Number 82- Baal Robert R McCammon

 

I was warned before I started this one that I probably wouldn't like it. It's McCammon's first novel after all and he wasn't up to his later standards.

I'm happy to report that, despite some reservations, I had a good time with this book.  It was definitely a step up from my last book, since I actually finished it.

It's very much a product of its time and some aspects of the book probably wouldn't get through if it was written today.

A woman is assaulted on her way home from work late one night.  he body is covered in strange hand shaped burn marks where her assailant held her down.  The child born from the assault is not fully human and casts a dark shadow over everyone in his life.

When he eventually lands in an orphanage, he orders everyone to call him Baal and leads a revolt, burning it down. As he leaves, he takes a group of devoted followers with him.

It's only in section 3 of the book, nearly 100 pages in when we finally meet a character on the side of humanity who seems destined to live to the end of the book.  Baal himself now takes more of a background role in the story. Our first hero of sorts is a professor who goes looking for a fellow academic who has gone missing in the far east trying to investigate the cult led by our eponymous antichrist type character.

He meets a mysterious stranger named Michael who is also seeking Baal, and together they go on a quest to stop his reign of terror from starting.

It's not as well written as his other books that I've read, but the unusual story structure makes the story slightly less predictable. Some of the attitudes and casual racism on display hit a wrong note that it probably didn't back in the day.  And I'm pretty certain that Inuit is a more appropriate name for the Eskimo people.  

I wonder after reading this if They Thirst and Swan Song are types of sequel to this book, as the ending is vague enough on whether the evil is gone or just transmuted and spread. 

Overall this is no masterpiece, but I never found it less than readable and he did build a good atmosphere in places. His depiction of the shanty towns in the Middle East was grimy enough I almost needed to take a bath after reading it. I found myself wishing that he'd included the cult in California which is referenced at one point (and on the back cover) as another segment of the book.