Primitive

The worst day of David Spires life started with a phone call from daycare: His stepson had attacked another boy and then been killed. That’s bad enough, but this is only the start of the bad news, as the world is engulfed in brutal acts of violence. A chemical/biological agent has been released which causes people to revert to their primitive “Neanderthal” nature, and their instinct is to kill any of the few who are resistant to the change. David has to flee Los Angeles with his wife, daughter, and a motley crew of fellow survivors, to try to find safe harbor from the primitives.

There is an additional complication: It seems ancient man worshipped a demonic creature named Hanbi. With the extinction of the Neanderthals, Hanbi faded from the collective conscience, but with the return of them, in greater numbers than ever before, not only has the worship of Hanbi made a comeback, it has caused a physical reappearance of the demon. Not only will David and his people have to struggle for survival against the primitives, they must find a way to destroy a supernatural creature from the past – one with the power to raise the dead.

J.F. Gonzalez has written good books before (Survivor, Shapeshifter, the wonderful B-movie Clickers and Clickers II), but he takes his writing to new heights here. Primitive is the most compulsorily readable thing he’s done, at least that I’ve read. His characters are written so as to be real to the reader, and you feel the tenseness as they struggle to survive, and the angst that goes with hard moral choices they must make.

Post-apocalyptic fiction has been a staple of the horror genre for a long time. Stephen King’s The Stand is rightly considered a classic, and many people count Robert R. McCammon’s Swan Song among their favorites. Does Primitive rate a place with these immortal books? Yes, with a small caveat.

The other books mentioned were written at a time when horror novels were often of epic length (one version of The Stand is over 1100 pages long). Today’s market is different, and the upper limit for novels has become 300 pages, which is the length of Primitive, give or take a couple of pages. As good as it is, there are tantalizing subplot possibilities that are not explored. There is some mystery about the military officer Wesley, the question of how some people are still reverting months after the original epidemic, and a lot of information about the cause of the catastrophe and just why some people are immune. I have no inside knowledge as to whether Gonzalez would have liked to have written a longer version of Primitive, but I feel there could have been a lot more to it if he had chosen to do so, and I would have like to have read it.

This criticism shouldn’t be construed as taking anything away from the book that was published. Primitive is a compelling book, and shows a continuing progression of Gonzalez’ talents. If quality still matters in the genre, it should be very successful, and I would recommend you give it a try. Primitive is available from Delirium Books.
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Shapeshifter

Shapeshifter is a hybrid of werewolf story and crime thriller, written by J. F. Gonzalez (Clickers I & II, Survivor). The main character is a young man named Mark Wiseman who, for reasons unknown has been stricken since his teens with the curse of lycanthropy. Mark is an ambivalent character. Although he is not blatantly evil, he does come across as somewhat indifferent to the fate of those he kills following his monthly transformation. He wishes he didn’t have to do it, but he has come to accept it as a part of the natural order of things. Over time, Mark has learned how to at least partially control his bestial side, and settled into a quiet life working on computers for a large insurance company, until he is seen in a partial transformation on CCTV by the president of the company. The president is much closer to real evil than Mark. He uses Mark’s abilities to kill those who are on the opposite side of an upcoming merger issue, and to protect his place in the company. He forces Mark into this by blackmail and physical threats. Mark resents this, but doesn’t protest too much. I did wonder at why he went along with the evil CEO’s schemes for so long. Eventually, one of the assassinations is bungled, and Mark is on the run for his life.

This was a fast-paced book, and I read it in a day. Gonzalez has an easy, very readable style, and I would recommend this book. Some may be put off by the lack of a sympathetic character, since Mark himself doesn’t seem particularly noble. It is also interesting to compare this with Gonzalez' earlier work and see how much he has progressed as a writer.
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Survivor

I’ve been a fan of horror and crime fiction since I was a kid. This has made me fairly jaded as far as depictions of violence go. A lifetime of reading about the extremes of human behavior will do that to you.

So I was surprised when, a third of the way through J. F. Gonzalez’ excellent novel Survivor, I contemplated chucking it aside. This had nothing to do with the quality of the book, but it was so harrowing, I was leery of what I knew was to come. Reality based horror, as opposed to the supernatural kind, is usually a bit more intimidating, since you are dealing with something at least theoretically possible. With trepidation, I stuck it out, and I’m glad I did.

