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THE HIDDEN LANGUAGE OF DEMONS
This is not the
Maynard & Sims you may be familiar with.
Original artwork by
Simon Duric Excerpt Two motorcycles skidded to a halt at a wire fence, and the dust they threw up into the still morning air hung motionless like a cloud in the otherwise blue sky, a mute calling card of their arrival. Behind them the land was flat, expressionless as if someone had ironed out all the creases, the black snake road they had travelled the only real distinguishing feature amongst mile after mile of desert sand and rock. Through the wire they could see buildings strung out like a low level mini city, with sentry posts, dogs on chains, military vehicles, locked doors stamped with ‘No Entry’, CCTV cameras trained on them, but they couldn’t see any people. One of the riders looked at his watch and glanced at his companion. They both lifted the black visors of their helmets and impassively surveyed the familiar defences in front of them. They had only been gone a few days, and already the compound seemed alien to them. Apart from the snarling dogs, chained on long leads, there didn’t seem to be any sign of life. The second rider kept one hand on the leather holster at his hip, actively watching for danger, his eyes expression free, like the land behind and around him. He spoke to the other rider for a moment and they both smiled, their eyes remaining cold, and one of them nodded. They both leant on their siren horns, the sudden noise rending the silence, echoing away into the heat of the early morning like the cry of a wounded beast. The two riders were riding escort for a silver grey limousine; the man inside opened the rear window and leaned his head out. “Will you two clowns shut the hell up? Use your radio to call the sentry; it’s just after six in the morning. Do you want to wake the whole centre?” Walt Whitney left the window open despite the already oppressive heat outside, and listened to the traces of the motor horns echoing away into the distance where the sand dunes would swallow them before they crashed into the mountain range on the horizon. He watched as the haze began to rise form the black tarmac of the road, knowing from his years here that it would bubble up by midday, and subside again as the cold of the evening crept up on them all. The gates opened, armed guards very much in evidence now, and the limousine moved gently forwards, driving round to the side entrance of the main complex building, where Whitney had his office. As Director of the unnamed, secret research centre located anonymously in the Nevada deserts, his job was to gain and maintain funding both from the Government and from the private sector. He had just returned from a trip to Washington to put his budget proposals for the forthcoming year before the committee of generals, administrators and politicians who comprised his paymasters
It had been a tough and gruelling assignment. If he had known what lay
ahead in the coming days for him, his staff, and others within and without
the centre, he would have considered the task just completed a holiday by
comparison. Excerpt ends
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Three brothers, triplets born with psychic powers. Robert adjusts, grows up to use his ability to his own advantage, makes a life for himself with the woman he loves and a successful career as a recruitment consultant. Frank can't adjust, goes through a series of dead end jobs, tries to kill himself with alcohol and drugs, before washing up at a secret installation in Nevada, where he finds his niche as a test subject for government scientists studying psi powers. And Michael... Well, Michael is the bad 'un. He doesn't like it that the others have the same abilities as him. He wants to be unique. And so he goes off and makes a deal with a demonic entity, gaining power but losing his humanity. And now he's back, all cranked up with amps and attitude, intent on giving sibling rivalry a really bad name. Cue move and blood splattered countermove, culminating in Nevada with the literary equivalent of one of those sfx fests the Hollywood highrollers are so good at. Maynard and Sims. Those are the guys who write ghost stories and traditional horror, full of quiet and subtle effects, whose work you describe as 'atmospheric' because you're too old and self-consciously macho to admit they scared the crap out of you. The back cover blurb reads, 'This is not the Maynard & Sims you may be familiar with.' Well, they got that right. What's got into these guys? Has somebody spiked their morning shreddies with haemoglobin supplement? The pace of this book is ferocious and it doesn't let up until the final word. Along the way the reader's senses are systematically bludgeoned with a battery of atrocities that are definitely not the sort of thing M&S usually deal in, though the Clive Barker of Hellraiser vintage might cast a proprietorial eye over some of the more bloody set pieces and I understand that Shaun Hutson is asking if he can please have his ball back (maybe I should rephrase that). Bodies are gutted and turned inside out, heads explode and limbs are mutilated, blood erupts skyward in crimson fountains, a welter of lurid and shocking imagery that builds to a stunning crescendo, as hell is quite literally let loose on earth. This book is definitely not for the faint hearted. Don't think from this though that, after so long spent winging it, Maynard and Sims have stepped out of the splatterpunk closet ten years too late. The imagery is graphic but never gratuitous. There is no prurient dwelling on detail, no hard core close-ups of steel ripping into flesh. The lean, muscular prose is all business, leaving no room for doubt that the gore is an effect only, a way of raising the stakes and enhancing the drama, not an end in itself. The subtlety we expect from these writers is still in evidence, seen most obviously in the way in which the characters are so succinctly brought to life, just a few well chosen words telling us all we need to know about these people, and suggesting so much more; seen also in the skill with which the writers handle such a large cast of people and effects. This is a short work, but don't make the mistake of thinking it lacks substance. The Hidden Language of Demons packs in more than most blockbuster novels. If I have a complaint, it's to do with the ending. It seemed too abrupt, as if the plot just stopped rather than resolved. More significantly, I didn't want it to stop. I wanted to stay a while longer with these people and this epic battle of good and evil. I wanted a novel. This book is a major departure for Maynard and Sims. It should win them a lot of new friends, and probably outrage a few of their older admirers. Their decision to defy our expectations deserves respect. Having gone from vanilla horror to chain saw chic in six easy lessons it will be interesting to see what this talented pair produce next.
