The Hunger by Whitley Strieber (1981): Bela Lugosi's Not Dead

Not all that nature wants from its children is innocent.

After the success of his debut horror novel The Wolfen, in which he provided a convincing naturalistic explanation for intelligent werewolf-like predators who've lived side-by-side with humanity throughout the ages, Whitley Strieber reappraised the vampire in the same manner in The Hunger. A mainstream, bestselling thriller with plenty of audience-pleasing sex and violence, The Hunger is also richly veined with concerns about love, relationships, aging and the waning of desire. It follows the arc of history as humanity and its secret vampiric brethren have risen up from the glory of ancient Egypt and the Roman Empire to the mud and muck of the Middle Ages to the brightly-lit but still so dangerous modern era. But for whom is this modern era more dangerous?

 Stepback cover, Pocket Books Jan 1982

For whatever reason this novel was made into a glitzy, Gothy, soft-porn movie in 1983, but there is no glitz or Goth here (soft porn, yes). And, smartly I think, the word vampire is never used. Still: there is copious blood-drinking, blood-sharing, blood-shedding, like any self-respecting horror/vampire novel. Then there were moments I felt like Strieber veered into Michael Crichton territory, with renegade scientists researching at the cutting edge of human physiology, making discoveries that will change the world - making the discovery that will change the world. Since Strieber is a powerful and intelligent writer, this concession to bestseller-dom doesn't irritate, since it's presented with the dispassion of a field observer. I rather like a clinical approach to the this kind of material; it makes for an interesting juxtaposition with the hot, unyielding desire for blood.

Don't let his goofball smile fool you...

Miriam Blaylock is an eons old "vampire," a vivid but contradictory character, bold and fearless but endlessly careful in her choosing of victims, terrified of exposing herself to accident and injury which would make her vulnerable to a fate that is, yes, worse than death. The fires of the villagers hundreds of years ago taught her that her kind is not invincible. Her Manhattan home is a veritable fortress battened down with numerous security devices, albeit one that provides beauty and respite, with its luxurious rose garden and old-world furnishings. But Miriam has no relationship with her kith and kin; for centuries she has "enlisted" various specimens of excellent "human stock" to be her companions. And now, she and her current "partner," John Blaylock - 200 years earlier a young British nobleman whose father procured Miriam's illicit services  - are growing irrevocably apart.

After epigrams from Keats and Tennyson, the novel opens with a dramatic violent sequence and then reveals that John is unable to "Sleep" (the rejuvenating rest which resembles death) and is aging considerably, woefully, his face in the mirror showing the rack and ruin of years and years, which can only mean he is now facing the end of his unnatural life. Gripped with panic and maddening hunger, his feedings grow more and more careless and desperate as they become less and less satisfying. His rage towards Miriam is growing as he learns there is no escape from a nightmare doom... one for which she alone is responsible.

1981 hardcover

Also introduced in early chapters is Sarah Roberts, a doctor studying sleep and aging and who, after a harrowing tragedy involving her rhesus monkey research subject, seems to have found the link between the two. Her controversial book on the topic has greatly interested Miriam Blaylock. Was it possible for humans to stave off aging utilizing Sarah's discoveries? If so, Miriam could use this knowledge for her own selfish ends when "transitioning" humans via blood transfusion to be her immortal consorts. However, for humans this state of actual immortality is unachievable, as John is so bitterly learning. Sarah's research will indeed mean immortality for humankind. Miriam, longing for eternal companionship, will do anything, even give herself up to scientific research and risk exposure, to convince Sarah to share with her what's she's discovered. And perhaps Sarah - brilliant, lusty, ambitious Sarah - will make the greatest companion of all.

Strieber sketches in Miriam's background with terrific historical passages - ancient Rome, the Dark Ages of Middle Europe, 18th century London - which are economically presented for emotional resonance, adding shades to her and not simply ornamenting the story. It is a life that stretches back to before the Roman Empire; her lineage extends all the way to Lamia herself. These are some of the most enjoyable sequences in The Hunger, so well-conceived and presented as they are. As in The Wolfen, he provides a plausible, ingenious source for the vampire legend. We learn of Miriam's past lovers, that one of her most beloved partners was Eumenes, a youth she rescues after torture by the Roman authorities. 

She invented a goddess, Thera, and called herself a priestess. She spun a web of faith and beguiling ritual. They slit the throat of a child and drank the salty wine of sacrifice. She showed him the priceless mosaic of her mother Lamia, and taught him the legends and truths of her people.

