In the Mood

Millennium Quartet #2

by Charles L. Grant

Crops whither in the fields. Fish float belly-up in rivers, lakes, and oceans. Orchards are barren. Cattle and sheep are dying on their feet. The world is slowly starving to death.

Deep in the American heartland, a terrible family reunion is taking place. The gathering relatives leave trails of death in their wake. Missing are little Joey and his parents. Joey and his mom are on their way...

Joey's father, John, is in New Orleans. Suddenly he can tell when someone is about to become violent--and he can stop them. When he rejoins his family, all hell will break loose.

Genres: Horror, Fantasy, Fiction

352 pages, Mass Market Paperback

First published January 15, 1998

About the author

Charles Lewis Grant was a novelist and short story writer specializing in what he called "dark fantasy" and "quiet horror." He also wrote under the pseudonyms of Geoffrey Marsh, Lionel Fenn, Simon Lake, Felicia Andrews, and Deborah Lewis.

Grant won a World Fantasy Award for his novella collection Nightmare Seasons, a Nebula Award in 1976 for his short story "A Crowd of Shadows", and another Nebula Award in 1978 for his novella "A Glow of Candles, a Unicorn's Eye," the latter telling of an actor's dilemma in a post-literate future. Grant also edited the award winning Shadows anthology, running eleven volumes from 1978-1991. Contributors include Stephen King, Ramsey Campbell, R.A. Lafferty, Avram Davidson, and Steve Rasnic and Melanie Tem. Grant was a former Executive Secretary and Eastern Regional Director of the Science Fiction and Fantasy Writers of America and president of the Horror Writers Association.

Reviews

[Thomas]

I was a little disappointed that this is a whole separate story from Symphony, with only a brief reference in the first chapter to the events that took place in the first volume of the series. I was hoping it would be a more legitimate series, with the same core characters appearing in all the novels leading toward a grand conclusion in book four. Instead, save for a couple of references to Casey Chisholm, the reverend from the first book, these appear to be like his Oxrun Station books -- standalone books set in the same universe.

Each book seems to be about one of the Four Horsemen of the Apocalypse, with Symphony being about Death, and In the Mood being about Famine, but the associations so far are pretty tenuous. There was a lot of death in both books, and while Grant takes care to show a lot of the effects of famine in this book, that stuff is mostly just in the background. The real story is about John Bannock, a CPA-turned-writer who is estranged from his wife and son, who is being called home to participate in a grim family reunion. His son shows some supernatural abilities, but what it means is left rather nebulous until the final showdown.

I'm not sure what to make of this book, to be honest. There's enough going on to keep the story moving, but I wasn't clear on what it all meant. It doesn't help that the first two books in the series seem disconnected, and that the first book had a small victory at the end. Are the horsemen coming, or not? And what exactly happened at the end here between Bannock and his son, and what will it mean to the next two books? Or will those just wind up being further disconnected works?

Grant's style definitely improved over time, especially with his narrative flow, but I feel like this novel overall was just all over the place. He tackled a pretty big story with the series, but I expected each book to focus on the themes of each of the horsemen, instead of continuing to be small-town showdowns. Considering as far as I've come with his books and this series, I'm not going to give up on them, but I'm hoping there will be a bit more cohesion and resonance with the last two books.

Regardless, here's a reminder of why I keep reading his stuff:

"... a bass guitar vibrating softly like a silk and sticky web."

It's just a perfect description, in very few words, and evokes the right imagery for the scene.

[Julie Akeman]

oh boy this one really makes me shudder still have to press on to the next book, it just keeps getting more intense!

[Angela]

It is the time of the Millennium, of great battles between good and evil. The hoofbeats of the Four Horseman of the Apocalypse herald the last days of Mankind. Crops wither in the fields. Fish float belly-up in rivers, lakes and oceans. Orchards are barren. Cattle and sheep are dying on their feet. The world is slowly starving to death. Deep in the American heartland, a terrible family reunion is taking place. The gathering relatives leave trails of death in their wake. Missing are little Joey and his parents. Joey and his mom are on their way. Joey's father, John, is in New Orleans. Suddenly he can tell when someone is about to become violent -- and he can stop them. When he rejoins his family, all hell will break loose. (cover blurb)

Book 2 of the Millennium Quartet. The second Horseman, Famine, has arrived. Good stuff! (And another cool holographic cover, too.)

['Nathan Burgoine]

The second book in the Millennium Quartet, Famine steps onto the scene, and with it, the seemingly chosen person is a man who seems to always know when someone is just about ready to snap and become violent - and he has a kind of power to stop them.

It's a family reunion for him, this man, since he's also pretty sure that a trail of dead bodies will be there all the way home - and the demon, Famine, is waiting at his doorstep.

The tension is good in this book, and the pattern of the demons of the apocalypse is well written. I nabbed book three as soon as it came out.

[Sarah Kempton]

There were way too many different characters and storylines. I didn’t get a chance to care about any of the characters and every time it switched back and forth I struggled to remember who these people were and what they were doing last. When they all came together at the end it was disappointing, the explanation of who everyone was and why all these strange events occurred never really happened.

[Kevin Lucia]

Awesome, as always. And, for a change, a very different kind of take on the Apocalypse...

[Kurt Criscione]

Really good... liking where this series is going... feel like the whole is building.

[Cassandra Glissadevil]

3.8 stars
Road trip horror. Solid read. Good but not essential horror. If you're in the mood for a slow burn horror tale, you can't go wrong with Grant.

[Wesley Rodgers]

I like the focus of this and the previous title. How grants focus is smaller.

[Tim Dunn]

It's a little different than what I normally read, but not bad.