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Ravenous Dusk
EVOLUTION IS EVOLVING
In the Seven Devils Mountains of Northern Idaho, in the radioactive shadow of Chernobyl, their numbers grow. They gather to be cured of their cancer, but they become much more. Soon, they will be One. When they come into their kingdom, all plant and animal life on earth will be rendered obsolete, and a billion-year old experiment called evolution will have reached its logical conclusion.
CATASTROPHE
As Special Agent Martin Cundieffe pursues the trail of the mutant cult, he finds a deeper secret that reaches into the hidden heart of American power, and leaves him powerless and alone before the real enemy. Stella Orozco has traded her freedom and her humanity for something more. When her transformation is complete, she will become a goddess-and lose her mind.
Sgt. Zane Storch is a soldier without an army, a species of one fighting both sides for his own survival and sanity in a body that is fast becoming his own worst enemy. How many times will he fight to defend a nation and a species that shuns him as an abomination? How many times will he die for them?
CREATION
As the Mission heats up its genocidal campaign against Radiant Dawn, the armies of the mysterious Dr. Keogh labor to open a sealed pre-human tomb in the Iraqi wasteland. This forgotten place will decide the outcome of the last war of natural selection, for what lies beyond the crumbling wall is no less than the unspeakable truth about the origin of life on earth-and what's coming next.
In the Seven Devils Mountains of Northern Idaho, in the radioactive shadow of Chernobyl, their numbers grow. They gather to be cured of their cancer, but they become much more. Soon, they will be One. When they come into their kingdom, all plant and animal life on earth will be rendered obsolete, and a billion-year old experiment called evolution will have reached its logical conclusion.
CATASTROPHE
As Special Agent Martin Cundieffe pursues the trail of the mutant cult, he finds a deeper secret that reaches into the hidden heart of American power, and leaves him powerless and alone before the real enemy. Stella Orozco has traded her freedom and her humanity for something more. When her transformation is complete, she will become a goddess-and lose her mind.
Sgt. Zane Storch is a soldier without an army, a species of one fighting both sides for his own survival and sanity in a body that is fast becoming his own worst enemy. How many times will he fight to defend a nation and a species that shuns him as an abomination? How many times will he die for them?
CREATION
As the Mission heats up its genocidal campaign against Radiant Dawn, the armies of the mysterious Dr. Keogh labor to open a sealed pre-human tomb in the Iraqi wasteland. This forgotten place will decide the outcome of the last war of natural selection, for what lies beyond the crumbling wall is no less than the unspeakable truth about the origin of life on earth-and what's coming next.
584 pages, Kindle Edition
First published June 1, 2003
5 people are currently reading
195 people want to read
About the author
Cody Goodfellow
162 books384 followersCODY GOODFELLOW has written nine novels and five collections, and has won three Wonderland Book Awards for Bizarro Fiction. He wrote, co-produced and scored the short Lovecraftian hygiene films Stay At Home Dad and Baby Got Bass, which have become viral sensations on YouTube. He has appeared in numerous short films, TV shows, music videos and commercials as research for his previous novel, Sleazeland. He also edits the hyperpulp zine Forbidden Futures. He “lives” in San Diego. Find out more at codygoodfellow.com.
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Displaying 1 - 8 of 8 reviews
April 23, 2012
Yes, yes, I know I read weird sh*t, but jeez. This stuff is fun!
Having just finished Radiant Dawn, I couldn't just stay hanging on that precipice of a cliffhanger -- there was just too much at stake to leave it for another time. And whereas in Radiant Dawn I noted Goodfellow's few nods to Lovecraft, here the Lovecraftian scene explodes -- in and around the government conspiracies, the clandestine organizations within other clandestine organizations, and military action (including a legendary, truly badass group of soldiers called Spike Team Texas whose very name freaks the most hardened of regular army people), lie those who've been waiting "sleeping, since before the earth as men knew it came to be." For these beings, humans are of no consequence in the larger scheme of things; they're simply accidents of evolution and mutation who took over in the absence of the Old Ones. Everything human beings have inscribed upon their world down through the millenia turns out to have been illusory -- the truth is something so frightening it has led many who've glimpsed only shadows of it to madness. Here, in both Radiant Dawn and Ravenous Dusk, that madness takes several forms, but Lovecraft would be so happy with Cody Goodfellow if he could only read these books.
