THE DAWNING
by Hugh B. Cave
To judge by the author's bio in the back of the book, Mr. Cave is a man of impressive accomplishments (over 800 short stories). Unfortunately, The Dawning leaves a lot to be desired. According to Rave Reviews' promotional copy on the cover, "Hugh B. Cave is one of the grandest of the Grandmasters of horror fiction." I've never heard of the man, but I'm willing to give him a shot.
The book begins with a good concept, but fumbles the delivery. In a near future world plagued by disintegrating governments and a soaring crime rate, zombie-like addicts high on the not-very-well-defined drug Hallelujah terrorize normal folks. A small group of like-minded individuals flee their city, into the Canadian wilderness, to begin a new life closer to the earth. The problem is that the earth doesn't like humans very much anymore, and a variety of mutant animals are sent to drive off these self-exiled explorers.
Various factors contributed to this book not being as good as it could be. I hate to blame the author's advanced age, so perhaps the sometimes awkward word usage and dialogue stemmed from Cave being born in England and having lived several years in Haiti. There were times when I thought, what American talks like this?
More than that, the biggest issue is there is just not enough actual horror. There were times when I thought the attack of some mutated creature was anticlimactic. Both the creatures and those moments in the book employed an ambush style assault without any real tension. There was no appropriate build-up to something truly terrible happening.
The Dawning was just okay. It isn't comically bad enough to make it great. It isn't gory enough to justify it as splatterpunk. I think those that place even a tiny amount of credence in my taste in books can skip this one.
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