Customer Reviews

Dusk

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Ron Dee, Dusk (Abyss, 1991)

Back in the early nineties, Dell's Abyss line of horror got off to possibly every wrong start it could. It debuted about a year after the end of the big eighties horror boom, it didn't get nearly as much publicity as it should, it started out as a paperback-only imprint, and the monolithic Dell was trying to compete with a few smaller, far more agile publishers who'd been doing horror as long as they'd been around (Jove, Pinnacle, and Leisure, among others). But what Dell brought to the Abyss table was quality; whereas other publishers were known either for their cheesy offerings or for setting the bar of what they'd publish relatively low, Abyss set out to look for authors whose work was not only horrific, but good. As a result, they started off by discovering a young new talent named Kathe Koja (who is now a multi-award-winning teen fiction author) and publishing the third book by a then-unknown horror writer named Brian Hodge (now a greatly respected thriller writer). While not all of their publications were as momentous as those first two, the first year of Abyss did provide us with twelve fun, readable novels, of which Dusk was one.

Dee (Brain Fever) takes a look at the vampire genre that's become pretty common these days, but wasn't back then--the western vampire (popularized recently by both Douglass Clegg and Justin Gustainis). This one focuses on Samantha Borden, an immigration agent sent to a ghost town in the Arizona desert to try and track down her missing partner (and ex-lover), Walt. Walt went missing in that town a while previous, and with the help of Sheriff Bill, the laconic lawman from the nearest inhabited spot, she aims to find out what happened to him. Sheriff Bill has a strong warning for her, however: they can only visit the ghost town, Las Bocas, during the daytime. When Sam gets to the town, she finds out why: someone has crossed out the Las Bocas on the Hotel Las Bocas sign and written in Los Vampiros instead. Sam doesn't believe the town is inhabited by vampires, of course, and in a fit of pique tells Sheriff Bill she'll spend the night there to try and find out what happened to her partner. She's soon joined by a troupe of college students whose van broke down, and they all find out that vampires are all too real. When Bill returns to the town the next day, he finds Samantha, the only survivor, deeply dehydrated and at death's door. All the college students are dead... or are they?

Dee's flashed it up with some elements that have obviously been influential in the intervening years, but when it comes right down to it, this is your basic vampire novel, borrowing a bit from here and a bit from there, and coming up with a predictable plot whose every twist you can see coming a mile off. It's not badly-written, though, and you'll keep turning the pages to see what happens next even if you know what it is. Not the best of the first twelve Abyss novels by any means, but not that bad, either. ** ½

I won't go that far, because it takes a lot to be able to write a good story; one that is believeable and engaging. However, since we are talking about horror, toss out the believeability factor. This story wasn't even engaging enough to keep my attention for long, although I did finish it. Any time you spend money on a book, you have a duty to finish it.

This was like going to the dentist, though. It was literally like pulling teeth to finish this zombie tale about the living dead in downtown Dallas.

Even more surprising was that the folks at Dell Abyss would publish this. The Abyss line put out some good little horror novels, like the Stephen King blurb said. However, this wasn't one of them.

If you want to read a DECENT novel from Dee, try SUCCUMB. It's not Shakespeare and the premise is not new, but Dee writes a good little yarn about being careful for what you wish for. It's light year's better than this novel.

A shallow, virtually storyless novel about vampires ravaging Dallas. The book pads out to 369 tortuous pages with what could have just about made a short story. I confess to having skimmed the last 50 or so because I just couldn't take it anymore. Not only was the lethargic pace a killer, but Dee's writing is plain lousy. I found the prose insulting to my intelligence, to say the least, and he loads it with profanity like a teenager saying "look what I can write!" I find it amazing that this title ever got published, let alone by Dell Abyss. It doesn't even rate as beach reading.