Limbus, Inc.—Book II
Edited by Brett J. Talley
Featuring: Harry Shannon, Joe R. Lansdale, Joe McKinney, Gary A. Braunbeck, Jonathan Maberry
JournalStone
2014
Reviewed by Michael R. Collings
Having read and enjoyed Limbus (2013; for my review see Limbus, Inc.) when it first came out, I looked forward, simply as an interested reader, to the next in the series (and, yes, volume three is in the works). As it turned out I had personal reasons as well for my anticipation. Of the six authors included in the new collection, I have had the pleasure and the honor of editing stories for five of them during my tenure as JournalStone’s Senior Publications Editor, and I have known and followed the career of the sixth for some years. I knew each of them to be skillful, accomplished storytellers and was eager to see how they would handle that mysterious, anomalous, at times bewildering corporation, Limbus, Inc. In one sentence: they lived up to my expectations.
Because of my connections with JournalStone, I do not intend what follows to be a traditional review; I am too close to the publisher and the authors for the objectivity that would require. Instead, this is an unapologetic appreciation for six fascinating stories and the men behind them.
Brett J. Talley provides the framework for the narratives with his prologue, interludes, and epilogue, which bit by bit reveal the story of Conrad McKay and his search for anonymity. Having plumbed the depths of the internet as the notorious hacker “Jack Rabbit”—and in the process made enemies of nations, security organizations, and some less than savory denizens of the deep net, he spends his time quietly in an obscure Czech village, playing chess with the local bartender and checking to make certain that the internet holds no clues as to his whereabouts.
When he finds a thread bearing the message “How Lucky Do You Feel?” he opens it, and in doing so he propels himself into a virtual world of questions, challenges, and puzzles. Each successful answer unlocks a story—five in all—leading him deeper and deeper into the complexities of Limbus, Inc., until finally he achieves what he has been searching for all along.
Talley is best known for his two superb Lovecraftian novels, That Which Should Not Be and He Who Walks in Shadow, the SF/horror novel The Void, and the award-nominated The Reborn. In Limbus II he demonstrates not only his abilities in writing fiction but also in editing and arranging it. His links hold the stories together and create of them a classic framed narrative, one voice tempering the others as the volume progresses.
The first story, Harry Shannon’s “Zero at the Bone” opens by quoting Emily Dickinson’s remarkable condensation and evocation of sudden fear, “A Narrow Fellow in the Grass,” and moves immediately into the story of Mike Dolan—once known as “Snake”—at an AA meeting, stating that he wants nothing more than to forget…most particularly, forget the death of his wife and unborn child. Later, still angry, frustrated, and depressed, he sees an ad for Limbus, Inc. Eventually he contacts Limbus and is offered an unspecified job—“Save the girl”—the reward for which is exactly what he said he wanted, to forget.
Shannon handles Snake’s story deftly. He combines Snake’s necessary revelations of his history and sufferings with tense action and just enough science-fictional detail to satisfy readers of Limbus I. Along the way he treats such contemporary issues as PTSD, dysfunctional families, the toll of alcohol and drugs, and the horrors of loss, without allowing them to overwhelm the primary story. They work, in fact, to deepen Snake’s character and prepare him inwardly for the mission he receives. And, in the end, he is rewarded with precisely what was promised, although it immeasurably exceeds his wildest expectations.
Joe R. Lansdale’s “Fishing for Dinosaurs” is the most outré of the stories, something perhaps to be expected of the author of, for example, the extraordinarily imaginative The Complete Drive-In: Three Novels of Anarchy, Aliens, & the Popcorn King (for my review of that decidedly unconventional classic, click here). As did Shannon, Lansdale incorporates into his narrative a contemporary, and highly contentious, issue: global warming and the concomitant melting of the ice packs. But being Lansdale, he gives it a quirky twist—the melting has exposed a gigantic hole at the pole and things are escaping from the world inside. Ray Slater and a select group are assigned by Limbus to catch the escapees before they spread and devastate the outer world. If the idea of a “world inside” the earth sounds a bit Burroughsian, that is intentional, as is the fact that one of the books Slater sees during his visit to the company is the Necronomicon, or that one of his companions is named Ayesha and another, Alan Quatermain.
Enough said.
All that remains is for readers to settle back and enjoy the enormous fun…and excitement, and tension, and fear, and ultimate loss and restoration of Lansdale’s version of Limbus and its inscrutable way of intruding into a life fraught with pain and from the ruin bringing resolution and—in the deepest and oldest senses of the word—essential comedy.
