Customer Reviews

IN DARKNESS WAITING

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

 

 

A great example of small town horror at its best, In Darkness Waiting tells the story of young Perry Strandman, who accompanies his Aunt June on a trip to the isolated town of Jasper, Oregon. June is traveling to the small hamlet to assist her friend Sandra Cummings in the care and treatment of her daughter Tetty, who has recently begun to display uncharacteristic violent tendencies.

Even as they enter Sandra's home, the pair can sense something's very wrong with Tetty, who must be restrained for fear of her doing damage to herself and others. Perry soon learns that the wrongness he feels permeates the entire town. Eventually, he learns the true cause of that wrongness, a truth so fantastic he can barely comprehend it. Accepting that truth allows him to survive even as the rest of the townsfolk slowly succumb to an internal evil that apparently only requires extreme anger to emerge.

Reminiscent of David Morrell's The Totem, In Darkness Waiting is, as Shirley himself notes in his fascinating introduction, an exploration of man's inhumanity to man, a search for an explanation of people's ability to dehumanize their fellow human beings to the point where their humiliation and torture become acceptable, even the norm. Unfortunately this tendency is not some historical or isolated oddity. Although Shirley cites the Nazi soldiers who killed millions of Jews as a primary example of this sickness, he can also refer to the recent atrocities which occurred at the Abu Gharib prison in Iraq to illustrate his point.

This being a Shirley novel, however, means that his search is approached in fictional terms, through the vehicle of story, rather than through an analysis of dry, clinical data. Taking this tack, Shirley combines elements of both quiet horror and splatterpunk to great effect, slowly creating a palpable sense of menace which culminates in one of the most horrific and surreal set pieces you're ever likely to read. Doing so, Shirley once again proves that his name should be included among the ranks of those considered as the modern masters of horror. If you haven't read this novel in its previous incarnation, then by all means do so now.

Shirley is an exciting horror Sci-Fi writer- his stories fall into the vein of political satirist who uses horror and sci-fi themes to get his point across. Overall he is an exciting and descriptive writer who can fall into the trap of "underwriting"- things happen that he doesn't explain or develop enough. His short stories such as "Black Butterflies" suits him best cause of his short and to the point writing style. Unlike King (who can "over write" in his novels) Shirley throws you in and makes you struggle to keep up with the characters as he introduces many and than kills them off just as quickly. Shirley's themes of corporate greed, media addiction, and apathy gone wild really hits home with me so this may be the reason I give him high marks. It is nice to get some social critique while getting your socks scared off you. This book starts off well and than gets lost in the last 20% with a jumble of plot lines coming together that just seem to wind down rather than wrap up in an exciting manner= more confusion than is needed at the end of this book. With Demons you get two short novels in one book= the 2nd one called "Undercurrent" is better than the first cause Shirley is able to spend more time with the main characters so that you care about them more. "Demons" falls short at times because Shirley introduces Major Plot items (the Golden Urn?) and doesn't really give you any background on the item. Where as in his other novel "Crawlers" has a horrible title but really is one of Shirley's best - -he nails the "teen" speak, makes you feel for most of the characters, and makes you feel like at any minute anyone is going to die= needed for this type of novel. If you like nasty/gross/tense horrors with a nice political/social commentary pick this one up ASAP and than read "Black Butterflies".

Bram Stoker award winner John Shirley never fails to use his fiction to express his socio-political feelings. For me this is enough to assure his novels will end up in my hands. While Shirley takes the time two write two faithful Hellblazer books and a Batman novel he has been taking the time to revise and update his novels from the 80's. First up in the back catalog of his horror novels is In Darkness Waiting.

Originally written in the mid 80's IDW has been updated in minor ways most telling in discussion of events such as the Iraq war. On the surface IDW seems like a 50's bug monster movie with a small town consumed by evil and what may seem like Typical Genre trappings. However the real essence of Shirley's novel is the way the author uses the monster story explore questions he has about the brutal nature of the world we live in.

Discussed in the foreword and in the prose of the novel is how Nazi guards could feel compelled to throw bread crumbs to pigeons with the death camps still behind them. While IDW has giant bugs who attack the scared towns people the monsters are human's themselves whose apathy and lack of empathy are exploited to create the monsters. Central to the theme is what is at the root of dehumization? What is the difference between the people who become monsters and the ones who live compassionate lives?
The book takes off when the town's people's empathy is transformed into living creatures that escape there bodies, and spread a virus of unbridled anger and hatred. There is a feast for hardcore horror fans, few horror novels have infants set on fire or gentals falling out of purses. Shirley uses almost every tool in the horror tool box to in the novel but to this reader the true horror of the story is not found the hardcore events Shirley describes but in the issues that inspire the questions at the heart of the novel.

War, Death camps, Sweatshops, factory farms, Genocide, Police brutality, Gang land killings... It is amazing to read a novel that aspires to examine the issues of our times.

The novel itself. John Shirley is underrated, criminally so. His recent novels (Demons and Crawlers) are political horror masterpieces his recent collections including Black Butterflies contain some of the most extreme and intelligent work you'll find in the market. Where does IDW fit in? Even with the revisions I don't believe the book comes close to the excellence of prose and plot I enjoyed in Shirley's recent work. So what? Every artist grows and without In Darkness Waiting we would not have a foundation for demons.

The weaknesses of the book is found in some of the concepts which times come off as hokey. At the same time it is clear Shirley had tongue in cheek motivations that require black sense of humor in the reader. Did it work for me? Hell yeah.

The book is not a good introduction to John Shirley but for fans of his work it is required reading. After you have read Demons and Crawlers it's time to put it on your list.

I have a voracious appetite for horror novels (as my wall of books will attest to,) and I can honestly say, out of the hundreds that I've read, this is one of the creepiest books ever. Few horror novels really get to me (most of them are just fun thrill rides through the dark,) but this one gave me the honest to God heebie-jeebies. The doctor's "Lord of Dark Corners" in the attic freaked me out. Do yourself a favor and track this book down.

I was one of the few remaining, disintegrating legion who eagerly devoured this horror story shortly after it originally came out in an onyx paperback in '88 -- I probably read In Darkness Waiting about 4 yrs after that seemingly innocuous date. It was as fine and focused a dark gem of terror as one could covet, back in the day. Now through a fortuitous chance, seventeen years later, this somewhat overlooked novel gets the treatment it deserves, with a "Director's Cut" edition finely housed in a sturdy hardbound tome with as slick and glossily evil a cover jacket as could do justice to the dark interiors reflected within. Just as the title itself beckons, no -- dares the reader to lift the cover and embark, I implore any purveyors of the shades of literary darkness to place this tome as high on your priority list as you possibly can.
It is waiting to devour you.