Customer Reviews

The Black Train

5 star:		(10)
4 star:		(4)
3 star:		(3)
2 star:		(5)
1 star:		(3)

 

 

Leisure's latest offering, a reprinted version of "Gast", (Camelot Books), is staple Edward Lee - sexual, disgusting, revolting...and obsessively readable all the same. As he did in "The Golem", Lee crafts sympathetic characters readers connect to, gives them realistic circumstances, then drops them into the middle of hell. This is why his work is so attractive: his characters tug readers into the farthest reaches of "suspension of disbelief", pulling them down his twisted rabbit hole.

When Justin Collier pulls into Gast, Tennessee, he's hoping for a respite from his divorce proceedings and an escape from dreary reality. He's got a book deadline to meet and a canceled Food Network show he'd like to forget. On the hunt for a final entry to round out his book on beer, the Food Network's former "Prince of Beer" is looking for some time alone.

What he finds, however, is a physic hot-spot of lust, nightmares and decades old evil. The Branch Landing Inn is the former home of Harwood Gast: Civil War railway baron, Confederate supporter, and icon of evil. Unspeakable acts helped build his railroad, his fortune bankrolled by darkness. The rusting remains of those tracks still run behind The Branch Landing Inn. Gripped by ghostly desire not entirely his own, at the mercy of demonic residue, Justin is about to take a ride he may not survive.

Perhaps Lee's greatest strength is not the gore and sex, but writing such likable characters. Collier is a confused mini-celebrity ambivalent about what little "fame" he owns, escaping from a dry, loveless marriage, which makes him the perfect target for Branch Landing's haunts. Also, as horrible as Gast is, just as horrible is the resigned malaise the owners of the hotel reside in, forever trapped in the house's cyclical, erotic emanations. Either way, there's enough substance here for everyone...if they've got strong stomachs, that is.

I am a major fan of Edward Lee's work. While I have my favorites and my okey-dokeys--the fact remains--the man always delivers the goods!! And with THE BLACK TRAIN, Lee has done it again. Justin Collier is at the crossroads of his life. He's lost his television show, his marriage has failed, his publisher wants the final draft of his book, like yesterday, so one could say Justin has a wee bit on his plate. Then he arrives in Gast, Tennessee and his life begins to spiral out of control in so many bizarre ways.

Yes, there are the Lee trademarks of sex, violence, oh did I mention the sex and violence? But in THE BLACK TRAIN, I felt like Lee pulled it back just a bit, taunting and teasing us, until we're so overwhelmed by the haunting quality of the story that we simply can't endure another moment of suspense any longer. I loved it. I loved the Southern Gothic heat that fairly seethed throughout each page. The Civil War flashbacks were awesome,captivating and more than a little horrific.

Was THE BLACK TRAIN perfect? No. Of course not. However, when I picked up my copy and read the first few pages, I surrendered. The next 3 hours of my life were lost in Gast, Tennessee and controlled by Edward Lee and the trip was well worth the price.

Snap up your ticket on THE BLACK TRAIN, friends. It's a bloody good ride.

I really enjoy Edward Lee's novels. In all honesty, he is pretty much the only author in horror I read. Although the book was a C+ at best, it was still enjoyable. Most who know of Edward Lee, understand that this was a full length novel originally called the Gast House. Hence, the majority of the good stuff was cut out. However, with that said, maybe i missed the section, but I was quite interested to why the book is called the Black Train?

Anyhow, not one of his best, but not his worst. Anyone who has a few days, or even weeks to spare, pick up the book for a somewhat decent read. Ultimately though, this is not Edward Lee's best work, and please do not judge him solely on this book.

I have now read several of Lee's books, and I have to say that he's not trending in a way that appeals to my taste with his most recent books.

The Black Train commits the greatest sin a horror book can commit - it's boring. Certainly it opened up in an exciting enough way, leading the reader to believe that they are in for an exciting ride on this train... but then the prologue ends the the page flipping, yawning, and paragraph skipping kicks in. The "Modern Day" story is banial and boring... a beer reviewer goes to a small town in Tennessee and spends his days and nights lusting over everything he sees, while the women all but fling themselves at him. Maybe the first bit of this was interesting - but by page 100 when NOTHING had happened yet other than him walking around town with a tent in his pants, my eyes rolled up into my head.

