The Inspiration for the New Major Motion Picture RINGS
A mysterious videotape warns that the viewer will die in one week unless a certain, unspecified act is performed. Exactly one week after watching the tape, four teenagers die one after another of heart failure.
Asakawa, a hardworking journalist, is intrigued by his niece´s inexplicable death. His investigation leads him from a metropolitan tokyo teeming with modern society´s fears to a rural Japan--a mountain resort, a volcanic island, and a countryside clinic--haunted by the past. His attempt to solve the tape´s mystery before it´s too late--for everyone--assumes an increasingly deadly urgency. Ring is a chillingly told horror story, a masterfully suspenseful mystery, and post-modern trip.
The success of Koji Suzuki´s novel the Ring has lead to manga, television and film adaptations in Japan, Korea, and the U.S.
"Anyone curious in how the Japanese see themselves will find this book a fascinating, and ultimately highly disturbing, experience." - Publishers Weekly
"From its eerie opening to its chilling conclusion, this novel by the "Stephen King of Asia" will keep readers glued to its pages." - Library Journal
"But Suzuki is plowing a path that nobody else has traveled, as his ´Ring´-virus is born into an all-too vulnerable world. There are so many extremely clever riffs that never made it into either movie that readers aren´t likely to notice how wide the road recently traveled is until they catch their breath and manage to look back." - Agony Columns
"Suzuki´s ambitious trilogy does succeed, and it´s hard not to be impressed with his aplomb in turning a straight supernatural horror mystery around into a piece of pure science fiction." - TIMES
"Suzuki is called the Stephen King of his country, but that´s not really accurate; King isn´t nearly as adept at creating complex characters, explaining scientific principles or writing the kind of dialogue that might actually be spoken by humans." - Las Vegas Mercury