The Book of Skulls

The tags on this page are Immortality, Occult, and Dark Fantasy. That's as accurate as you're going to get with this work. Even the author acknowledges that this work is not typical science fiction. No matter.

It's a story about four college men with too much time on their hands and no real purpose in life, who are swept up in the dreams and illusions of one of them who believes he has found the way to immortality. The story follows this pursuit across the country, to its bitter and violent end.

The story is told in the first person, but takes turns with each of the four main characters so they are all the first person in turn. The characterizations are quite dated, cliched and even offensive, or better to say, simple-minded examples of college men.

While the story is well told and detailed, it tends to wallow in such from time to time, and the four-person first-person leaves distinct gaps in understanding that are best overlooked and not challenged by the reader. Women are literally nothing but sex objects in the story, as one example.

There is a great irony at the end I will not reveal, instead leaving it to the reader to discover, should they persist to the end of the work.