As in Radiant Dawn, Ravenous Dusk continues the story of the three main characters, who have emerged transformed from events in Radiant Dawn -- Stella Orozco, FBI Special Agent Cundieffe, and Ezekiel Zane Storch. This time around, however, the action is stepped up -- the conspiracies multiply, all hell breaks loose all around the globe, the secret war escalates, and the very future of humanity hangs in the balance, based on events chronicled by Lovecraft in his At the Mountains of Madness. The past eons have finally caught up to our current world, and how the three characters fit in to all of the ensuing insanity is at the heart of this novel.
Like its predecessor, Ravenous Dusk is a mix of sci-fi, horror, political conspiracy thriller, and military action; here it's all packed together in a Lovecraftian frame. There are some awesome moments in this book -- for example, in the installation at Mount Weather, Virginia, where Cundieffe reckons that
"some genius back in the Fifities must have reasoned that men, pushed to the brink of a nuclear exchange, would be kept from losing their heads at a critical reminder of all that was quaint and corny small-town America"
and where a group awaiting the worst makes plans to become the leader of the coming New World Order; there's also a white-supremacy cult in the mountains of Idaho who new neighbors just happen to be the relocated and reinvented Radiant Dawn hospice center. While much of the action in the story is way over the top, it's still so much fun that setting the book aside is impossible. And considering what's going on in this book, the ending is a surprise, but at the same time it totally fits.
Really, the only negative thing I have to say is that at some points the book is sometimes overly wordy, depending on a lot of conversation or discoveries to fill in the multiple backstories of events and people in the novel. I'd also say that it might be a good thing to have even some familiarity with Lovecraft's work; if nothing else, at least At the Mountains of Madness; if you run into a word like "shoggoth," for example, you'd at least be familiar with the term; otherwise, if you're not already a Lovecraft reader, you might be a bit lost. But together, Radiant Dawn and Ravenous Dusk comprise something very different than the usual post-Lovecraft Mythos fare I've read, and Goodfellow's imagination has run crazy wild in a good way. Personally, I don't get why people settle for the twee stuff like Pride and Prejudice and Zombies or Twilight when there are worlds upon worlds of coolness to be found in books like Goodfellow's; now I'm wondering who else I've missed that taps into this kind of bizarro but incredibly awesome wavelength.
Having just finished Radiant Dawn, I couldn't just stay hanging on that precipice of a cliffhanger -- there was just too much at stake to leave it for another time. And whereas in Radiant Dawn I noted Goodfellow's few nods to Lovecraft, here the Lovecraftian scene explodes -- in and around the government conspiracies, the clandestine organizations within other clandestine organizations, and military action (including a legendary, truly badass group of soldiers called Spike Team Texas whose very name freaks the most hardened of regular army people), lie those who've been waiting "sleeping, since before the earth as men knew it came to be." For these beings, humans are of no consequence in the larger scheme of things; they're simply accidents of evolution and mutation who took over in the absence of the Old Ones. Everything human beings have inscribed upon their world down through the millenia turns out to have been illusory -- the truth is something so frightening it has led many who've glimpsed only shadows of it to madness. Here, in both Radiant Dawn and Ravenous Dusk, that madness takes several forms, but Lovecraft would be so happy with Cody Goodfellow if he could only read these books.
As in Radiant Dawn, Ravenous Dusk continues the story of the three main characters, who have emerged transformed from events in Radiant Dawn -- Stella Orozco, FBI Special Agent Cundieffe, and Ezekiel Zane Storch. This time around, however, the action is stepped up -- the conspiracies multiply, all hell breaks loose all around the globe, the secret war escalates, and the very future of humanity hangs in the balance, based on events chronicled by Lovecraft in his At the Mountains of Madness. The past eons have finally caught up to our current world, and how the three characters fit in to all of the ensuing insanity is at the heart of this novel.
Like its predecessor, Ravenous Dusk is a mix of sci-fi, horror, political conspiracy thriller, and military action; here it's all packed together in a Lovecraftian frame. There are some awesome moments in this book -- for example, in the installation at Mount Weather, Virginia, where Cundieffe reckons that
"some genius back in the Fifities must have reasoned that men, pushed to the brink of a nuclear exchange, would be kept from losing their heads at a critical reminder of all that was quaint and corny small-town America"
and where a group awaiting the worst makes plans to become the leader of the coming New World Order; there's also a white-supremacy cult in the mountains of Idaho who new neighbors just happen to be the relocated and reinvented Radiant Dawn hospice center. While much of the action in the story is way over the top, it's still so much fun that setting the book aside is impossible. And considering what's going on in this book, the ending is a surprise, but at the same time it totally fits.
