Blight by Mark Sonders

 

Blight
by Mark Sonders
1981 Ace Books
Paperback, 259 pages

 

    Blight is a no-bullshit book about killer moths. On page one, bulldozers clear some formerly protected woods that were the feeding area for rare moths and by page 5, the pissed-off insects are already attacking the human interlopers. Mark Sonders comes off like an excited 15-year-old kid with a good horror idea that he banged out with the glee of a teenager taking revenge on the world. The pace is relentless (until towards the end), and the science is bonkers; just how this type of book should be.

    The residents of Stole Estates are rich and doomed. Their hoity toity community was built on the cleared land that once belonged to the moths. The moths are hungry. And, for good measure, they sting as well. They come in such abundance that they clog everything, including human orifices. Moths are out to fuck you up. One very enjoyable thing in this book? Kids get killed, too.

    There is some priceless prose on hand, too. One victim, a famous entertainer, incredulous that she is being attacked by a usually benign insect makes the author ask, “Didn’t they know who she was? Didn’t they have any idea they weren’t supposed to eat people? What was she, a sweater?” Brilliant! And this line, which is either pure genius or total idiocy: “The last body looked like it had exploded, sending its vital organs and innermost secrets out to an uncaring world.” Just wow.

    As pulpy good as this, it does start to bog down towards the end while one character is making a long, introspective escape attempt, but I can forgive that as well as the abrupt non-ending. The sheer jubilance and excitement the book is written with (as well as the fairly large print) made this one an easy book to plow through in no time. Evidently, Mark Sonders is a penname for computer-game designer and part-time sci-fi author Michael Berlyn. Sadly, this is his only horror novel. I wish he wrote twenty more.

This review originally appeared in Midnight Magazine #7 (Jan. 2021)

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