Fire of the Witches - a Queen-Size Gothic

This is only the third "Queen-Size Gothic" novel that I've read, but it is definitely the longest of the three, weighing in at 319 pages.  The author, Lyda Belknap Long, is a pseudonym used by horror and sci-fi author Frank Belknap Long (1901-1994), who also wrote comic books back in the day.  This is now the second Gothic novel of his that I have read, the first being To The Dark Tower nearly a year ago.  And there is no doubt the same author wrote both books - the style of writing and plotting is exactly the same - even though the plots may differ slightly (although both stories deal with cults), Belknap Long has a very bad habit of spending way too much time focused on the inner fears of his characters without actually moving the story along.  While I can see that he is attempting to build some level of suspense, in order to keep the reader on edge, it does not work very well when it is basically the same repetitive fear discussed ad nauseam, without actually advancing the plot.

 

Fire of the Witches, which is rather unique title, I must admit, has very little to do with witches; rather, the reader finally learns nearly half-way through that there is a Satanic cult operating in the vicinity of the house that features in the story, and the cult is involved in some very grotesque rituals.  But I am getting ahead of myself.  The book tells the story of Janice, who gives up her life in New York City to join her brother-in-law, Kenneth, in moving her sister, Marna, out to an old, abandoned mansion outside the small town of Lynnbrook.  You see, Marna has been ill (of course, that illness is never actually defined anywhere in the story; rather, readers are simply to accept that Marna is paranoid to the point of near-delusion, and her recovery depends solely on moving to a dark, isolated house surrounded by woods on all sides), and at her doctor's direction, Janice and Kenneth are moving to a quiet area to give her peace.  Janice and Kenneth arrive ahead of poor Marna, with plans to get the house cleaned up and ready for Marna's arrival.  But, as one might expect in a Gothic novel like this, nothing goes according to plan.

 

While Belknap-Long's previous book that I read dealt with a witch cult, this one (despite the name) deals with a Satanic cult.  Just as soon as Janice and Kenneth arrive at the mansion, they are confronted by a hideous man on the property ... then Janice is nearly attacked by another grotesque man who overpowers and outwits Kenneth before escaping ... then Kenneth is attacked by robed men wearing animal masks ... then Janice "sees" more of those masked men nearly setting fire to the house (of course, that last one turns out to be a vision, for readers learn that Janice may very well be clairvoyant, as she sees furnished rooms that are actually empty, and she sees people that are not actually there ... yet).  When Marna does finally arrive, along with her nurse and chauffeur, before they can even get into the house, they are attacked by the animal-headed cultists, with the nurse and chauffeur being dragged off into the woods, while a conveniently placed squatter by the name of McGowan manages to be there at that exact time to save Marna and bring her in the house to safety.

 

It may sound like there is a lot of action going on in this story, let me make it clear - the author spends an inordinate amount of time inside Janice's head, reminding readers over and over again of all her fears, her suspicions about the house and its surroundings, and her concerns about whether the supernatural is real or not.  In fact, nearly 300 of the 319 pages of story relate only about eight hours worth of "real" time - from the evening that Janice and Kenneth arrive until the wee hours of the next morning when the true villains are revealed and Janice is saved from certain doom.  And the revelation as to the true culprits of this story is somewhat of a cheat - there are literally no clues whatsoever to lead you to the identity of these individuals, and, in fact, much of the story is actually one huge red herring that misleads you to believe one thing is going on, when in reality, that has nothing to do with what is happening to poor Marna!

 

Something else that left me puzzled is the description on the back of the book.  The back proclaims:  "STRANGE, SINISTER LOVE ... Janice came to the old estate to save her sister's sanity.  Instead she found strange witchcraft, sinister love, and her sister dead.  And yet Janice stayed?  What kept her there? Was it the secret allure of the old mansion? The eerie mystery of her sister's death?  Or was it the darkly attractive charm of the young stranger, the gold young man she'd grown to love so much ... yet did not understand ...?"   Wait, what?  Did the person who wrote this synopsis even read the book, or did they get bored of Janice's constant rambling thoughts and gave up half-way through?  Janice's sister never dies!  And there is no young stranger, unless they are referring to the police lieutenant (MacGrath) who comes on the scene - but he does not become a love interest (despite my expecting to see that happen).  So where in the world did the publisher come up with this description for this book?  The only "love" in this book is the love Kenneth feels for Marna and his desire to see her sanity restored.  Talk about misleading the reader with false advertising!

