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A review by xterminal
Dusk by Ron Dee
3.0
Ron Dee, Dusk (Abyss, 1991)
Back in the early nineties, Dell's Abyss line of horror got off to possibly every wrong start it could. It debuted about a year after the end of the big eighties horror boom, it didn't get nearly as much publicity as it should, it started out as a paperback-only imprint, and the monolithic Dell was trying to compete with a few smaller, far more agile publishers who'd been doing horror as long as they'd been around (Jove, Pinnacle, and Leisure, among others). But what Dell brought to the Abyss table was quality; whereas other publishers were known either for their cheesy offerings or for setting the bar of what they'd publish relatively low, Abyss set out to look for authors whose work was not only horrific, but good. As a result, they started off by discovering a young new talent named Kathe Koja (who is now a multi-award-winning teen fiction author) and publishing the third book by a then-unknown horror writer named Brian Hodge (now a greatly respected thriller writer). While not all of their publications were as momentous as those first two, the first year of Abyss did provide us with twelve fun, readable novels, of which Dusk was one.
Dee (Brain Fever) takes a look at the vampire genre that's become pretty common these days, but wasn't back then—the western vampire (popularized recently by both Douglass Clegg and Justin Gustainis). This one focuses on Samantha Borden, an immigration agent sent to a ghost town in the Arizona desert to try and track down her missing partner (and ex-lover), Walt. Walt went missing in that town a while previous, and with the help of Sheriff Bill, the laconic lawman from the nearest inhabited spot, she aims to find out what happened to him. Sheriff Bill has a strong warning for her, however: they can only visit the ghost town, Las Bocas, during the daytime. When Sam gets to the town, she finds out why: someone has crossed out the Las Bocas on the Hotel Las Bocas sign and written in Los Vampiros instead. Sam doesn't believe the town is inhabited by vampires, of course, and in a fit of pique tells Sheriff Bill she'll spend the night there to try and find out what happened to her partner. She's soon joined by a troupe of college students whose van broke down, and they all find out that vampires are all too real. When Bill returns to the town the next day, he finds Samantha, the only survivor, deeply dehydrated and at death's door. All the college students are dead... or are they?
Dee's flashed it up with some elements that have obviously been influential in the intervening years, but when it comes right down to it, this is your basic vampire novel, borrowing a bit from here and a bit from there, and coming up with a predictable plot whose every twist you can see coming a mile off. It's not badly-written, though, and you'll keep turning the pages to see what happens next even if you know what it is. Not the best of the first twelve Abyss novels by any means, but not that bad, either. ** ½
Back in the early nineties, Dell's Abyss line of horror got off to possibly every wrong start it could. It debuted about a year after the end of the big eighties horror boom, it didn't get nearly as much publicity as it should, it started out as a paperback-only imprint, and the monolithic Dell was trying to compete with a few smaller, far more agile publishers who'd been doing horror as long as they'd been around (Jove, Pinnacle, and Leisure, among others). But what Dell brought to the Abyss table was quality; whereas other publishers were known either for their cheesy offerings or for setting the bar of what they'd publish relatively low, Abyss set out to look for authors whose work was not only horrific, but good. As a result, they started off by discovering a young new talent named Kathe Koja (who is now a multi-award-winning teen fiction author) and publishing the third book by a then-unknown horror writer named Brian Hodge (now a greatly respected thriller writer). While not all of their publications were as momentous as those first two, the first year of Abyss did provide us with twelve fun, readable novels, of which Dusk was one.
Dee (Brain Fever) takes a look at the vampire genre that's become pretty common these days, but wasn't back then—the western vampire (popularized recently by both Douglass Clegg and Justin Gustainis). This one focuses on Samantha Borden, an immigration agent sent to a ghost town in the Arizona desert to try and track down her missing partner (and ex-lover), Walt. Walt went missing in that town a while previous, and with the help of Sheriff Bill, the laconic lawman from the nearest inhabited spot, she aims to find out what happened to him. Sheriff Bill has a strong warning for her, however: they can only visit the ghost town, Las Bocas, during the daytime. When Sam gets to the town, she finds out why: someone has crossed out the Las Bocas on the Hotel Las Bocas sign and written in Los Vampiros instead. Sam doesn't believe the town is inhabited by vampires, of course, and in a fit of pique tells Sheriff Bill she'll spend the night there to try and find out what happened to her partner. She's soon joined by a troupe of college students whose van broke down, and they all find out that vampires are all too real. When Bill returns to the town the next day, he finds Samantha, the only survivor, deeply dehydrated and at death's door. All the college students are dead... or are they?
Dee's flashed it up with some elements that have obviously been influential in the intervening years, but when it comes right down to it, this is your basic vampire novel, borrowing a bit from here and a bit from there, and coming up with a predictable plot whose every twist you can see coming a mile off. It's not badly-written, though, and you'll keep turning the pages to see what happens next even if you know what it is. Not the best of the first twelve Abyss novels by any means, but not that bad, either. ** ½