Darkfall

"Back in the ’80s, there were two big horror writers who were operating: Stephen King and Dean Koontz. Stephen King was happy to give you a horrifying ending, he had no trouble with that at all. Dean Koontz believes in a happy ending: he wants to tie things up and restore you to that sense of normality and balance when it’s all over. Koontz is also the author of one of my favourite books, Watchers , which is about genetic engineering and what can happen if it gets out of control. It’s about a genetically engineered golden retriever who is just as smart as a human being, but still a dog, and it is exactly as heartwarming as you would think. The same project that designed the golden retriever also designed a military engineered creature, a horrible monster that was designed to be a horrible monster, and these two grew up together. The monster hates the dog, and wants to kill it. It’s jealous because people are afraid of it – just because it’s a psychotic killing machine that tears people’s eyes out – and everyone loves the dog. There’s sibling rivalry going on between these two children of humanity. The dog escapes, the monster goes after it to kill it, the dog runs across a couple of normal people… How do they deal with this monster that’s coming after them, and the even more insidious monster of the government coming after all of it? That’s an amazing book. I believe most of Dean Koontz’s story worlds are the same world. Darkfall is a book that touches upon the supernatural as a different dimension, that can sometimes touch on this dimension through the right people following the right practices. It’s about a police detective who is trying to solve a series of gang murders, and the gang murders are happening because the gangs crossed a voodoo bocor, a dark priest, who starts summoning things. At first he only summons little things, but if he summons three hundred of them they could eat you… And they’re getting bigger and bigger and bigger, and it’s getting worse and worse and worse. This police detective is realising that these crimes are not covered in any of the manuals. This guy, he got torn to pieces by rats in a club and nobody noticed – how did that happen? He finally figures out what’s going on, and he tracks down a white practitioner of voodoo, a houngan, to help him. This is one of the books that inspired the Knights of the Cross in The Dresden Files . The houngan says, “Listen, I know there’s all these different religions. But at the end of the day, there are dark powers and light powers, and the dark powers don’t care about anyone or anything; they do whatever they want to as much as they can. And the light powers, we have to work together if we want something other than just horror all the time. So yes, you’re not a follower of voodoo, but you’re a sincere Catholic, and you have spent a lifetime trying to help people and do the right things – and that gives you power. Let me show you how.” And as a result – and this is one of the things that I loved about this book – it follows a police procedural format, but it’s really about the nature of good and evil, and how they interact. Where they’re strong and where they’re weak, and how the powers of good tend to come into alignment and work together; and how the little things that you do over time are additive, and they matter. The PI would say, “But I’m not a good man” – and the witch doctor replies, “If you thought you were a good man, you wouldn’t be a righteous man, you’d be a self-righteous man. You’re somebody who tries as hard as he can. And that’s what makes a good person – the effort, the will, the desire – those positive intentions to make a difference in the world. Now, let me show you how to actualize that…” So he goes forth to battle evil and does so successfully. But the guiding principle of it was, with all these supernatural powers of good and evil, all the supernatural good can do for him is to put things in balance. After that, it’s going to be him and this other person, and he’s going to have to deal with them on his own. The powers can make this a fair fight, subtracting the powers of darkness, but he’s going to have to carry it through. And that is an excellent view of paladins in general. So when I’m writing paladins in the Dresden Files , they’ve got these cool swords that battle darkness, but all the swords can do is make it a fair fight. That’s something that I think applies to everyone, that everyone can identify with – if it’s a fair fight, I’ll definitely fight it. It really is. It’s properly a horror novel, because there are bits of it that are horrifying – and I think the most horrifying thing any of us can feel is helpless."