In Darkness Waiting

by John Shirley

When Perry and his Aunt Jane travel to Jasper, Oregon to visit relatives, they discover a horde of winged evil creatures have begun taking over the minds of the local inhabitants

Genres: Horror

269 pages, Mass Market Paperback

First published April 5, 1988

About the author

John Shirley won the Bram Stoker Award for his story collection Black Butterflies, and is the author of numerous novels, including the best-seller DEMONS, the cyberpunk classics CITY COME A-WALKIN', ECLIPSE, and BLACK GLASS, and his newest novels STORMLAND and A SORCERER OF ATLANTIS.

He is also a screenwriter, having written for television and movies; he was co-screenwriter of THE CROW. He has been several Year's Best anthologies including Prime Books' THE YEAR'S BEST DARK FANTASY AND HORROR anthology, and his nwest story collection is IN EXTREMIS: THE MOST EXTREME SHORT STORIES OF JOHN SHIRLEY. His novel BIOSHOCK: RAPTURE telling the story of the creation and undoing of Rapture, from the hit videogame BIOSHOCK is out from TOR books; his Halo novel, HALO: BROKEN CIRCLE is coming out from Pocket Books.

His most recent novels are STORMLAND and (forthcoming) AXLE BUST CREEK. His new story collection is THE FEVERISH STARS. STORMLAND and other John Shirley novels are available as audiobooks.

He is also a lyricist, having written lyrics for 18 songs recorded by the Blue Oyster Cult (especially on their albums Heaven Forbidden and Curse of the Hidden Mirror), and his own recordings.

John Shirley has written only one nonfiction book, GURDJIEFF: AN INTRODUCTION TO HIS LIFE AND IDEAS, published by Penguin/Jeremy Tarcher.

John Shirley story collections include BLACK BUTTERFLIES, IN EXTREMIS, REALLY REALLY REALLY REALLY WEIRD STORIES, and LIVING SHADOWS.

source: Amazon

Reviews

[Jack Tripper · Rating 3 out of 5]

1988 Onyx mass-market. Tell me that girl doesn't look eerily similar to mid-80s Madonna.



For some reason, John Shirley and I don't jive too well. His novels should be right up my alley, but I always feel a slight disconnect while reading. With few exceptions, I never have any real connection to the characters or their situations*, but I still keep reading him, because his plots and concepts always seem so perfectly suited to my tastes.

In Darkness Waiting has everything I like in a horror novel: small town slowly being overcome by supernatural (or preternatural) evil (in this case, insect-like parasites living in the brains of and controlling people in a small, rundown Oregon town), weirdness aplenty, and dark dark dark. Almost oppressively dark. And yet, the writing is just much too dry and clinical for me. There's none of the folksy charm of King; none of the poetic suggestion of Charles Grant; none of the vivid, hallucinatory imagery of Barker, none of the "shoot from the hip" audacity of Skipp & Spector; etc.

More importantly, the characters, while all given sufficient background info and motivations, never felt like anything more than ciphers. Unlike with short fiction, real, sympathetic characters are an important quality for me in novels, especially horror novels. It's hard to sustain my interest in the unimaginable terrors being visited on the various townspeople for 270 pages when I don't care what happens to them.

I see many people here on Goodreads and elsewhere disagree with me on this book, so it may just be a case where a certain author just isn't for me, at least in novel form. Much of Shirley's shorter works, especially those contained in his 1988 collection Heatseeker, are among the better examples of short horror-fiction from the 80s that I've read. Other than his proto-cyberpunk City Come A Walkin,' none of his novels I've read have been on the same level.

This wasn't a bad reading experience for me by any means -- and there were a handful of genuinely chilling moments -- just disappointing, because I always have such high hopes when opening a John Shirley book. But I still have a couple unread novels of his on the shelf, so I suppose I'll give him another shot in the future.

3.0 Stars

*Shirley's work has grown on me a bit since I'd written this review nearly 5 years ago.

[Phil · Rating 3 out of 5]

Hard to put a finger on why I did not enjoy this more; the writing was fine, good pacing, decent characters, lots of mayhem, but it just felt kinda flat. Our main protagonist, Perry, is a musician at college in San Diego, and the novel starts with him travelling with his aunt to visit and old friend of hers (Sandra) who now lives in Eastern Oregon. Sandra's daughter is afflicted with some strange mental illness and Perry's aunt is a psychiatrist; Perry is basically along for the ride and to serve as his aunt's secretary.

