by William W. Johnstone
Zebra Books, 1991
What the Ashes series did for Libertarianism, Watchers in the Woods does for animal rights. It's as bad as that.
Johnstone's pantser tendencies are in full effect here. We start off with five different couples going on a hiking trip after their joint 20 year school reunion. Good enough set up for a horror novel. But wait, one of the reunioners is a CIA contract assassin! Let's go with that for a while.
On a mission that is never made clear, the CIA agent is ordered to the middle of the woods to do something with the Unseen, also called the Sataw and a dozen other names. These are the same creatures from A Crying Shame, only more vague. They're homo sapiens, but haven't evolved as much as the rest of humanity. They've lived in isolation in the American woods, except for the several generations who have integrated into American society.
They are woefully underdescribed. Some look like humans, some are hairier and have big teeth. The only one that gets any description is a tribe leader who has a regular human body and full-on wolf's head. Most are peaceful, but some are cannibalistic, gone mad by water pollution. If they bite regular people, those people go mad under a full moon. So we're told, it doesn't come up.
The reunioners go in the woods, fight the Unseen and some neo-nazis, then fight to get back out of the woods. The plot is a mess, but we eventually get the full force of the US government involved. Peaceful Unseen are put into camps, violent ones out in society go feral and kill thousands, and people yell at reporters for existing.
More action than horror, but mostly talking. Lots and lots of talking. By then end, Johnstone's giving us a monologue about the mistreatment of greyhound dogs.
Not to be confused with The Watcher in the Woods.
No comments:
Post a Comment