He was also the favourite writer of Charles L Grant, possibly one of the finest purveyors of the quiet atmospheric horror story that the genre has seen. Charlie was a very good anthologist too. When you saw his name on the cover you knew that the stories inside would be excellent, whether he wrote them or not. He had good taste.
So if GNS was his favourite writer, that must tell us something.
On the strength of this one, I'm not entirely sure what.
Basic storyline - Haitian voodoo gods and nuclear missiles and conspiracy theories and attempts to start world war three.
It started off entertaining enough. The style of writing was unremarkable, but the storytelling was fairly crisp and fast moving. There was an uncomfortable tinge of racism - a shreddie we meet in the opening chapter after the prologue is referred to almost exclusively as the Nigger in later chapters
For those who need to know, a shreddie is a character in a horror novel who normally only appears for one chapter whose sole purpose in the book is to be killed horribly. This may be a death that advances the plot, it may not. It might just be so the writer can pad the book out with more gruesome violence. This is not always a bad thing.
There is also a touch of homophobia. This and the racism could just be a symptom of the times they were written. It could be that it's an attempt to portray some of his characters as racists and homophobes - all the examples in the text are as given from individual characters point of view. But with little or nothing to counterbalance the views (and the homophobia coming from one of the less repulsive characters - one of the ostensible good guys) it's difficult to say. I would need to read more by Mr Smith to make that judgement call.
An issue with this book is too many shreddies. Overkill is an extraordinarily appropriate term here. It's not good to introduce brand new characters in your closing two or three chapters, especially s leaders of those chapters. Especially if the dullest of those new characters takes three chap[ters to die.
Another is that the plot makes little to no sense.
Another is the entire lack of a sympathetic character (not a prerequisite of a good book, but a definite advantage if you want us to feel sorry for at least one character in the book)
Another is the piling of coincidence upon coincidence. Some of them can be explained by the influence of the old gods who are supposed to be running procedures, but others are just riduclous, not even tenuously linked to the old gods storyline. The fire bomb chapter in particular seems to be just shoehorning in a particularly silly plot development.
Another is that the timeline appears to be completely off. Days go by for some characters whilst months appear to have gone by for others. How long after the fire bomb chapter does the rest of the story occur. If you decide to read this, pay attention to that detail... you may notice a discrepancy or three or four.
Another is that an apparently impregnable nuclear base has so many vantage points where various people can watch goings on. Apparently there's one in the village playground nearby, however, when a group from the village decide they're going to show those damned Yanks what's what by deliberately throwing themselves against the electric fences, it's descibed as being a real trek to get to. Some judicious copy editing may have been called for.
So - does this book have anything to reccomend it?
It's got that lovely tasteful cover. And I did want to finish it. It wasn't a struggle to read. And...
Erm I think that's it.
I want to be able to say this was a guilty pleasure. But I don't think I can.
Not as poor as Noonspell. That's as high praise as I think I can give it.
Will I try a Crabs novel at some point? Quite possibly. Because I'm stupid like that.
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