Tare

by: Peggy Sue Yarber

Published by: Strategic Book Publishing, New York (An Imprint of AEG Publishing)

Reviewed by C. L. Rossman

I picked up this book because the title Tare attracted me. It has an attractive hard cover, too, with black silhouettes of people facing outward toward a field and strange reddish tree. Now, according to the dictionary, a tare is “the common vetch” or “weeds growing among the wheat.” It also means a noxious element sown among the good, like weeds among wheat, and quotes Matthew 3:25 as “his enemy came and sowed tares among the wheat.” That describes the theme very well, for there are mutant viruses among the country’s wheatfields, which apparently have been sown there by an enemy, and which sicken people who eat the wheat.

The story deals with the takeover of a small town in an unnamed country—which may be in the United States. A troop of soldiers has come in and isolated the town from the outside world, surrounding it with an electromagnetic field and forcing the townspeople to plant the wheat seeds the army gives them. It’s either cooperate or die—since the soldiers are ordered to shoot anyone who tries to rebel. Then we watch, as for nearly a year, the fields grow and the people remain captive, and gradually turn on the soldiers and each other.

The book actually open when a military man, Major Washington, takes his family and flees to a small diner called the Rocketship Café on the highway beyond town. He and his wife Samantha try to warn the café owner, Gilly, and his customers about the strange fields. It seems the fields are more than just an antidote to the infected wheat—they are producing visions for anyone who enters them. An old newspaperman named August happens to be in the café, and you know he going to report the experiment the army has forced on the town.

I found this book half-novel, half-apocalypse. Many of the characters wear apocryphal names, like Mayor Genesis, Mr. Nobel (Noble) and Pastor Able. As their town suffers under occupation, these three squabble over what they should do. The book would be stronger if the author didn’t “cut away” from many of the action scenes—we read about the military taking the town, about three teenagers being shot, but we don’t see that happen. Every scene should be as strong as the opening one.

This is a highly-allegorical novel, with a number of unusual ideas in it, and readers should approach it that way.

Armchair Interviews says: A mix of horror, fantasy, sci fi and suspense.

Author’s Web site: http://www.PSYarber.com