Publishers Weekly:
The insectoid monsters in this visceral horror novel may seem like the stuff of ı50s drive-in B-movies, but Shirley gives them a modern spin that speaks to contemporary concerns. Gray Pilots, as they are called, are physical expressions of suppressed empathy that human carriers bury away until perceived threats to survival force their bloody emergence. A parasitic part of humanity since primitive times, they have been responsible for the worst human atrocities in history. When a psychology experiment goes out of control in remote Jasper, Ore., the town swarms with Gray Pilots, whose stings bring out the cold-blooded killer in everyone and initiate an orgy of sociopathic slaughter. First published in 1988, the novel has been updated with references to Beirut, Bosnia and Abu Ghraib prison. Shirley works a crafty variation on the smalltown horror novel, making it an effective vehicle for his dark sociological speculations, and shows that his storyıs worst horror is its continuing relevance.

Mac Toonies Visual Industries:
John Shirley has a singular knack that by-the-numbers horror writers can only imagine: He can take something almost absurdly quaint and make it seem terrifying in entirely unexpected ways. This skill is on ample display in "In Darkness Waiting ," now revised and updated in a new edition from Infrapress. "In Darkness Waiting " is a grotestque, phantasmagorical oddball of a novel, a sort of American Southwestern "Invasion of the Body Snatchers" skillfully spliced with ideas from such films as "Solaris" and "Forbidden Planet."

"IDW" reads with the cinematic urgency of other Shirley novels. The characters are well-drawn and eminently believable as human beings; the brooding rural setting is a refreshing diversion from the New England small towns that infect so much of the genre. But the heart of the novel is what makes this one tick -- a concept that might seem perilously campy if anyone but Shirley were at the helm. In Burroughsian fashion, Shirley conjures some of the most insidious monsters since Ridley Scott's "Alien": verminous, winged "Gray Pilots" that incubate in the brains of carriers only to erupt from their eye-sockets and spread telekinetic mayhem.

Perhaps the monsters of "IDW" wouldn't be all that scary if they were space aliens, or virulent mutations. But Shirley wisely suggests that the twitching, buzzing, squirming things seen bursting from people's skulls are us , an unrecognized aspect of the human condition, the embodiment of humankind's capacity to suppress empathy. And therein lies the novel's success.

"IDW" brims with spooky moments and well-wrought meditations on the unremarked night of the human mind. As in "Wetbones" and "Demons," there's a disturbing philosophical undertow beneath the fear and trembling that makes this a distinctly Shirley -esque story. Take the plunge; darkness awaits -- in spades.

Rick Kleffel, Trashotron.com:
To my mind, one of the finest writers of genre fiction is John Shirley, and one of my favorite titles of his is 'In Darkness Waiting'. (Note the gerund.) Using many of the tropes of 1980's horror, it's an intelligent, intellectual piece of literary science fiction horror and definitely not one of the many (often enjoyable) "terror in a small town" novels that exploded off the shelves in the 1980's, often injuring unsuspecting passers-by.

'In Darkness Waiting' excels because Shirley has managed to concoct a wonderfully imaginative horrific metaphor for what he calls 'Empathy Suppression Syndrome' -- that is, our ability to disconnect from our own humanity and torture, maim and kill one another if called to in the name of God, country, or the voices in our head. But then -- they're all voices in our head, aren't they? And they whisper so sweetly. What Shirley creates with 'In Darkness Waiting' is exquisitely imagined and grippingly plotted. All you need to do is surrender.

Even when it came out, I thought that 'In Darkness Waiting' deserved a hardcover publication...do whatever you have to get your hands on this volume. It's deeply disturbing and engagingly page turning. And thanks to Infrapress...it's no longer waiting out there in the darkness. It's here. You're ready. Have at it.

john shirley web site →
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in darkness waiting entry →