"Death of a Demi-God" by Basil Copper
(A version of "Death of a Demi-God" that isfdb specifically states is "definitive" can be found in the 2002 collection Cold Hand on My Shoulder, but I can't find a scan of that book.)
"Death of a Demi-God" is a police detective story set in an unnamed American city, the kind of American city where people suffer "anaemia," drink tea by the fire in the "sitting room" and go to a "late night chemist" to have their prescriptions filled. These Americans say things like "Should not you see a doctor?" and "fortnight" and "old chap;" the "workmen" among them carry around "gimlets" while the police officers don't do paperwork and have meetings at the "station" but at the "Bureau." What?
Ryan is our main character, a cop with a wife twenty years younger than he; he and cigar-smoking Grady are working on the case of a woman who was decapitated by her husband with an axe. At night, Ryan starts having dreams of a hot naked blonde and a dark figure in a hat with glowing eyes--when he wakes up he has little wounds on his neck. Copper describes three of these quite similar episodes to us in some detail--this story is long, over 50 pages.
The prime minister of France is coming to the city and Ryan and Grady are given the job of watching for trouble from the upper stories of a warehouse as the Frenchman's procession passes below them. (Wait, aren't they detectives? Do detectives get assigned this kind of grunt work when a murderer is on the loose?) Ryan will be on the roof and Grady at a window two floors down, so Ryan gets a slate and and a piece of chalk so he can, if necessary, write a note on the slate and lower it down to Grady's window on a string. (Wait, don't they have radios?) So many people are out on the streets hoping to catch a glimpse of the French prime minister that Ryan and Grady can't find any "public conveyance" to the warehouse where they are to keep watch so they walk there from the police "Bureau." (Wait, this town doesn't have police cars?) They remark that the "Army" will also be acting to protect the Frenchman's procession. (Wait, is the United States Army typically used in such a fashion on domestic soil?) The "militia" is also on the scene.
Ryan's vampiric dreams stop for a few months, then start up again. A minor character is killed by a vampire, and we readers wonder if Ryan is now a vampire but doesn't know it. Ryan begins to feel that he is being watched. Then comes a big day, a major assignment, one on the scale of the French prime minister episode. Ryan is given a spot at which to sit, apparently as a guard, but then feels compelled to leave the spot--he finds himself in the clutches of the evil people from his dream, the naked beauty--she turns out to be his wife--and the man with the hat and red eyes--he turns out to be a living corpse!
The twist ending of the story explains all the puzzling oddities about the city in the story and about people's vocabulary and behavior. "The Death of a Demi-God" does not take place in the 1990s, as I stupidly assumed (the background on World of Darkness, linked above, talks all about skyscrapers and punk rock and film noir and other 20th-century stuff so set me up for a fall); it takes place in 1864-5. The city in Copper's story is Washington, D.C.! Ryan was given the job of guarding Abraham Lincoln's box at Ford's Theatre, and vampires used their diabolical powers to draw him away from his post so the President could be murdered!
This story is not enjoyable. The murders don't feel connected, none of the detective work is interesting, the main character doesn't do much of anything, the supernatural elements are banal. The characters don't have personalities or compelling relationships and don't win your sympathy, the story lacks tension and is poorly constructed, with a sort of climax when the murderer is found and then a dull segment followed by the real climax that comes from out of nowhere with no buildup. As for the central gimmick, I found all the clues that this was the 19th century bewildering and distracting, assuming they were errors rather than part of a clever ruse, and the final revelation irritating.
Thumbs down!
"Gray" by Charles L. Grant
Here we have a story by the famous practitioner of "quiet horror" which it seems may never have been printed in any other venue. It is not only Mignola collectors who need a copy of Proprietors of Fate, but Grant fanatics!
The themes of "Gray" are more what I expected from a World of Darkness story--a depressed werewolf kills white people in his quest to defend nonwhites from capitalism--but like Copper's "Death of a Demi-God," Grant's story is about a famous 19th-century event and Grant tries to spring that fact on you as a surprise.
