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Most Helpful Customer Reviews
2 of 2 people found the following review helpful:
3.0 out of 5 stars
Not McNaughton's best work,
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This review is from: Satan's Love Child (Paperback)
Satan's Love Child by Brian McNaughton is a paperback from Carlyle Communications, dating back to 1977 (I saw the 1977 edition, not the 1980 or 1982 printings). Used copies are available for pennies online. The forgettable cover art shows a satanic face overshadowing the nude reclining figure of a woman; the artist is not identified but who cares? The author's name does not appear on the front, giving us some idea of how prestigious this publication was. Apparently the original title was Gemini Rising, and a corrected text with the original title appeared in 2000; I have not seen it. I approached it from the perspective of a fan interested in the Cthulhu Mythos. Brian McNaughton wrote the brilliant collection of ghoulish stories, Throne of Bones, which cannot be recommended highly enough. It is the absolute best among stories about ghouls. He also had a few entertaining stories scattered about in other Lovecraftian collections. Unfortunately Mr. McNaughton died in 2004 so we will never see any more of his grotesque fiction. At any rate, this title appeared on a few lists as being a Cthulhu Mythos book, so because of that and my enjoyment of his other works I ran down a copy.
Marcia Creighton is a beleaguered feature writer for a local newspaper in a New Jersey town called Riveredge. She has a loser abusive architect husband, Ken and 2 young children by him. In the past she lived in a commune and has a 15 yr old daughter from those days, Melody. Melody's father is not known and Marcia's memories of those days are foggy, only gradually recovering. We meet the loser reporter she works with, Ron Green, her editor, Ken's loser mistress, their earthy granola-ish neighbor Nora and a whacked out priest Father Collins. Walpurgis Night is fast approaching and there are some weird doings about town. First of all the place is overrun all of a sudden with hippies or drifters, congregating in town in significant numbers. Also there is some monstrous beast running loose, eating livestock and killing some people. Marcia's memories are slowly coming back and they are rather alarming. Melody is taking nude sleep walks and Ken is losing himself to alcohol. So how is this book of interest to a Lovecraftian? I'd say associations are loose at best. First of all, given the title, you can imagine Melody's parentage is somewhat suspect. She also has a supernatural twin not really of this world (a plot device well known to HPL fans from The Dunwich Horror). The hippies/coven members are heard to chant the name Yog Sothoth once or twice. Rather than Satan, they are trying to make a way for outré entities to impregnate virgins, a common enough Lovecraftian theme. I guess that's about it. Mostly this would have worked as a story about Satanists instead of Yog Sothoth cultists and not lost anything. A silver crucifix talisman had great power over the most unnatural of the twins, not very Lovecraftian. This creature could not manifest but could assume control of other bodies after a fashion, unlike Wilbur Whateley's twin. And how was it? OK enough I suppose. I zipped through it over the Memorial Day afternoon so it is a very quick read. Probably that's a testament to Mr. McNaughton's prose and plotting. The characters had more snap (even though they were all basically just caricatures) and the dialogue more liveliness than the other books I've read recently (Deeper by Moore and House of the Toad by Tierney). Compared to McNaughton's typical work, the gore was rather muted. There were, however, 4 or 5 pornographic sex scenes that each stretched over 4-6 pages, very graphic indeed. Maybe when I was in my early teens I would have found them very titillating and said, "Wow! This is even better than Doc Savage: Fortress of Solitude!" Maybe early teens were the target audience. Now, however, I found them rather exasperating and wondered tediously how long until we get back to the story. There was also a very graphic rape scene that was quite emotionally detached. My favorite part was the ending which left the possibility (indeed, necessity) of a sequel wide open. So what is my bottom line? Not required for a Lovecraftian except those who think mentioning Yog Sothoth and lifting the basic premise of The Dunwich Horror constitutes mythos fiction (if that includes you, may I recommend A Darkness Inbred by Victor Heck.). If you are jazzed by this, get a cheap used copy for the beach. I may look up the sequel but I doubt I'll spend too much effort looking for it. I won't make a dedicated search for the `corrected text' of Gemini Rising. In fact, I find the idea of a corrected text for such a tawdry dog rather amusing. Were the porno parts more unexpurgated? Were different words used to describe various organs? Will it stand with ST Joshi's work with HPL's texts? Someone else will have to figure all that out.
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