Night Plague

Satan's witch, Isobel Gowdie, is threatening humanity from a shadowy dimension of dreams. Her dire influence infects the unwary through the spreading of a horrific disease: the Night Plague. When Stanley Eisner, a leading American violinist, realizes that he has fallen victim to a terrible condition that is warping his whole personality, he is forced to embark on a bizarre adventure into a world of which he had no imagining. More, he is a great warrior in this dream world and his unlikely companions too have been transformed into creatures from a distant, mystical past.

Graham Masterton has developed a reputation as a leading writer of horror and Night Plague helps to explain why. His characterization and the portrayal of the relationships between the characters is complex and adult; his heroes, although stronger than they believed possible, are still vulnerable and indecisive. Above all, perhaps, his descriptions of pain and suffering (de rigueur for this genre) are rendered in loving, almost obsessive detail. The forensic nature of being burned alive (as in The Hymn) or having one's flesh stripped from the bones (in A Terrible Beauty), is also evident here in the approach to sex, which occupies an important, but not overwhelming part of the characters' sensibilities.

The conventions of the horror genre are nicely satisfied in this book: a group of people are drawn into a dangerous and frightening world and isolated from all that is familiar and comforting. Necessarily, therefore, they must be removed from communication with the rest of the world. When we now look at the world around us, with the increasing use of mobile telephones and personal communications devices, the stretch to achieve the willing suspension of disbelief becomes ever more strenuous. It is to the other's credit, therefore, that we are able to immerse ourselves in an alien landscape without too many jarring notes.

Fans of horror literature should enjoy this book and it is recommended for them.