 

The cover art is provided by the ever-talented Hector Garrido, who always manages to paint some of the most beautiful women on these covers (I just wish his art was as well presented on the covers he painted for the Nancy Drew books back in the late '80s).  What is funny about the cover is the house in the background - not at all how the house is described in the book.  In fact, any fan of Alfred Hitchcock will readily be able to identify that house from one of his greatest films - Psycho!  There can be no mistaking Garrido took his inspiration from the house in the 1960 film - from the porch, the stairs leading up to the house, even the planters on the stair corners.  I'm guessing there is no way to copyright or trademark an image of a house like that, but since this was published just 11 years after the film, I can't imagine too many people would miss recognizing the house on the cover.

 

It took me a bit to get through this book - since it was nearly twice the length of Belknap Long's other book I read, the stream of consciousness writing got tiresome very quickly.  Both books dealt with cults - the first a witch cult, this one a Satanic cult - and both books feature some gruesome deaths and some misdirection as to the cult members and the true culprits.  This leaves me to wonder if the author simply cashed in on a single story idea and merely retread it throughout a number of books by changing setting and character names.  I suppose we will find out the next time I read one of his Gothic novels.

 

RATING:  6  waxen witch dolls out of 10 for stepping outside some of the normal tropes to avoid romantic entanglements and direct the danger to someone other than the protagonist.

To the Dark Tower - a Magnum Gothic original

This is another one of those Gothic novels that I picked up because of the cover - in this case, it has a very slight resemblance to the Rudy Nappi cover of the Nancy Drew book, The Sign of the Twisted Candles.  Both books have a single candle prominently displayed on the cover, with the head of a woman next to the candle, and when I saw this book at the used bookstore, my mind immediately went to the Nancy Drew book, so I bought it.  It has been sitting on my shelf for several years, so I figured it was about time I read it.  The back cover blurb cries out "Witch Cult!" and goes on to give a brief synopsis of the story awaiting the reader inside.  Knowing how most Gothic novels of the '60s and '70s often hinted at supernatural tales (but by the end reveal it to be merely a pretense used by a vile villain to achieve his or her goals), I anticipated the same here.  Boy, was I wrong!

 

To the Dark Tower is a somewhat lengthy novel for a Gothic that is not labeled as "Queen-Size" or "Empress Size."  At 187 pages in length, it provides the author with plenty of space to flesh out his story and characters - and yes, I said "his" story.  Lyda Belknap Long is actually a pseudonym for American writer Frank Belknap Long (1901-1994), whose writing includes horror, fantasy, science fiction, and Gothic novels, as well as comic books and non-fiction.  "Lyda" is the name of Long's wife, and so he used her name for his Gothic novels (which is funny, because this particular book has a dedication at the front that reads, "To the untiring help and teachings of my husband, Frank Belknap Long."  I was surprised to learn Long wrote scripts for DC Comics, including stories with Congo Bill and the original Green Lantern, as well as scripts for Fawcett Comics' Captain Marvel stories (later known as Shazam!).  When I learned that Long was also a close friend of H.P. Lovecraft, the nature of this story made a lot more sense.

 

When the back cover says "Witch Cult!," it really means it.  The opening Prelude, which is an impressive 18-pages long, does not even introduce readers to the main character.  Instead, we follow a young man named Willie who witnesses a ceremony deep in the Kentucky woods, watching in horror as a young woman is sacrificed to some unseen good.  When he tries to escape, hoping to find salvation in the nearby house of Dr. Wilfred Allen, he is stopped when a robed stranger steps out and leaves an object on the front door of the doctor's house - an object that the doctor finds and with great anxiety throws it into the woods.  Willie finds the object, which is a doll in the likeness of the doctor's female friend, Joan; but the doll has needles sticking into it, and before Willie can do anything about it, he is chased, ultimately meeting his untimely end.

