Edited By BILL BREEDLOVE (Dark Arts Books; 2007)

I doubt I’ll read a stronger horror-themed collection this year than WAITING FOR OCTOBER, the genre-busting follow-up to Dark Arts Books’ 2006 anthology CANDY ON THE DUMPSTER. Like that publication, WAITING FOR OCTOBER features four authors each contributing three stories.

The contributors here are unusually strong: Andrew Mayhem creator Jeff Strand, whose Mayhem books include GRAVEROBBERS WANTED (NO EXPERIENCE NECESSARY) and SINGLE WHITE PSYCHOPATH SEEKS SAME; Adam Pepper, best known for his hallucinatory 2003 novel MEMORIA; Sarah Pinborough, whose novels include last year’s BREEDING GROUND; and Jeffrey Thomas, creator of the PUNKTOWN series and one of my current favorites.

The opening story, “Gramma’s Corpse” by Jeff Strand, is what you might call a grabber. It features a kid who as punishment for getting bad grades is forced–on the very first page–to sleep in the same bed with his grandmother’s rotting corpse! Color me grabbed. Strand’s other tales are “Bad Candy House”, which taps into every parent’s worst fears about contaminated Halloween candy, and “Here’s What Happened…”, a darkly comedic monologue that grows increasingly outrageous.

Having recently read MEMORIA, I thought I might have some idea what to expect from Adam Pepper. Was I an idiot or what? If there’s one element uniting his three tales here, it’s the unexpected.

First up is “The Admirer”, a bizarre three-page portrayal of a delusional peeping tom. It’s followed by “Buried A Man I Hated There”, which is almost diametrically opposed to the earlier tale, being a haunting and subdued account that develops in deceptively subtle fashion. Then there’s “Old Maid Syndrome”, an intense, stomach-churning horror tale that somehow doesn’t announce itself as such until the very last page! Say what you like about Pepper, but he’s definitely got range.

So does Sarah Pinborough, who offers up the sci fi-tinged “Express Delivery”, in which the concept of cloning is given a disturbing workout, followed by “The Fear”, a dark look at a blocked fiction writer. Her last tale is “Crystal Carla” which mixes illicit drugs and zombies to memorable effect.

From there it’s onto Mr. Jeffrey Thomas. As fine as Strand, Pepper and Pinborough’s contributions are, its Thomas’s stories that for me really elevate this collection to classic status. All three tales are small masterworks, with spot-on characterizations, page-turning narratives and a real understanding of the inner workings of fear and apprehension.

“The Hosts” unnervingly explores the potential for disease in our modern world through disgusting worm creatures that burrow into kids’ heads and take over their brains. A disarming tale, at once repellant, sad and unnervingly true to life. “Adoration” twists the traditional zombie tale in an entirely new direction with its demented depiction of a lonely man who pays to have sex with the reanimated corpse of Marilyn Monroe, while the head-scratching “Star Est Control” takes the Philip K. Dick-inspired idea of living, breathing advertisements to wildly surreal heights.

Obviously readers looking for a consistently themed anthology won’t respond to WAITING FOR OCTOBER. For me, however, the book’s magic is in its incredibly wide-ranging, always unpredictable contents. Those who say there’s nothing new in the horror story universe (and I’ll admit I’ve made that claim myself on more than one occasion) need to read this book–as, in my view, does everyone else!

By “JACK MARTIN” [DENNIS ETCHISON] (Zebra Books; 1983)

Yes, this is a movie novelization, and yes, it does suffer from quite a few of the pratfalls afflicting most such books: it’s hastily written and definitely could have withstood another draft, if not two or three. Overall, however, it’s far better than the majority of movie novelizations I’ve read, which shouldn’t be surprising considering the film, written and directed by the inimitable David Cronenberg, is an extremely good one, and the author of this book, Dennis Etchison (using his “Jack Martin” pseudonym, as he did with his HALLOWEEN II and III novelizations) is no slouch himself.

Dennis Etchison’s short stories (collected in THE DARK COUNTRY, RED DREAMS, THE BLOOD KISS and THE DEATH ARTIST) and novels (DARKSIDE, SHADOW MAN, CALIFORNIA GOTHIC) all readily attest that he’s a genre specialist of unique power and originality. He’s dubbed this book and his other novelizations compromises, admitting, “I did the best job I possibly could with them; I had to eat”.

