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jdhacker's review
3.0
This is a re-publication of Satan's Lovechild series from the 60s/70s. I'm still trying to get a copy of the original, Star Publishing, edition as my understanding is there have been actual revisions as well as possible additions/omissions and I'm curious to see what exactly that entails. I am assuming that the original, being published by Playboy under one of its imprints and from some comments made by the author over the years, is more explicitly racy than this reprint. I would be tempted to say that perhaps it is only a difference in socio-cultural norms between then and now as to what would be considered explicit sexual content, however even some of McNaughton's other works are more direct in their sexuality than this one leading me to believe that some of the changes lie there.
This falls pretty solidly into the satanic/witch cults genre of horror literature and film so prevalent from the 60s-80s. You never know if your neighbor, wife, daughter, those hermit farmers, weird hippies, or literally anyone else in society might be secret satan worshipers, looking to kidnap and/or sexually exploit children and sacrifice babies. The same ideas that the satanic panic and religious right of the 80s decided were real instead of just fiction. We get some hints that this might be a stranger, less judeo-christian, world with to the supernatural goings on than mere satan worship though. Specifically, the nature of certain brothers and sisters begins to show that perhaps this is a more Lovecraftian universe. I believe the farther one gets in the series, the more 'weird' and less just 'horrific' it gets.
As is the case with all McNaughton's work, the prose is beautifully polished throughout. He is an expert wordsmith. However, the pacing feels distinctly uneven. This is fairly short for a novel, coming in at just 144 pages, but long compared to a lot of his short fiction work. I think the pacing suffers from trying to bridge the gap between the more action oriented demands of short fiction (barring atmospheric pieces) and the internal character driven demands of long-form work. We get just enough of characters internal lives to make us want to know more, but not enough for them to feel fully developed. Engaging, more action packed scenes that seem to drop too quickly into denoument. In some of his anthologized works like Throne of Bones, we see characters more fully explored and developed over longer sequences of tales, and I think that may be where McNaughton shines. If there's every an omnibus of this series of books published, it may be better to read them that way, though I'll reserve judgment until I've read the rest of the series.
This falls pretty solidly into the satanic/witch cults genre of horror literature and film so prevalent from the 60s-80s. You never know if your neighbor, wife, daughter, those hermit farmers, weird hippies, or literally anyone else in society might be secret satan worshipers, looking to kidnap and/or sexually exploit children and sacrifice babies. The same ideas that the satanic panic and religious right of the 80s decided were real instead of just fiction. We get some hints that this might be a stranger, less judeo-christian, world with to the supernatural goings on than mere satan worship though. Specifically, the nature of certain brothers and sisters begins to show that perhaps this is a more Lovecraftian universe. I believe the farther one gets in the series, the more 'weird' and less just 'horrific' it gets.
As is the case with all McNaughton's work, the prose is beautifully polished throughout. He is an expert wordsmith. However, the pacing feels distinctly uneven. This is fairly short for a novel, coming in at just 144 pages, but long compared to a lot of his short fiction work. I think the pacing suffers from trying to bridge the gap between the more action oriented demands of short fiction (barring atmospheric pieces) and the internal character driven demands of long-form work. We get just enough of characters internal lives to make us want to know more, but not enough for them to feel fully developed. Engaging, more action packed scenes that seem to drop too quickly into denoument. In some of his anthologized works like Throne of Bones, we see characters more fully explored and developed over longer sequences of tales, and I think that may be where McNaughton shines. If there's every an omnibus of this series of books published, it may be better to read them that way, though I'll reserve judgment until I've read the rest of the series.
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