2023 Locus Award for Best Horror Novel (nominee)
An American documentarian travels a haunted highway across the frozen tundra of Siberia in New York Times bestselling author Christopher Golden’s Road of Bones, a “tightly wound, atmospheric, and creepy as hell” (Stephen King) supernatural thriller.
Surrounded by barren trees in a snow-covered wilderness with a dim, dusky sky forever overhead, Siberia’s Kolyma Highway is 1200 miles of gravel packed permafrost within driving distance of the Arctic Circle. A narrow path where drivers face such challenging conditions as icy surfaces, limited visibility, and an average temperature of sixty degrees below zero, fatal car accidents are common.
But motorists are not the only victims of the highway. Known as the Road of Bones, it is a massive graveyard for the former Soviet Union’s gulag prisoners. Hundreds of thousands of people worked to death and left where their bodies fell, consumed by the frozen elements and plowed beneath the permafrost road.
Fascinated by the history, documentary producer Felix “Teig” Teigland is in Russia to drive the highway, envisioning a new series capturing Life and Death on the Road of Bones with a ride to the town of Akhust, “the coldest place on Earth”, collecting ghost stories and local legends along the way. Only, when Teig and his team reach their destination, they find an abandoned town, save one catatonic nine-year-old girl���and a pack of predatory wolves, faster and smarter than any wild animals should be.
Pursued by the otherworldly beasts, Teig’s companions confront even more uncanny and inexplicable phenomena along the Road of Bones, as if the ghosts of Stalin��s victims were haunting them. It is a harrowing journey that will push Teig beyond endurance and force him to confront the sins of his past.
Genre: Horror
Surrounded by barren trees in a snow-covered wilderness with a dim, dusky sky forever overhead, Siberia’s Kolyma Highway is 1200 miles of gravel packed permafrost within driving distance of the Arctic Circle. A narrow path where drivers face such challenging conditions as icy surfaces, limited visibility, and an average temperature of sixty degrees below zero, fatal car accidents are common.
But motorists are not the only victims of the highway. Known as the Road of Bones, it is a massive graveyard for the former Soviet Union’s gulag prisoners. Hundreds of thousands of people worked to death and left where their bodies fell, consumed by the frozen elements and plowed beneath the permafrost road.
Fascinated by the history, documentary producer Felix “Teig” Teigland is in Russia to drive the highway, envisioning a new series capturing Life and Death on the Road of Bones with a ride to the town of Akhust, “the coldest place on Earth”, collecting ghost stories and local legends along the way. Only, when Teig and his team reach their destination, they find an abandoned town, save one catatonic nine-year-old girl���and a pack of predatory wolves, faster and smarter than any wild animals should be.
Pursued by the otherworldly beasts, Teig’s companions confront even more uncanny and inexplicable phenomena along the Road of Bones, as if the ghosts of Stalin��s victims were haunting them. It is a harrowing journey that will push Teig beyond endurance and force him to confront the sins of his past.
Genre: Horror
Praise for this book
"Road of Bones is thrilling and relentless, with a wild and unsettling heart. It's a nonstop drive into terror, and you won't want to stop." - Meg Gardiner
"The road is long, the night is cold, and there's terror at every pullout, nothing but dread between. Just try and put this book down, I dare you." - Stephen Graham Jones
"Christopher Golden's Road of Bones is tightly wound, atmospheric, and creepy as hell. It will take you to a place you've never been before, and the trip will scare the hell out of you. I loved it." - Stephen King
"You know you're reading a Christopher Golden horror joint when you signed up for a horror novel, that's why you're here, but when the bad shit starts you're like, 'wait, can I shift genres to something where these guys just get to have a nice road trip and everything's okay?'" - Seanan McGuire
"A slash in reality, or what we mistakenly assume is the real, exposing not only extrinsic horrors but those within, all found in a corner of the globe that has long held our fascination, though most of us don't have the courage to make the trek. Golden has that courage. Road of Bones is a masterclass in mind-set and setting; I've never felt the temperature of a book so firmly. I've also never been so afraid to step outside. In some ways a quick story (the central events span much less than 24 hours), in other ways enormous: the emotional stakes could not be higher. A breathtaking experience, a glacial gust of a book, Christopher Golden's best yet." - Josh Malerman
"Damn. Road of Bones is a relentless nightmare, part terrifying fable, part fever dream, set in the perpetual claustrophobic darkness of a Siberian landscape that's cold enough to crack bones." - Eric Rickstad
"Two men willing to risk their lives for a last-chance reality TV pitch find themselves on a white-knuckle hell ride on Siberia's infamous Kolyma Highway. Road of Bones is unrelenting and will chill you to your core." - Paul Tremblay
"I don't know how else to say it. This book is scary as f***. Do not read alone in the dark." - Catherynne M Valente
"Road of Bones is wonderful! The frozen waste is so vividly rendered, I felt the biting cold in my own bones and drew breath with the characters as they fought for survival against the vastness of nature. Gripping, eerie and ultimately beautiful. It's a breakneck speed adventure, with so much soul at its heart." - Catriona Ward
"This book is legit great. Golden is the master of what I think of as 'adventure horror.' People in strange places and extreme situations meeting terror at the edges of the world. Road of Bones is scary as hell and does not fuck around." - Chuck Wendig
"The road is long, the night is cold, and there's terror at every pullout, nothing but dread between. Just try and put this book down, I dare you." - Stephen Graham Jones
"Christopher Golden's Road of Bones is tightly wound, atmospheric, and creepy as hell. It will take you to a place you've never been before, and the trip will scare the hell out of you. I loved it." - Stephen King
"You know you're reading a Christopher Golden horror joint when you signed up for a horror novel, that's why you're here, but when the bad shit starts you're like, 'wait, can I shift genres to something where these guys just get to have a nice road trip and everything's okay?'" - Seanan McGuire
"A slash in reality, or what we mistakenly assume is the real, exposing not only extrinsic horrors but those within, all found in a corner of the globe that has long held our fascination, though most of us don't have the courage to make the trek. Golden has that courage. Road of Bones is a masterclass in mind-set and setting; I've never felt the temperature of a book so firmly. I've also never been so afraid to step outside. In some ways a quick story (the central events span much less than 24 hours), in other ways enormous: the emotional stakes could not be higher. A breathtaking experience, a glacial gust of a book, Christopher Golden's best yet." - Josh Malerman
"Damn. Road of Bones is a relentless nightmare, part terrifying fable, part fever dream, set in the perpetual claustrophobic darkness of a Siberian landscape that's cold enough to crack bones." - Eric Rickstad
"Two men willing to risk their lives for a last-chance reality TV pitch find themselves on a white-knuckle hell ride on Siberia's infamous Kolyma Highway. Road of Bones is unrelenting and will chill you to your core." - Paul Tremblay
"I don't know how else to say it. This book is scary as f***. Do not read alone in the dark." - Catherynne M Valente
"Road of Bones is wonderful! The frozen waste is so vividly rendered, I felt the biting cold in my own bones and drew breath with the characters as they fought for survival against the vastness of nature. Gripping, eerie and ultimately beautiful. It's a breakneck speed adventure, with so much soul at its heart." - Catriona Ward
"This book is legit great. Golden is the master of what I think of as 'adventure horror.' People in strange places and extreme situations meeting terror at the edges of the world. Road of Bones is scary as hell and does not fuck around." - Chuck Wendig
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