As Jack Ketchum notes in the introduction to Thomas Tessier's The Nightwalker, the werewolf is generally underrepresented in fiction, especially compared to ghosts, vampires and zombies.This reprint of Tessier's 1979 novel helps to fill the void.Actually, Bobby Ives may or may not be a werewolf.He is, however, an American in London who is haunted by memories of the Vietnam War as well as a possible past life.He is also occasionally finding himself disconnected from reality and overwhelmed with violent feelings.He is possibly becoming a werewolf, but he is certainly because some sort of beast, and he is relishing the feeling more and more.
This is a decent enough novel, which plays with the werewolf legend while not necessarily adhering to it.For one thing, Ives is not the victim of a werewolf bite, nor are his transformations constrained by the moon.Since the whole story follows Ives's point-of-view, for the most part we only given glimpses into what he becomes.Indeed, that is the heart of this small novel:it has less to do with the physical monster than the transformation of Ives's soul.
As I just mentioned, this is a small novel, just a shade over 200 pages.As a bonus, this book includes a 100 page novella called The Dreams of Dr. Ladybank.This is a tale of the title psychiatrist who has discovered he can project his thoughts into other people.Unfortunately, it only works on two people, a male prostitute and a pimp; Ladybank manipulates both of their lives, quickly discarding the motive of "scientific interest" in favor of sadistic pleasure.
Both stories are good tales of both psychological and supernatural horror.While entertaining, they lack that extra oomph that could make them truly great; in part, this is because there are times when things are a little predictable.They do have enough originality, however, to merit reading if you're a horror fan.
Click Here to see more reviews about: The Nightwalker (Mass Market Paperback)
No comments:
Post a Comment