Randall Boyll: reincarnation and cold, dead things...

A horror author that seems to come up time and time again in "where are they now?" discussions is Randall Boyll. From 1989 to 1996 he wrote something like 14 novels, so you'd think he'd be better known, but I guess it didn't help that the majority of these were movie novelisations and tie-ins. This was a pity; not because they were necessarily bad (in fact, his Shocker and Darkman novels were quite well reviewed as far as that sort of thing goes), but because what little "original" fiction he wrote was pretty darn good and didn't deserve to be obscured by a torrent of more commercial output. But people gotta eat, I suppose.

His debut novel, After Sundown (1989), featured familiar territory for horror fans: a family trapped by a snowstorm in an isolated cabin where some historic evil is echoing into the present. So far, so The Shining (and the marketing makes certain you are aware of the comparison!). Boyll's take involves starvation, cannibalism, and (contentious) Mormon ideas about reincarnation and the result is one excellent, harrowing tale of ice-cold horror.

I owned the UK/Corgi edition, which sported a superior cover by (I think) Steve Crisp. Still, I guess there is only so much you can do with snow and a cabin.

UK cover

US cover

Next up was 1990's Mongster (that's not a typo), an excellent boy-and-his-monster tale. Arnold White finds an Egyptian canine/mummy monster and uses it to get revenge on his abusive step father, among others. A blackly humorous novel, displaying in full Boyll's penchant for putting his protagonists through abusive hell, and a talent for writing anarchic, almost cartoon-like action.

Unfortunately it was saddled with this awful cover:

Oh dear, marketing fail

Finally in this trio of horror excellence we have 1992's Chiller, a book I didn't get around to reading until relatively recently.

Peter Kaye is on a road trip across the States, robbing banks at every opportunity. He needs money, lots of money; the life of his only daughter depends on it. On his trail are the FBI, who think he can lead them to an old enemy. In his path: a hireling of Peter's potential saviours, who are now thinking that it all might be easier if he doesn't reach his destination. Peter is making way too much noise, and they don't want their secret to be exposed. Their secret? That they can arrest death; at least temporarily - which is why Peter is also constantly buying ice, great big bags of it, to keep his outwardly "alive" daughter from deteriorating too much in the hot sun. 

But there is something that they forgot to tell him, something a little more important than bits of her face falling off: brain deterioration can be a maddening experience.

Though this does feature an undead-ish element, for the most part it plays out like a road chase thriller, though a very violent one at that. At times it gets very chaotic - plot strands split off and re-join. Protagonists go through an almost ridiculous amount of violent abuse and keep on ticking. And when you think it can't get any worse, yes we do get some crazy corpse-girl action.

It's not without its faults. Justification for the main players' actions often seems illogical - especially why the FBI don't just take Peter in and grill him rather than letting him leave a trail of destruction. The science is dodgy. But still, it's a fun, violent romp, where you are never quite certain just how happy the ending could possibly be.

Boyll didn't write another original until 2000 (I haven't read it). That was Katastrophe, and true to its title, it appears to have been one. At least, it appears to have been the death knell for his writing career. Once again, this one features reincarnation and going by some of the criticism - "multiple plot lines slowly begin to intersect, but the increasingly violent action becomes almost cartoonish in its excessiveness" is a choice quote - it promises to be the sort of crazy fun I might enjoy, even if the mainstream critics didn't.

I think, if given the opportunity, Boyll could have written one of the truly great American horror novels. His writing had style and drive; like a younger, wilder, less verbose Stephen King. As it stands he delivered a handful of excellent, entertaining horror novels, and left his fans dismayed, wondering where he is and why he left his calling...