MO' EGO

Below is a glowing commentary of Darklost, the second novel of the Renquist Quartet. I don’t know if any movie directors visit Doc40, but if they do, I would draw their attention to the second paragraph. (But do movie people still read, or do they just look at the pictures? I’d be happy talking with an artist who was looking to do a graphic novel.)

"The second novel of vampire Victor Renquist, now shifted to LA where there is a rich and mad cult planning to raise Chthulhu, plus a woman who was halfway turned before the vampire concerned died (she is termed a darklost), plus a squadron of violent off-the-books cops, a rock band, a feral Mexican vampire, some armadillos (don't ask me) and Marlon Brando. It's highly compressed - almost 500 pages, nearly all of it covering a couple of days of beautifully orchestrated action, full of exciting set-pieces, with the overall megathreat never occluded at all.

He's also great at creating memorable visuals (my oldest friend was particularly captivated by the opening of Phaid The Gambler). At the climax of this, LA is in chaos: riots, people going crazy, strange energies flashing around, covered in a toxic fog. The vampires are coming to save the world: 1000-year-old Victor with his cursed samurai sword, Brando looking as he had in The Wild One, a little girl in Victorian schoolgirl garb, with her bald teenage sister, another who has worked for decades as an unstoppable Mafia assassin, and others. This lot come striding out of the fog, everyone instinctively getting out of their way - any movie director could make a career out of that scene."