This Story Hits Hard: A Review of F. Paul Wilson's Mini Masterpiece, "Soft" (a tale about a virus that's the end of everything)

Soft by F. Paul Wilson is a short story that deals in some of the most INTENSE of dread--a person's body collapsing in on itself, bones disintegrating into nothingness. What causes it? A VIRUS that has mutated into the collective nightmare of humanity. I don't know when it was the last time I read a story that smacks the viewer in the face with something so grisly and morbid yet does it so hauntingly, not exploitatively. No line of the dialogue and inner monologue of the protagonist, a virus-stricken single father rendered vulnerable but not yet helpless in a desolate Manhattan, is wasted. Each moment of the story pushes the action forward into new spaces of fear and terrible loss. The indescribable pain that a character must feel in this world where a virus turns the bones into powder, leaving a blob of skin and hair on the ground....wow! It is a story that really crawls under your flesh and lingers there. 

The story centers around a man and his teenage daughter Judy, a former dancer whose whole lower half of her body has been rendered useless and flopping flesh by the ravages of this bone-dissolving virus. He has lost the use of his legs himself and scoots around on cloth-wrapped knees, the pitiful image of that immediately burned into the reader's mind. Manhattan is a ghost town, its residents having crumbled in on themselves a long time ago, isolation being something the father-daughter pair have gotten used to, with their only friend (and helper) being a curiously unaffected man called George. The virus has burned a path throughout the world, the story beginning with a super grisly bit of a newscaster's jaw actually breaking apart live on-air. For most, some of their limbs go first, then the other bones in their body, then it's total deterioration. It doesn't matter that the virus doesn't strike a person dead right then and there. It rapidly whittles down a life, causing multiple breaks, the body literally going "soft" until there's nothing left except loose flesh on the floor. it's the worst kind of hell a person can imagine and there's absolutely no cure for it.

Right away, reading a story about something so horrific during these very hard times of of course, an altogether different, but for numerous people, painful, dangerous and even fatal virus, caused me to look at this story with a fresh perspective. Of course the author of this magnificently creepy and disturbing tale wouldn't have been able to predict that nearly forty years later, the world would be battling a virus that is *for many* debilitating and frightening, striking them randomly, causing varying levels of suffering, but the story hits on a different, visceral level now. Soft is a look at what happens when hope is sucked out of the world, like a vacuum, and all that's left is ongoing, endless anxiety for what awaits.  The future in this is not anything to look forward to but dreaded and mourned. The sounds the bones make in this tale when they're on the verge of breaking are described by the narrator as the sickening sound of rustling cellophane, all these little fragmentations that a victim of the softness can hear before their own collapse. It's one more graphic but oh so powerful detail that drives home the message of how completely doomed everybody is. 

What does "doom" mean though when there's still love, devotion and the family? This is a good question I feel Soft asks with this father who is so dedicated to shielding his daughter from the pain and at the end of this story, inevitable loss, they'll likely both suffer. The virus has taken their legs, most of their mobility and independence away, but not their determination to keep living. A fragment of promise for them that's been preserved because the bone-dissolving virus has so far only struck their lower parts of their bodies and not the rest of their bone structure, like pretty nearly everyone else who he refers to as "jello". The father feels they can continue on a life of some worth, eventually looking to find other survivors of this plague and linking up with them. At the same time however, a new problem arises where the one untouched human being they know, George, has gone missing. Without him, their lives have gotten that much harder and painful to bear. The twist to this story is a gut-punch and makes you feel that there just may be no real escape for this father and daughter after all...

The desolation of this virus is also like nothing I've ever read before in an apocalyptic tale. We often take our bodies and their functions for granted. We get up in the morning, go about our day, tend to our families and occupations but we rarely ever think about what it means to have this intricately constructed system that is US. It serves our needs so perfectly, propels forward our society in a million different ways--creates offspring, constructs buildings, creates art, writes beautiful music, and so many more aspects of civilization. Where would not only the individual but society itself be if it all that was and ever will be was melted into a pile on the floor, as insignificant as a heap of moldy, leftover food? This story brings forward something deeply chilling because us as humanity, with all of our pride, hubris, accomplishments, intelligence and heart, is shown as being easily dissolved into the depths of nothing. It stays with you. It kind of haunts you and knocks around in your brain for a little bit--the mark of a brilliant writer!

