Thu 11 Aug 2011
A Review by Walter Albert: JUSTIN GUSTAINIS – Hard Spell.
Posted by Steve under Reviews , Science Fiction & Fantasy[5] Comments
JUSTIN GUSTAINIS – Hard Spell. Angry Robot, US, paperback original, July 2011; UK, ppbk, June 2011.
Hard Spell, “an Occult Crimes Unit Investigation” novel, and the first in a projected series, is set in Scranton, Pennsylvania. Scranton, like the rest of the country, has been learning to deal with the “supernatural element” for some fifty years in the wake of the infiltration of returning World War II troops from Europe by various supernatural beings.
It’s not been an easy path and the dream of the day envisioned by Martin Luther King when “naturals and supernaturals” would live together in harmony is not yet realized.
Detective Stan Markowski is a member of the Scranton “Supe Squad,” housed in the basement of Police Headquarters, and works with his long-time partner, Paul di Napoli, on the night shift (and the implied pun is probably intended).
When di Napoli is killed by goblins in a negotiated situation that turns sour, he’s replaced by Karl Renfer, a “tall, gangly kid, all elbows and knees,” whose career came under a cloud after his former partner claimed he failed to come to his defense during a confrontation with a voodoo master raising corpses from the dead. Renfer was cleared by a Review Board, but Markowski is still wary of his younger, less experienced partner.
Both detectives are put to the test by a series of murders related to an ancient book of necromancy, the “Opus Mago,” that will give the possessor the power to awaken one of the Great Ones, powerful entities who predate man and, if they are resurrected, could have the power to supplant him.
Or, as the irreverent Renfer so colorfully puts it, the “Opus Mago” is a “recipe book for cooking up different kinds of Truly Bad Shit.”
This alternative history crossover nimbly maneuvers a narrow path through the minefield of the conflicting demands of the police procedural and the apocalyptic horror novel in a promising debut for the fledgling series.
Editorial Comments: A neat trailer for Hard Spell can be found here on YouTube. Number two in the series, Evil Dark, is on Angry Robot’s schedule for April 2012.
If this kind of crossover fiction is your kind of thing, here’s an anthology that’s chock full of them: Those Who Fight Monsters: Tales of Occult Detectives, edited by Justin Gustainis (Edge, 2011). I’ll list the contents (and detectives) as the first comment. (Some of these I already knew about, others I didn’t.)
August 11th, 2011 at 8:26 pm
Those Who Fight Monsters: Tales of Occult Detectives :
Danny Hendrickson – from Laura Anne Gilman’s Cosa Nostradamus series.
Kate Connor – from Julie Kenner’s Demon Hunting Soccer Mom series.
John Taylor – from Simon R. Green’s Nightside series.
Jill Kismet – from Lilith Saintcrow’s Jill Kismet series.
Jessi Hardin – from Carrie Vaughn’s Kitty Norville series.
Quincey Morris – from Justin Gustainis’ Morris/Chastain Investigations series.
Marla Mason – from T. A. Pratt’s Marla Mason series.
Tony Foster – from Tanya Huff’s Smoke and Shadows series.
Dawn Madison – from Chris Marie Green’s Vampire Babylon series.
Pete Caldecott – from Caitlin Kittredge’s Black London series.
Tony Giodone – from C. T. Adams and Cathy Clamp’s Tales of the Sazi series.
Jezebel – from Jackie Kessler’s Hell on Earth series.
Piers Knight – from C. J. Henderson’s Brooklyn Knight series.
Cassiel – from Rachel Caine’s Outcast Season series.
August 11th, 2011 at 8:33 pm
These kind of books aren’t really my thing, but I’ve dipped into a few of the above, just to see what makes them so popular. I guess I haven’t gotten more than my big toe wet. A little of the occult goes a long way for me; a steady diet of the above would be more than I’d care to contemplate.
Perhaps for HARD SPELL the attraction is that it takes place in Scranton PA. What other series (of any genre) can you think of that takes place in Scranton PA?
August 12th, 2011 at 12:34 pm
Well, “Tales of Occult Detectives” is certainly my thing and I’ll be looking for this at a near-by Barnes & Noble.
I don’t think I’ve ever been to Scranton and the appeal for me in this novel was the adroit plotting and characterizations and, of course, the occult angle.
August 12th, 2011 at 1:36 pm
This is also my kind of thing. I hope it’s better than a book I received recently from a publisher who is hoping I will review it. It’s about a bunch of college age ghost chasers. It was like a CW TV show mixed with a poor man’s Haunting of Hill House but with a movie theater stepping into the role of Hill House. All so familiar and formulaic. It think that’s the point, though, and it sure has a lot of movie lore in it.
I’ll be on the look out for HARD SPELL, but Angry Robot titles (even an award winner like ZOO CITY) tend not to show up in any of the bookstores around here. I’l probably have to order it.
August 12th, 2011 at 3:35 pm
For the first two months that Angry Robot was publishing books in this country, the local Barnes & Noble had a large display dump with all their titles. I grabbed up about half of them; the rest didn’t look as though they were meant for me. Now that they’re doing only one or two books a month, the big display is gone, but I’m sure the new ones are being carried. I don’t think Borders ever had them in stock, even before they went kaput.