Really, the only negative thing I have to say is that at some points the book is sometimes overly wordy, depending on a lot of conversation or discoveries to fill in the multiple backstories of events and people in the novel. I'd also say that it might be a good thing to have even some familiarity with Lovecraft's work; if nothing else, at least At the Mountains of Madness; if you run into a word like "shoggoth," for example, you'd at least be familiar with the term; otherwise, if you're not already a Lovecraft reader, you might be a bit lost. But together, Radiant Dawn and Ravenous Dusk comprise something very different than the usual post-Lovecraft Mythos fare I've read, and Goodfellow's imagination has run crazy wild in a good way. Personally, I don't get why people settle for the twee stuff like Pride and Prejudice and Zombies or Twilight when there are worlds upon worlds of coolness to be found in books like Goodfellow's; now I'm wondering who else I've missed that taps into this kind of bizarro but incredibly awesome wavelength.
February 26, 2012
Like the man says, "the greatest fear of the religious is that God does not exist, and the greatest fear of the atheist is that 'he' DOES. But if God exists . . . it's not for you, you don't really want to meet him."
Life is the star of Radiant Dawn/Dusk -- life cannot be restrained or controlled on this planet, whether its the Elder Gods filtering and seething down from the stars, or the Old Ones conducting their ill fated experiments condemning them to degeneracy, or shoggoth survivors trying to imbibe and ingest the world, or the by-blow accidents that eventually evolved the opposeable thumb and reared up on their hind legs to arrogantly crown themselves lords and masters of a world they could never understand, lusting for stars in the firmament that will stare down just as blithely at our inevitable extinction.
Add to this Lovecraftian mix the internecine complexities of our monkey politics: a damaged PTSD veteran, a loner Latina with a chip on her shoulder and a tumor baby in her belly, and (my favorite) Mister Cundieffe -- despite being a twisted mutant freak, he's more 'US' than almost anyone else in the book.
Then the power groups, all vying for glory or at least for crumbs: Radiant Dawn, the Enclave, Washington & the military-industrial complex, the Mission . . . you need a player card in this story, and even then it's a gray area sometimes just who's doing what for why. Suffice to say this is NOT a story I'd want to have any kind of starring role in . . . but perhaps I already am, and don't know it.
I was sad when I reached and finished the last page of Dusk, the second volume. This story literally made me gasp a couple times in shock and awe. It's a magnificent achievement.
Read it.
Life is the star of Radiant Dawn/Dusk -- life cannot be restrained or controlled on this planet, whether its the Elder Gods filtering and seething down from the stars, or the Old Ones conducting their ill fated experiments condemning them to degeneracy, or shoggoth survivors trying to imbibe and ingest the world, or the by-blow accidents that eventually evolved the opposeable thumb and reared up on their hind legs to arrogantly crown themselves lords and masters of a world they could never understand, lusting for stars in the firmament that will stare down just as blithely at our inevitable extinction.
Add to this Lovecraftian mix the internecine complexities of our monkey politics: a damaged PTSD veteran, a loner Latina with a chip on her shoulder and a tumor baby in her belly, and (my favorite) Mister Cundieffe -- despite being a twisted mutant freak, he's more 'US' than almost anyone else in the book.
Then the power groups, all vying for glory or at least for crumbs: Radiant Dawn, the Enclave, Washington & the military-industrial complex, the Mission . . . you need a player card in this story, and even then it's a gray area sometimes just who's doing what for why. Suffice to say this is NOT a story I'd want to have any kind of starring role in . . . but perhaps I already am, and don't know it.
I was sad when I reached and finished the last page of Dusk, the second volume. This story literally made me gasp a couple times in shock and awe. It's a magnificent achievement.
Read it.
May 25, 2011
Ravenous Dusk
Perilous Press
580 pages
The word epic as been tortured by over use in recent slang but the word fits like a glove here. To say that this book is a Lovecraftian epic is an understatement. Elder gods, saggoths, government conspiracy, military battles, race issues all these issues get one of Goodfellow's tenticle touch. It all ends in a satisfying ending that works unlike Stephen King's huge epics.
I think of this as part three in the radiant trilogy, if you count the novella prologue chapbook. I do, this novel pays off the brief touches of the Lovecraftian mythos which are more clear in the chapbook than the first novel. I remember the first time I read Radiant Dawn I kept thinking where is the Lovecraft? The mythos stuff takes center stage in the Ravenous Dusk for sure. Not only that but the book becomes an in direct sequel of sorts to LoveCraft's classic novella “At the mountains of madness.” Goodfellow connects the dots from the mythology explained in that classic novel to the government conspiracy and secret war that he cooked up in Radiant Dawn.