The small town of Jasper does not seem to have much to offer-- a few bars, some lame 'old west' museums tourist traps (but not many tourists)-- but Perry falls in with a sexy local and things are looking better. Shortly after their arrival, however, Sandra's daughter dies horribly and strangely, leaving Perry's aunt and himself with little to do. Shirley picks up the pace here as all kinds of mayhem start happening in town. It seems some very strange flies-- about 6 inches long and with human faces no less-- with a nasty stinger start zapping people and it turns them into murdering lunatics. What the hell is going on?

Again, the plot sounds fascinating, but the explanation for the foo just did not do it for me; I will not go into to avoid spoilers, however. Seldom do I find myself reading such lurid scenes of brutal murders and such and yet being a bit bored. In Darkness Waiting, and Shirley, have a big fan base, but I am not sure if I am up to exploring more of his work. 3 stingers!

[Peter · Rating 3 out of 5]

I really wanted to enjoy this story about mysterious cases of murder and violence in a small town but somehow I didn't. There was no depth in the characters, somehow you felt the story was told to explain some psychological theories of the author. Well, I want to read proper horror with an eerie atmosphere, tension and not being left with the feeling of what could have happened and hasn't after all. Don't get me wrong, the author is good and there are a lot of interesting observations inside but overall that wasn't enough for my liking. Felt a bit disappointed and it didn't get better over the chapters. After all it was okay but definitely not my book of the month.

[Addy · Rating 5 out of 5]

Wow! This was just an incredible book! I just wanted something I could fly through and this couldn't have been a better pick. I've never read Shirley and decided to read this one before Wet Bones. It was horror but horror that made you think and is relevant in any time. The book focuses on an epidemic that is and could be true to all of us, empathy, what if there was a gene that suppresses that emotion? Could there be an insect inside us all? Something waiting in the darkness feeding off your evil thoughts? And what would u do to escape it? Read this and find out!

[Μάριος Δημητριάδης · Rating 5 out of 5]

Απολαυστικότατο! Τρόμος, σπλάτερ και ένα τέλος κόλαση.... τα αγαπημένα μου δηλαδή.

[Παναγιώτης Δεληγιάννης · Rating 5 out of 5]

Συγκλονιστικό

Αυτό το μυθιστόρημα, θα μπορούσε να είναι και πραγματικότητα. Η πραγματικότητα που υπάρχει μέσα στο ανθρώπινο μυαλό για το αδικαιολόγητο μίσος προς τους άλλους και την υπερίσχυση του Υπερεγώ, που φωλιάζει στον καθένα μας και που πολλές φορές εκδηλώνεται με βίαιους τρόπους. Ο διάβολος που κρύβεται μέσα μας, γιγαντώνεται και γίνεται ένα υπερτροφικό ζουζούνι που ψάχνει τρόπους για να ξεχυθεί από τα στενά όρια του μυαλού μας και να καταλάβει τον μικρόκοσμό μας.

Πολλά μηνύματα για τον τρόπο που σκέφτεται ο σύγχρονος άνθρωπος και για την κατάντια που έχει φτάσει η κοινωνία μας, μέσα από μία φανταστική εξήγηση του συγγραφέα.

Υ.Γ. Αν η Bayer πάρει χαμπάρι αυτό το βιβλίο και έρθει σε συμφωνία με τον συγγραφέα, θα διπλασιάσει τον όγκο των πωλήσεών της.

[Graham P · Rating 3 out of 5]

A gloriously 80s horror paperback! A steaming pile of horror doo-doo that is enchanting even though it's mad stupid. Shirley has fun with this book about cerebral parasites haunting a small Oregon town - digging deep and exposing all the violent tendencies men and women hide away in their subconscious. Also, you get giant flies with human faces, death orgies and exploding heads, paranormal claptrap disguised as psychiatry, dialogue with exclamation points, and you even get three evil children dropping an old lady from her wheelchair into a snake-pit. Point taken: the 1980s were fucked up.