David Cronenberg, for his part, should need no introduction. Having created freaky cinematic masterworks like SHIVERS, RABID, DEAD RINGERS and CRASH, he’s the king of “bodily horror,” specializing in elegant, sophisticated and deeply subversive films about disease, madness and mutation. VIDEODROME is a sterling entry in Cronenberg’s ouvre, being the wildly surreal, gory and outrageous account of a sleazy cable TV operator’s descent into a hallucinatory universe via a malignant TV signal.

The film’s imagery, which includes a vaginal slit appearing in the protagonists’ chest and a gun with tendrils that burrow into its user’s arm, is weird enough to offer any prospective novelist a near-insurmountable challenge. This is particularly true with Etchison, a writer who specializes in “quiet” horror but who’s called upon here to transcribe any number of gruesome sights. As you might expect, the screen-to-page transition is not always a smooth one, as evinced by the oft-perfunctory nature of Etchison’s descriptions.

Where Etchison excels is in his superbly rendered atmosphere of psychotic dread, which is even more vividly evoked here than in the film. The protagonist Max Renn, who’s in every scene, is well characterized; despite his sleazy nature I actually came to like the guy, and felt bad for him as he descended ever further into madness.

What the author can’t do is make much sense of the story, which was a jumble in the film and remains so on the page (there’s a sort of virtual reality helmet Max puts on halfway through, and Etchison insists on periodically reminding us he’s still wearing the thing even though the action never jells with that claim). That’s doubtless due to the fact that the script was regularly reworked during shooting. Cronenberg invited Etchison to the Toronto set and generously answered all his questions, meaning the book follows the film fairly closely and even includes a few bits that don’t show up onscreen (such as a monster television set that rises from a bathtub).

Overall, VIDEODROME the novel is certainly no masterpiece, but remains an interesting concoction. I’d definitely recommend seeing the film first, but you’d also do well to check out this book, which may surprise you with its grace and fluidity. It certainly surprised me.

By VITEZSLAV NEZVAL (Twisted Spoon Press; 1945/2005)

A real curiosity: a surrealist novel masquerading as a gothic thriller that never entirely satisfies as either. Rather, it’s a rare book that exists in its own indefinable category.

I know VALERIE AND HER WEEK OF WONDERS best in its 1970 film incarnation by Jaromil Jires, which has in recent years gained an unexpected popularity. The appearance of this 1945 Czech novel in a 2005 English translation is a further manifestation of the newfound VALERIE mania that includes Facets’ 2004 DVD release of the film and the Finders Keepers soundtrack CD two years later.

Yet the film, as it turns out, is a totally different animal from the book. While it’s a largely faithful adaptation, Jaromil Jires’ lush, poetic atmosphere is directly opposed to that of the novel, which is much darker in its approach.

It tells the story of Valerie, a 17-year-old girl undergoing a sexual initiation in an undefined dreamlike setting. The incident-packed narrative (inspired by the serial novels popular at the time) has her losing and then finding a pair of magic earrings, menaced by a creepy man with the head of a polecat (or weasel), given a pellet that makes her invisible, manhandled by a lecherous priest and branded a witch by a plague-ridden populace. In the meantime Valerie’s crotchety grandmother desperately searches for the fountain of youth and Val’s brother is persecuted in horrific fashion.

Brother and grandmother both take on different guises at various points in the narrative (Valerie’s bro is apparently her own hermaphroditic other half), as do nearly all the characters. The settings are also subject to sudden and unexpected changes, such as a vast dungeon that appears beneath Valerie’s house and a witch-burning stake present in the climax that abruptly vanishes a page or two later. In true dream fashion everything is indistinct and ever-shifting–Valerie actually “wakes up” in a later chapter, yet the dream logic predominates to the end.

A lengthy afterward fills us in on the particulars of author Vitezslav Nezval, a Czech surrealist who bore a real affection for all things macabre, especially Lewis’ THE MONK and Murneau’s NOSFERATU. Elements from both turn up throughout VALERIE, which often feels like a grab bag of gothic motifs rather than a proper narrative.