I think what I liked most about Soft is how straight-forward and intensely and tightly written it was. The end of the world is so insidious here. It's not waiting on the bombs to drop, or an asteroid to smash into the earth, just a series of moments of quiet desperation.  The thing about this story is it doesn't neatly wrap up anything, it doesn't offer any elaborate explanation. It doesn't necessarily preach a moral, it doesn't sermonize. There's no neat resolution either, the conclusion being this father and daughter waiting for their relative good luck to run out. It's as I mentioned, a wellspring of DREAD. Some stories are a snapshot of darkness, a peek into a nightmare. But the best of them stay with you, causing you to think about what you would do in that kind of situation. What could any person possibly do in the middle of the end of the world? 

If you want a short, phenomenal apocalyptic read, definitely check out Soft by F. Paul Wilson. You might find yourself a new appreciation for the biological art that is the skeletal structure! You damn sure will be grateful.

You can read the entire story for FREE right here.

Book Review: "Syndrome E" By Franck Thilliez

There's a lot I can say about Franck Thilliez's epically twisted thriller Syndrome E. Was it one of the best contemporary suspense novels I've read in the past five years? Oh yes! Was it wickedly original, the plot masterfully crafted down to the last stunning little detail? You bet. But there's one very important thing I can and must say about this novel. It is not an easy read. It plumbs the depths of humankind's cruelty to one another, and baby, them depths are pitch black.

This is what unfolds in Syndrome E. It's a mind-bending tale of brainwashing, mutilation, globe-trotting insanity, all linking back to a frightening little film from the 1950's showing odd and nauseating symbolism. It's a novel first and foremost about the power authority figures have over the most vulnerable members of society...and with that, come heinous abuses of that power, the wreckage of human minds and maybe even spirits. 

It starts with a middle-aged Belgian film buff called Ludovic Senechal who, after the purchase of a mysterious old film reel from the son of a deceased collector, unexpectedly goes blind only moments after watching part of the footage.

At first, this is something that may seem to the reader a tragedy extending from the most surreal corner of the supernatural realm, but hold on! Everything in this book is rooted in the most cold-hearted and devious of human actions. 


The film is basically handed from one person to another and the main people surrounding this piece of footage, like poor Ludovic's ex-girlfriend, Lucie, a police detective, and Inspector Franck Sharko, who's got one hell of a mental battle he's facing already, run head-first into this hidden monster of a crime within the movie. The film plays around these bizarre layers of imagery, the surface being a woman who gets her eye slashed open and a little girl acting like she's in a drug-induced haze, squaring off against a bull who stops in mid-attack. This is all, like I mentioned, on this surface layer of film that the director carefully constructed to hide a much deeper and freaking terrifying meaning. What can be even scarier than what I just mentioned? Yeah...you'll find out soon enough. And the backdrop to this fifty+ year conspiracy is in the current day, being violently protected by barbaric murderers who at some point, literally rip the guts out of a person close to discovery of their sickening secrets.

There's a parallel investigation going on with the enigmatic character of Inspector Franck Sharko, a diagnosed schizophrenic grieving intensely over the death of his wife and daughter. He is enmired in a hellish world of unearthed corpses, their skulls sawed off, the mutilated state of their bodies surely pointing to the calculating methods of a serial killer. How this links up to the case Detective Lucie Henebelle is involved in is ingenious, as moment by moment, the clues connecting two seemingly incongruous situations loop together in a series of events that point to a mind-blowing (literally!) scientific explanation.

The killer/s are and have been engineering BOTH sets of crimes, all to cover up a massive atrocity which took place with orphans in the 1950's, which goes back to the dazed and glassy eyed little girl and the bull in the creepy footage, causing the poor Belgian's blindness. And the thing about the blindness is that...strangely enough, you think it's going to be the prominent storyline, the big mystery that is the focal point of the entire plot, but what it amounts to is a clever entry into a wider, darker, and infinitely frightening universe where one horror leads to a bigger horror, culminating in the ultimate horror.

