Skipp and Spector - The Light at the End (1986)

[Calenture]

Bantam, 1986

The Light at the End by John Skipp and Craig Spector

I've just learned at this page, that this title is 'hard to find'. First the cover blurb, then the notes I made at the time:

"Unique, funky, masterful, and unbearably suspenseful, The Light at the End is the stuff of nightmares. It's a guitar riff fingered by Satan, bizarre graffitti splashed with blood, blinding light where light has never shone before. Come, step below the streets of Manhattan for a ride you will never forget.

"Ten murders on the New York subway - all horrible, all inexplicable, no two alike. The city's tabloids blare forth headlines about a 'Subway Psycho.' The cops comb the island, looking for a vicious hoodlum or an escaped lunatic. Both are wrong - for both are assuming that their killer is human...

Only a handful of people know the truth about the demonic force that has taken over Manhattan's cavernous underground. About the terrible way Rudy died one night in the echoing depths of an isolated subway tunnel. About the creature he has now become - a cunning creature boasting ancient and unlimited evil. Worst of all, they know the dreadful fate he has in store for millions of innocent people..."

*

"Its verve and brash modernity, its new approach to an ancient evil, make it an enormously promising debut".

Locus

*

My notes:

Rudy Pasko is thrown out by his girlfriend Joselyn and decides to take the subway across town to impose on his long-suffering friend Stephen. As luck would have it, an ancient evil living in the Manhattan subway system decides to take a joyride on his train.

At the end of the ride, ten people are horribly dead and Rudy Pasko is missing. When he finally reappears it is to inform Stephen that he (Rudy) has gone all the way into the tunnel of death and come out the other side. He is no longer exactly human; whether Rudy Pasko ever had any endearing human traits is debatable, but now, definitely none.

Light at the End is another pleasingly gruesome addition to the vampire mythos, modern, mildly and perversely erotic and with quite a few imaginative death scenes.

Ranged against Rudy are the members of a messenger service communicating with beepers, travelling around in vans or on bikes (and one, most noteably, on roller skates - don't let it be said Skipp and Spector lack humour).

Joseph Hunter is still bitter that his mother has suffered a crippling accident. Doug is a roller-skating born-again Christian. Danny and Claire are horror movie buffs who both had connections with Rudy Pasko in his previous existence. In the Van Helsing role is Armond Hacdorian, survivor of Treblinka, who believes that some form of living horror was created in the concentration camps, and has survived (an intriguing idea which frankly isn't given sufficient airing). Does the world really need yet another vampire novel? Probably. This one's quite entertaining.

[authorfan]

I quite enjoyed this one as well. Very horror 80's.

Martin

[timothymayer]

Excellent book. S & S at their best.

[andydecker]

John Skipp & Craig Spector - The Light at the End (Bantam Books, 1986, 385 pages)

This is the American first edition from February 1986.

[dem bones]

John Skipp & Craig Spector - The Light At The End (Bantam Falcon, Feb. 1992)

Blurb:
END OF THE LINE Ten murders on the New York City subway — all horrible, no two alike. The tabloids cry "Subway Psycho" and the cops search for a serial killer. But they're both wrong — because what they're looking for isn't even human.

Only a handful of people know the truth about the creature stalking Manhattan's cavernous underground...a creature with an uncontrollable thirst for blood and domination.

Worst of all, they know that his kind has ruled the night for centuries, and that down in the tunnels, the night lasts forever.

Unique, funky, masterful, The Light at the End is a relentless joyride on the razor's edge of the New Horror— the shocker that first earned Skipp and Spector their undisputed reputation as the bad boys of the genre.

A later copy. I was more a Scream man, myself.