REVIEW

Horror Garage #5, Spring/Summer 2002

When I read the original novella, Demons, I was stunned with the originality, dark humor, imagination, and psycho-spiritual depth Shirley had provided in less than 20,000 words. Far more than just entertaining fiction (although it's that, too, ) it was also a parable about escaping the constant static of the world and your own head and finding the truth. When something's that good, you worry that expanding it (especially for a larger audience via a major publisher) will somehow ruin it.

Not to worry. Shirley doesn't take the easy or expected path (as if he ever?) Instead of restructuring and padding it out to novel length, he leaves the original novella (more or less) intact, then takes up the story nine years later. Considering the intensity of Demons -- it starts at a level that most horror novels try to build to -- there's a considerable literary risk involved with this choice. The author is asking the reader to slam on the emotional brakes while zooming along at 120 mph, then to start up again at an around-the block-with-your-mum pace. This can be damned dangerous for all involved.

To recap Demons: Seven "clans" of "demons" have taken over a near-future Earth. They slaughter casually, massively, and usually with deliberate excruciating pain. But the horror really lies in humanity's acceptance of it all: "It's amazing what you can get used to." An artist, Ira, then delineates the demons appearance and how humanity responded: first with a refusal to accept the reality, then panic, followed by concession, and finally acclimatization and adjustment. Then -- through his relationship with the eccentric and mysterious Dr. Paymenz and his lovely daughter, Melissa, and his own drive to seek answers -- Ira eventually discovers what brought the demons, what they really are and, ultimately, how to defeat them. Paymenz is part of a Conscious Circle made up of those who are "awake" and aware of the true reality; Melissa is a human vessel who carries the "Gold in the Urn," a force that must be used to confront the demons.

As a fast-paced adventure tale, almost a paean to classic alien-invasion horror stories, Demons is riveting and the resonance of the story's deeper meanings make it truly remarkable. Itıs both frightening and enlightening --coming as close to making us accept that "the spiritual world is the material world; the material world is the spiritual world; the universe is just a conception in a mind that dreams what it must, that calls for us to return to its deepest places, through awakening to who we really are" as most of us can. To have altered it with superfluous padding would have been like putting a fur coat on a wildcat -- unneeded, ridiculous, and probably perilous.

Instead, with the new second part, Undercurrents, Shirley drives off the previous map by creating an atmosphere of paranoia and fear rather than overt horror. The shift to a slower pace may, at first, jar the reader. But it is obvious that both structurally and symbolically the lower gear is needed. This is different terrain, another highway and Stephen Isquerat, a new central character, is put behind the narrative wheel.

Stephen is young, unaware and self-involved, and, like most everyone else, believes the demonic invasion nine years earlier never occurred. The public has been convinced it was all the result of mass hysteria caused by hallucinogenic gas attack that terrorists, or a cult of industrialists, or someone, released in a bid for world domination. He works for a mega-corporation, West Wind, that employs "psychonomics" ("the use of psychic power in business which, in turn, increases your psychic influence over the world") and is picked to be the "point man" for the next phase of this business use of spiritual energy. But West Wind is far from the benign, patriarchal conglomerate it tries to appear. Those in charge are ruthless and more than willing to sacrifice masses of human life and poison the environment in order to achieve their hideous goals. They use Stephen -- who is gifted in a special way -- blinded by lust and ambition, as a portal for evil to again invade Earth.

Meanwhile, Ira is still striving for higher consciousness, a struggle made more difficult by his resentment of Melissa taking their son, Marcus, on an obscure mission to Turkmenistan. He is jealous that his wife is accompanied by the spiritually and physically potent Dr. Nyerza, and he is very, very frightened. When his fears seem to be realized, and the Conscious Circle is either unwilling or unable to help, he heads off after them and into disaster.

Can West Wind be stopped? Will Stephen's "gift" allow the world to be consumed by unimaginable corruption? Will the Circle be able to provide a counter? One other character -- spunky, intelligent Glyneth, who has been working undercover to understand the madness -- provides human scale for the escalating scenes of horror: an entire town of shambling poison-maddened living dead; sewers full of vicious toxin-contaminated cannibals; piles of corpses; and finally a giant demon, the embodiment and implement of humankind's destruction. (Yes, you get back to 120 mph, maybe 130, by the end.)

John Shirley accomplishes what few writers can even attempt: horror that arises from real modern fears mixed with metaphysical meaning and social consciousness -- all written with vigor and style. -- Siobhan Webster

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