Stickman

by Seth Pfefferle

The spirit world lies close to our own sealed form ours by ancient magical barriers. It has its hunted, and its hunters, enacting the timeless game of blood and death. But aged barriers are weakening, and a hunter has crossed over.

Our world is an inhospitable place. Drought and war have driven away the zebra, and the gazelle. The hunters only remaining prey is...

Human.

Genres: Horror, Fantasy

288 pages, Paperback

First published January 1, 1987

Reviews

[Jack Tripper · Rating 3 out of 5]

This cover is actually cooler than it appears in the picture. It has a rough, gritty texture to it that gives it the "feel" of a cave wall. I'm looking forward to seeing how the author pulls off a novel about a killer stick figure.

7/24/16 update:

The entire group of a documentary film crew from the U.S. have been mysteriously and savagely killed while filming deep in the South African bush. Two senators -- along with their aides, and one "groupie" -- travel there in order to ensure that the killer (or killers) are brought to justice. Kurt, an expat American soldier now living in Africa, is tasked with providing security for them, a tough task considering the area is enmeshed in a brutal civil war. And there's evidence that the film crew wasn't killed by simple bandits or revolutionaries. Something may have come through "the other side." Something that has been worshiped for centuries, and represented on cliffs and cave walls as a spear-wielding stick figure. Thought by many just to be symbols of ancient hunters, in actuality they depict one of the many "lesser gods," a merciless hunter that no human can stand against. And humans are their primary prey.

This novel takes quite a long time to get to the good stuff, with author Pfefferle* spending a lot of pages detailing the situation in the desolate, war-torn wasteland which, though it better immerses the reader into the landscape, got to be a bit much after a while, even for a relatively short novel. However, I liked that we get to experience the dire living conditions within the bombed-out villages, filled with starving and desperate people. Small morsels of supernatural occurrences are sprinkled throughout, but really it's only in the final quarter of the book where the horror kicks into high gear. The whole feel of the novel -- once it really gets going at least -- reminds me a little of the movie Predator, with hardass soldiers up against a seemingly unkillable hunter. Only these soldiers are not just trying to save themselves, but keep the Americans safe as well.

The main thing that detracted from this novel for me were the unlikable characters. The U.S. politicians are nearly insufferable, and the only semi-tolerable characters are the two main protagonists: Justine, a senator's aide (who verges on insufferable at times), and Kurt the ex-soldier/security dude, who of course has a thing for Justine. The rest couldn't die soon enough for my taste, other than a couple tertiary soldiers here and there. This made it hard for me to become totally invested in their welfare, but once the shit hits the fan, it's still pretty intense. Anyone who likes horror stories where the characters are holed-up against supernatural forces should dig this. It isn't something I'd go out of my way to track down, but it may be worth a read if you come across it.

3.0 Stars

* I'm assuming Seth Pfefferle is a pseudonym, but I can't find any info at all out there in internetland. I do wonder if he's actually Paul Boorstin, author of the 1980 "trapped in the South American jungle while being hunted" novel, Savage, as the writing style and character traits are almost exact carbon copies. It was almost eerie at times. Anyone have the scoop on this guy?

[Robert · Rating 3 out of 5]

Stickman is one of the most unusual books I’ve come across. The cover has a stick figure painting peeling itself off a cave wall to spear an explorer. Yes, the book is about a killer stick figure. The concept is very bold. I knew this book was either going to fail miserably or end up being great; the cost of its high ambition. The story takes place in Africa where “the aged barriers are weakening” and where a group becomes stranded in the inhospitable environment and picked off by the Stick menace. If the concept of a killer stick figure was ever going to work, it fair shot of success in the context of the story- I decided to take the risk and read the book. The story plays into the African native’s spirituality and mysticism to help cushion the near impossible stick figure. Most of the conflict comes from the group of characters themselves, and only after their large number has dwindled does the Stickman make more of an appearance. The otherworldly hunter is not all they have to worry about; there is the heat, lack of communication, ancient stinging locust swarm, and a shape shifting witch doctor in league with the hunter. It all sounds like a lot, and it is, but the action is paced well and the story ends just in time before becoming too heavy. Food and water are not mentioned much, they are always on hand thankfully, that complication would have made their survival seem unbelievable (in a bad way), when they were already barely hanging on by the skin of their teeth. This book was published in the late 1980’s so I’m not going to be a stickler (;-p) for political correctness. Some of the black characters were sometimes (especially at the start of the book) were referred to as, “the black,” where “the black man/woman” would have been more appropriate, especially considering the more distinguished references to white characters. I thought maybe this was a way of building racial tension between characters but I was wrong, there wasn’t really a reason for the inequality, then again it mostly happened at the beginning so maybe it was a 1980’s way of telling color. This book was surprisingly gay friendly, hinting at the main character being bisexual, and more than one instance of defending another main character that was gay from bigotry. Stickman is a good book, not only for successfully bringing a stick figure to life, but for having good character dynamics, action, suspense, and horror.