Bethany's Sin (1980) by Robert R. McCammon: Horror vet McCammon's second published novel is a loopy, often purple piece of pulp horror. It's almost endlessly fascinating. I'm also pretty sure it holds the record for most uses of the phrase "female musk" in a non-pornographic novel.
The novel pits a Viet Nam vet with childhood trauma issues (and Viet Nam torture issues... and psychic precognitive ability) against a supernatural cult of killer women who control the small Pennsylvania town of Bethany's Sin he and his wife and daughter have just moved to. The supernatural cult rides around on horses at night killing and dismembering men. And they intend to induct his wife and daughter into their ranks.
There are many flaws in this novel, a fact of which McCammon himself was later much aware -- for awhile, he all but disowned his first four novels. The wife especially is a narrative problem, a plot object rather than a convincingly realized character. The psychic abilities of the protagonist ultimately seem gratuitous -- the plot could unfold without them, and there's more than a hint of the wild talent vs. supernatural menace concept used much more expertly and organically in Stephen King's earlier The Shining.
McCammon also severely undercharacterizes any possible allies the protagonist might find in Bethany's Sin: there are a lot of characters here, but the novel seems severely underpopulated. And the explanation for the name of the town, when it comes, would only really make sense if the town's origin came at least 100 years earlier. As is, the revelation provokes a bemused, "Really?", primarily because the explanation has been pounded into the wrong-shaped hole by a plot decision that isn't necessary or all that convincing.
But there's also a certain amount of fun here, and signs of a writer finding his voice at points. There's a highly unpleasant rape scene, but it non-stereotypically involves the rape of a male character by a trio women. Scenes set at the blighted wasteland of the dump depict a well-conceived Hell-in-miniature. And the protagonist is an almost emblematically tormented McCammon male protagonist.
The climax owes too much to a few too many action movies and certain pulp cliches, especially those in which a character suddenly turns into a cross between Batman and Sgt. Rock after hundreds of pages of more realistic depiction. That could have been solved with a few more allies for our hero (Stephen King understood this in 'Salem's Lot), but McCammon wouldn't figure out how to create a group hero for purposes of verisimilitude for a few more books.
The wife remains an annoying cipher to the very end, trussed up like Penelope Pitstop when she isn't repeatedly denying the town's essential weirdness. There's a certain amount of enjoyment here, clouded somewhat by some luridly purple descriptive passages and a whole lot of female musk. Lightly recommended.
Demon Night by J. Michael Straczynski (1988): Babylon 5 creator and long-time Spider-man writer J. Michael Straczynski has also written three horror novels over the years, with this being the first. It almost seems parodically like a Stephen King novel at points. It's laced with portentous and generally pretentious quotes at the beginning and at each section break, which is very much a King trademark (lest we miss the point, Straczynski quotes King on the novel's main epigraph page). It's set in small-town Maine, it involves a former resident of that town as a child returning as an adult, and it involves an ancient evil awakening and transforming townspeople into monsters. Yes, it bears more than a passing resemblance to King's Salem's Lot, only with possession-crazy demons rather than vampirism as the culprit.
The cast of characters who battle the evil includes a struggling writer, a Roman Catholic priest, and a medical doctor. OK, that's also quite a bit like the good guys in Salem's Lot. But wait, the protagonist has a wide array of psychic and telekinetic powers with which to battle the evil. So it's like Salem's Lot mashed up with Firestarter, The Shining, and The Dead Zone. There's also quite a bit of It. And there are Native American tribes mixed in because you can't have an American horror novel without a mysterious location tied into Native American spirituality.
Basically, if you haven't gotten enough Stephen King, Maine-based horror over the years, this novel may be for you. Straczynski offers generally well-drawn, sympathetic characters. The antagonist leaves a bit to be desired -- its speechifying, when it comes, is something of a disappointment. There's also a description of the Thing in its final form that really, really seems to anticipate South Park's ManBearPig. Snakes, cockroaches, and what appear to be malevolent, wall-crawling lobsters (well, it is Maine) show up in such a cursory fashion as obstacles to our heroes at the end that they seem to have accidentally wandered in from an Indiana Jones movie.
And it's interesting to see a Wild Talent novel collided with a horror novel in this way, at least at the end when a full array of telepathic and telekinetic powers are needed to combat the antagonist. There's maybe a bit too much superhero in the main protagonist, but he's a relatively likable fellow for all that he's a Chosen One in the long tradition of genre Chosen Ones (though the Chosen One tends more to the epic fantasy and science fiction areas of genre).
The gem of characterization is the Roman Catholic priest, however, who takes a beating without ever losing his stubborn dignity. Why do atheists write the best characters of faith? In any case, I enjoyed the novel, though there's nothing that really stands out about it. Lightly recommended.
