Customer Reviews

Nightwing

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

 

 

Smith is a favorite of mine. I must admit I was skeptical with this book. (A horror story about bats.) But it was totally convincing. The hero (as typical in Smith books) is reluctant and flawed, but very interesting. The details of Native American life are great, the landscapes are beautifully evoked, and the bats are very interesting. The scene about midway through when the bad guy is remembering a particularly bad trek he and his father made through a cave is unbelievably creepy. Months later, I still remember it and shudder. YOU MUST READ IT!

I felt compelled to write this review after seeing the negative nature of the other posts. Why are there only four reviews anyway? It is not hard to be critical of "Nightwing" when you consider it next to Smith's other works. It isn't a particurly complex plot and the protagonist (though you get several different first person accounts) is somewhat flawed. And not in the traditional "likable tragic hero" sense, he is more just passive and melancholy. Once into the book, though, you do begin to develop a connection.

In the story vampire bats come across the Mexican border into American Indian country, and various bedlam ensues for our characters. Smith actually presents a supringly plausible plot for a novel involving migratory, ravenous bats.

It should be noted that the novel is not exclusively a bat adventure. The stoic Indian protagonist battle against the bats forces him to make hard choices about his identity and the future of his culture. I really did enjoy reading this book. In the last twenty pages I came to realize I had developed more empathy for the characters than I thought. Might not be Smith's best, but the bredth of what he attempts on the subject of personal identity is commendably ambitious.

Without a doubt, the worst movie I ever had the displeasure of paying to see, Nightwing turns out to be a fine thriller. It's Stephen King by way of Tony Hillerman as plague ridden vampire bats descend on a Hopi reservation.

Replete with a lone hero tribal policeman, corrupt Indian politicians, a mad scientist, bigoted evangelists & a vengeful shaman, this early effort from Martin Cruz Smith does not measure up to the Arkady Renko series, but it's fun.

GRADE: C+

Like another reviewer wrote, I'm compelled to give my two cents worth because of the surprisingly negative reviews of what I consider to be a beautifully crafted novel.

Stephen King was right when he called NIGHTWING one of the best horror novels of the past twenty years. Make that thirty years at the writing of this review. The only negative thing I have to say about NIGHTWING and Martin Cruz Smith is that he has abandoned the horror genre in favor of thrillers such as the Arkady Renko series and DECEMBER 6. Those are fine reads, but a brilliant storyteller like Cruz Smith is sorely needed in horror fiction.

However, I can see why Cruz Smith stays away from horror literature when I see feedback such as "chapters are too long because they're over 20 pages," or the expressed opinion that there's not enough action. In fact, I found the story suspenseful and possessing of a cultural depth and insight that only a brilliant writer in command of his craft could pull off, and that's just what Cruz Smith does. So if you have a chance to read NIGHTWING, I say go for it and you won't be disappointed.

One thing does ring true throughout the other reviews - the movie adaptation was dreadful.

In this book, a plaque of vampire bats rises up out of a cave in the New Mexico desert.
Yeah, that's pretty much the story.
I mean, sure they bite people, and people die, and there are some reasons why the bats are there, and the New Mexico desert and the reservation are used as very spooky settings, but "Nightwing" never really moves above being anything more than a typically page-turning modern pulp.
The ending's a bit disappointing, too, but overall the book was enjoyable, good enough that after I finished it, I decided to hold onto it for a possible rereading some years down the road.
There's also a 1979 movie based on this, filmed on location, and I hear it's fairly all right.

Yet another book giving bats a bad rap. A horror tale in the vein of large numbers of flying things run amok, if not stopped by plucky locals and the odd person with a modicum of knowledge. Think more along the lines of The Birds. Much better than the bad movie, being quite competently handled by Cruz Smith. A sheriff and a woman have to stop some very nasty chiroptera before they cause a lot of problems.

I have actually seen the film of this movie when I was a kid, and I thought it was really scary and interesting. The book is similar tot he movie almost to the letter. The only problem is the book just seemed so hard to get through. For a 218 page book it felt like it dragged, and as I think about it I can't answer why. The book basically details a Witch doctor, who is against the expansion of western Ideals into his reservation. He then, unleashes a curse that deals with plague carried by Vampire Bats. I know the premis sound very good, but execution didn't do it for me.

"Nightwing" didn't particularly spark my interest when I picked it up a few months ago at a book sale. But after reading "Vespers" by Jeff Rovin, I wanted to continue reading anything scary about bats. Finally, I decided to give it a try after seeing Stephen King's review on the front cover: "I consider it to be one of the best horror novels in the last twenty years."

From the beginning, "Nightwing" doesn't appear like a horror book. We meet Youngman Duran, a Tewa Pueblo deputy, conversing with an old Hopi priest, his uncle, who predicts death and a new beginning for the Hopi people. Youngman doesn't pay much attention to the datura-addicted elder; he finds his prophecies almost comical.

Next Youngman is called to a ranch where three horses have been skinned and left to suffer and die. Nobody knows how it happened. Then the same thing later happens to Youngman's Hopi uncle previously mentioned, Abner Tasupi.

While Youngman is preparing the old man's body for burial, a stranger (Hayden Paine) intrudes and attempts to perform an autopsy on Abner. Paine is a bat specialist and has come up from Mexico to conduct a medical survey. Although Paine and Youngman don't get along at first, they later team up with Youngman's lover, Anne Dillon, to destroy the disease-spreading vampire bats.

The bats, however, play a very small part in this book. I wouldn't even consider it a horror book since the rough Southwest Indian lifestyle overshadows the bats. Furthermore, I'm not sure why the synopsis on the back cover focuses on a deadly mass of bloodthirsty bats when they only dominate a few scenes. I suppose it was the only way to lure anyone into reading this book.

There are some gruesome parts in Nightwing, but the worst ones I can remember are done by humans to animals. For example, a dog is suffocated in a bag instead of quarantined for the plague; a rabbit is slowly drained of blood for a sacrifice. The bat attacks didn't bother me (I expected them), but I was disgusted by the gratuitous animal torture.

The only reason why I gave this book three stars instead of two or one (which it deserved) is because it was written pretty well and there were a few times when it got exciting. Still, it was a waste of my time and I wouldn't recommend this book. It seemed pretty long too for a 210-paged book. That was probably because the chapters were on average 20 pages and paragraphs could run up to a page or more in length.

However, someone must have loved "Nightwing" because it was made into a movie in 1979. I never saw it and I doubt I will.

I do regret reading this book for the sake of bat horror. If you're looking for a good scare, read "Vespers" by Jeff Rovin, which is by far a better horror book than "Nightwing".

Written 25 years ago, Nightwing has only one of the talents we have come to admire in Martin Cruz Smith. Great research. Apart from that, the hero is not Renko and the story is basically a big yawn. Unless you 're really into that indian thing, move ahead to Gorky Park.