[Zachary Owen · Rating 5 out of 5]

A powerhouse of a horror novel. The writing was so strong and the characters so well-developed that any flaws found In Darkness Waiting are entirely negligible. There are occasional info dumps which are a bit clumsy and the characters sometimes behave a little stupidly, but none of that really distracted me from this gripping, gory yarn. Shirley seems to have drawn inspiration from two Vincent Price movies: The Fly and (in particular) The Tingler. Add into the mix a facelift of his own, earlier novel Cellars -- the general framework of it matched here but in a small town setting rather than a city. There seems to be smatterings of social commentary on pyramid scheme self-help gurus as well as corporate culture. And lastly, for an 80s horror novel the cast is relatively diverse, featuring quite a few Native American characters in the second half as well as an Iranian man. Strong recommendation on this one.

[George K. · Rating 4 out of 5]

Το μοναδικό μυθιστόρημα του Τζον Σίρλεϊ που μεταφράστηκε στα ελληνικά, από τα κάμποσα ενδιαφέροντα που έχει γράψει, όπως π.χ. την τριλογία A Song Called Youth, το cyberpunk City Come a-Walkin', το BioShock: Rapture που βασίζεται στο γνωστό παιχνίδι, το Wetbones, το Crawless κλπ κλπ. Όλα από τις περιλήψεις τους φαίνονται άκρως ιντριγκαδόρικα, κρίμα που δεν μεταφράστηκαν στα ελληνικά κάποια από αυτά, αλλά πάλι καλά να λέμε που μεταφράστηκε και αυτό το ένα.

Οι λάτρεις του τρόμου όπου μια μικρή πόλη και οι κάτοικοι της δέχονται επίθεση από κάτι κακό, σίγουρα στο βιβλίο αυτό θα βρουν πολύ καλό υλικό. Η ψυχολόγος Τζουν και ο ανιψιός και βοηθός της Πέρι, επισκέπτονται μια απομονωμένη κωμόπολη του Όρεγκον, το Τζάσπερ, για να εξετάσουν την περίπτωση μιας έφηβης που πάσχει από μια σοβαρή ψυχική διαταραχή με κίνδυνο τον τραυματισμό τόσο της ίδιας της κοπέλας όσο και των ανθρώπων γύρω της. Το ίδιο βράδυ όμως, η κοπέλα βρίσκεται νεκρή, ενώ είναι δεμένη γερά με λουριά στο κρεβάτι της. Ποιος ή τι την δολοφόνησε; Από την επόμενη κιόλας μέρα παράξενα και συνάμα βίαια περιστατικά θα οδηγήσουν την μικρή πόλη στο απόλυτο χάος. Ένας ιός που οδηγεί τους ανθρώπους σε εξαιρετικά βίαιες ενέργειες χτύπησε την πόλη; Και τι είναι αυτό το βουητό που ακούγεται συχνά και ένα περίεργο έντομο μεγάλου μεγέθους που εμφανίζεται συνεχώς εδώ και κει; Ο Πέρι, η Τζουν και οι υπόλοιποι χαρακτήρες θα μάθουν σύντομα... και θα ζήσουν τον απόλυτο τρόμο.

Πολύ δυνατό μυθιστόρημα τρόμου, γεμάτο δράση, δυνατές σπλάτερ σκηνές και εικόνες έντονης βίας. Η γραφή βοηθά στην γρήγορη και συναρπαστική ανάγνωση του βιβλίου, οι περιγραφές είναι σίγουρα καλές και οι διάλογοι πειστικοί. Εντάξει, οι χαρακτήρες δεν έχουν ιδιαίτερο βάθος, αλλά δεν έχει τόση σημασία πια. Οπωσδήποτε δεν είναι αριστούργημα στο είδος του, αλλά διαβάζεται εύκολα και γρήγορα και η ώρα περνά "ευχάριστα". Νομίζω στα διάφορα παζάρια βιβλίου μπορείτε να το βρείτε πολύ φτηνά. Τρέξτε πριν εξαντληθεί...

[Rick Powell · Rating 4 out of 5]

A fast paced and violent read. This novel harkens back to the '50's sci-fi (Fiend without a Face, Invasion of the Body Snatchers) and throw in some memorable scenes of gore akin to Rob Bottin's The Thing and gives an overall sense of pyschological paranoia that reminds me of Cronenberg's Rabid. Mr. Shirley never disappoints with his style of writing. The Lovecraftian undertones are evident and character development and dialogue are spot on. The only scene in the book that was somewhat confusing is the introduction of the protagonists relative showing up near the end (I do not want to give away any spoilers here), but the pivotal scene near the end is nightmarish and hellish.