The back story (the one during the civil war where they are building the train) would have been an excellent story on it's own if A - it had been the actual story and B - it had picked and stuck with a central character. As it was I struggled to keep my focus on this book and in the end had put off reading entirely too long trying to force myself through it. With 600+ books in my room waiting to be read this one should have been left on the shelf. If you are only interested in a man walking around fantasizing then this tale should be right up you alley - if you are looking for horror, look somewhere else. I think maybe I'll try some Masterton next.

For years, when people hear that I read Richard Laymon, they tell me that I HAVE to read Edward Lee. Apparently, he's the reigning king of gut-wrenching gore and sexuality. Of that I will not argue. However, based on The Black Train, I'd say that what he has in gore and sex he lacks in storytelling ability.

Please be aware of minor spoilers.

Simply put, there is never really anything at stake for the main character. He's a likable albeit two-dimensional guy, but there's never any sense that he's in danger. He's in town doing research for a book and becomes fascinated with the town's grisly past. He meets a girl. Spooky stuff happens, but it's more weird than dangerous. While he does go through a significant character change, it really has nothing to do with his quest to uncover the story of local bogeyman Harwood Gast.

The story that he does uncover, while gruesome, is fairly predictable and there is no benefit to discovering it. The flashback story itself doesn't even have a main character or any semblance of an arc. It's just a nasty story. As stated before it has no significance to the main story.

Most infuriating is the fact that the epilogue suggests a far more interesting story is about to occur. Had Mr. Lee condensed this novel to about 1/3 of the size and explored Jiff's "sudden inheritance" in the remaining 2/3rds I think the story could have been a real winner.

Overall I cannot recommend this book on the merits of the story. If you're only looking for sex & gore, then this might be up your alley. Otherwise, try some Richard Laymon instead. I'd recommend "The Traveling Vampire Show" or "Darkness, Tell Us" for the uninitiated.

I am normally not a fan of ghost stories, but there has never been a book written by Lee that I have not loved. The story really grabbed my attention from the start and held me throughout the book. Black Train is creepy, gross (which I love) and full of surprises. I highly recommend!

Small-time celebrity, and beer expert, Justin Collier has just had his tv show canceled. To complete his new book on brews he has travelled to the small obscure tourist town of Gast, Tennessee because he has read of a wondrous beer that was written about by local historian J. G. Sute on Sute's blog and Collier is hoping this will be the beer that he can close his book on

To write this chapter he will need a place to stay, and so he checks into the Branch Landing Inn, or, formerly the Gast House. He meets the strange Butler family of Helen and her kids, the silent Lottie, and the beefcake handyman Jiff. It's here that strange things start to happen. Collier starts to hear the voices of children, sees two very odd girls and their dog in the nearby woods, and starts to experience, as everybody that stays in the Inn does, an uncontrollable sense of hypersexuality. He also starts having nightmares, again, something that he will eventually find out everybody in the hotel experiences.

As he investigates the beer that he needs for his book he becomes fascinated by the town's unsavory history, as well as the history of the town's greatest, and most infamously evil citizen, Harwood Gast. Gast pretty much owned the town during the Civil War, and his obsession was to build a railway between Gast (nee Branch Landing) and the Maxon Rifle Works, with supposed hope that this will help win the upcoming war between the states.

Other alternating storylines are Collier meeting and falling in love with local brewer and bar owner Dominique, Jiff's secret life as a homosexual hooker, and the continuing flashbacks to pre-Civil War Gast so that we can observe just how evil Harwood Gast and his minions were, and just what kind of damage that they caused.

You would think that this is going to be another of Lee's prime satirical romps, filled with over-the-top violence and sex. You would think. You would think wrong. The first problem is Collier himself. Collier's constant and continuous whining starts to grate like fingernails on a chalkboard. Then there is his constant hypersexuality, I swear, by the novel's end, if I were to hear ONE MORE TIME about Collier's out of control pecker I was just gonna up and puke.

