Martin Cruz Smith - Nightwing

[dem bones]

Martin Cruz Smith - Nightwing (Futura, 1978)

Blurb
`A whirlwind of swooping, hungry, sharp‑fanged creatures comes pulsatingly alive...' — KIRKUS REVIEWS
An ancient Indian medicine man utters a curse against the world. His flesh is stripped by NIGHTWING
And he is just the first...
In the festering caverns of the desert waste they breed, and multiply...
Now, driven by hunger, ravenous for blood, the hideous plague of vampire bats sweeps across the American Southwest.
The night is rent by the whisper of wings — and the sounds of screaming death ...


Ninety year old Hopi witchdoctor Abner Tampi is so sick of the exploitation of the Native American that he decides to bring on the end of the world. His one friend, Youngman Duran, an ex-convict who now acts as a deputy on the reservation, is amused at the old man's antics - until suddenly the biggest, meanest army of rabid vampire bats abandon their Arizona desert roosts en masse ....

After a warm up versus the local sheep community, the bats take to attacking man and Abner is the first of their several human victims (it's what he wanted). As if trying to stop the vicious bloodsuckers weren't impossible enough, Youngman learns that their fleas carry bubonic plague, something the Najavo's Capitalist-minded leader is keen to cover up to keep his million dollar projects on line. Complicating matters yet further is the arrival of mad vampire bat obsessed immunologist Hayden Paine who has a grudge against the creatures (his brilliant father, Joe, was eaten alive by tarantulas while exploring a bat cave).

i'm up to the halfway mark and to date the novel has as much to do with the appalling treatment of Native Americans as no nonsense bat attacks though the latter, when they come, are magnificently bloody, notably the massacre of a bunch of do-gooder whites (with hidden agenda's). Also, Abner's corpse has vanished. Has it been stolen by fellow Fire Clan or has he, as Youngman's superior Selwyn suspects, truly risen from the grave?

Brilliant stuff.

[robertmammone]

Jun 12, 2010 11:03:16 GMT dem bones said:

Martin Cruz Smith - Nightwing (Futura, 1978)


Blurb
`A whirlwind of swooping, hungry, sharp‑fanged creatures comes pulsatingly alive...' — KIRKUS REVIEWS
An ancient Indian medicine man utters a curse against the world. His flesh is stripped by NIGHTWING
And he is just the first...
In the festering caverns of the desert waste they breed, and multiply...
Now, driven by hunger, ravenous for blood, the hideous plague of vampire bats sweeps across the American Southwest.
The night is rent by the whisper of wings — and the sounds of screaming death ...


Ninety year old Hopi witchdoctor Abner Tampi is so sick of the exploitation of the Native American that he decides to bring on the end of the world. His one friend, Youngman Duran, an ex-convict who now acts as a deputy on the reservation, is amused at the old man's antics - until suddenly the biggest, meanest army of rabid vampire bats abandon their Arizona desert roosts en masse ....

After a warm up versus the local sheep community, the bats take to attacking man and Abner is the first of their several human victims (it's what he wanted). As if trying to stop the vicious bloodsuckers weren't impossible enough, Youngman learns that their fleas carry bubonic plague, something the Najavo's Capitalist-minded leader is keen to cover up to keep his million dollar projects on line. Complicating matters yet further is the arrival of mad vampire bat obsessed immunologist Hayden Paine who has a grudge against the creatures (his brilliant father, Joe, was eaten alive by tarantulas while exploring a bat cave).

i'm up to the halfway mark and to date the novel has as much to do with the appalling treatment of Native Americans as no nonsense bat attacks though the latter, when they come, are magnificently bloody, notably the massacre of a bunch of do-gooder whites (with hidden agenda's). Also, Abner's corpse has vanished. Has it been stolen by fellow Fire Clan or has he, as Youngman's superior Selwyn suspects, truly risen from the grave?

Brilliant stuff.

This was filmed as Bats, yes?

[Johnlprobert]

Oct 2, 2010 10:48:31 GMT robertmammone said:

This was filmed as Bats, yes?

No, it was filmed as Nightwing by of all people Arthur Hiller! Good performance by David Warner as the bat expert but otherwise I remember it being a bit rubbish

[lemming13]

Yes. I thought it was a bit lame except for the eternally wonderful David. But I do believe another version was filmed as Bats, starring Lou Diamond Phillips. If not a straight adaptation, it certainly was close enough to Nightwing to have been ripped off from it.

[pbsplatter]

I recall thinking this one was a bit light on the actual bat action but it was well written