What I liked about this thriller is the supreme attention to detail. This is one of the best reads in the genre that never doubts the readers' intelligence, but also doesn't sink into overly-plotted, convoluted writing.

You keep hurtling down the tracks at a near-frenetic pace but it never becomes overwhelming. Whether Sharko is fighting off a paid agent in the Egyptian desert who has dragged him there to torture information out of him or whether Lucie is ducking an orchestrated attempted murder of herself and an informant in hiding in the Canadian woods--every moment of action feels real, totally authentic. The relationship between the characters of Lucie and Sharko is also beautifully written. I really liked how there was a gradual build-up to this burgeoning romance between them, but one that didn't feel like it was awkwardly, randomly inserted. We see these two working together as friends and allies on this bewildering and disgusting case, both put in horrible danger and both dealing with emotional baggage, one much greater than the other, but both trying their hardest to move forward into a somewhat uncertain future.

Lucie is a vibrantly written female character. Props to Franck Thilliez for writing a woman who is third-dimensional and confident in her abilities! She is a mother who can go from tenderly caring for her sick child to shooting her way out of a burning house (a GREAT scene). She's extremely perceptive and dedicated to her work, seeking love, but not making it the center of her existence. She leapt off the page, I could pretty much see the film rolling in my head as I read her dialogue and actions. The same with Sharko who is such a miserably haunted man, in contrast to Lucie's relative normalcy. He battles with visions of a little girl called Eugenie, who is a mental amalgamation of his worst shame and regret. Eugenie pops up during his most stressed-out moments and is actually a crucial little character in the book, often playing out as a voice of warning. It was fascinating! Never dipped into the ridiculous or satire, which could've been the case in the hands of lesser authors. Both Lucie and Sharko are fully-realized characters who are struggling to understand a widespread, organized criminal act that cannot be quickly resolved. The layers to this are peeled away, one by one, to reveal an infected center.

During their investigation, and the murders which occur--one man is disemboweled, another man and his girlfriend are stabbed by what looks like a maniacal butcher--the film footage from the 1950's links up to a mysterious hospital in Canada and an old yet official plan to render the existences of orphaned children as nothing more than slaves and captives. How this intersects with the blank-eyed child star of the old footage, whose name is later uncovered to be Alice Tonquin, is the key that unlocks everything.

And Christ, does it. The levels that human beings will sink over money and control never ceases to amaze me. The book takes it to the heights and in the process, very few people were able to walk away from what happened in 1950's Montreal, with their hearts, minds and souls clean. In fact, certain individuals would go on to further filthy themselves by perpetrating generational monstrosities.

This book was an excellent example of top-level thriller/suspense writing. I am dying to read the sequel, Bred To Kill, and continue following the kick-ass crime solving skills of Lucie Henebelle and Franck Sharko. 

A big thumbs up to Thilliez for creating a work of crime fiction that was never boring, not even for a minute, and never cliche. A strong 5 stars.

You can also read this review and connect with me over at Goodreads!

Book Review: "Psycho" by Robert Bloch

This was a fantastic work of horror fiction. It was interesting to see the differences in the book version vs. the film version--ultimately, both are masterpieces. But where I believe the novel has the edge is with character development!

Psycho was a crazy piece of horror blazing, screeching, like the high-pitched shrieks of Bernard Hermann's infamous score, into our national consciousness. Psycho invaded our dreams, sent us peeking behind that shower curtain, white-knuckling our loofas, at the slightest thump in the corner. But what it also did was something I find quite interesting...it flipped what we considered "normalcy" upside-down. The lonely man with the big nervous eyes, twitch in his jaw, and secret in his fruit cellar represented a new kind of horror. Reinventing the genre so that the story of a paranoid mama's boy with much drama called Norman Bates, became MORE than a movie and MORE than a book--it became a symbol of everything dark and twisted that could lie beyond a cheap motel door. But what the 1959 novel by Robert Bloch pulls off compared to the Alfred Hitchcock film, is layers of additional (and shocking) character development!