Of course, that latter element is fully in keeping with Nezval’s surrealist proclivities. So is the frank, unadorned prose style, which juxtaposes syntax and tenses (past and present) in seemingly haphazard fashion, yet always retains a certain hardboiled terseness. This makes for a pulpy tale that reads like something else entirely; what that something is I’m not entirely sure, but it’s rich, thoughtful and profoundly strange.

By JEREMY C. SHIPP (Raw Dog Screaming Press; 2007)

Fans of the late Philip K. Dick will appreciate this hallucinatory first novel, as will all those unafraid of challenging, thoughtful writing. In the manner of Dick masterworks like THE THREE STIGMATA OF PALMER ELDRICH and UBIK, this is a profoundly trippy book, but also a highly literate and intelligent one that demands close reading. I realize I’ve probably turned off a large portion of my readership with that last sentence, but for the more steadfast among you VACATION comes highly recommended.

On the surface the story this deceptively short novel tells is simple: in a heavily regulated future America, Bernard Johnson, an educator fed up with his humdrum existence, embarks on a government-sponsored vacation around the world. He only makes it as far as India, though, before he’s kidnapped by a band of terrorists in service of an outfit called the Garden, who induct Bernard into their crusade against the Tics (Those in charge).

The above may be a more-or-less adequate summation of VACATION’S narrative, but woefully fails to convey the book’s mind-rattling complexity. It’s told in the form of a long letter by Bernard to his parents, filling them in on why he never returned from his vacation. From the start it’s clear this guy is a not-entirely-reliable narrator in the way he glosses over the details of the vacation (he renders his outdoor exploits in New Zealand in the form of a straight list) yet devotes a fair amount of verbiage to imaginary convos with his twin sister Aubrey, who died before Bernard was born.

Thus from the start a reality-hallucination dichotomy is established that grows increasingly pronounced. Aubrey’s specter is a constant presence in Bernard’s adventures, as is Blackbeard, a pirate, and Krow, a former student of Bernard’s who’s undergone a sex change and is now a high-ranking Garden operative.

Highlights include a nightmarish walk through a spectral forest of horrors, a “dead” character who proves otherwise, and an involved subplot that’s later revealed to have been completely imaginary. The latter fact may be a signifier of the story’s true nature, but don’t expect any shocking last minute twists; this is a labyrinthine entertainment through which every reader will have to make his or her own way. But one thing is certain: as a sophisticated exercise in reality displacement, VACATION is about as solid as they come.

“Edited” By Chet Williamson, “Alan Drew” (Cemetery Dance; 2007)

Here’s something unique: a novella, penned by veteran horror scribe Chet Williamson, written in the style of the late Lafcadio Hearn. In fact, it purports to be an actual manuscript by that author, complete with an introduction attesting to that “fact” and an afterward disputing it. Hearn (1850-1904) was a Greek-born writer who relocated to America and eventually Japan, where he authored several collections based on classic Japanese ghost stories, the best-known being 1904’s KWAIDAN: STORIES AND STUDIES OF STRANGE THINGS.

I’m not especially knowledgeable about Lafcadio Hearn’s writings, but have read enough to recognize that Williamson’s pastiche of his style is remarkably successful. In tried-and-true Hearn fashion, the prose is straightforward and journalistic (Hearn started out as a newspaper reporter) in a determinedly archaic manner–although the story’s unflinching violence and sexual candor are most definitely 21st Century additions!

Interestingly enough, the book’s central flaw, if a flaw it even is, is identified by Chet Williamson himself in his introduction. He claims therein that the manuscript of NOICHI THE BLIND was discovered by his Japanese immigrant son Colin, who passed it on to Williamson. The latter reports that the first page “failed to excite me, seeming to be a very flat retelling of some Japanese folk tale”, but forges on because Colin assures him the tone is due to change dramatically.

The above more-or-less encapsulates my own experience reading this novella, which initially seemed like very little but grew steadily deeper and more compelling as it advanced. By the end I was convinced, and remain so, that it’s one of Williamson’s best-ever books.

It concerns Noichi, a simple woodcutter living “high in the hills” overlooking a Japanese town. A longtime confidante of the local animal population, Noichi’s life is one of peace and harmony–until one day a woman named Noriko shows up. Noriko is a brothel servant who’s on the run after accidentally murdering a passing samurai. Noichi takes Noriko in and inevitably falls in love with her. His animal friends, overjoyed at seeing their human friend so happy, help out Noriko by killing her pursuers, thus paving the way for everlasting happiness…or so it seems.