Then there is the action. There isn't any. Nothing much really happens during the first TWO HUNDRED and TWENTY pages except for some really sleazy heterosexual, homosexual and incestuous sex, with some possible bestiality involving two children. The only consciously interesting parts of the novel either happen through Sute's narration of the town's past, or through flashbacks to the town's past. However, the present day story really doesn't amount to much other than possible sexual possession. The erotic part of this erotic ghost story just isn't very erotic, and the scary parts aren't very scary. That is unless you consider sex to be mind-numbingly horrifying. If so, then this novel will be terrifying, and will work as anti-sex propaganda.

The problem with the past story of Gast, as told through flashbacks and dreams is that in the end nothing but a great deal of carnage is ever really achieved. What DID Gast ACTUALLY get from his deal-with-the-devil? I won't give it away, but if you read this novel you will know exactly what I mean.

I've been a fan of Lee's since I read his novel "The Ghoul" when it was first published; I even have his now rare "Edward Lee's Quest For Sex, Truth, And Beauty" pamphlet. So, this isn't the worst novel by Lee that I've read, that honor goes to "The Backwoods", but this dull, and terribly uneven novel comes in a close second. In the end, I'll have to agree with another reviewer here that this novel might have worked as a hundred page novella, but at three hundred and forty pages it is just way too long. Maybe it's time for Lee to stop writing horror for a while and write something else and recharge his batteries. Based on this, I think that Edward Lee could write a killer western, much like fellow horror writer Tim Curran has.

For this site I have also reviewed:

City Infernal
Infernal Angel
Monster Lake

Have yet to read a Lee novel I haven't loved, and this one might be the best (and definitely the creepiest) yet. Lee dices up horror from the past (the Civil War) and the present, to turn the "house with a bad reputation" novel into something new, shockingly macabre, and thrillingly grotesque. There are images in this book that literally chilled my blood. Needs to be on every horror fan's READ NOW list.

When I opened the HC small press GAST by Edward Lee, I was shocked to see that it was solely edicated to me...I have been a big fan/supporter of Lee's fiction since the early '90's but never thought a book by him would be dedicated to me...that said.

GAST was a great read...gore, pornographic sex on a level no one writes...and a story filled with vibrant characters and twists and turns galore.

Now Lee has dropped most of the absurd-like pornography and written a tighter verison of GAST. A thrillfest frm page one and the flashbacks show a side of Lee's fiction he rarely shows...but slowly that historical side of Lee is coming out in the Small Press.
A great novel from a wonderful writer of the weird. Get on THE BLACK TRAIN for a HELL of a ride!

Although I've enjoyed horror and the concept of horror for a long time, I would have to say that "The Black Train" is neither well written nor is it frightening. The only reason I read the book to the end was because I hated the idea that I spent eight dollars +/- on a book that was horrific. The only interesting portions of the book were those flashbacks of Gast and his desire to create a railroad system that would help the South during the Civil War. These scenes were as close to Southern Gothic as you can get and that is not bad at all. Heck, I would have loved if the book was just about the origins. These characters were intricate and the settings were sinister. The various views (the modern characters having dreams of the past) of what went on throughout Gast's desire to build his railroad of blood were well designed, to an extent of course, the views could have been better written. [...]

Sadly, we keep going back into the modern day and age and the mysteries that are coming forth in the modern time. The modern scenes are drab and I found myself skipping whole paragraphs just because of the utter silliness of the pornographic views (it seems like a good percent of the book is about the main characters lusting for one woman after the next). There is always a right way and a wrong way to approach sensuality and sexuality as a part of a novel. Lee does not wish to present the better way. These sections were childishly goofy. No fear at all. No dread. Oh, and within the portion of that percent...[...]

I've enjoyed several of Lee's earlier works, especially the sinister adventures into Hell's city. But this is bad. Very bad. There is no fear. There is no dread. Lee should have kept it as a short story, though I seriously doubt I'll ever go out and try to find the original version of the Gast story. The reason I give the review two stars is because I liked the southern gothic portion of the book. This southern gothic atmosphere cannot redeem the whole novel, though. The book itself is a doorstop, that's it. Sigh.