Nightworld: A Repairman Jack Novel
F. Paul Wilson
Tor Books
Hardcover, 400 pages, $25.99
Review by Sheila M. Merritt

F. Paul Wilson and his character Repairman Jack have some things in common. They are not, for example, content to be confined to a single series. If Wilson and Jack were bees, it could be said that they enjoy cross pollinating. In this heavily revised edition of Nightworld (which was originally published in 1992), The Adversary Cycle and Repairman Jack saga again converge. Another instance of comparison between author and creation: neither metaphorically cries “uncle.” These are guys whose warped sense of humor laughs in the face of harsh realities – and complicated story lines. It’s hard to imagine Jack’s voice without hearing Wilson’s sardonic whisper in the ear. That makes for quite a hoot, even when the protagonist is faced with dire straits. And in Nightworld, the dilemmas are most dire indeed. In this version of the tale, Jack ain’t just riding shotgun. His role is expanded considerably. The rewritten novel provides him with ample participation opportunities, and melds the two series into a highly entertaining and cohesive whole.

The apocalypse is near. Rasalom, the evil being who first appeared in The Keep, is back with a vengeance. As he decreases the length of daylight hours, he curtails the courage of humankind. Feeding on insecurities and fears, Rasalom becomes stronger and increasingly odious. Unleashing a plethora of horrific insects, the guy revels in their people-feasting: “The jawed things were like airborne piranhas, swooping in, sinking their teeth into an arm, a leg, a neck, an abdomen, ripping a mouthful of flesh free, and then darting away. Blood spurted from a hundred wounds.”

But wait, there’s more. If the deeds of the vile insectoids don’t repulse, consider this depiction of an encounter with their glob-like countenance: “He angled the lamp. Yes, wings – translucent, at least a foot long, fluttering like mad. And eyes. A cluster of four black, multifaceted knobs at the end of a wasplike body the size of a jumbo shrimp, lined with rows of luminescent dots. Eight articulated arms terminating in small pincers stretched across the mucus-filled membrane.”

These horrors ascend from enormous holes on the East Coast, wreaking havoc on New York City while one of the holes absorbs The Pentagon. The narrative, though, isn’t all about beastly bugs and centuries old vendettas. People matter most profoundly in the book. Interpersonal relationships are salient to the storyline. Reactions are based on feelings as well as on intellect. The author beautifully illustrates that strength can be intensified by solidarity of sentiment.

Lingering emotions and former plotlines mingle with facility in the yarn. Scenarios are neatly tied together, and residual hostilities are addressed and heightened for maximum dramatic potential. There is an emphasis on stark horror that makes for compelling reading. In the Author’s Note of this edition, F. Paul Wilson states that he’s “agreed to write three more Repairman Jack novels” set in earlier periods, to fill in historical gaps. Then he concludes: “I need to move on.” That’s all well and good. Who can complain considering how long Jack’s been around? With Nightworld, Jack again figures prominently and, bless him, makes a world of difference to an already fine tale.

Ghostwriting
Eric Brown
Create Space Paperback 11.99
Kindle edition Infinity Plus $ 3.55
March 2012
Review by Mario Guslandi

A renowned SF author, Eric Brown has occasionally tried his hand also at horror and supernatural fiction. His work in that area has been now collected in a single volume, assembling eight short stories.

Irrespective of genre limitations Brown is a terrific storyteller as the present collection effectively proves.

“The Man Who Never Read Novels” is a delightful piece about the peculiar, tragic events occurring every time a certain individual finishes reading a novel, while “Beauregard” is a rather enigmatic tale, hinting at unspeakable secrets which remain partially undisclosed even at the end of the narrative.

“Taipusan” is an enjoyable piece of pulp fiction with a truly exotic taste taking place in a dark Indian setting.

“The Disciples of Apollo” vividly portrays the last days of a man suffering from a mysterious illness while “The House,” an excellent story told in a steady narrative style and featuring great characterization, revolves around the dangers connected to the staging of a haunted play and “Li Ketsuwan” is a splendid, powerful tale of witchcraft and love.

My favorite story is, perhaps, “The Memory of Joy,” a perceptive tale about the blessing and the curse of memory, featuring a couple of parents grieving for the loss of a daughter where the wife jeopardizes the marriage by seeking relief from her pain in a very unusual fashion.

All in all an excellent collection of entertaining and well written dark fiction.

Someone’s in the House
Samuel Bonner
Pen Press
Trade Paper, 330 pages, £7.99
Review by Sheila M. Merritt

Someone’s in the House is described on the book’s back cover as “a visceral, disturbing and genuinely horrific tale of witchcraft in a depraved corner of London.” This is mostly accurate. The novel is indeed profoundly unsettling and horrifying. And the seedy, eerie neighborhood in which much of the action takes place has “depraved” elements. But the witchcraft comment is rather misleading. The black arts play only a peripheral role in the story. It is stark raving madness that provides the horror. Author Samuel Bonner creates a highly memorable loony with a character known as Sonya the witch. She has no malign supernatural powers; but does a world of harm. Her warped psyche is scary as hell, which is fitting since Sonya has embraced the dark side with a demented vengeance. The only demons to be found in the narrative are demons of the mind, and Bonner does an excellent job conveying them.

Sonya’s primary victim is the yarn’s protagonist, Rita. Rita is a single young mother who flees from an abusive relationship with a drug addict. Subjected to assault and psychological debasement, she craves to regain her self-esteem. When she defies her odious partner, it’s a subdued form of fighting back: “She was treading on dangerous ground with heavy feet. She was fully aware that she could’ve ended the whole fiasco by giving him the satisfaction, by simply submitting to his wishes. It was easier to tell him what he wanted to hear, but in not doing so, she may have wounded a part of him, fractured that tiny shade of grey matter in his brain that was still human. After all, she couldn’t match his spite and hatred, so any chance she got to win a battle, she took. She needed to win something.”