At around the halfway mark the story turns dark, and continues in that vein as Noriko falls ill and Noichi becomes determined to keep her alive at any cost. So desperate is Noichi to maintain his tranquility that he willfully blinds himself to quite a few unpleasant realities, such as the fact that his beloved wife dies…and that the body he continues to make love with is steadily decaying…and that the child Noriko eventually births is scarcely human.

The marvel of the tale is that despite its very up-to-date depictions of necrophilia, cannibalism and dismemberment, it still feels like an authentic Japanese folk tale of the type Lafcadio Hearn told so well. The afterward, credited to one Alan Drew, Ph.D. (a made-up personage; I checked), underlines this by outlining the story’s links to many of Hearn’s signature themes (while disputing the idea that Hearn actually wrote it).

THE STORY OF NOICHI THE BLIND also contains a stern message about the dangers of self-delusion, an admonition as relevant to our time as it is to the story’s late-19th Century setting. Not heeding it leads to Noichi’s unforgettably gruesome fate, in which the last two words of the title take on a very real, and disquieting, significance.

By CHRISTOPHER FOWLER (Warner Books; 1994)

To be sure, the novels of England’s Christopher Fowler–which include ROOFWORLD, RUNE, RED BRIDE and DARKEST DAY–have quite a few flaws: most are steeped in “hip” culture (SPANKY’S title character’s every appearance is accompanied by elaborate descriptions of his trendy duds) and so tend to date none too well, and bear an unfortunate reliance on cliches (climbing into bed with SPANKY’S protagonist, a chick warns: “no funny stuff!”).

But Fowler’s books are also lively, inventive and extremely difficult to put down. For proof, check out SPANKY, a witty and enjoyable pop horror updating of FAUST which, despite Fowler’s claims that it represents a “departure and a new direction for me”, is very much in fitting with much of the rest of his work.

Martyn Ross is a lowly furniture store employee desperate for a better life. He meets a slick guy named Spanky (real name: Spancialosaphus Lacrimosae), who offers to spice things up for him. Spanky is a self-professed daemon (repeat: daemon, not demon!) who unlike most doesn’t want to take Martyn’s soul…although just what he does want is initially unclear.

Martyn unwisely accepts Spanky’s offer and quickly finds himself steeped in a world of swanky nightclubs, fancy restaurants and loose women. Inevitably, however, Spanky eventually reveals his price: he wants to take over Martyn’s body in order to commit dastardly acts. Martyn resists, and Spanky retaliates by loosing mayhem on those close to him and eventually Martyn himself. Luckily the latter has done research on Spanky’s current host body and discovers it only has a week to go before it decays completely, meaning Martyn has to resist Spanky’s onslaughts for that amount of time…a feat easier said than done!

Fowler’s first person narrative is a brisk and compelling one. His characterizations are reasonably strong and the presentation of Spanky’s high society world is quite convincing (complete with cameo appearances by Kenneth Branagh, Emma Thompson and Salman Rushdie).

The book, like all Fowler’s work, is set in its author’s native London and is overall extremely English in its approach, but not to the point of alienating American readers like myself (although SPANKY, curiously enough, has never been published in the US). What Fowler provides is a satisfying read that will never overshadow the works of Goethe or Christopher Marlowe, but acquits itself quite nicely on its own terms. You could certainly do a lot worse.

Anyway, my biggest beef is not with the writing but the packaging, specifically the cover art depicting a shirtless dude wearing thigh high boots and leather underwear. I can fully understand prospective readers being put off the book, thinking it gay pornography. For some time I thought so too, only deigning to open the thing after encountering a rave review. I found myself pleasantly surprised by the content, but was still careful not to be caught reading it in public!

By DONNA ANDERS (Pocket; 2007)

I’ve found it’s a good idea to occasionally look outside one’s sphere of interest into the wider world. This is to say that my preference for weirdness and transgression in genre literature is well known, but in an effort at broadening my horizons I decided to give a paperback original called SKETCHING EVIL a try.