What makes the book different is CONTEXT. In the movie, Norman is an angsty, gangly, sad-eyed protagonist, who we all consider to be one of the victims of Mother's murderous games. Book Norman is a fat, insecure, woman-hating loser who constantly calls women "bitches" including Mother's latest victim Mary Crane (renamed "Marion" in the Hitchcock film.) Norman is not the shy twenty-four year old with the shock of dark hair flopping on his Hollywood-attractive face, presented in the film. He is an unappealing forty plus year old whose never had a job or a girlfriend and tends to whine at his mother like a teenage brat. The mood is established immediately, with the clear, forceful writing by Robert Bloch. Norman has failed in nearly every important area of life. He's an outlier, he knows it, and it feeds and fuels his ugly mentality towards women and his child-like dependence on the vicious old shrew who emasculates him on a daily...weekly...yearly basis.

What the book also does differently from the film is give additional depth to the character and motivation of Mary Crane and her desperation to make a life with her lover, Sam Loomis. Within the pages, Mary is clearly a more tragic figure than Janet Leigh's portrayal--principally because of everything she's given up for the benefit and comfort of others, along with the happiness she will never experience. That's the saddest! Mary gave up college and went to work at seventeen to provide for her deathly ill mother after her stroke, and is now sacrificing a normal, happy relationship with the man she's fallen in love with, because of a load of financial troubles which include his late father's large debt and alimony he has to kick in for his ex-wife. Like the film, Mary/Marion makes the decision of financial theft to achieve the joy she's been dreaming of, despite the insane, outright ludicrous risks. Sam is a man juggling so many burdens that he's not even aware of his girlfriend's sudden disappearance. So enmired is he in his own miseries, it doesn't set off alarms in his head when Mary doesn't respond to his letters. When her baby sister, Lila, reaches out to him, a sharp detective named Arbogast trails her, setting off a series of events that hurtle at the reader like an out-of-control train. Sam Loomis is of course, of a decidedly secondary nature compared to the psychological horrors of Norman, or the tragic journey of Mary. But what is so phenomenal about Bloch's writing is that each line of dialogue, action, and aspect of personality become jigsaw pieces of a larger puzzle. Sam Loomis and the romance Mary has with him, is at once far from being the focal point of this story while at the same time, deciding the destinies for every single one of these characters. Mary, a humble secretary, has stolen a great deal of money, forty thousand dollars, which in today's society would be worth over a quarter of a million. Whew! The stakes are high and everyone is convinced that the crime begins and ends with the cash. Of course, who wouldn't think that? But what's so ironic about this story, is that other than being the initial cause of Mary, Sam, and Detective Arbogast's troubles, the forty grand is one of the least important details of the plot and is something Norman doesn't even know exists. However, without the romance and the desperation of Mary which fuels this shocking criminal act, the tightly-knit plot would fall apart at the seams. It is Mary and could only BE Mary who discovers and with her death, ultimately unveils the grotesque mask of Mother Bates.

Arbogast ends up following Mary's tracks back to the lonely motel and frightens Norman with his questioning, unwittingly sealing his own fate. There is a little more development of Norman's personality and fear, which is much more immediate, and Arbogast being at the business end of Mother dear's razor. In the film, Norman is laid-back and munching a bag of candy corn, easily putting on his own mask of normal young manhood, complete with a charming grin. His alarm bells are not set off until later in the dialogue with the detective. Book Norman is MUCH more on edge. He is in essence, a total basket case, struggling not to dissolve into screams of panic, unable to carry on a conversation with another adult that does not segue into childish bursts of impatience, frustration, and anxiety. The pleading, whining tendency that tends to run throughout Norman's dialogues with the other characters, really pushes through in his encounter with this "threat" to his and his mother's insulated, deranged little life. And as a big fan of Anthony Perkins' cooler interpretation as well as a reader who can appreciate the difference in how he's written, I can honestly say I have a hard time choosing which characterization I like best! I'd say both are perfectly suited for the medium they were presented in. The thing about book Norman that's so apparent is how UNLIKEABLE he is. Within ten minutes into the movie, 1960 audiences would've been snickering at pathetic Norman, the middle-aged child, rather than emotionally connecting, sympathizing, with the poor burdened kid who just wants to protect his insane mother. Hitchcock and Bloch were both brilliant in how they brought this man to life, expertly framing and pacing Norman's reactions to the random dangers suddenly popping up all around him. Because he's never really mentally grown up, that overgrown childishness being lost in translation to the silver screen in favor of a more youthful angst, Norman does not know how to handle things. He falls apart at the seams, burying his terror in the bottom of a bottle. And that is when "Mother" takes over!

