Black Magic

by Whitley Strieber

A research project on the human mind becomes the basis for a scheme--masterminded by an androgynous boy with supernatural powers--either to take over or to destroy the world

Genres: Horror, Fiction

298 pages, Hardcover

First published January 1, 1982

About the author

American writer best known for his novels The Wolfen,The Hunger and Warday and for Communion, a non-fiction description of his experiences with apparent alien contact. He has recently made significant advances in understanding this phenomenon, and has published his new discoveries in Solving the Communion Enigma.

Strieber also co-authored The Coming Global Superstorm with Art Bell, which inspired the blockbuster film about sudden climate change, The Day After Tomorrow.

His book The Afterlife Revolution written with his deceased wife Anne, is a record of what is considered to be one of the most powerful instances of afterlife communication ever recorded.

Reviews

[Stephen · Rating 4 out of 5]

Good solid book. An example of what most mid-list novels were like in the early 1980s before King and Koontz started making ten-pound books that were orgies of stylistic filligree.

Good ending with believable motivations.

[Rol · Rating 2 out of 5]

This was written in the early 80s, before Streiber had his UFO abduction experience and went off in a... different direction.

It starts well - good strong premise: the Russians have a mind control weapon they initially want to use to get the US to launch its missiles, and eventually turn the whole world into obedient commie zombies. Strieber does a good job of fleshing out characters on all sides of the conflict - Russian, American and Iranian - but then...

Then the plot becomes more about characters jockeying for power with lots of cheesy 80s softcore sex scenes in which the women are always impossibly beautiful, plucky and headstrong, their naked bodies shimmering in the moonlight, and way out of the league of the aging doofuses they're shagging. And frankly, as bad as those bits were, they were probably the most interesting parts of the latter half of the book, for comedy value if nothing else.

Shame, really.

[Bob Box · Rating 3 out of 5]

Read in 1982. A research project on the human mind goes horribly wrong.

[Quentin Wallace · Rating 4 out of 5]

This had quite an abrupt ending, but other than that I enjoyed it. More of a spy thriller than an occult story...or is it? I'll leave that part up to the reader to decide how much was science and how much was supernatural.

Overall very enjoyable, moved right along even with a fairly large cast of characters. Parts reminded me of both the Omen and the Necroscope series.

[Todd R · Rating 2 out of 5]

Good premise and a good start to this one, but it never goes anywhere beyond either of those. For it's time it probably wasn't a bad idea or considered pedestrian. Today the ideas in this one are a bit boring and the stuff of X-Files reruns.

[Steve · Rating 3 out of 5]

Whitley Strieber's third novel and probably his most weird work. Published 1982.

[Andrew · Rating 5 out of 5]

Thoroughly enjoyed this book, I was hooked from the very first chapter. I've never read Whitley Strieber before, but looks forward to reading more.

[A.R. · Rating 1 out of 5]

This is why seventies horror authors are my favorite. Strieber once again freaks me out with a tale about a telekinetic boy used for military warfare.

Nope! He veered off onto subjects at didn't interest me at all.

[Argott · Rating 1 out of 5]

When you are having illegal aliens ghostwrite your books, they really should be better than this.