The packaging gave fair notice that this would be a far more traditional book than I’m used to, a tale of “Romantic Suspense” by an author who apparently specializes in this sort of thing. It features Abby, a NYC artist, staying in a rural B&B owned by her aunt–but the aunt is killed almost as soon as Abby arrives, leaving her to be stalked by a homicidal pervert. A gruff detective is charged with protecting Abby; yes, he turns out to be a nice guy, and yes, the lady and the dick fall in love. In the meantime the danger increases when a drawing Abby makes of her aunt’s killer is circulated by the media. This not-exactly-surprising tale concludes with an underground confrontation in which the antagonist is finally unveiled.

None of this is difficult to predict, and the narrative isn’t exactly incident-packed. The violence is kept to an absolute minimum and even the sex is pretty coy. Nor can you expect much in the way of complexity, as the hero and heroine are both staunchly upstanding while the bad guys are one-dimensional creeps…and I don’t think I’m giving anything away in revealing that the ending is an unambiguously happy one.

Obviously this isn’t my thing. There’s no point hand-wringing over the book, however, as it’s carefully geared toward an elderly female demographic far removed from my crowd.

Taken as such, it’s actually not that bad. The prose and pacing are smooth and the novel overall is about as good as those of other, more respectable authors who practice a similar brand of old lady horror but pretend otherwise (this means you, Mr. Koontz!). I’d be surprised if SKETCHING EVIL hasn’t yet been snatched up by Hollywood (if for no other reason than movie folk seem to love “ing” titles)–or at least the Lifetime Movie Network, to which it seems ideally suited.

Edited By JOHN EVERSON (Dark Arts Books; 2008)

The third release from Dark Arts Books, a publisher specializing in sampler anthologies of genre fiction. SINS OF THE SIRENS contains stories by four women authors–Loren Rhoads, Maria Alexander, Mehitobel Wilson and Christa Faust–none of whose work, I’ll confess, I was previously familiar with. I’m pleased to report that all contribute solid writing of an adults-only variety.

Loren Rhoads begins the book with four tales grounded in aberrant psychology. In “The Angel’s Lair” a woman picks up a fallen angel in a bar–yes, an actual angel; the gal for her part is a succubus looking to seduce and devour the angel. Good story, done with an eye for gritty urban detail and sexual explicitness.

Speaking of which, “Still Life with Broken Glass”, Rhoads’s next story, is a satiric take on East Coast art snobs flavored with X-rated levels of lesbian erotica and grue. But the most effective of Rhoads’ tales in my view is “Sound of Impact”, a short, sharp shocker that proceeds in ominous fashion until an underlying secret is disclosed on the final page that throws the preceding events into a new light. It’s certainly not the first time such an approach has been tried, but I’ve never read an attempt quite like this one.

Rhoads’ contributions are, it turns out, the most subtle of the entire book, which only grows steadily more perverse. Maria Alexander, who according to the author bio works for Disney, is the next writer featured, and has a more frank, down-and-dirty style (cunt being a favored adjective). Alexander’s “Pinned” is a wild ride that mixes S&M and voodoo in eye-opening fashion; it’s one of the book’s standout entries. I found “The Dark River of His Flesh”, about loneliness and resurrection, somewhat less interesting, although it contains some
arresting perversity. So too “The last Word”, in which phantom entries in a man’s diary instruct him on how to run his life–and ultimately impart some really bad advice!

Mehitobel Wilson follows, contributing for me the collection’s most powerful block of stories. “Heavy Hands” is about what happens to a guy assailed by invisible hands that act according to the desires of those around him. Creepy stuff. “Close” is even creepier–it has a voyeuristic hotel worker finding a way to surreptitiously insert himself into a couple’s torrid lovemaking. The result is a tale strong in graphic detail, but which concludes on just the right note of lyrical abandonment.

“The Wild” tackles lycanthropy in a wholly individual manner that’s violent, sexual and poetic. Then there’s “Parting Jane”, told in the form of a journal penned by a nine-year-old girl trapped in a hospital, where she’s subjected to all manner of horrific procedures. The story represents virtually everything you’ve ever feared about doctors and/or hospitals, and is about as unnerving as they come.

