Honeycomb

Before a drug is allowed onto the marketplace, it must undergo rigorous tests. Firstly on animals and then eventually on humans. These tests will determine what side effects there are, and in many cases, there will be side effects. Do the positives outweigh the negatives? If a wonder drug saves the lives of millions, is it worthwhile still releasing it if it kills a few hundred? That is something worth thinking about, but what if this drug instead helped keep an erection, or tucked that tummy, or make you irresistible to people? Honeycomb by S B Caves is a surrealist horror thriller all about a drug that people will kill for.  

A mixture of inexperience and cocaine did for Amanda Pearson’s pop career almost before it started. A couple of number one singles and a bestselling album, then a series of controversies and the dreaded public cancelation. Now Amanda is being given a chance to get back into the limelight via an unusual means. All she needs to do is spend a week in a remote house with five strangers. They will all take a pill each morning, only one is real, the rest are placebos. For £250,000 and a record contract it is worth the risk, that is until the people in the house start to get a little freaky. 

Honeycomb is a bizarro book, it almost feels like a social experiment written down. Caves designs a set of rules and then releases the characters into the wild. The book has structure, but it has a slight anarchic and free flowing feel to the story that feels like the author may have created touchstones they wanted to cover but allowed the character development to dictate the story. 

The experiment is simple enough; one person taking a pill, five others not. Although the shadowy corporation said there were no side effects, it soon becomes clear that this is not true. The book becomes a pressure cooker as the victims start to get more feral, but there is a reason for their madness. It is this reason that gives the book an interesting twist. Amanda becomes the centre of attention she always craved, but the attention becomes too intense. 

There are shocking moments and thrilling chases in the book, the experiment begins to get out of hand. It is outlandish in places, horrifying, but also surreal. I could not get my head around the motives of the drug corporation. What benefit would this drug have? Perhaps in small doses, but the book has them illegally running experiments on people they believe will not be missed by society. The pharmaceutical company in this book is not altruistic and they like money. What benefit could they have by opening a series of lawsuits for their crackers product? 

My conclusion to this conundrum is twofold; it is a mad scientist story and not to take it too seriously. Do not question the motives of the drug company and instead enjoy the ride. The house is full of interesting characters who we learn more about as the story progresses. They have more in common than they know. Amanda is the protagonist, and she makes for an interesting ‘final girl’ her earlier career and downfall could have made the reader unsympathetic, but instead she comes across as someone who deserves a second chance. 

Honeycomb is not your simple thriller novel, although it has the action and tension you expect from the genre. I would class it as also being experimental, speculative, and somewhat gonzo, as if Caves created a series of characters and rules and then lit the touch paper. What unfolds is the book, all broken characters, and jarring twists and turns. At the core there is the void of a meaningful motivation of the shadowy Corp, but the story remains a fun one, if a little bizarre.