What is interesting about Psycho the novel is that Norman Bates, if you can believe it, is presented as even more of a freakish character than the film version. What was probably not even going to be touched upon with 1960 audiences was illustrated in the book such as Norman's weird obsession with the occult and that his dark delusions are instrumental in his views towards Mother Bates' existence. 

Altogether, this is a book where you can easily see how it became a classic. The characters vividly come to life, the violence that takes place in that dark little motel punch you in the gut with the disgustingness of it all but never teeters over the line into gory exploitation. Bloch was a captivating writer and "Norman Bates" was his chilling masterpiece.

 I give it a solid five stars. Mother would want me to!

(You can also read this review and connect with me over at Goodreads.)

My Thoughts as a Writer

I often feel that my mind overflows with ideas. There are always new worlds to explore in the literary field. Unique perspectives. Fantastic themes. Exciting opportunities to share pieces of your mind, heart...and soul.

I've read a lot of novels of a mix of genres; science fiction, thriller and suspense, mystery, historical fiction, etc. All of these works have made an impression on me, inspired me, and some have even gone far in changing my outlook on life itself.A few of the books that have moved me as both a reader AND a writer are "I Am Legend" by Richard Matheson, "Toyer" by Gardner McKay, and the cornerstone of my reading experience and my own personal awakening as a writer who wants to make a difference in my work..."The Handmaid's Tale" by Margaret Atwood.

                                                       

                                                      

                                                       

Books that take my mind and heart to places I was not expecting, have been a special part of my existence since I was seven years old. Studying the worlds crafted, the protagonists, their hearts, minds, and motivations, was a constant passion and joy as I went from one book to the other.

What makes a story good? What makes a story gripping? What makes a character a person that you identify with and genuinely care about? What moves the plot further, taking it from one gradual step to another, building it into something powerful, grand and...unforgettable?



This is what I try to explore and analyze in my reading and my writing. Two of the biggest inspirations in the literary world who have helped to shape my perception of the construct of 'fiction' itself are Rod Serling, creator of the Twilight Zone, and Stephen King, who of course is a juggernaut amongst not only writers, but creators as a whole.


Writing for me, is a personal journey...it takes you out of the often dull realities of life, the mundane every-day details, and is something that gives you unlimited power.

Why do I use the word 'power'? Because ever since I started writing seriously, and realized this was a path I wanted to follow, I've felt more personally empowered than ever before. There is something inherently freeing about creating landscapes, new realities, and characters, (in a way, entirely new human beings--those who may not exist in real life, but are very much alive in your and the reader's imaginations).



The power and the freedom to create exciting and intricate new realities is particularly true for two of my favorite genres: science fiction and horror.

As Stephen King once said, "Monsters are real, and ghosts are real too. They live inside us, and sometimes, they win."

The light and the shadows that are within us all, the writer has this magnificent opportunity to throw into a jumble of words that are somehow gonna come together at some point, and fit into this one 'whole same'. Thoughts stewing in your head are gradually pieced together letter by letter, in a way that actually can affect other human beings.

To scare them, to thrill them, to excite them, maybe even to move them.

That is ENORMOUS to me!


With horror and science fiction, what I especially love about these genres, is that in the realm of fantasy, honest aspects of who we are, what make us human, with all of its messiness and complications, can be sharpened and enhanced into something, with the right writer, that worms its way into the recesses of your brain and stays there for some time.

Look at the characters in the film, "The Shining", based on King's seminal novel. It featured a struggling former alcoholic father, a strained but cautiously hopeful mother, and a confused, frightened little boy.

And just before I go on, I'm a fan of the 1997 Stephen Weber adaptation. I personally think it's the best version.

What made us give a damn about the Torrance family? What made them into three-dimensional, flesh and blood characters who we invested our time and emotional energy into watching? They weren't just a random family plunked down into the middle of a haunted house. They weren't 'stock characters' who could be interchanged with any number of middle-America stock characters to be used as the hapless victims of creepy ghouls.


