Huyendo en parte de su pasado como activista del IRA, el protagonista llega a una diminuta isla perdida en el océano donde la única edificación es una cabaña del meteorólogo y un faro. Be warned however, that our narrator is pretty damn unlikeable a lot of the time, if that kind of thing turns you off. It’s not original enough to warrant top marks in my book, but more than worth a read if you’re a fan of this kind of dense, concentrated chamber play. At times I’m biting my nails from the tension, and the pages fly by. A small cast under siege by a nameless horror with nowhere to run, the brutal isolation, the dense psychological tension between them growing, evolving into another form of warfare, the dwindling resources… Piñol does a great job of bringing a story with rather few elements to life, in a way that feels more like Conrad than King. This is an incredibly classic horror tale. The lighthouse is the only safe place on the island. Out of the water come reptilian, monsterous creatures, bent on forcing their way into his cabin. Already the first night he finds himself in blackest horror.

Still, our narrator decides to stay, his pickup date a year later. The keeper seems deranged, a quiet, grumpy giant of a man, uninterested in company. The only other building on the island is a lighthouse on the other side of it, under a different jurisdiction. The cabin is empty, seemingly left in a hurry. But arriving on the island, there’s no trace of the person he’s meant to replace. ( )Ī resistance fighter trying to break away takes up a very lonely position, as a weather observer on a tiny island in the south Atlantic. I am willing to think that Pinol has stacks of unpublished sections that he either did not want in the story or was taken out by the editors.

But with his writing style he could have made this book a thousand pages and it would have been just as good. The writer decided to keep the story short and keep it devoid of any filler. Cold Skin is very well written and pieced together. How they react to each other, their visitors and their environment is only the start of their problems. As if the horrors of isolation were not enough, Mother Nature decides to throw in her own two cents by besetting these men with attacks from strange creatures from the depths of a cold and gray ocean.

More alike than not stranded on an island in a remote part of the Antarctic hash out their loves, fears and hostility towards a world that seemingly does not want them. Cold Skin is a refreshing if somewhat disturbing venture into the highs and lows of utter and absolute loneliness.

La pell freda by Albert Sánchez Piñol