Customer Reviews

Balak: A Cthulhu Mythos Tale

5 star:		(5)
4 star:		(1)
3 star:		(1)
2 star:		(0)
1 star:		(0)

 

 

BALAK is a wonderful horror novel. On one level, it's a great police procedural/mystery novel, and on another it makes all of the right moves as a great work of supernatural fiction. One of the best and most satisfying reads you could expect. Rainey plucks more than a few new notes with this novel. Pick it up and add it to your horror library. This one's a keeper!

A wonderful horror novel, filled with suspense and outright terror. Definitely one to haunt one's dreams! I'll be on the look out for more of Rainey's works. Recommended highly.

You want evil? Chills? Supernatural? Then this is the book for you! The well-developed characters and grotesque details bring this story to life....drawing a fine line between imaginary and reality. There's just the right amount of everything in this book, from teasing romance to action to manipulation to abominable behavior. A definite read for those who enjoy horror, fantasy, and/or mystery....and perhaps all the other genres too!

This book goes from a somewhat mysterious plot loaded with atmosphere and slow pacing to a breakneck, full-fledged horror story near the end. The characters are great and believable, and Balak the villain is something to be seen for yourself. Sometimes the imagery was almost too much to take as the protagonist is put through physcal and psychological torture before the mind-blowing climax. This is a book to read late at night but hopefully while not alone, because you'll jump at any sound in the house. I thought it was just a little long-winded sometimes but otherwise effective and entertaining. A very good horror novel!

I am the cover artist for this book. The cover was designed and produced by Alan Rodgers, the book's original editor - it is a Wildside Press title. I was easily inspired by Mark's terrifying story, amazing prose, and the way this story fits into the Cthulhu mythos. I did a number of covers for Alan Rodgers and my name did not get onto very many of them. I have seldom signed my artwork, though I have done commercial artwork since 1982 when I originally produced artwork for the Rose Institute in Claremont and things like President Reagan's presidential campaign (to order . . . as in the "Reagan Country" poster). I showed in Los Angeles-area galleries and basically my expressionistic artwork could be anywhere. See my own titles or other Wildside/Alan Rodgers titles. If it looks weird and painted by a human being, well . . .

Balak is a novel by Stephen Mark Rainey published in 2000 by Wildside Press. I've had my copy sitting around forever; cover price is $16.95 US. The cover painting is a stylized image
vaguely suggestive of a sinister entity, very effective. I couldn't figure out who the artist was, even after looking through the entire book. Production qualities are good. Again, however, my copy is already showing some yellowing from aging. Of course I don't keep my books in plastic wrap, but this still seems a bit early for this effect, although it is not as severe as The Gardens of Lucullus (2001), which is not as bad as Dead But Dreaming (2002). Interestingly, Dagon by Chappell in the LSU Press edition has a little blurb on the title page about the book meeting standards from some sort of book longevity society; more power to 'em. Page count is 236, a nice substantial book.

Briefly, this is an excellent novel and is highly recommeded to all fans of mythos fiction, all the more so because it is a novel in a genre that better lends itself to the format of a short story. This is what all us fans expect of Stephen Mark Rainey, well known for his many stories in various anthologies.

Now spoilers will follow - you have been warned.

First of all, I had picked this novel up a few years ago, and could not get into it. The reason was that the protagonist, Claire Challis, had a 4 yr old son kidnapped. I'm a father of 2 young boys and while I don't find generally horror fiction revolving around children personally offensive or off putting, the description that he was allowed to run away from his mommy, a responsible parent, in a busy grocery store in big city struck
me as absolutely grossly unbelievable (OK, this from a guy who is reading about giant alien entities....). Any parent in this day and age knows you chase them down, give them a stern warning and the second time they either end up in the cart where you ignore their squalling, or else you march them out of the store, abandoning your shopping for the time being....Look, I'm just telling you why I set it aside for a few years.

Well, Balak eventually worked its way back up to the top of my stack. The title relates to Rainey's very clever use of Biblical scripture to create a character, Balak, an ancient priest of a terrible ancient being, Golgolith, who is now represented as one of the Old Ones. Over the years Golgolith has granted power to Balak, who has done the same to his subordinates, through blood sacrifices that often involve
kidnapping of children. Balak is no longer anything resembling human. His main servitors are a human pastor named Lazar and a freaky part human Nyle.

A good prequel to this book would be The Music of Erich Zann. In fact in the author's note in Rainey's collection of stories The Last Trumpet he describes an interest in the ability of music to change spiritual awareness or cause a heightening of perception. This theme is threaded into Balak as well.

A very appealing feature of Rainey's work is the well crafted prose and meticulous plotting. Claire overhears a neighbor's child being kidnapped, it turns out, by Lazar, the pastor of the Church of the Seven Stars, where Balak has the real temple to Golgolith. When she gets involved this sets events in motion that end up swallowing Claire, her boyfriend Mike Selby, his sister Nancy and eventually police detective Trotter. Balak and Lazar set their intent on using Claire as the blood sacrifice who will allow Balak to finally open up a gate for Golgolith to enter our dimension.

One thing about mythos fiction, even though it is horror, after all these years it is well, not very scary. I remember being about 14, up late at night reading Winged Death, when a huge black wasp flew into my bedroom from a window, went straight to the light fixture and disappeared inside it never to be located again. That made me jump!! Rainey had one particular passage where Nancy and Claire are having dinner while examining a figurine of Golgoltih, and while Claire steps out of the room, suddenly Nancy and the figurine vanish, as she is captured by the malevolent forces from the church. This gave me a real
frisson of excitement in a way mythos fiction has not for a long time.

Events move along as first Claire and then Mike fall into the clutches of the Church of the Seven Stars, while Trotter looks for them. The final several chapters are the culmination as Lazar, Nyle and Balak attempt the ritual that will open the gate for Golgolith. The pace picks up as the book races to its exciting conclusion. There are some nicely creepy desciptions of non human entities and torments ednured by the protagonists. Here is where I have a little bit of a bone to pick with the story. I can see where the police start destroying the 7
pointed internally lit up stars around the church, incidentally at first and then more deliberately as they begin to understand their implications. It was totally internally consistent. I can also appreciate the way this works to obviate the ability of Balak to perform his ritual or even to banish the supernatural entities they have on church premises. What I thought was a little too pat was how the principal bad guys fell on one another to destroy themselves so abruptly, clearing the way to the survival of the protagonists. I could easily understand how Lazar was a pawn to be discarded to a terrible fate, but the demise of Nyle and the Sultan Tuskachimaqqua were just a bit too easy, contrived, I dunno. The abandonment of even dedicated human servitors actually is true to mythos form and so I can see how Golgolith is either indifferent to the fate of Balak or was sadistically planning to cast him aside the entire millenia he was Golgoltih's chief minion on earth. I guess it was the timing seeming too much at the service of the story to allow
Mike and Claire to get away that left me ever so slightly disgruntled. A minor issue with a very good novel!

I enjoyed this book so much I zipped right through the narrative in a few too-brief hours. It is highly recommended to all fans of mythos fiction. I will now turn my attention to The Last Trumpet, another book that I never got started on for some reason. Based on this book and my enjoyment of practically everything Rainey has written, I have ordered The Lebo Coven, although I don't hink it is going to be a mythos tale.

a good read. well enoug story. some good details, and some great descriptions. i'm keeping mine. but on the other hand, the story isn't better than that. an evil cult doing evil things. a relationship building (always interesting to read some irrelevant romance in a horror story, right?). all done in a little too naive way. not great (except at times), but good.