Robert R. McCammon - Blue World

[dem bones]

Robert R. McCammon - Blue World (Grafton, 1990)

Bruno Elleton

Introduction:

Yellowjacket Summer
Makeup
Doom City
Nightcrawlers
Pin
Yellachile's Cage
I Scream Man!
He'll Come Knocking At Your Door
Chico
Night Calls The Green Falcon
The Red House
Something Passed By
Blue World

Back cover blurb:

`The skeleton was wearing Sarah's pale blue nightgown, and what looked like dried-up pieces of tree bark — skin, he realized, yes... her skin — lay all around, on and between the white bones.
The teeth grinned, and from the bed there was the bitter-sweet odour of a damp graveyard.
"'Oh..." he whispered, and he stood staring down at what was left of his wife as his eyes began to bulge from their sockets...'

Robert R. McCammon's horror novels include such modern classics of the genre as Baal and Stinger. Joint-winner of the first Bram Stoker Award of the Horror Writers of America in the novel category — sharing the honour with Stephen King — he also won the prize in the 'Best Short Story' category outright. Blue World is Robert R. McCammon's first short fiction collection, an outstanding showcase of his unique power to shock, terrify and disturb the reader. Containing thirteen varied pieces, some of which have not been published before, Blue World is modern horror fiction at its compelling best.

It demonstrates superbly why critics have compared McCammon's work with that of such other giants of terror as Stephen King, Dean R. Koontz and Clive Barker.

includes:

Blue World: Short (199 page) novel: San Francisco: Father Lancaster of the Cathedral of St. Francis teams up with porn star Debra Rocks on the trail of a serial killer after she visits him in the confessional and asks him to say a prayer for Easie, her co-starlet in Superslick, who has just taken a bullet in her mouth. John, taking the surname "Lucky", takes to leading a double life to enable to befriend Debbie, and before long they realise that the murderer, Travis - an ex-rodeo shooter who has red teardrops tattooed beneath his eyes - is stalking them ...

There are some truly awful moments including a torture murder and an attempted drowning, and, as ever, McCammon is strong on characterization with especially likable lead players. Blue World is also notable for Debbie's pet crab, Unicorn, who digs himself into a plant pot whenever danger threatens.

Makeup;Calvin Doss is hired by Mr. Marco to steal the make-up case that once belonged to Joan Crawford from the Hollywood Museum Of Memories. Due to the incompetence of some museum employee, he winds up with an item from the Chamber Of Horrors - the warpaint trove of horror actor Orlon Kronsteen, star of Dracula Rises, Revenge Of The Wolf, London Screams, The Invisible Man Returns, and The Man Who Shrunk. Those who've read Robert Bloch's The Chaney Legacy will know what happens when Doss decides to experiment with some slap.

Pin: The psychotic Joey Shatterly stands before the mirror diving the pin through each of his pupils in turn prior to stepping out with his rifle and seven bullets ...

Night Calls The Green Falcon: Creighton 'Cray Flint' Boomershine, 'forties serial star now all but forgotten, arthritic and reduced to mopping floors in Burger King, gets his superhero costume out of mothballs and teams up with go-go dancer Gracie and street-suss Ques when his kindly young neighbour is murdered by the Fliptop Killer. The big breakthrough comes via the furtive street scavenger 'The Watchman', who collects the detritus of the city and files and index's it in his basement. 'The Watchman' has been a Green Falcon fan from childhood and always kept the pledge - "Do right". Will his information help Creighton nail the psycho before he kills again?

Doom City: Brad awakes from a lightening storm to discover the all but fleshless skeleton of wife Sarah in bed beside him. In mounting terror he learns that that's not the worst of it: all the world over, man and beast have suffered the same fate! Only he, a dustman and a little girl have survived but even now Death is intent on hunting down the leftovers of the feast. And then he and the binman discover that the child isn't what she appears to be.

I Scream Man!: After the Big Bang, a man sits alternating between plugging rats and playing a game of Scrabble with the oozing corpses of his dead kids. The men in radiation suits come to remove the cadavers in an ice cream van. He chases the vehicle through the streets.

Oatcake

Night Calls The Green Falcon is definitely more action/thriller than horror - but I love the way that McCammon writes the whole thing in chapters as loving homage to the old cliffhanger serials - complete with cheating resolutions! I'm not going to give away how he follows up the chapter that ends "Flame spat from the barrel of the levelled pistol", but I was in literal tears of appreciative laughter the first time that I read that one. And the "basement guy" is one of the loveliest, most sympathy-arousing characters in any fiction that I've read.

The one great pity is that McCammon seemed to be interested in the idea of doing at least a few more adventures of the Green Falcon, but doesn't appear to have done so since.

demonik

And the "basement guy" is one of the loveliest, most sympathy-arousing characters in any fiction that I've read.

I agree. That's probably McCammon's greatest strength, depicting decent characters who are actually believable. The Priest and the hooker in Blue World are lovable too.

To be .... etc

[/center]

[Johnlprobert]

Yellowjackets are what Americans call wasps, aren't they?