The story of Saggoths using technology to radiate humans to evolve into the next step up the ladder is not only Lovecraftian but in a way it's also Cronenberg-ish body horror and the hybrid is what makes the Radiant trilogy original, interesting and above all fun. The action is over the top and worthy of a John Woo stunt team and the horrorific descriptions of the mutations are gross and funny at the same time.
At times the book comes off like Military science fiction, and the creation of of a baddass team of mutant ex-special forces dudes named Spike Team Texas is probably my favorite chapter. None the less so much story is packed into the 580 pages it is surprising it didn't actually take more.
I am a huge Goodfellow fan, this is an amazing work of horror fiction but as a friend and reader I can tell you he has grown a lot as a writer since this book was finished.
This book breaks one of the fundamental rules we as writers have drilled into us. We are always told “show don't tell” and this book has hundreds of pages of telling. I am not sure goodfellow could have done anything else as complicated as this story is, but entire chapters consist of characters explaining what is happening behind scenes in conversation. For that reason The chapbook and the first novel tend to be the stronger entries in the trilogy as the mystery was still intact.
That being said it still a fantastic trilogy and it is more unbelievable when you consider that this is a first time author working almost without an outside editor. The Radiant Trilogy is a fantastic achievement, I would start your Goodfellow journey with it. His more recent novel A Perfect Union and his Wonderland award winning collection “Silent weapons for Quiet Wars” are a better place to start. After you read those then it is time to dip into the madness and glory that is the Radiant Trilogy.
Perilous Press
580 pages
The word epic as been tortured by over use in recent slang but the word fits like a glove here. To say that this book is a Lovecraftian epic is an understatement. Elder gods, saggoths, government conspiracy, military battles, race issues all these issues get one of Goodfellow's tenticle touch. It all ends in a satisfying ending that works unlike Stephen King's huge epics.
I think of this as part three in the radiant trilogy, if you count the novella prologue chapbook. I do, this novel pays off the brief touches of the Lovecraftian mythos which are more clear in the chapbook than the first novel. I remember the first time I read Radiant Dawn I kept thinking where is the Lovecraft? The mythos stuff takes center stage in the Ravenous Dusk for sure. Not only that but the book becomes an in direct sequel of sorts to LoveCraft's classic novella “At the mountains of madness.” Goodfellow connects the dots from the mythology explained in that classic novel to the government conspiracy and secret war that he cooked up in Radiant Dawn.
The story of Saggoths using technology to radiate humans to evolve into the next step up the ladder is not only Lovecraftian but in a way it's also Cronenberg-ish body horror and the hybrid is what makes the Radiant trilogy original, interesting and above all fun. The action is over the top and worthy of a John Woo stunt team and the horrorific descriptions of the mutations are gross and funny at the same time.
At times the book comes off like Military science fiction, and the creation of of a baddass team of mutant ex-special forces dudes named Spike Team Texas is probably my favorite chapter. None the less so much story is packed into the 580 pages it is surprising it didn't actually take more.
I am a huge Goodfellow fan, this is an amazing work of horror fiction but as a friend and reader I can tell you he has grown a lot as a writer since this book was finished.
This book breaks one of the fundamental rules we as writers have drilled into us. We are always told “show don't tell” and this book has hundreds of pages of telling. I am not sure goodfellow could have done anything else as complicated as this story is, but entire chapters consist of characters explaining what is happening behind scenes in conversation. For that reason The chapbook and the first novel tend to be the stronger entries in the trilogy as the mystery was still intact.
That being said it still a fantastic trilogy and it is more unbelievable when you consider that this is a first time author working almost without an outside editor. The Radiant Trilogy is a fantastic achievement, I would start your Goodfellow journey with it. His more recent novel A Perfect Union and his Wonderland award winning collection “Silent weapons for Quiet Wars” are a better place to start. After you read those then it is time to dip into the madness and glory that is the Radiant Trilogy.
July 8, 2008
I picked Ravenous Dusk up immediately after finishing Radiant Dawn, and I definitely feel rewarded. His writing has improved though the course of this work as it lacks the spots where one gets lost in the first novel.
I would definitely have to say he removed the kids gloves in this book. Where before the horrors were hidden behind the scientific rhetoric, he definitely reveals a world that is beyond human through the course of the novel, a world that would make Cthulhu fans very happy. It is not force either. He works the Mythos into his work rather naturally.