The final contributions are by Christa Faust, whose three stories are grouped, appropriately enough, from good to very good to great. “Love, La Llorona” features a woman, a DVD, a murder and a reasonably satisfying twist ending. The novella-length “Firebird” centers on an addictive vampire-like machine in a gritty future world–think BLADE RUNNER meets CRONOS. Finally there’s “Tighter”, about a bondage-loving gal who finds total bliss when a guy ties her up with live ropes; it’s not until the end that she discovers what those ropes are made of. A gross tale, but also an unforgettable one.

“Tighter” also makes for a fitting conclusion to the collection overall, which if you ask me represents everything great about femme fiction: bloodletting, psychosis, torture and perversion! It will doubtless offend serial misogynists and traditional feminists alike, meaning it’s a book right up my alley, and hopefully yours too.

By ROBERT DEVEREAUX (Leisure; 1998/2000)

Here’s a Yuletide favorite I’m betting you won’t find on any traditional Christmas reading list: SANTA STEPS OUT by Robert Devereaux, a true “Fairy Tale for Grown-ups” and an essential book in my household ever since its first mass market appearance back in 2000.

In a lengthy afterward Devereaux details the hellacious journey SANTA STEPS OUT had getting into print. Initially written in 1988/89, it was turned down by several major publishers before finally seeing print in 1998, via a limited edition hardcover from Dark Highway Press. That led to the Leisure paperback that forms the basis of this review–and which, in a most unfortunate turn of events, is now out of print.

Why all the strife? Let’s see: the book’s about the one and only Santa Claus, who cheats on Mrs. Claus with the Tooth Fairy. The affair lasts over twenty years, with Santa spending a portion of each Christmas Eve romping with the Fairy. Eventually he constructs a mannequin girl with detachable teeth that he pulls out at opportune times, thus luring the TF to the North Pole.

But there’s also the Easter Bunny, a decidedly glum chum and full-blown peeping tom who’s become dissatisfied with schlepping baskets of eggs. Having had his fill of spying on Santa and the Tooth Fairy, the EB lures Mrs. Claus into surreptitiously observing her loving hubbie canoodling with the TF. The old woman responds in drastic and unexpected fashion: by stripping down and offering herself to Santa’s elves!

Yep, it’s that kind of novel–and Robert Devereaux is definitely the guy to write it. His novels DEADWEIGHT (1994) and WALKING WOUNDED (1996), and short story collection CALIBAN AND OTHER TALES (2002), prove that point adequately. That’s particularly true of DEADWEIGHT, an utterly outrageous splatter romance that pretty much defines over-the-top. But SANTA STEPS OUT is surely this author’s magnum opus.

The book’s lunacy extends from the perverted narrative involving sacred childhood icons to the language itself. The writing is quite florid, and often excessively so, with overheated romance novel descriptions colored with the purplest of prose. A sample: “He flicked and swirled blessing upon blessing there until her soul felt so full of passion she wondered the wood wouldn’t blaze up about them nor the snow sizzle into steam.” Another: “Then he wrapped his hand around the barrel of his loveshaft and touched its hot moist tip to her…brushing it to and fro over her mouth until its heady taste and aroma made her lips fall open around it.”

Of course there’s a reason this book is categorized as horror, and that becomes apparent in the second half. Here a new character enters the fray: Rachel, a woman who’s had a thing for Santa ever since witnessing him canoodling with the Tooth Fairy in her childhood bedroom. Together with her young daughter Wendy, Rachel travels to the North Pole to be Santa’s consort–much to the (initial) consternation of the already pissed-off Mrs. Claus! The Tooth Fairy and Easter Bunny for their part are driven into psychotic frenzies, with grave consequences for Rachel and Wendy, the only non-immortals of the bunch.

As much as I liked the scary business of the second half, it’s a bit of a let-down. Rachel and Wendy aren’t nearly as compelling as the Holy Trinity of Santa Claus, Tooth Fairy and Easter Bunny, with the latter two reduced to supporting roles once Rachel turns up. Nor was I all that enamored of the direction in which Rachel takes the narrative, which has Santa spending an inordinate amount of time fretting about his two loves.

But there are some perverse surprises in the book’s latter sections that make it worthwhile, even if they aren’t as strong as what came before. These include the revelation of the dark pre-Christian identities of Santa and his fellow immortals, the increasingly carnal relations between Rachel and Mrs. Claus, and a cameo appearance by none other than God Himself, who delivers a most unexpected edict.

