Friday, November 06, 2020

FFB

Forgotten Books: Darker Than You Think by Jack Williamson (Ed Gorman from the archives)

Let's begin with a tale of woe. Mine.

Years ago I was asked to contribute a forty thousand word novella to a YA series about shape-shifters. You know, beings humans and otherwise who can transform themselves into other kinds of creatures. I immediately thought of Jack Williamson's The Wolves of Darkness, a grand old pulp novella set in the snowy American West and featuring enough creepy violence and tangled romance to make it memorable. It even has its moments of sweeping poetry.

Reading Williamson's piece showed me how to write my own. A few days after the young editor received it he called to rave. And I do mean rave. The best of the entire series. Eerie and poetic. Yadda yadda yadda. For the next forty-eight hours I was intolerable to be around. 

It was during this time our five cats learned to give me the finger. My swollen head was pricked soon enough. The young editor's older boss hated it. He gave my editor a list of reasons he hated it. I was to rewrite it. I wouldn't do it. I said.  I'd just write another one, which I did. Old editor seemed to like this one all right but he still wasn't keen on how my "characterizations" occasionally stopped the action. Backstory--verboten.

Shortly after this werewolves began to be popular. I spoke to a small reading group one night and told them about Wolves of Darkness and then about Williamson's novel Darker Than You Think. Everything I love about pulp fantasy is in this book. The werewolf angle quickly becomes just part of a massive struggle for the soul of humanity. As British reviewer
 

Tom Matic points out:

"According to its backstory, homo sapiens emerged as the dominant species after a long and bitter struggle with another species, homo lycanthropus, whose ability to manipulate probability gave it the power to change its shape and practise magic. These concepts, fascinating as they are, might make for dry reading were they not mediated via a gripping thriller riddled with startling plot twists, that blends scientific romance with images of stark bloodcurdling horror, such as the kitten throttled with a ribbon and impaled with a pin to induce Mondrick's asthma attack and heart failure, and the pathetic yet fearsome figure of his blind widow, her eyes clawed out by were-leopards. With its scenes of demonic mayhem in an academic setting and the sexual and moral sparring between the two main characters, it almost feels like a prototype of Buffy, The Vampire Slayer in a film noir setting."

Williamson couching his shape-shifters in terms of science fiction lends the story a realistic edge fantasies rarely achieve. The brooding psychology of the characters also have, as Matic points out, a noirish feel. And as always Williams manages to make the natural environment a strong element in the story. He's as good with city folk as rural. And he's especially good with his version of the femme fatale, though here she turns out to be as complicated and tortured as the protagonist.

This is one whomping great tale. If you're tired of today's werewolves, try this classic and you'll be hooked not only by this book but by Jack Williamson' work in general..  

8 comments:

Todd Mason said...

An excellent review to dig back out, Patti.

Margot Kinberg said...

This isn't a genre that really appeals to me as a rule, Patti. And that's why your review is doubly appealing - it makes me want to read the book. Thanks, too, for sharing your own story. I really think too often writers think they're alone in dealing with the ups and downs of the writing life.

George said...

I read DARKER THAN YOU THINK when I was a kid and loved it. I need to reread it again.

Jeff Meyerson said...

I need to read it too. Ed Gorman was a terrific writer himself, and was excellent as a reviewer.

Cullen Gallagher said...

Love Ed's reviews, thanks for reposting this one, I don't remember reading this review of his before. Now I'm off to find the book.

pattinase (abbott) said...

I love this review especially because there is so much of Ed here.

Jerry House said...

And Williamson was a great writer. First published in 1928, his last novel came out in 2005, just a few years before his death -- a career that spanned nine decades! The Science Fiction Writers of America named him their second Grand Master (right after Robert A. Heinlein), an honor most deserved.

J F Norris said...

Excellent book, a real work of imagination and originality. Not mentioned in Ed's review is this book is one of the earliest novels to blend werewolf legends with biological origins. So it's more science fiction than fantasy though it still has horror/fantasy elements, including some witchcraft. I, of course, loved it. Sticks in one's brain for sure. I remember many scenes and characters to this day.