This is another book I read years and years ago. 'Makeup' was turned into a half-hour of the old TV series 'Darkroom' presented by James Coburn. And I seem to remember the Blue World novella being pretty good

[dem bones]

johnlprobert said:

Yellowjackets are what Americans call wasps, aren't they?

Yeah. I've sidelined it for later as, from memory, admittedly, it's something of a mini-'when insects attack' classic!

Haven't read Nightcrawlers in yonks either, but I'm sure that has to do with spectral - or, possibly, zombie - Viet-Vets waging war on a diner at a gas station. It certainly impressed me on first reading, I know that!

Goathunter runs the excellent Robert McCammon Robert McCammon. Com: News, reviews, loads of covers and much online fiction - including selections from Blue World - HERE

[Johnlprobert]

Nightcrawlers - that's right! Zombie Vietnam vets besieging a gas station! It was adapted for TV for the 'new' (ie 80s) Twilight Zone & it's not bad at all.

[goathunter]

johnlprobert said:

Yellowjackets are what Americans call wasps, aren't they?

Actually, yellowjackets are a specific type of wasp: WikiPedia article on yellowjackets. They're a lot fiercer and meaner than your everyday wasp.

This is another book I read years and years ago. 'Makeup' was turned into a half-hour of the old TV series 'Darkroom' presented by James Coburn. And I seem to remember the Blue World novella being pretty good

The "Darkroom" episode was actually an hour long, and it starred Billy Crystal (!) and Brian Dennehy. It's really, really bad, and was changed quite a bit from the original story.

"Blue World" is being filmed this year as a low-budget movie. Details can be found here.

Thanks to Demonik for the kind comments about the McCammon website!

Hunter

[dem bones]

You can see why J. N. Williamson opened the first Masques collection with McCammon's Nightcrawlers. Brilliant story, put me in mind of a supernatural Assault On Precinct 13 if you get my drift. I've not given away the ending, but the following abject synopsis still warrants a spoiler warning.

Good ol' boy Big Bob Clayton runs a Gas Station-cum-Diner in a remote spot twenty miles north of Mobile. Friendly little place provided you ain't a commie agitator and the good people have even come to accept the hippie waitress, Cheryl Lovesong, even if she does smoke funny fags, prattle on about Woodstock and came to work with glitter on her cheeks that time.

Not so much happens around the area as a rule but tonight is different. A wild storm is kicking up, Bob's seriously considering shutting early and there's even an item of morbid interest in the local newspaper for a change. Some nights previous, six people were slaughtered in a Daytona Beach motel and the police are still clueless as to who perpetrated the dreadful crime. "Probably some crazy hippie who'd been smokin' his own tennis shoe" opines Trooper Wells of the Alabama State Police, a brash young flag-saluter who likes telling stuff like it is.

The scrawny, half dead form of Price blows into the diner. When Wells realises he's a Viet-Vet, he blurts his considered verdict on the War and how he was so rooting for you boys, but Price cuts him down. He was the only survivor of the Nightcrawlers special detail, left all his friends dead in the rice fields and doesn't much feel like hearing about how great it all was from a fellow who wasn't there. The atmosphere between the pair grows ... strained. Price tries to apologise, explaining that he's been severely stressed. In 'Nam he'd been subjected to an evil chemical spray and recently the side-effects have been affecting him awful. He only has to think about something hard enough to bring it into being (he demonstrates by imagining a T-bone steak frying on the grill), and he thinks about his dead buddies all the time, so much so that he daren't go to sleep.

Like he did at that Daytona Inn ...

Wells, still sore at this dishevelled bum's lack of respect for the law and furious at having been so publicly shown up, tries to prevent him from driving in these conditions, 'specially as he's just watched him gobble down some pills, but Price just fixes him a look and the pistol turns to gunk in his hand. Not to be deterred, Wells lobs a ketchup bottle which scores a direct hit on the back of Price's skull and knocks him unconscious.

A helicopter hovers over the diner. Gunshots, getting nearer. The Nightcrawlers have come to claim their own ....

[goathunter]

Resurrecting a thread before it reaches its 10th birthday!

Other Blue World covers can be found on RobertMcCammon.com.

Pocket paperback (1990):

Subterranean Press hardcover (2015):

Hunter

[dem bones]

Hi Hunter, good to hear from you. Funny enough, I only just rescanned the Grafton cover a week back because the original was so small. Ten years ago several of we contributors were on dial-up, so we had to keep the file sizes down or the pages took forever to load! The Basement Guy is still my hero, BTW.

[goathunter]

Sept 23, 2017 16:52:14 GMT dem bones said:

Hi Hunter, good to hear from you.

Thanks! Good to hear from you, too. I'll try to remember to stop in here more often. I always enjoy it, I just tend to forget about it, with everything else pulling at my attention.

Funny enough, I only just rescanned the Grafton cover a week back because the original was so small. Ten years ago several of we contributors were on dial-up, so we had to keep the file sizes down or the pages took forever to load!

Yep! I need to rescan a bunch of what's on the McCammon site for the same reasons.

The Basement Guy is still my hero, BTW.

Mine, too!

Hunter

[andydecker]

Recently I took They Thirst and Usher's Passing from the shelves for a re-read. TT is still a lot of fun. Even if some parts seem a bit over-familiar today.