I read this on the advice of a friend, and having loved the film. Rather than the usual "it's better than the movie," I can honestly say this and the film are both astounding in unique ways, impressive doppelgangers in their achievements surrounding their source concepts. Given the extent of difference, it's impressive what the film's screenwriters created based on this; yet at the same time the book evokes a horror and a sense of era perhaps greater than that in the film, and elicits regret that I had not read it nor anything else by Priest sooner.