Cliched contemporary cover

I've really only touched on what makes The Hunger such a gripping, exciting, illuminating read. Strieber strikes out on a successful path through the psychological intricacies and intimacies that grow between between Miriam and John, between Miriam and Sarah, between Sarah and her fellow scientist and lover Tom Haver, between predator and prey, the seduced and the seducer. There is real darkness here, human darkness and human pain, loss and despair. But also there is the pain of being inhuman, of being, by one's very  nature, condemned to exist with a restless intelligence, an insurmountable will to survive, an utterly endless appetite.

 Avon Books reprint 1988. No Goth chicks inside however.

And I'm happy to say that as the novel concludes, Strieber ratchets up the stakes with a professional's skill and timing, drawing together the threads of all his characters' disparate stories, till they collide in one ferociously fatal sex scene you gotta read to believe. I mean, that's what we're all waiting for anyway, right? And you get that, and you get much more. This Hunger is one that truly satisfies.

He thought of Sarah and cried aloud. She was in the hands of a monster. It was a simple as that. Perhaps science would never explain such things, perhaps it couldn't.

And yet Miriam was real, living in the real world, right now. Her life mocked the laws of nature, at least as Tom understood them. 

Slowly, the first shaft of sunlight spread across the wall. Tom imagined the earth, a little green mote of dust sailing around the sun, lost in the enormous darkness. The universe seemed a cold place indeed, malignant and secret. 

Was that the truth of it?

Gahan Wilson Born Today, 1930

Besides Charles Addams, cartoonist Gahan Wilson is the most well-known illustrator of the macabre and the ghoulish. Wickedly witty, his dry one-liners accompany lumpen monsters and terrified humans at that line where horror and humor blur and overlap. For decades his work has appeared in Playboy, The New Yorker, National Lampoon, Fantasy & Science Fiction magazines, and his cover art for some Arkham House editions of Lovecraft is iconic in the field. His short stories have been published in horror fiction anthologies like Still Dead, Frights, and Dark Forces. In 1990 or so I met him at a comic book convention in NYC; he signed my Miskatonic U. Graduate Kit - which I cannot find anywhere in my possession now - and we chatted about how much Lovecraft would've hated the movie versions of Re-Animator and From Beyond... what Lovecraft would've thought of Wilson's work, though, went unsaid.
 

 

 

Embraceable You

Ah, the days when folks knew the difference between it's and its...

The Paperback Covers of William Schoell

Enjoy these perfectly vintage 1980s horror paperbacks from William Schoell. Meanwhile I'm finishing up a pretty fantastic vampire novel (made into a cult '80s flick that featured a certain classic Goth song), and getting its review ready...

1984

1985

1986

1986

1988

1989

Rick Hautala Born Today, 1949

Stephen King isn't the only Maine horror writer: there is also Rick Hautala, whose novels for Zebra Books were mainstays of bookstore shelves throughout the 1980s. These are some classic '80s covers, replete with holograms, creepy kids, dolls, dark woods, cats, and skulls! For a nice appreciation of Hautala, check out the always great Phantom of Pulp. Hautala's still writing; check him out.

Nov 1982

 Jan 1981

Mar 1987

Mar 1989

Oct 1991

Megalodon by Robin Brown (1981): The Hungry End is Waiting for Your Life

Finally found this glorious cover art for the paperback of Megalodon (authored by someone named Robin Brown, Playboy Press Dec 1982), a book I immediately bought when it first appeared on bookstore shelves. I was 12 and I did a book report on it for 7th grade English; I can still see the moue of distaste my teacher had when I presented the book to her. Lo these many years later and my copy long gone I can still remember thinking it was pretty crappy even then, replete with a tawdry and totally out of place sex scene and ridiculous scenes of the enormous Carcharodon megalodon eating various deep-sea equipment and hapless marine biologists. I recall nothing else, don't even think I liked it at all despite being a Jaws/shark maniac, but you can read a synopsis from Publisher's Weekly. But still, you gotta love that art (you can see the artist's clever signature in the rocks to the left of the monster's jaws, Les Katz)—so much better than the original hardcover!

No Blood Spilled by Les Daniels (1991): Who Dares Love Misery

Don Sebastian de Villanueva is a particularly nasty and old-school vampire who goes by different names in different historical eras, headlining five different novels, all by the sadly late Les Daniels (1943-2011), beginning with The Black Castle in 1978. No Blood Spilled (Tor Books/Feb 1991) is actually the first novel I've read in the series. Daniels was a great chronicler of pop horror culture, having written the ambitiously-titled Living in Fear: A History of Horror in Mass Media way back in 1975. More, he's even considered the first serious historian of comic books, publishing Comix: A History of Comic Books even wayer back in 1971! That is just awesome, I gotta say.

