Incubus - Ray Russell

 The more Ray Russell I read, the more fascinated I get.  How has he been so neglected?   In The Case Against Satan he created the paradigm for The Exorcist.  Sardonicus is the precursor for the Gothic revival in the 1980s and '90s.  As for Incubus, as I far as I can judge it is unique, the full sexual implications of the sexual demon.   I can't think of a single novel that even encroaches on the same territory.

Julian Trask returns to smalltown Galen for a break and to perhaps catch up with Laura Kincaid, a student of his back in the day, now editor of the local paper.  Julian was definitely attracted to Laura when he taught her at the local college but professionally she was untouchable.  Now... who knows?

Over the years Julian's academic field has shifted from pure anthropology to the anthropology of the occult.  His mentor Professor Henryk Stefanski has given him a copy of the Artes Perditae, the book of the dawn gods, said to be bound with skin flayed from witches.   It is one of the rarest books on earth - yet there is another copy in Galen, in the home of the founding family, brought there by the mother of young Tim Galen, whom his grim aunt believes was a witch.

Tim dreams of witches and his mother.  He dreams of one young witch being tortured in Tudor times.  Is she the witch whose skin bound the book?  Tim possesses something Julian Trask doesn't - a skinning knife.   Tim is dating the daughter of Doc Jenkins, who is run off his feet with women being raped and murdered - literally torn apart by the huge penis of their attacker.

The twist at the end is truly jaw-dropping, but Russell plays absolutely fair and seeds the clue well in advance.  As I have already said, more than once, nothing in occult fiction compares to this.  An absolute must-read for any horror aficionado.  

Gather, Darkness! - Fritz Leiber

With sci fi, your premise is everything. Fritz Leiber (1910-1992) is an acknowledged master of the genre whose series morphed into fantasy games, so you would think he knew all about premises. Gather, Darkness (1950) was his second novel and the premise seems strong but ends up as basically fatuous.

As a young man Leiber studied as a candidate minister in the episcopal church and that may well be where he got the idea for the priestly Hierarchy which rules the world in the Second Atomic Age. The Hierarchy is, it goes without saying, oppressive and tyrannical. Commoners are kept in serfdom, tithed, and subject to curfew. The resistance, as it were, is the Witchcraft. They are not what one might call active in their resistance to begin with, but then Brother Jarles, priest of the First and Outermost Circle, goes rogue and reveals the great truth of the Hierarchy to the common people - that priests do not believe in God. Sadly, the Witchcraft don't  believe in the Devil either. That is a pity because old Mother Jujy really is a witch.


The Witchcraft, however, do keep familiars - little vampiric versions of themselves - and these are great fun. There is a leader called Asmodeus but I'm not entirely sure if he is real or not. Anyway, the Witchcraft try and recruit Jarles, who refuses. He is recaptured and brainwashed by the Hierarchy and then promoted to the Fourth Circle. Leading priest and subsequent dictator Goniface sees something in him. He reminds the great man of his youthful self, when he too believed in fairness and honesty. All a long way behind him now, of course. But the sister he chucked off a bridge when she threatened his career...  she seems to be still about and utterly un-aged. Surely she is the beautiful young witch and weaver Naurya, who Jarles is infatuated with.


Anyway there's a rising. This leads to civil war. Gondiface surrenders even though he is winning. It's all very complicated. It has its entertaining moments but, overall, the passage of time has done for poor old Leiber. The hi-tech visual equipment he postulates is less futuristic than a 1960s portable TV. There are no computers. Messages are delivered by runner. And, for me, it's all just a bit too po-faced. Interesting, though.

The Flood - Ian Rankin

The Flood is Rankin's first novel, out of print for many years and republished in 2005 because, as Rankin says, original copies were going for silly money on the Internet.

In his introduction Rankin makes lots of excuses - it's a first novel, a young man's novel, he was doing other things at the time - but I suspect he is really very proud of it.  And so he should be.  I am notoriously not a Rebus fan, I like the 'Complaints' series and I always enjoyed his Jack Harvey thrillers.  I enjoyed The Flood hugely.  It may be old fashioned of me, perhaps even touchingly immature, but I like stories of outsiders and psychos with a touch of the macabre.  I especially like novels written during the Thatcherite Terror which encapsulate the damage done to the working classes.

What we have are Mary Miller and her son Sandy, father unknown, born when she was fifteen in a mining town in Fife.  Fifteen years later the pit has been closed and residents have had all the hope sucked out of them.  Sandy is about to experience first love.  For Mary it will be second love - she hasn't had sex or romance since the night Sandy was conceived.  But she's still only thirty or thirty-one and striking looking with her silver hair and dark eyes.  The rumour among the disaffected is that Mary is a witch.  She has so many secrets.  Is that one of them?

If there are any faults here, I am happy to forgive them.  For me, a cracking read that I devoured in just two sittings.  Highly recommended.