Strange Conflict
Posted: Tue 18 Jul, 2006 13:49:44
World War II and, somehow, those pesky, lowdown Nazi's are intercepting our ships and sinking them! Sir Pellinore Gwaine-Cust is perplexed: it's unthinkable that there is a traitor in the ranks, so thank the Lord for the Duc de Richleau who immediately realises the truth - the Nazi's are utilising Black Magic!
De Richleau rounds up his posse from The Devil Rides Out - Rex Van Ryn, Simon Aron, Richard Eaton and Princess Mary Lou - and they head off for Cardinal's Folly for more pentagram fun and games. After 100 or so pages of adventures, most of them on the astral plane, De Richleau has located the adept to Haiti. Sir Pellinore pulls strings and they're all off to the sun. En route, they take a beautiful mute girl under their wing and she volunteers to be their guide when they reach the dark island.
The adept, meanwhile, has been awaiting them and, no sooner do they approach the island than their light aircraft is sucked out of the sky and they nearly drown. Then the sharks move in. Just when it seems all up for them, they are rescued by Doctor Saturday, an urbane mulatto who just happened to be out fishing. "What a nice man!" think the friends, and, having accepted the invitation to stay at his mansion for a few days, immediately set to grilling him about voodoo and cannibalism; when Richard and Rex sneak off to Kingston to replenish their lost magical implements, the Duc even feeds their host a line that they're on urgent Government business. "What a bunch of mugs!" thinks Dr. Saturday, who is, of course, the very Satanist they've travelled all this way to kill.
From here on in the novel moves at a breathless pace, taking in voodoo, zombies, body-snatching, mob rampage, and a scene-stealing walk-on by Pan. I can't agree with E. F. Bleiler that the ending is "unsatisfactory" though it is pretty abrupt (but certainly less so than that of "The Ka Of Gifford Hillary" which is downright outrageous). A definite plus point: the horror scenes are among his best, notably the penultimate chapter, "Coffins For Five", and an earlier, shorter sequence in which de Richleau frees the soul of a zombie.
Given the setting for much of the action, this isn't the xenophobia fest I was dreading: it's there, but certainly not as pronounced as in later novels and even the preaching has been toned down to the point where it doesn't drag on for page after page. The Negroes do a lot of annoying eye-rolling when terrified as per usual, which de Richleau finds endlessly amusing, and there's a reference to their alleged lack of bathing habits which seems entirely gratuitous, but the real hatred is focused on the Nazi's and their collaborators - notably in the character of the French assassin who moonlights as a pimp and his "filthy Jap" cohort - perfectly understandable given the circumstances. Even Dr. Saturday is allowed to explain his hatred for the British which stems from the abominable behaviour of his English father toward his mother.
A worthy successor to The Devil Rides Out? Yeah, I reckon it is.
De Richleau rounds up his posse from The Devil Rides Out - Rex Van Ryn, Simon Aron, Richard Eaton and Princess Mary Lou - and they head off for Cardinal's Folly for more pentagram fun and games. After 100 or so pages of adventures, most of them on the astral plane, De Richleau has located the adept to Haiti. Sir Pellinore pulls strings and they're all off to the sun. En route, they take a beautiful mute girl under their wing and she volunteers to be their guide when they reach the dark island.
The adept, meanwhile, has been awaiting them and, no sooner do they approach the island than their light aircraft is sucked out of the sky and they nearly drown. Then the sharks move in. Just when it seems all up for them, they are rescued by Doctor Saturday, an urbane mulatto who just happened to be out fishing. "What a nice man!" think the friends, and, having accepted the invitation to stay at his mansion for a few days, immediately set to grilling him about voodoo and cannibalism; when Richard and Rex sneak off to Kingston to replenish their lost magical implements, the Duc even feeds their host a line that they're on urgent Government business. "What a bunch of mugs!" thinks Dr. Saturday, who is, of course, the very Satanist they've travelled all this way to kill.
From here on in the novel moves at a breathless pace, taking in voodoo, zombies, body-snatching, mob rampage, and a scene-stealing walk-on by Pan. I can't agree with E. F. Bleiler that the ending is "unsatisfactory" though it is pretty abrupt (but certainly less so than that of "The Ka Of Gifford Hillary" which is downright outrageous). A definite plus point: the horror scenes are among his best, notably the penultimate chapter, "Coffins For Five", and an earlier, shorter sequence in which de Richleau frees the soul of a zombie.
Given the setting for much of the action, this isn't the xenophobia fest I was dreading: it's there, but certainly not as pronounced as in later novels and even the preaching has been toned down to the point where it doesn't drag on for page after page. The Negroes do a lot of annoying eye-rolling when terrified as per usual, which de Richleau finds endlessly amusing, and there's a reference to their alleged lack of bathing habits which seems entirely gratuitous, but the real hatred is focused on the Nazi's and their collaborators - notably in the character of the French assassin who moonlights as a pimp and his "filthy Jap" cohort - perfectly understandable given the circumstances. Even Dr. Saturday is allowed to explain his hatred for the British which stems from the abominable behaviour of his English father toward his mother.
A worthy successor to The Devil Rides Out? Yeah, I reckon it is.