[David Agranoff · Rating 4 out of 5]

It has been several years since I read this, so it would be hard for me to write a serious review. This a great example of a underrated classic from the 80's horror boom. Sure it has monsters, but IDW has a serious underlining theme of what creates the inhumanity behind the worst of crimes. Undated in 2005 Shirley cleaned the book up a bit and made it stronger. Great stuff.

[Μίλτος Τρ. · Rating 1 out of 5]

Βαρετή πλοκή, φρίκη για την φρίκη λες και βλέπουμε ταινία και μία αλληγορία που σκάει από το πουθενά και δε δουλεύει καθόλου μα καθόλου.

[Ian · Rating 4 out of 5]

John Shirley followed-up the urban horror of 1982's "Cellars" with the rural horror of "In Darkness Waiting" in 1988. This one comes together better as a novel than "Cellars," which I still have much love for. You can tell he grew as a writer between books. The setting is a small redneck town in Oregon where things are about to go very, very wrong, courtesy of a mad doctor, for lack of a better term. He has discovered something that feeds on negative emotions and dark impulses, manifesting itself in the form of giant insects. There's smart social commentary amidst the carnage as Shirley posits what makes present-day and historical human atrocities possible. David Cronenberg would have made a great director if someone had optioned this. This one was also reissued recently with new edits and a bad cover; the version read and reviewed here is the original paperback.

[I.D. · Rating 3 out of 5]

Sort of bland and by the numbers for the most part but the whole bugs emerging from your eye thing was a nice gimmick. I just found that the book had to shoehorn in some rather long expository passages of people explaining the lore and that they slowed things down. In some ways, by trying to explain so much it took away from the horror. It may have been overkill to have so many layers to the creatures, not sure there needed to be the demon of shadows thing as well as the insect intelligence from primal minds etc. There was one pretty tremendous passage towards the end where Lois watches the mass killings that stood out in all the right ways. Solid book but nothing earth shattering.

[Evan · Rating 3 out of 5]

A perfectly mediocre piece of pulpy horror. A small town is infected with a demonic supernatural horror, it then descends into a hyper-violent, over-the-top bloodbath. Shirley writes in a very straightforward, detached style - like the small amount of other horror writing I’ve read. I would say this is indicative of the book as a whole: Shirley does a pretty straightforward thing decently well.
Near the end, there’s one paragraph that totally comes from left field as a flurry of intense, biting writing. I think he tries to inject some meaning into the novel at this point. This section is an effective, and striking, exercise in prose writing. But, it in no way does improves the book as a whole.

[Daniel · Rating 4 out of 5]

This is a revised version of his 1988 novel released in 2005. I'm not big on horror in general or splatterpunk in particularly, but I make an exception for John Shirley who has a compelling writing style. The story starts simply, building slowly but inexorably to shattering and bloody conclusion. Not for every taste, but if you go for this sort of thing, well worth the read.

[Horror Guy · Rating 3 out of 5]

A delightful tale of a new form of meditation becoming hip in small-town Oregan, and the human-headed bug monsters bursting out of people's eyes to kill that comes with it.

[Mikepottz · Rating 2 out of 5]

A great cover. Unfortunately the book isn't that good. There are some great moments and it is well written but a real slog.

[Sally · Rating 4 out of 5]

I can always count on Shirley, man. His very particular way of describing a scene. His punk rock sensibilities. His true gift for splatter. And his extremely wacky ideas that keep me hooked until the last page. I loved Lois as a character. I also truly loved Aunt June. I'd read an entire series of Aunt June just going on psych adventures. Treat yourself to this especially wild paperback from hell.

[Eric · Rating 4 out of 5]

This book cover called to me in the bookshop and I put it straight to the top of the rotation.
Really a cracking supernatural horror read. Highly recommended!!

[Forrest · Rating 5 out of 5]

I'm re-reading this thoroughly scary horror novel for the Eerie Books club discussion that will take place on June 3rd, 2010. It's unfathomable that John Shirley isn't a NYT best-selling author yet. This guy can WRITE!

[Brian Sammons · Rating 5 out of 5]

The first John Shirley book I ever read and it made me an instant fan.

[Anthony · Rating 3 out of 5]

Bizarro fiction. Creepy and very violent. If you are looking for something different, you can't go wrong here. Ahead of it's time.

[Boris Cesnik · Rating 1 out of 5]

Cheap, stupid and just crap. Nothing else to say.

[Vaios · Rating 3 out of 5]

Hardcore