Additionally, I enjoyed the level of conspiracy and plotting in the book. It is convoluted and confusing, but it makes sense in retrospect. I enjoyed the fact that not everything was what it seemed, and he kept stuff covered rather well.
He follows Cundieffe, Storch and Stella to reasonable ends that allows one to be satisfied with the characters. In his efforts to cover more of the story, he does create many more narrating characters. While it does fill out the larger picture, I do believe it was a little excessive.
Finally, my only real complaint is when Armitage enters the picture most of the way though the novel with a thin allusion to his actual presence in the novel beforehand, it stretched my level of believability of the story (yeah, I know it is pretty far fetched, but there was no lead up to this event). The issue could have been belayed through better planning.
If you have a chance, I would definitely give this novel a read. It is fun and absorbing.
I would definitely have to say he removed the kids gloves in this book. Where before the horrors were hidden behind the scientific rhetoric, he definitely reveals a world that is beyond human through the course of the novel, a world that would make Cthulhu fans very happy. It is not force either. He works the Mythos into his work rather naturally.
Additionally, I enjoyed the level of conspiracy and plotting in the book. It is convoluted and confusing, but it makes sense in retrospect. I enjoyed the fact that not everything was what it seemed, and he kept stuff covered rather well.
He follows Cundieffe, Storch and Stella to reasonable ends that allows one to be satisfied with the characters. In his efforts to cover more of the story, he does create many more narrating characters. While it does fill out the larger picture, I do believe it was a little excessive.
Finally, my only real complaint is when Armitage enters the picture most of the way though the novel with a thin allusion to his actual presence in the novel beforehand, it stretched my level of believability of the story (yeah, I know it is pretty far fetched, but there was no lead up to this event). The issue could have been belayed through better planning.
If you have a chance, I would definitely give this novel a read. It is fun and absorbing.
September 29, 2020
Part two of a perfect Lovecraftian tale set in modern times.
September 4, 2018
That's the kind of 'weird' fiction I like. So much weird that it shouldn't make sense, but it does.
Excellent mix of Mythos conspiracy, Military action, a bit of sci-fi, and body horror... lot's of body horror.
Excellent mix of Mythos conspiracy, Military action, a bit of sci-fi, and body horror... lot's of body horror.
January 23, 2025
Tekeli-Li!
In his sequel to 'Radiant Dawn', Cody Goodfellow "turns all the dials up to 11". When your first book introduces the terrifying concept of "sentient cancer" how do you improve on that? And yet he manages. Despite the use of an isolated island in the South Pacific and a singular-only passing reference to the Crawling Chaos, the story does not use (or mis-use) any of the Outer Gods as is too common in Lovecraftian pastiches.
Although I'm not a Delta Green or Call or Cthulhu (or any) RPG player, this book does seem in many ways like reading a perfect campaign description, and I mean that only in a complimentary way.
His brief use of Poe's famous cry from The Narrative of Arthur Gordon Pym of Nantucket, made even more famous in Lovecraft's 'At The Mountains of Madness' is entirely justified, and in the proud tradition of both literary forebears.
(If I have any criticism, it would the use of Derleth's extension of the Cthulhu mythology, as it was never in the same category as HPL, but this is personal preference).
In his sequel to 'Radiant Dawn', Cody Goodfellow "turns all the dials up to 11". When your first book introduces the terrifying concept of "sentient cancer" how do you improve on that? And yet he manages. Despite the use of an isolated island in the South Pacific and a singular-only passing reference to the Crawling Chaos, the story does not use (or mis-use) any of the Outer Gods as is too common in Lovecraftian pastiches.
Although I'm not a Delta Green or Call or Cthulhu (or any) RPG player, this book does seem in many ways like reading a perfect campaign description, and I mean that only in a complimentary way.
His brief use of Poe's famous cry from The Narrative of Arthur Gordon Pym of Nantucket, made even more famous in Lovecraft's 'At The Mountains of Madness' is entirely justified, and in the proud tradition of both literary forebears.
(If I have any criticism, it would the use of Derleth's extension of the Cthulhu mythology, as it was never in the same category as HPL, but this is personal preference).
August 23, 2015
Lots of writing chops and lots of writing in general. This meanders greatly but also climaxes often so I suppose it can't be faulted. Good in short bursts and don't feel bad if you don't finish it; it short of falls apart at the end.
Displaying 1 - 8 of 8 reviews