Mark Sonders - Blight

[dem bones]

Many thanks to Grady Hendrix for recommendation!

Mark Sonders - Blight (Ace, 1981)

Blurb:
The people of Stole Estates had everything to live for: new luxury housing amidst the beauty and peace of natural forests.
But did they know that the Estates offered death as well?
Millions of bloodthirsty moths, chemically mutated by the builder's landclearing, seek a deadly revenge from those who live in Stole Estates.
As the streets fill with mutilated corpses, those who remain fight a deadly battle against the endless dark cloud that seems only to grow. . . and to wait.

"It doesn't make sense to me. Moths attack sweaters and fly around light bulbs. They don't devour humans."

Normally I'd agree with you, Mr. John Stoles, but these are mutant moths, and they got that way thanks to a lethal cocktail of pesticides and defoliants unleashed by YOU, you greedy son of a gun!

Stoles, 27, has recently come into his father's $multi-million fortune. In less time than it takes to tell, he's greased all the necessary corrupt palms to free up an expanse of green belt land for development. Four years on, and where once was a nature reserve now stands Stole Estates, a self-contained city for the rich.

The moths take violent exception the theft of their feeding ground. Their first victim, 'dozer-driver Bill Maher, meets with a particularly agonising demise combining suffocation with the death by a thousand cuts, the corpse so hideously mutilated that his hardened colleagues throw up as one on sight of it. Needless to say, Stoles has bribed them handsomely to keep their mouths shut. And now, Stoles Estates welcomes its first residents. There's that nice Vyner family, Jack, Kathy and two year old Alan. Next door to them, pop sensation Carol Bunner, twelve albums, two big screen appearances and a Broadway run under her belt. Carol, an outrageous flirt, fancies the pants off Jack and is ever finding excuses to lure him into her house. We've yet to meet anyone else worth the knowing, but could be the author's modus operandi is to kill them off in order of appearance? Whatever, the Kamikaze moth attacks have been an absolute joy to date!

[dem bones]

"Didn't they know who she was? Didn't they have any idea that they weren't supposed to eat people? What was she, a sweater?" - Plucky Carol Bunner accepts she'll not be packing out Carnegie Hall again in the foreseeable future.

We join Harry and Phyllis Mayes for a peaceful Sunday afternoon's card-playing with pals at the Clubhouse. It's unusually quiet due to most of the locals attending the afternoon's "football" game. The weather forecast said nothing about rain so why the massive black cloud on the horizon. The clubhouse almost empties as the diners rush to wind down their car windows. Wait, that's not a cloud ....

The Mayes' are among the six bloodied survivors of the massacre having locked themselves in the kitchen. The big question - how will they ever get out? Harry, who assumes command, suggests the party wrap themselves in bin-liners and bacofoil and make for the airfield. it's a crazy stunt to pull but it might just work!

Meanwhile, up in the mountains, Roger and Connie Rudy have taken six year old Bradley camping. Damn, looks like rain. Time to pack the tent away and head home.

The moths make short work of them. I suspect even GNS would be proud to have orchestrated Connie's last moments, as humiliating as they are agonising.

Jack Vyner, crazed with grief, is sworn to avenge the grisly deaths of his wife and son. As luck would have it, he invested in a frog-suit on a whim. Suitably protected, he squelches up toward John Stole's mansion ....

[helrunar]

A friend of mine has a really serious phobia of moths--to the point where just the sight of that cover might require some serious drugs and coping with vicious nightmares, possibly for days afterwards. Sounds funny but really, it isn't.

Once again, Kev, I suspect your mordantly witty, deftly acid commentary is much more entertaining than the text itself. Brilliant cover, though.

cheers, H.

[helrunar]

Also, it has to be recognized that this is a very novel approach to that favorite Eighties parlor game--"Eat the rich."

H.

[dem bones]

Rudimentary plot .... ecological concerns ("It could happen!") .... multiple grisly vignettes ..... the corrupt businessman who stands to gain, etc. 170 pages into the action and the author has worked in all the essentials - bar one. No gratuitous BAD SEX interludes. I had high hopes for man-hungry Carol in this department, but the moths got to her (in a big way) before she had opportunity to shine. Were it not for this one fatal flaw, Blight would be a rock solid 'when insects attack!, way up their with Abominations and Night-Killers. As it is, I can only bestow it an 'A-' and ruefully reflect on what might have been.

Back into the fray. The telephone lines are down. Neilson the engineer dutifully ventures up to the Stole Estate and immediately senses there's something wrong. The place is like a ghost town. Maybe he should report it, but to return to the office without completing his work would be to invite abuse from his boorish colleagues. Neilson manfully drives on up the mountain ....

[dem bones]

Finally finished this last week. While it's true that, for the easily pleased (me) Blight has it's moments early on, these are but a fleeting memory as we wade uphill and across stream with frog-suited Jack Vyner for fifty, mostly uneventful pages (episode involving a crashed plane is welcome brief diversion), on and on and on toward the most abrupt, deflating anti-climax since GNS put The Walking Dead out of their misery. Am still none the wiser when or why the plague of moths stopped acting up, but phew, show over, that was a close one for the human race. Highly recommended - with certain reservations.

[kooshmeister]

Jan 11, 2018 13:49:18 GMT dem bones said:

Their first victim, 'dozer-driver Bill Maher,

Nooooooooooo!



Not Bill!