But the only work of Daniels I'd read till now were his ghoulishly witty tales "They're Coming for You" and "The Good Parts," respectively, for two classic '80s anthologies, Cutting Edge and Book of the Dead. Daniels's friends and colleagues remember him fondly as the guy who knew it all but didn't act like a know-it-all and gladly, happily introduced them to the finest and funnest horror entertainment. This pic of him looking jovial pretty much says it all, I think:

For more on Daniels, go here and here.

Set in a finely-detailed Calcutta during the 19th century when India was under British rule, No Blood Spilled is not very long, just over 200 pages, and moves efficiently from one vivid scene to the next in an almost cinematic fashion. Don't take this as a criticism: No Blood Spilled is plenty gory (so yeah, the title is kinda ironic), envisioning a meeting of two masters of macabre mayhem: the dread vampire and the Thuggee cult... and ultimately, the goddess of death and nothingness herself, Kali. As a diehard fan of modern classic horror works set in India like Song of Kali and "Calcutta, Lord of Nerves," can you blame me for reading this last volume first?

You can read the basic setup here on the back cover, but it doesn't capture the deftness with which Daniels paces his story, nor the characters he so easily brings to life (or takes to death). There's Callender, who tricks his way out of a British prison to track the vampire Don Sebastian de Villanueva, centuries before a Spanish nobleman but now known by the English name Sebastian Newcastle. Once in Calcutta Callender meets up with an old school chum, Lieutenant Hawke, now a cruel, ambitious military man intent on wiping out the last remnants of the Thuggee cult. Jamini is the young, wily street urchin who "befriends" Newcastle after rescuing his coffin from the sea. The silk merchant Kalidas Sen is actually a Thug leader addicted to cobra venom, and who sees in Newcastle perhaps an ally in the battle against the British. Or perhaps not. And of course there's the beautiful Sarala Ghosh, who finds herself caught between the living, the undead, and the divine...

Daniels well utilizes the darker aspects of the Hindu mythology that features Kali, contrasting the vast murderous impulses of the Thuggee with those of Newcastle, murderous impulses that must not shed blood (their method of murder is strangulation). Newcastle is somewhat of a cipher, which I suppose is appropriate. I think Newcastle identifies with the bloodthirstiness of the goddess, her eternal power and might, and wishes to get as close to her as he can. A quote engraved on the Kali shrine in which Kalidas and his men bunker down in with firearms and gunpowder to battle the British:

Terror is they name, O Kali

And Death is in thy Hand

Who dares love misery...

And hugs the form of Death

To him the Mother comes!

Man do I love that stuff! The more dramatic and horrific set pieces could be descriptions of early 1970s cover art from Creepy, Eerie or Tomb of Dracula comics; you can tell how much fun Daniels is having with the tale, evoking horror tropes with real respect. Newcastle, clad in black while walking the night, tears off heads and drinks the jetting blood. Callender witnesses one awesome scene as he's stranded in the forest with Sarala, just as his horse has been devoured by a black panther. The animal, bloody-muzzled, nuzzles a familiar dark shape and purrs:

And as the moonlight carved shadows in the figures set before him, the scene began to change. Sarala, her sari still hanging from one hand, began to tear at Newcastle's clothes, while he writhed and twisted like a thing possessed... stripped to the waist, Newcastle dropped to his knees, his white back heaving and darkening as malignant growths sprouted from this shoulder blades and bloomed into gigantic leathery wings. Sarala clutched their clothing to her breast as the vampire embraced her, his great wings rippling like sails in a high wind, and suddenly they were aloft, dwindling in an instant to a black bat against the moon.

Man do I love that stuff! Throughout, Daniels writes in a lively, simple prose with plenty of wit mixed in with the violence and bloodshed. While it touches on some ideas of man's inhumanity to man that make monsters seem obsolescent, No Blood Spilled isn't weighted with moral concerns that may have bogged down The Vampire Chronicles or A Delicate Dependency. This approach results in a lightweight, yet highly enjoyable and unique vampire novel that truly satisfies and which I can recommend as serious horrific fun.