Reviewed by William Simmons, Cemetery Dance 2002 For readers appreciative of Maynard and Sims' traditionalist approach to the supernatural - subtly reached crescendos of terror achieved by careful plotting and an unobtrusive style - The Hidden Language Of Demons is both a surprise and a delight. Inviting a modern appreciation of ghost fiction by instilling classically constructed weird stories with a style contemporary in approach; the fictional geographies of Maynard and Sims are the secret desires of the soul. Using the leisurely build-up of atmosphere and subtle incident to develop ‘human' characters (flaws, insecurities, and misguided perceptions intact), the emotional and psychological histories of their ‘everymen' answer to supernatural threats which, in the context of their naturalistically described environments, appear more believable, and therefore more threatening, than is common in many dark fantasies. Allowing only a drop of the fantastic to drip within otherwise realistic situations, Maynard and Sims make readers accept terrible denizens from nightmare as casual fact. In The Hidden Language Of Demons they question perception itself. Stripping away the use of normality to emphasize supernatural deviations, Demons vivisects the very notion of objective reality. Revolving around the struggle of two psychic brothers - Robert and Frank Moreland - to survive the psychic attacks of their possessed brother Michael, the fluid transition between realities, and projection of character's internal fears through a dangerously dream-like environment, sweeps away faith in sense and logic - tools by which we define the world. Retained are the author's attention to character and place. Gone are safety nets of dependability. The hidden language of demons is, in fact, the terrible ability of physical space (manipulated by Michael) to solidify character's weaknesses into murderous actuality. A white-heat plot reveals there is no longer a difference between thought and flesh, word and deed; no reality outside chaotic hunger. Marking a maturity in theme, Demons is unique for its uncharacteristic but effective depiction of graphic violence and perverse sexuality by authors who usually evoke terror with whispers.
Reviewed by Mario Guslandi The Maynard & Sims you don't expect. If you are acquainted with the subtle atmospheres and the quiet horror of their previous books you'll be surprised (and shocked). So am I.. "The hidden language of demons" is a book of a different genre by apparently different writers. If Maynard & Sims have written this novella to show that they are versatile authors, able to modify their style as they like, they have certainly proven the point. No more exquisitely cooked fiction, this is raw meat, you can eat it or spit it out. Raw meat, but spicy: sex, possession, gore, you mention it, it's all there. I wonder: what is the true nature of those two guys? Have we been deceived, sidetracked by their first books? Are they "splutterpunks" in disguise? Did they win our hearts as sophisticated artists of the macabre only to eventually slap our face and kick our ass with pure horror ? I suggest that they use a pen-name when they want to write for the pleasure of shaking our hearts and souls while continuing to sign their work as Maynard & Sims when they prefer to chill us gently. I won't reveal the plot. It is enough to say that it's about the struggle between Evil and Good - and don't count too much on a happy ending- , the curse of being triplets with psychic powers and the risks of following unusual avenues of research. Not my cup of tea, to tell you the truth, but I'm impressed. Once you start the novella you'll find it difficult to put the book down until you're finished. So, take my advice, don't start reading at night or you won't sleep a wink.
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Copyright © 2008 L.H. Maynard & M.P.N. Sims |
