Servants of Chaos (Leisure Horror) [Mass Market Paperback]

Don D'Ammassa (Author)

Product Details

• Mass Market Paperback: 338 pages
• Publisher: Leisure Books; First Edition edition (December 2002)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0843950692
• ISBN-13: 978-0843950694
• Product Dimensions: 6.8 x 4.3 x 1 inches
• Shipping Weight: 6.1 ounces
• Average Customer Review: 2.6 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (11 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #4,427,161 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

More About the Author

Don D'Ammassa was born in 1946 and was reading adult fiction by age six. He has been accumulating books ever since and his library is now approaching 60,000 volumes. He began reviewing science fiction and fantasy in the 1960s and sold his first novel, Blood Beast, in 1988. Since then he has sold well over one hundred stories, six more novels, and three reference books. He currrently lives in Rhode Island.

Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

2 of 2 people found the following review helpful:

2.0 out of 5 stars Multi Deus Ex Machinas helps amateur against monsters., September 6, 2005

By 

William A. Henslee "M.A. Literature;M.A. Huma... (Houston, Texas USA) - See all my reviews
(REAL NAME)   

This review is from: Servants of Chaos (Leisure Horror) (Mass Market Paperback)

This appears to be the average 'amateur put in crisis in town full of monsters and changelings' thriller. If it were well-written then it might get a three star rating. If you write a monster horror novel, you have to get control of the reader and his suspension of disbelief.

However, Servants of Chaos has too many examples of Deux Ex Machina assists to the hero to make the story credible. The Greek theatre used a mechanical 'god' (deus Ex Machina) to swoop down from the back of the set to resolve issues and make things right.

In modern literature parlance, the term has come to mean an unlikely event,skill, or intervention that the author uses to move the story along. Imagine the author has led the hero up to a 30' wide chasm with the bad guys close on his heels at the end of a chapter. The next chapter begins, "Having completed a magnificent 31' broadjump, surpassing the Olympic record, he eluded his pursuers." Deus Ex Machina. You get the idea.

Time after time, the author has the hero find a conveniently located hiding place, or gun, or whatever is desperately needed at the moment. The absolute worst example was: "The door was locked, as I had expected, but I was prepared for that. Growing up the son of a locksmith has its advantages. I had my own set of tools and the skills to use them..."

Unfortunately, that was the first time the locksmith tools were mentioned, much less the locksmith heritage.

Once you get past these giggles, the descriptions of the various monsters and their minions border on the comic, a fatal flaw in a monster/horror tale.

Subtlety is not the forte of this author. Read it if you are stranded in a dentist's office, waiting for a root canal.

4 of 5 people found the following review helpful:

1.0 out of 5 stars Buy a Laymon novel instead, December 17, 2003

By A Customer

This review is from: Servants of Chaos (Leisure Horror) (Mass Market Paperback)

150 pages into this I realized I had started skimming and looking at page numbers. Along the way, I snuck a peek at the author's bio on the last page and was surprised to find that this wasn't his first novel. The writing is elementary ("see Jane run"), the plot is one we've seen a million times on cable at 2am, and I knew the editor was asleep at the wheel when I read the word "trifle" three times in three pages. If you're looking for good horror fiction, save yourself the time and money on this one and invest in a Richard Laymon book instead.

4 of 6 people found the following review helpful:

1.0 out of 5 stars Awful, nail through the eye ball bad, May 5, 2003

By 

Nicholas R. Wynn (Wilmington, DE USA) - See all my reviews
(REAL NAME)   

This review is from: Servants of Chaos (Leisure Horror) (Mass Market Paperback)

As a huge fan of lovecraft i figured that no matter how bad this was it would be midly entertaining. i was so horribly wrong. It reminded of a book that should be on Mystery Science Theatre 3000. The plot is obvious, and awkward. The characters are dreadful and under developed, the villians should have had snidley whiplash mustaches. this book was so bad i called my sister and read her lines like "the Lettuce had not aged like fine wine". I can imagine this book being written by a computer, or someone who owed a bookie. however if you want to read a Hilariously bad book this is the closest ive found to recreating the "Plan 9 from Outer Space" effect. i would have stopped reading it but i was 200mi away from another book store and i kept thinking that something this bad couldnt have actually gotten printed. It did. the best way to read this book would be to cut out your eyes and stuff the pages in the gaping wounds. awful