Brad and Lisa are two young married lawyers, off for a weekend getaway, when they are stopped by a police officer. It seems another motorist, Caleb Smith, has filed a complaint for a citizen’s arrest against Brad, and he gets to spend the weekend in jail. But the Smith’s real motive is to separate Brad and Lisa in order to kidnap her. It seems that Smith has been commissioned by clients to provide a victim for a snuff film. Lisa is to be raped, tortured, and murdered, for the pleasure of a network of hardcore perverts. But that isn’t even the worst part. That’s what Lisa is willing to do to survive…

My only previous experience with Gonzalez’ work was in reading the enjoyable, B-movie-esque Clickers and Clickers II. Here his work takes a much darker turn. Like at the scene of a highway accident, I found I could not look away. If you can handle it, this is a must-read.

I have a couple of quibbles with the book. It could have used a good proof-reader (this has become the standard in American publishing, I’m afraid), and I felt it could have done with some editing, especially during the last segment of the book, which seemed to meander a bit. But this is not enough to keep this from being a very significant book in the field of non-supernatural horror.

Clickers II

At the end of Clickers, the invasion of a New England town by the title creatures and the Deep Ones that followed them had been thwarted, or at least survived. Apparently, however, the Deep Ones didn’t take too kindly their casualties suffered at the hands of the land dwellers, as, after a gap of several years, they return to exact revenge in Clickers II.

The sequel opens the scale of the story up considerably. The government took extreme measures to keep the first attack quiet, with Colonel Livingstone, who commanded the original battle against them, forced into retirement, and the survivors either killed or in hiding. The cover-up falls through when the clickers come ashore again, with the Deep Ones again behind. Instead of a localized occurrence this time, the invasion commences all along the Eastern Seaboard. As the aquatic terror rolls inland, Livingstone and one of the survivors of the first attack are forced back into the front lines. Hampering the efforts is an overly religious U.S. President (how likely is that?) who refuses to even believe the invasion is taking place, as that would indicate acceptance of evolutionary theory. By the time everything gets sorted out, you’ll be glad you don’t live too near the ocean.

As with the first one, this is a 50s B-movie in written form. But that isn’t a criticism, as the book is fast-paced and fun. J.F. Gonzalez is back as one of the co-writers, but original co-author Mark Williams died after the publication of the first book. His place is capably filled by fan-favorite author Brian Keene. Anyone who liked the first Clickers should pick up this superior sequel. And if you haven’t read the first Clickers, get ‘em both. They read well back-to-back.

Clickers

Clickers is a throwback story to old-time 50s-horror-movie horror, with a touch of Lovecraft. It is a collaborative effort between J.F. Gonzalez (his first novel), who’s gone on to a very successful career, and Mark Williams, who unfortunately passed away not too long after the book was written.

The story is pretty simple. A newly successful horror writer named Rick takes a vacation home in an isolated town in Maine to work on a new novel. As soon as he arrives he meets a girl – and the village is overrun by a strange species of crab (the eponymous Clickers). These crabs are abnormally large, with a hard shell and a scorpion-like stinger which injects venom which liquefies tissue. The casualty rate is high, the town is further cut off from the rest of the world, and Rick must protect himself and his new love. Just as the townspeople turn the tide and get the upper hand on the invaders, they learn a far more frightening truth – the reason the crabs have emerged from the deep sea is they are being chased by something far more frightening.

Clickers is a fast-paced action read, and once the attack occurs, it never lets up. True, it isn’t deep literature, but it doesn’t aspire to be. Clickers is supposed to be fun for the horror fan, and it is. The one real criticism I have is the book is one of the most poorly edited books I’ve ever read, and you’ll have to wade through the typos, but it is well worth it.

Clickers has been followed by a sequel, Clickers II, written by Gonzalez and Brian Keene, and there has just been an announcement of a third installment in the series. There has also been discussion for a long time of pitting the Clickers against the giant ants from Jeff Strand's Mandibles.