Book Review: 'Golden Eyes' by John Gideon
'Golden Eyes' is a rarity among Paperbacks from Hell in that it was published both in hardcover and mass-market paperback editions in 1994. Both versions were issued by Berkley Books. According to the Too Much Horror Fiction blog, the font used in the title is BTC Benguiat.
John Gideon is the pseudonym of Lonn Hoklin (b. 1946) who authored several novels in the suspense and horror genres in the 1980s and 1990s. Greeley's Cove (1991) and Kindred (1996; variant title Red Ball) qualify as Paperbacks from Hell (I note that the Too Much Horror Fiction blog was not overly impressed with Greeley's Cove). The Hourglass Crisis (1987) involves Nazis and time travel.
'Golden Eyes' is set in the summer of 1988. The novel's protagonist, a history professor named Mark Lansen, is a cuck. At the architectural firm where she works, his sleek and shapely wife is having sex with her boss, but Lansen avoids denouncing her for fear of triggering divorce proceedings. He and his son refer to each other as 'Dad-Bear' and 'Tad Bear', the kind of cringey appellations that had me rooting for the monsters from early on in the novel (and echoes the conversations between Todd Bowden and his mom Monica, from Stephen King's 1982 novella Apt Pupil).
The setup for 'Golden Eyes' constitutes something of a homage to King's classic vampire novel 'Salem's Lot.
Lansen decides to spend the summer in his boyhood home of Oldenberg, Oregon, which is a West Coast version of Jerusalem's Lot. Instead of the Marsten House, in Oldenberg, we get Gestern Hall, looming over the village from wooded heights. Instead of Susan Norton as the local girl / love interest, we get Tressa Downey, a woman with a Troubled Past. Instead of a man named Kurt Barlow as the villain, we get the dissimulating Mark Gestern, lord of Gestern Hall.
Upon arrival in Oldenberg, Lansen becomes aware that beneath the quotidian cycle of village life, an aura of tension and unease has established itself among the residents. Many are fearful of going out at night, for reasons they cannot define. And the suicides and mysterious deaths of some residents have only deepened the feeling that the town is beset by EVIL !!!!!!
As the summer weeks pass, a horrified Mark Lansen will discover that Oldenberg is assailed by an ancient malevolence, one that preys on the unwitting townspeople, drawing their blood as sustenance. This malevolence even is capable of resurrecting the dead to act as its agents. Can Lansen, along with a gun-toting bounty hunter, a crone who makes enigmatic remarks, and mysterious French priest, mount a defense against the vampiric forces conspiring to turn Oldenberg into a charnel house ?
At 457 pages in length, 'Golden Eyes', like many Paperbacks from Hell, has plenty of space to devote to its narrative, and there is abundant exposition in the novel's opening 300 pages. The unhurried pacing occaisionally receives some propulsive jolts in the form of brief episodes of explicit sex and violence. As the final third of the novel unfolds, the splatterpunk content rises to such an extent that it lends a sly note of facetiousness to 'Golden Eyes', telling the reader that author Gideon is not taking things too seriously.
The denouement is protracted, taking nearly 90 pages to accomplish, by which time my patience was diminishing. I won't disclose any spoilers, save to say that the confrontation between our heroes and the vampires of Oldenberg has both a comic-book quality, and a some revelations that seemed more than a little contrived.
The verdict ? 'Golden Eyes', with its unusual vampires and nods to 'Salem's Lot, is a solid three-star novel. If you have the willingness to stick with its slow pacing, you may find it to be one of the more rewarding Paperbacks from Hell. But those looking for a memorable and novel treatment of the vampire theme likely will be disappointed.
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