Del Rey: February 2002
Cemetery Dance (2000)
REVIEW
LOCUS, Feb 2002
DEMONS consists of two parts. The first is a novella entitled "Demons" originally published by Cemetery Dance in August 2000, which has achieved a justified degree of cult status. The second part, "Undercurrent", is a previously unpublished novel-length sequel that is not intended to stand alone.
DEMONS begins where many horror novels end, with the Earth overrun by hellish creatures. The talkative Gnashers, the flying Sharkadians, the superficially-human Bugsys, the appetite personified Grindums, and other vile species. Shirley's hero is an artist and pessimist named Ira. When the demons appear, inexplicably precipitating from the clouds ("as if the sky had developed nipples that were giving out a strange effluvium"), Ira is visiting his friends, the eccentric Professor Paymenz and Paymenz's beautiful daughter Melissa. They watch, first from their windows and later on television, as the demons ransack the planet, apparently for the sheer joy of destruction. Some of the demons can communicate, but they do so cryptically, maddeningly -- one of the best passages in the book is the dialogue between the President of the United States and a Gnasher chieftain, a hilarious and horrifying tour-de-force, as the President's attempts at negotiation are met by obscene non-sequiturs and knowing insinuations. Shirley's demons are convincingly monstrous, but not totally alien -- one of the most disturbing things, for the characters, is that the demons seem to belong on Earth.
Our heroes decide they have to do something, instead of simply waiting for demons to attack their apartment. Conveniently, there's a meeting of progressive intellectuals in town, the Council for Global Interdependence, and our heroes join them. The Council is more than it seems, an ultimate and ancient secret society devoted to the betterment of mankind. They are opposed by an equally powerful but less moral faction, who may be responsible for the demonic invasion.
The Council reveals that Ira and Melissa have heretofore undiscovered abilities that will enable them to fight the demons, though not without personal sacrifice. The story works best when the demons are front-and-center -- oddly, the demons often seem more three-dimensional than the human villains behind the invasion.
Part two, "Undercurrent", is much longer and, unfortunately, much less satisfying than the first part. Set nine years after the demons are defeated, "Undercurrent" concerns the machinations of an evil secret society determined to bring the demons back. After the ferocious action of part one, "Undercurrent" seems slow and meandering as Ira tries to find Melissa (now his wife) and their son Marcus after they're lost in Turkmenistan, while in a parallel plot, well-meaning Stephen Isquerat becomes ever more mired in the fiendish plans of the group known as The Undercurrent. The demons don't really appear until the climax, and while that would normally be effective, the impact is lessened by the fact that the demons ran rampant through the first third of the book. Where's the shock and thrill, when we've seen these same monsters before'? Still, there are some wonderful moments in "Undercurrent" -- a sorceress communicating with a Gnasher in a grimy bathroom, a nightmare of mushrooms with human faces, the application of psychic powers to business practices (called "psychonomics"), a harrowing escape through a poisoned sewer, and a disturbing sort of reincarnation that changes a family's lives forever.
DEMONS is an uneven book, but at its best moments it achieves excellence, and even the less effective sections are enjoyable. John Shirley is a fine writer, well versed in the ways and means of fear, and DEMONS is an impressive addition to his body of work.