The Signet Paperbacks of Richard Bachman

These four long-out-of-print paperback originals from Signet/New American Library are some of the most highly collectible books in Stephen King's, uh, oeuvre. Written under the now-famous pseudonym of Richard Bachman while his career was beginning to take off at the turn of the 1970s and early '80s, they were King's effort at anonymity, seeing if his work could survive without the name "Stephen King" attached to it. It couldn't, and these books pretty much disappeared into obscurity. I believe the only one to gain a cult following was The Long Walk (July 1979), which I happened to read well before King was exposed as the actual author. Ooh lucky me! It's pretty cool and I recall being shaken by it.

 

His first work as Bachman, Rage (Sept 1977), has become one of King's most notorious, one he actually has refused to allow back in print. The story of a disturbed teenager who brings a gun to his high school, kills his teacher and then holds the classroom hostage... well, I think you can see why King might be squeamish about it today. It's probably impolitic of me to tell you how much a couple friends and I enjoyed Rage when we were about 16, but 'twas so.

Roadwork (March 1981), the third Bachman book, never appealed to me and I think I gave up after a few pages. Rereading its synopsis on the back, though, has got me intrigued enough to try it again. Then there was The Running Man (May 1982), of which I recall nothing save it was quite different from the campy fun of the  Schwarzenegger/Richard Dawson flick.

I think they all have pretty great cover art - well, Running Man's isn't so hot - and if you've got several hundred bucks (or maybe a grand?) lying about you can pick 'em up off eBay. The only one I own is an old library-discarded Long Walk, probably the same one I read as a kid.

 

 

This omnibus entitled The Bachman Books (Nov 1986) was a popular read among my horror-fiction-reading pals and me, but I lost my copy years ago, so I can't recall just what King said in "Why I Was Bachman." You can read a thorough tale of the Bachman years here. Bachman's cover was blown just after Thinner came out in hardcover in 1986. But you probably knew that.

Night Visions: Dead Image, ed. by Charles L. Grant (1985): I Don't Care About These Words

I had some high hopes for Dead Image, the second in the long-running horror anthology series Night Visions, published by the specialty line Dark Harvest. Everyone involved was writing good stuff throughout the 1980s: editor Charles L. Grant, of course, and contributors David Morrell, Joseph Payne Brennan, and Karl Edward Wagner. But those hopes were dashed pretty quickly, even with the very first story; suddenly I wasn't so excited about reading vintage horror fiction. Pick your critique: dull, lifeless, trite, half-hearted, corny, bland, old-fashioned. I haven't read a clunker like this in ages. Don't believe the back-cover copy: this is not a "landmark collection," and for the most part there is nothing original or nightmarish about the works contained herein. These "craftsmen" have done much better work elsewhere.

Berkley Books, September 1987

Recently I've read a handful of Brennan's short stories in various anthologies and enjoyed them a lot ("The Horror at Chilton Castle," "The Willow Platform," "Jendick's Swamp"). But when he's bad, his stuff is run-of-the-mill horror pulp relying on cliche and traditional "scares" and would barely pass muster for "The Twilight Zone" or "Night Gallery." His effective tale "Canavan's Backyard" from 1958 was rightly lauded highly by King in Danse Macabre. The sequel is here - "Canavan Calling" - and actually it contains my fave horrific scene in the whole anthology. "Wanderson's Waste" has its moments, but his others follow a threadbare template.

Ugh - Morrell's contributions are little more than YA fiction. "Black and White and Red All Over," reads like super lightweight King, and "Mumbo Jumbo" - well, the titles alone are coma-inducing. His title story is a riff on James Dean's legend, but it adds little and offers no insight to it, there's just a tasteless bit of gore for the punchline.

"Shrapnel," "Blue Lady, Come Back" and "Old Loves" are Wagner's efforts and if you want to read them, I'd suggest buying Why Not You & I?,  his 1987 collection that they also appear in. Wagner was a grand personality of '80s horror fiction, a giant both figuratively and literally, but I don't think Night Visions is his finest hour. The stories aren't bad, they're just okay. But Wagner's personal interests always come through in his fiction: "Old Loves" is geeky fandom gone awry, while "Blue Lady" - named after a creepy old waltz - involves academic rivalry and plenty of alcohol. "Shrapnel" made no impression whatsoever.

Original hardcover from Dark Harvest, 1985

UK paperback, 1989

These stories are much too earnest and literal in their approach to horror, written in too obvious a manner, lacking either powerful imagery or prose. I really have to wonder what Grant was going for. In his intro he states The sound of horror is not always a scream, which is true, yes, but Night Visions is pretty much a yawn.