In “Lost and Found,” Joe McKinney brings to bear his experiences on the San Antonio police force to present Alan Becker, a Homicide detective on the verge of losing what little he has left of his life. Following the deaths of his wife and children a year earlier, Becker has slipped so far along the path of despair, hopelessness, loneliness, and alcoholism that all that remains is the final act of so many burned-out cops: suicide. When he is arrested for drunk driving by a young officer whose actions don’t quite fit Becker’s sense of what is appropriate, he receives the key to changing his life in the form of a business card…from Limbus, Inc. Rather than being arrested, being charged with a DWI, and losing his job, he agrees to do one thing. He must find a man named Gary Harper.
What follows is part police procedural, part detective story, part exploration into horrors internal and external (especially when it comes to the pig-men), part ghost story, and all fascinating examination of men and motivations. Becker becomes intensely human in his gradual renewal as his search leads him into new and entirely unexpected—and increasingly deadly—directions, to culminate as all stories involving Limbus, Inc., must, not only with resolution but ultimately with redemption.
It all works, and there is not a zombie in sight.
Gary A. Braunbeck’s contribution begins perfectly, with the slightly pretentious, overtly academic and stuffy-sounding title, “The Transmigration of Librarian Blain Evans,” followed by an immediate intrusion of explosive action: “…and now there were bodies scattered on the ground in front of him….” With Bond-like efficiency, Evans destroys everyone and everything standing between him and his goal and begins his escape, only to break off the narrative and shift to himself five years earlier—a middle-aged staff librarian on the verge of the collapse of his marriage and of his life. Braunbeck works his tale from a slightly different angle than did the other contributors; in spite of assumptions created by the juxtaposition of the action sequence with the revelation of what Evans had been like, Evans is not contacted by Limbus, Inc.
His wife is.
She accepts an offer that entails more money than either she or Evans could have imagined but that also requires a relocation. Something Evans finds impossible to consider. The next day, she and their children move out. After that, Evans’ life collapses into lethargy, an unwanted and unpaid leave from the library, and increasing drunkenness, until, on his way to an AA meeting, he is kidnapped by two men in a car marked with the Nimbus, Inc., logo. Evans does not volunteer for his mission; he has been volunteered.
The story moves repeatedly from then to now as Evans is transformed from mild-mannered librarian to unstoppable killing machine fully aware of his powers, both physical and psychological. His struggle to save his life in the present parallels his attempts to understand who he is and what he is becoming in the past—and at the perfect moment, the two narratives coalesce and Evans’ transformation is complete.
In the final story, Jonathan Maberry pulls out all of the stops. “Three Guys Walk into a Bar” might well have been titled “Three (or Four) Characters Walk into a Story,” because that is what happens. And it happens brilliantly.
Sam Hunter appeared in Maberry’s “Strip Search” in Limbus I, where readers learn that he is not only a private detective but a werewolf. This story opens with Hunter discovering a card tucked into the upholstery of his car, and no one will be surprised to find that it is a business card advertising Limbus, Inc. The real surprise comes when Hunter speaks to a Limbus representative, who asks him if he is familiar with Pine Deep, Pennsylvania.
And suddenly, we are in the midst of the terrifying world of Ghost Road Blues, Dead Man’s Song, and Bad Moon Rising, where such things as werewolves are old news and where death and horror are everyday commodities. Hunter teams up with Police Chief Malcolm Crow and his deputy Iron Mike Sweeney on the trail of murderers who are, by all evidence, particularly vicious werewolves.
In the midst of their probe, they are joined by a fourth investigator, none other than the intrepid Joe Ledger…and the story shifts from being simply about werewolves (as if that weren’t bad enough) to being an all-or-nothing pursuit of a gang of international terrorists intent upon creating a species of super-soldier werewolves…and they have succeeded.
The worlds of Hunter, Crow (and Sweeney), and Ledger mesh perfectly, each character bringing to the incrementally taut thriller unique perceptions and talents that emerge as the search narrows. As is appropriate for the volume, however, Hunter proves that Limbus was correct in approaching him as he discovers and exploits the secrets of his own heritage.
From beginning to end, Limbus, Inc., Book II provides an array of satisfying tales, combining seemingly impenetrable darkness with an almost inevitable light, horror with restoration, unbearable tension with unexpected but aptly placed comedy. Talley, Shannon, Lansdale, McKinney, Braunbeck, and Maberry are all names that suggest imagination and innovation. In Limbus, II, they live up to their reputations.
Disclaimer: While Limbus II was published by our parent company JournalStone, this is an unbiased review.
