Gemini Rising

by Brian McNaughton

A horror lurks outside an old man's house. Is it just a wild animal, some mischievous teens, or could it be something far more sinister? The Secret Master of Horror's first horror novel -- a rare delicacy.

Genres: Horror

146 pages, Paperback

First published January 1, 2000

About the author

Brian McNaughton was an American writer of horror and fantasy fiction who mixed sex, satire and black humour. He also wrote thrillers.

Reviews

[mark monday · Rating 3 out of 5]

ladies, ever have that not-so-fresh feeling, a feeling of uncleanliness coming from the nether regions? the lovely and eerie Marcia and Melody, mother and daughter, are quite familiar with that feeling. although in this case that not-so-fresh feeling is demonic possession and those nether regions are a gateway to hell. egads!

Brian McNaughton is rather a lost author. he won a couple prestigious awards for his ghoulish novel The Throne of Bones and has a bit of a cult following (I'm a proud member), but very little is said about him. sad! the man has talent. I hate to see good writing fade from public consciousness. if you are a horror fan who enjoys a style that is both classic and modern, that is often subtle and strange and ambiguous, you really need to read him. read him! my favorite McNaughton is the splendid, criminally unknown The House Across the Way.

Gemini Rising can be considered, I suppose, a rather familiar tale. one of satanic ceremonies, disturbing memories coming back to haunt the present, a demonic twin, ritual murders, a small town full of close-minded folk, a loveless marriage, and a dog named Lucifer who is more than he seems. but I don't mind familiarity, particularly when I am in a talented author's hands. he riffs on these familiar elements in enjoyable ways and the prose is always stylish . I didn't get a lot of narrative surprises out of this one but I did get that satisfying feeling of reading an expertly crafted tale that was short and brisk. the concept of the demonic twin who cannot find shape in our world was particularly well done. McNaughton also compellingly ties in satanic ritual with the Lovecraft mythos, which was a first for me in a horror novel and I appreciated the odd rightness of that. of course Cthulhu and his buddies are Satan and his crew. duh, mark!

sex and sexuality are central to this novel and are presented in striking, often graphic ways, moving from prosaic and unpleasantly honest to dark and horrific. DO NOT READ THIS BOOK IF YOU CANNOT STOMACH RAPE SCENES. okay?

the novel was severely mistreated when it was first published under the ludicrous title "Satan's Love Child" in 1977: a bunch of pornographic interludes were tossed into the narrative to ramp up the supposed sexiness, ugh, and sell some books. the novel that I read clearly doesn't need those additions because it has plenty of sexuality present - disturbing and repulsive sexuality that would sit uneasily next to standard porn scenes. there's not a lot of sexy in McNaughton's sexuality.

eek, check out the original edition:



quelle horreur!

[Tony Vacation · Rating 3 out of 5]

An unevenly paced horror novel that's star quality is its confident and polished prose, Gemini Rising was originally published by a pornographic press that felt the need to interleave sexual hijinks throughout McNaughton's mean-spirited tale of bodily horror, black magic and the Devil. The publisher also gave it a memorably sleazy title, Satan's Love Child. (And also a memorably sleazy cover that is featured in Grady Hendrix's Paperbacks from Hell: The Twisted History of '70s and '80s Horror Fiction.) Besides an animalistic coupling on a suburban lawn at the halfway point, there is very little titillation to be had as the novel's sexuality, which is integral to the story, turns increasingly horrific as the narrative reaches its inescapable conclusion. Though this novel doesn't exactly reward its reader for their time, it certainly doesn't waste it with bad writing. It's a sturdy horror novel by a talented author, and any reviewer of it in 2018 would be remiss if they didn’t include the words “trigger” and “warning.”

[Joel Hacker · Rating 3 out of 5]

This is a re-publication of Satan's Lovechild series from the 60s/70s. I'm still trying to get a copy of the original, Star Publishing, edition as my understanding is there have been actual revisions as well as possible additions/omissions and I'm curious to see what exactly that entails. I am assuming that the original, being published by Playboy under one of its imprints and from some comments made by the author over the years, is more explicitly racy than this reprint. I would be tempted to say that perhaps it is only a difference in socio-cultural norms between then and now as to what would be considered explicit sexual content, however even some of McNaughton's other works are more direct in their sexuality than this one leading me to believe that some of the changes lie there.
This falls pretty solidly into the satanic/witch cults genre of horror literature and film so prevalent from the 60s-80s. You never know if your neighbor, wife, daughter, those hermit farmers, weird hippies, or literally anyone else in society might be secret satan worshipers, looking to kidnap and/or sexually exploit children and sacrifice babies. The same ideas that the satanic panic and religious right of the 80s decided were real instead of just fiction. We get some hints that this might be a stranger, less judeo-christian, world with to the supernatural goings on than mere satan worship though. Specifically, the nature of certain brothers and sisters begins to show that perhaps this is a more Lovecraftian universe. I believe the farther one gets in the series, the more 'weird' and less just 'horrific' it gets.
As is the case with all McNaughton's work, the prose is beautifully polished throughout. He is an expert wordsmith. However, the pacing feels distinctly uneven. This is fairly short for a novel, coming in at just 144 pages, but long compared to a lot of his short fiction work. I think the pacing suffers from trying to bridge the gap between the more action oriented demands of short fiction (barring atmospheric pieces) and the internal character driven demands of long-form work. We get just enough of characters internal lives to make us want to know more, but not enough for them to feel fully developed. Engaging, more action packed scenes that seem to drop too quickly into denoument. In some of his anthologized works like Throne of Bones, we see characters more fully explored and developed over longer sequences of tales, and I think that may be where McNaughton shines. If there's every an omnibus of this series of books published, it may be better to read them that way, though I'll reserve judgment until I've read the rest of the series.

[Hal_the_Homo · Rating 1 out of 5]

I STRUGGLED through this book so I could tick off the box on my reading challenge that told me to read a book with a zodiac sign in the title. I wish I had just put The Scorpio Races on reserve instead.

This book is a product of its time, and I might have been willing to overlook some of the nastiness IF that was the only issue here. It's not. So, I won't.

We've got casual homophobia, blatant sexism, objectification of women, and more than one on-page rape scene. Not to mention, the dog dies.

We start out strong with the mother, Marcia, being jealous of her daughter, Melody's, teen body, which was not only skeevy but so fucking weird. I guess women all see one another as competition?

The monster that is terrorizing this town is finally revealed to be the family dog possessed by a demonic spirit; the demonic spirit is Melody's unborn twin brother. Which is really weird because then Melody goes to a demon orgy and gets knocked up, and her baby is... her own brother? This was honestly confusing and didn't make any sense. Then the obligatory manic priest was there at the end, and I guess he was also a patient at the psych hospital they had put Marcia in? I mean this really was such a clusterfuck. This author seemed to be so excited about writing demon rape, he forgot to also write a story.

[Daniel Lawson · Rating 2 out of 5]

Weak plot, 1 dimensional characters, weaker ending. Plus this edition had a large number of typos.

[Alexis Barrera oranday · Rating 2 out of 5]

Es una historia de 1977 sobre un culto satánico.

En verdad fue muy vulgar y corriente. Al final se perdió por completo la trama y la coherencia.

Cero recomendable.

[Brent Winslow · Rating 1 out of 5]

There was potential here, but the execution was poor, the author added cheap shocks which were just icky, and the ending was unsatisfying.