again!: The epilogues of many of Saul's books take place Exactly Exty Years From Now and indicate that the same situation we just witnessed is about to play out again in exactly the same way.
- Indian Burial Ground: With a small twist in When The Wind Blows.
- Mad Scientist's Beautiful Daughter: Stepdaughter in the case of Alison in Faces of Fear. At least, she's going to be beautiful after the Mad Scientist surgically alters her to be his Replacement Goldfish.
- Magical Native American: The entire non-white cast of When The Wind Blows. No one can say they didn't try to warn the townsfolk...
- Replacement Goldfish: Attempted in When the Wind Blows and Faces of Fear (in which plastic surgeon Conrad Dunn attempts to use his skills to turn his stepdaughter Alison into a physical duplicate of his deceased first wife).
- Science Is Bad: This is used in The God Project and Brainchild.
- Town with a Dark Secret: Saul uses this trope so frequently, it would be easier to list the books that don't use this!