Our main character is a scout with the U S Army in the West, the racist white men think he is half-Native American because he is such a good tracker, but the reality is that he is a werewolf! The werewolf is sympathetic to the Indians, and uses his position as a scout to lead the white imperialists into ambushes. At the end of the story we learn he has lead Custer (who is never named, but identified by his blonde hair) to Little Big Horn. There is also some business about the werewolf and the Indians he is helping not really getting along; even though by killing white people the protagonist is doing the right thing, he is also a tragic anti-hero, committing blunders himself and suffering the tragedy of having his favorite horse killed by natives.
This is a competent but slight story that maybe you'll enjoy if you like seeing white people laid low, in particular if you have some kind of resentment of blondes. We'll call "Gray" barely acceptable.
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| Mike Mignola illustrations for "Gray" and "Mussolini and the Axeman's Jazz" |
"Mussolini and the Axeman's Jazz" by Poppy Z. Brite
Brite starts out by just telling you the following scenes are set in Sarajevo in 1914, which is a nice change of pace. People my age will remember that in 1995, when Proprietors of Fate was published, Sarajevo was a focus of world attention because of fighting in the region which continued throughout much of the 1990s.
Anyway, Brite describes the murder of Arch Duke Francis Ferdinand and his wife Sophie capably over four pages. While not bad, I have to wonder how useful this material is--if I wanted to read about this heinous crime, couldn't I just read about it in any one of scores of history books?
The scene shifts to 1918 and New Orleans, a town Brite portrays as dirty and crime-ridden. The ghost of the Duke accosts an Italian-American resident of NOLA, a former cop who has lived a tragic life. Behind his murder, the Duke informs the ex-cop, was a centuries-old Sicilian wizard, Cagliostro. Currently, Cagliostro is manipulating Mussolini! Ferdinand the ghost wants the American to slay Cagliostro, who is currently in the Big Easy disguised as a grocer. When the man refuses, the ghost takes over his body and starts killing grocers with an axe--the Duke knows the wizard Cagliostro is living as an Italian grocer, but he doesn't know which one. This campaign of murder Brite, it turns out, based on a real life killing spree I never heard of before.
Cagliostro Brite portrays as a bleeding heart liberal who can see the future and only kills people to achieve a better future. The wizard aims to manipulate Mussolini into undermining Hitler. When the ghost-inhabited body of the ex-cop finally arrives at Cagliostro's place the wizard easily neutralizes it. Then he pens a letter to a newspaper in the voice of the serial killer urging people to play jazz music on a particular night--the letter is a real artifact that Brite is just reproducing here.
The final scene of the story suggests the Axis powers lost World War II because of Mussolini's bungling, a product of Cagliostro's murders and manipulations.
Besides being, like Copper and Grant's stories, a fantasy explanation of various gory historical events, it is possible Brite means her story to be a satire of people who hope to improve the world by murdering people, or, maybe, a vindication of such people--Brite only has nice things to say about Cagliostro, though some of these nice things may be ironic or sarcastic.
We'll call this one mildly good. The plot is OK and the style is pretty good, but the tone is a little too variable, with somewhat goofy joke scenes as well as very serious scenes and scenes in which horrible wounds are dwelt upon splatterpunk style.
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If I had known these stories were going to be alternate history tales in which bargain basement Draculas, Wolfmans and Merlins were the secret manipulators behind famous battles and the world-shaking murders of statesmen I would not have read them because I don't find such stories entertaining. But here we are, sadder but wiser.
(Whatever I think of these stories, though, I am probably going to be reading Copper, Grant and Brite again.)
Proprietors of Fate is the second volume of a trilogy of anthologies edited by Edward E. Kramer, whom I just now am realizing is some kind of predatory homosexual who has been arrested time and again for violations involving minors. (Again, I am sadder but wiser.) The first Dark Destiny volume, Dark Destiny, includes a solid Robert Bloch story, "The Scent of Vinegar." Kramer also had a hand in editing Forbidden Acts, which contains stories by Kathe Koja and Barry Malzberg, Steve Rasnic Tem and Karl Edward Wagner full of perverse sex, and Dark Love, from which we just recently read stories with uncomfortable sex themes by Koja, Wagner, Ramsey Campbell and Copper.
Next time on MPorcius Fiction Log: short SF from the Eisenhower era which (probably) will lack uncomfortable sex themes and gore in the splatterpunk style.
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