A final straw prompts her flight, and Rita and four-year-old son Luke are left to fend for themselves. Reconnecting with a male chum from high school initially seems to be beneficial. He can provide her with lodging at an investment property owned by his parents. The residential area leaves much to be desired, but beggars can’t be choosers. Through Luke she forges a bond with another unwed mom. Both gals had the poor judgment to get impregnated by complete rotters. As mothers, though, the women display a doting, protective wisdom.

Maternal care can only go so far when dealing with a psychotic sadist. Rita and Luke go out of the frying pan and into the fire; escaping from the clutch’s of Luke’s drugs addled dad, then tortured by madwoman Sonya. Taking responsibility for the situation is Rita: “After all, it wasn’t fate that had brought them to Cotton Hill, it was her and her pathetic inability to steer them away from the horrors of life; horrors that she was partly responsible for.”

What happens to Rita is beyond any “horrors of life” she could have imagined before the move to Cotton Hill. The savagely violent sequences in the book are not for the faint of heart. It’s a relief when they end, but the denouement of the yarn could have been stronger. Perhaps after conveying all that terror, the author was a bit winded, himself.

Samuel Bonner is a Brit with grit, taking the reader to places that are sordid yet mesmerizing. Brimming with grim intensity, Someone’s in the House is unnerving entertainment.

The Sinner
K. Trap Jones
Blood Bound Books, February 24, 2012
Paperback, $11.99
Review by Darkeva

The Sinner by K. Trap Jones is a novel broken up into seven parts, each to represent featurettes of the main character’s encounter with the seven deadly sins, an interesting narrative device. Things get off to a start with the preface, which explains “a lone farmer, chosen by God to test the boundaries of sin,” writes of his encounters with the demons who are manifested seven deadly sins. He suffers from visions that he catalogues, and he follows that up with his “translated” entries.

As for the prose, it has poetic qualities, written in verse that doesn’t rhyme, which I found distracting. Nevertheless, the story comes across well. The main character is a farmer who doesn’t know why God chose him, because he’s not religious. Admittedly, this is a nitpick, and fiction has a certain degree of poetic license, but what I questioned was, despite not knowing what era this is set in (it seemed pseudo-medieval), a farmer of the time would be illiterate. As well, the character’s voice sounded more like a philosophical monk than a farmer, but as the novel went on, some of the reasons behind this became more apparent.

Wrath tells of how the farmer’s village came under attack, and how he stood up to his attackers, who were on horses and wore armour. After he’s kicked out of jail to make more room, street life is worse than prison life, and he can’t leave the city because there are guards at the gates. The story chronicles his encounter with a wolf, who saves him from a harsh beating, and she turns out to be a pretty woman, Amon, who teaches him to be angry and kill as many noblemen as he can. His arrogance grows so high that he thinks of himself as a God, until he goes after a particular rich guy only to get a taste of his own medicine. I had a bit of a hard time sympathizing with the main character’s views that his killings were justified, even if his victims did treat him rottenly.

In the next section, Greed, the main character is a carpenter who becomes aware that a Plague is coming into town. He meets a cloaked figure, Mammon, who gives him the Plague and says his task is to spread the Plague. Mammon has the cure, and the main character can choose to dose only himself, allowing the rest of the townfolk to die, or he can give the cure to the town elders to make more cure, but in that scenario, it’s not clear how long he’d last, being infected. Eventually, the protagonist has no choice but to drink the vial to preserve himself, thereby damning others, only for the Plague to break into the town, which the villagers have made into a fortress that nothing can get out of. From there, the main character spirals even further into his descent until Mammon returns to say that had he given the vial to the elders, they would make it long-lasting, whereas the cure he dosed himself with was temporary.

In Sloth, he’s at a farm, closer to his element. He starts out with a great work ethic until an irrigation specialist, Belphegor, stops by and claims to have solutions to the main character’s problems, including more timber that his competitors don’t know about. Belphegor starts to make the farmer’s job much easier, until he takes over pretty much everything, and the farmer has nothing to do. He becomes lazy and doesn’t feel like doing anything, and is content to let Belphegor do all the work. But the farmer gets confrontational when he realizes Belphegor has the reins, they have a fight, Belphegor tells him there’s some cleaning to do in the shed, and a monster attacks the farmer, and he loses a hand.

The farmer has a choice-he can get his hand back along with his original work ethic, but he won’t be able to rest or have free time ever. Or he could keep his injury, and keep his restful, slothful lifestyle and still reap the benefits of the farm without having to work. He picks the latter, selfish option, of course, only to suffer the consequences.

Next, Gluttony showcases a butcher, who teams up with Beelzebub, his next door neighbour and a meat vendor, who convinces him to hoard the food supply he gets for both of them. When the weather gets a lot worse, he denies food to people, who starve while the butcher gains weight, gorging himself. When it comes time for his just desserts, the customers he denied have a particularly inventive punishment.

We then move into Lust, in which the main character is a peasant tailor in love with a princess. An old woman, Asmodeus, comes to him and promises that she can get him into the palace to declare his love, but when he gets in, he finds the princess’s husband, and suffice it to say, things don’t go well after that. He starts to feel betrayed, and takes it out on the girl, only to get screwed over, yet again, this time by Asmodeus.