Destiny's Carnival

by Warren Murphy

A mysterious carnival threatens to unleash an unspeakable evil on lovely Elissa Destin and Coley O'Brien, a rootless young wanderer, unless Coley can summon the powers that he has long denied to battle the dark forces of the supernatural.

Genres: Horror

197 pages, Mass Market Paperback

First published November 24, 1991

About the author

Warren Murphy was an American author, most famous as the co-creator of The Destroyer series, the basis for the film Remo Williams: The Adventure Begins. He worked as a reporter and editor and after service during the Korean War, he drifted into politics.

Murphy also wrote the screenplay for Lethal Weapon 2. He is the author of the Trace and Digger series. With Molly Cochran, he completed two books of a planned trilogy revolving around the character The Grandmaster, The Grandmaster (1984) and High Priest (1989). Murphy also shares writing credits with Cochran on The Forever King and several novels under the name Dev Stryker. The first Grandmaster book earned Murphy and Cochran a 1985 Edgar Award for Best Paperback Original, and Murphy's Pigs Get Fat took the same honor the following year.

His solo novels include Jericho Day, The Red Moon, The Ceiling of Hell, The Sure Thing and Honor Among Thieves. Over his career, Murphy sold over 60 million books.

He started his own publishing house, Ballybunion, to have a vehicle to start The Destroyer spin-off books. Ballybunion has reprinted The Assassin's Handbook, as well as the original works Assassin's Handbook 2, The Movie That Never Was (a screenplay he and Richard Sapir wrote for a Destroyer movie that was never optioned), The Way of the Assassin (the wisdom of Chiun), and New Blood, a collection of short stories written by fans of the series.

He served on the board of the Mystery Writers of America, and was a member of the Private Eye Writers of America, the International Association of Crime Writers, the American Crime Writers League and the Screenwriters Guild.

Reviews

[Austin Smith · Rating 3 out of 5]

This vintage horror novel is one I found and bought on impulse at a used book store a year or so ago. I had it on my TBR last year for October but never got around to reading it, so I finally decided to this October. I knew nothing about this book going into it, and it seems to be a bit obscure.

Destiny's Carnival by Warren Murphy, co-authored by Mark Brownwood, is about our two main characters Loki Sanderson and Coley O' Brien, both seventh sons of seventh sons, bearing psychic powers, go on a mission to save a girl chosen as a bride by an ancient, evil spirit / mythical god known as Ravana.
Or something like that.

I was hoping for a creepy carnival story, but the carnival setting is only present in the first half of the book and the rest is Coley and Loki searching Elissa (the girl kidnapped by Ravana aka The Screaming God or something like that) - apparently this 600 year old evil spirit feeds on lust and must find the perfect bride to set himself free. The plot wasn't exactly too intricate or elaborate, and I think this story could have benefited from more detail and explanation. Coming in at just under 200 pages, it was a quick and fun read for how bizarre and different it was. The characters are all pretty thin, though, and the story is one I can see myself forgetting about in the future.
I really liked some of the ideas here with the battle of Good vs. Evil in the psychic realm, but again, it really failed to elaborate on this stuff and I think the book could have been a bit longer. And if the characters would have had more development and growth for the reader to care about them and become invested... this could have been way better than it was.

Overall not a bad horror title, but not great, either. I think it's pretty obscure for a reason - still, it could be worth a read if you're into vintage horror/fantasy such as this.
A solid 3 / 5 from me on this one.

[Warren Chan · Rating 3 out of 5]

When I was in high school, my friend Seth turned me on to another book co-written by Warren Murphy, The Grandmaster. I really dug it, but never read anything else written by Murphy until now. I got the impression that he mostly wrote espionage books, which don't generally interest me. But I fell upon this interesting-looking cover in the thick of a carnival motif obsession and had to experience it.

This slim novel has some really great ingredients, and when I realized I was well past the half-way point, I found myself wondering why it was so short. The book had the chance to be really epic but holds back. I would love to read the alternate reality version of this book that was written by Clive Barker.

Side note: Warren Murphy kind of sucks at writing female characters. They're all just catalysts for plot turns, and are pretty one-dimensional.