 

Long then jumps to our main character, Joan Lambert, who is driving her car along the desolate backwoods Kentucky road, trying anxiously not to allow her fear to overwhelm her.  An archeologist, Joan has just returned from Spain, where she found some ancient cave writings that revealed a witch cult that existed centuries ago - and her exploration of those caves released an unholy, unseen terror that has followed her across the ocean to Kentucky!  She hopes Dr. Allen can help her get these terrors under control, but the sudden appearance of a man in a monk robe standing in the middle of the road causes her to swerve up an embankment.  What follows is a rather lengthy story of dark horror that wavers between the real and the imaginary.  Are Joan's fears grounded in reality, or are they all really just in her head?  Dr. Allen has invited a group of specialists to his secluded home in the hopes of helping Joan.  But when Willie's body turns up, and a young couple on their honeymoon wind up dead in their car at the bottom of a gully, it is clear there is more going on here than imaginary fears.

 

I do give Long credit for making the cult very real.  The deaths of Willie and the young couple (as well as another couple who stop to help them) are rather brutal and unexpected, making the book all that much darker.  What has me confused, however, is the title and the cover to the book.  To the Dark Tower would seem to hint that there is some tower of a great mansion involved in the story somehow - even the cover has painted a dark mansion in the background, behind Joan's floating head.  Yet, nowhere in the story is there any tower (not even mentioned in passing!), nor is there any house that would resemble the one on the cover.  In fact, there is also no candle used anywhere in the story!  The tale is set in the modern time, with motor vehicles, electricity, and such, so there is no need for any candles.  So, this begs the question - what prompted the title and the cover art?  I'm aware that many publisher used (and re-used!) cover art for their Gothic novels that had no real relation to the story inside; they simply wanted covers that would attract those who were hooked on the Gothic craze that had taken over store bookshelves everywhere.  But the title?  It has no connection whatsoever to the story, so one is left to wonder why...

 

I did like the fact the story was set in Kentucky, my home state.  I wish Long had narrowed down a location within the state, even if it was simply to have the characters drive through a specific area or mention a nearby town.  Instead, Long keeps it vague, simply keeping it in a small town with plenty of wooded area.  Even his references to Joan's time spent in Spain does not narrow down the location to any particular area of that country.   There are, however, a few names in the book that caught my eye.  When Joan meets the specialists at Dr. Allen's house, the men's names (which I'm guessing were arbitrarily chosen by the author) brought a smile to my face.  The first is John Claymore (p. 132), whose last name is also the name of a city used by Mildred Wirt Benson in her Madge Sterling series, her Penny Parker series, and a few other of her books.  The second is Joseph Moulton (p. 133), whose last name was the middle name of the creator of Wonder Woman (William Moulton Marston).  The third is Helen Traven (p. 133), whose last name is shared by novelist B. Traven, which was a pen name of an unidentified activist who authored a number of books between the 1920s and 1960s.  It is doubtful Long pulled those names from those particular places, but it is a fun coincidence.

 

The story is very heavy on exposition and very light on dialogue, which is one aspect that I did not enjoy.  The majority of the book focused on Joan's fears of the unseen terror that seemed to lurk just out of sight, always following her, always leading her to wonder if death might not be a better option than living the rest of her life with this fear overpowering her.  Long stays inside Joan's mind, with her obsessive fear completely taking her over, and after a while, you (as the reader) wish the author would ground the book in some level of reality with conversations and interaction with other people.  However, finding out after I finished reading the book that Long was friends with Lovecraft, it gave me a new point-of-view with the story, and I think I can appreciate his writing style a little more.

 

This is far from your typical Gothic novel of that era.  If you are expecting a story of a young, innocent woman being whisked away to a foreboding mansion with two men vying for her affection with dark secrets surrounding them at all every turn - this is not one of those stories.  But, if you want something a bit different, a bit darker, and a bit morbid, then this one is for you.

 

RATING:  8 peculiarly shaped musical instruments out of 10 for giving readers a completely different side of the Gothic tale.