Conclusions? Well, one can plausibly take this crazy book as a socially relevant work, as editor David G. Hartwell argues in his introduction–“Our children’s myths are emasculated, and Devereaux is giving them, and us, back our sexuality, and with it our adulthood.” You can also view it as a simple X-rated tonic to all that mawkish spirit-of-Christmas crap we’re force fed around the holidays.

Do keep in mind that this review was written by a guy who as a pre-teen delighted in drawing pics of Santa getting blown, raped, sliced up, chainsawed, etc. At its best SANTA STEPS OUT perfectly recaptures that spirit of adolescent giddiness. It’s a book tailor-made for the antisocial perv in all of us!

By C. DEAN ANDERSSON (Popular Library; 1988)

The novels of C. Dean Andersson represent all we’re not supposed to like about the splatterpunk movement: they’re trashy, adrenaline-fueled, misogynistic and ultimately pointless, handily encapsulating novelist Lucius Shephard’s criticism of the cycle: “Most of this crap is written for and by people with language skills comparable to those of Big Bird, and I believe that even the best of it…serves not to illuminate but to numb, to make us less sensitive to the appalling decline and terror of contemporary life”. This in itself shouldn’t be taken as a put-down, at least not from me, a passionate fan of the gorefests of Lucio Fulci–Hell, I’ve even been known to enjoy a Shaun Hutson novel from time to time. That’s not to say, however, that the present novel is any good.

RAW PAIN MAX is said to be Andersson’s most extreme book (no, I haven’t read all the others, and don’t particularly care to, and so will have to accept that verdict at face value). I was alerted to it by an Amazon.com customer review of TORTURE TOMB, an earlier Andersson book, which dismissed it as “Violent porn disguised as a horror novel” and advised prospective readers to “buy this book only if you’re too cheap to own a VCR or DVD player and rent porn. If you do, seek psychiatric help. You need it”. (Presumably the author of those sentiments has bought and read the book in question, so I hope he/she has sought the psychiatric help demanded of us!) For me there’s no better advertisement for a book than the rantings of a self-righteous asshole telling me not to read it and demanding I seek psychiatric help if I do. But what really caught my attention were the same reader’s comments about Andersson’s RAW PAIN MAX, which was apparently similar to TORTURE TOMB, but with “ten times the sadistic testosterone and one hundred times the blood and gore.” Needless to add, I tracked it down immediately.

RAW PAIN MAX had potential, I’ll say that much, with a story that hooked me immediately. It concerns Trudy, a punked-out, muscle-bound young woman who spends her nights performing in a sex club under the name Raw Pain Max, which provides a perfect outlet for her deep-seated masochistic urges. But there’s trouble on the horizon, in a reincarnation-tinged narrative so insanely convoluted it probably can’t be summarized in anything less than novella form; it involves someone named Demon Young, an otherworldly presence known as The Ally, and godlike entities called Pain Eaters.

In the midst of all this Trudy is contacted by the undead specter of Erzebet Bathory, the Hungarian countess who murdered countless virgins and bathed in their blood in a misguided attempt at achieving immortality. Countess Bathory did other things, too, in her time (read the books DRACULA WAS A WOMAN by Raymond T. McNally and THE BLOOD COUNTESS by Andrei Codrescu), but of course the author is only interested in the nasty stuff.

The novel’s primary reasons for existence are the plentiful S&M flavored torture sequences, in which people (usually women, of course) are tied up, gagged and suffer various genital mutilations (representative chapter titles include Blood and Barbed Wire and Sewing Lesson). None of it is particularly disturbing, though, simply because Andersson’s vocabulary is too limited to do his nasty descriptions justice. How many times can “pain” be used before it loses its power? “Soul” is another word the author over-uses to (and beyond) the point of annoyance, often in hyphenated conjunctions like “Soul-searing”, “Soul-penetrating”, etc.

The latter word was an interesting choice, considering that the book’s spiritual content is pretty much nil, as exemplified by a passage in which the protagonist’s boyfriend tries to read a Bible and gives up, deciding to watch an old movie on TV instead. I’ll confess that, while reading this book, I often had the same idea!