You could just watch "13 Ghosts" if you wanted that.


The demons and haunts of "The Shining" didn't come from a shallow place of scare tactics. they weren't evil ghosties for the sake of shock and gore.

What made "The Shining" into the lasting horror masterpiece it was, was because it took from the classics of horror (the haunted house, the beleagured family, the creepy isolation) then proceeded to go past these tropes and shape them into something new. Every time I watch the film, either version actually (although this seems a LOT more readily apparent in the '97 remake), it is obvious that the internal torments (alcoholism, spectre of abuse), that were already haunting NOT only Jack Torrance but every single member of the family, were strengthening, fueling, the evil energy of the Overlook. Stephen King took these characters' real human battles and emotional trauma and intertwined that with the activity and atmosphere of a place. It makes me wonder if another family besides the Torrances, a happy family with no history of dysfunction, had become the caretakers of the hotel, what the outcome would've been?

Another example of humanity, first and foremost, being the cornerstone of truly GREAT horror, was Richard Matheson's 1954 classic of a man struggling to survive in an infected nightmare of a world...I Am Legend.


Robert Neville was a regular man plunged into an extraordinary set of circumstances. The memory of humanity, that's since disappeared because of a worldwide vampiric plague, was something that he's held onto for dear life even as the character evaded his former neighbors and scavenged for supplies in the desolate suburban neighborhood he lives in. One that became a special kind of "graveyard".

The core of this book is the struggle to maintain and preserve humanity---through the every-day little details of Robert Neville's life like sitting down and eating dinner, to showering and grooming himself even when many readers would probably be thinking to themselves that they'd be wallowing in their own filth or jumping off of the closest bridge.

Maintaining humanity, even in a small way, even in his desperate corner of the world, was treasured by Neville, and showed up not just in the details of his day-to-day existence but his attitude towards the disease that's created the hungry mutants stalking his doorstep each night.

In his spare time, the character read and researched, trying to understand the root of the disease that caused his old world to go extinct. Neville's manifestation of humanity was in his lingering, persistent unwillingness to accept total personal defeat.

I think Matheson does something very important with the plot and characters in I Am Legend; going back to what I mentioned about how an imaginative writer particularly has the opportunity to invent NEW realities in scifi and horror. It's on no better display than this book.




 Everyone's familiar with the tired vampire cliche of a dark, scary mansion, shape-shifting bats and Bela Lugosi hamming it up in a cape, but Matheson's spin on what makes a vampire function, takes on a whole new approach to the concept of death and immortality.

This is old-school writing at its finest. Fans of sparkling vamps need not apply--this was dark, haunting, powerful writing which mixed up the old tropes and finally threw them out the window.

"According to legend, they were invisible in mirrors, but he knew that was untrue. As untrue as the belief that they transformed themselves into bats. That was a superstition that logic plus observation had easily disposed of. It was equally foolish to believe that they could transform themselves into wolves. Without a doubt, there were vampire dogs; he had seen and heard them outside his house at night. But they were only dogs."

 By doing this, you look upon the vampires in a whole new light; you recognize their danger to Neville's existence, but you realize they were not evil. They were a desperate and pathetic lot who, in the end, (spoiler alert!), turned out to not even be Neville's ultimate threat.

"As he was pulling on his shirt, he heard Ben Cortman cry out, 'Come out, Neville!' "

"And that was all. After that, they all went away weaker, he knew, than when they had come. Unless he had attacked one of their own. They did that often. There was no union among them. Their need was their only motivation."

What ties these two stories together, one film version, one literary, and what makes them tales I am constantly amazed at, two authors managed to take two very extensively plumbed genres, 'the haunted house' and the 'vampire', flip it around, turn it inside out, and made us feel alllll of these emotions through it.

They are a couple of examples of the BEST kind of horror and scifi. It's the kind of storytelling I aspire to, my personal inspiration, and some of the best representation of art to me.

Through my writings on "Between The Shadows", I hope to share some of my own passion and art through storytelling. I hope you'll come along with me for the journey, and maybe, just maybe, I'll be able to make you feel a little something along the way too.