The Surrogate By Nick Sharman

The Surrogate
By Nick Sharman
1980 Signet
Paperback, 249 pages

 

                My father was a bit of a douchebag. He’d belittle me, hit me; he told me I was a mistake. He admitted that he had been unfit to be a father. But he was a saint compared to Frank Tillson’s father!

                After a childhood of abuse and his mother’s death, Frank packed up, left home, and never looked back. Working as a radio show host, widowed, and raising an 8-year-old son alone, he gets summoned by his dying father to talk about who is going to get the old man’s considerable fortune. Frank tells him to fuck off. Plus, he tells him to fuck off on behalf of his son, Simon, who ol’ gramps wants to take over his empire. The old man dies with the situation unresolved.

                That is when all hell breaks loose.

                The old man’s reach from beyond the grave raises plenty of chills up the spine and as a horror villain, he is a memorable and formidable monster. With sheer residual hate, he can force his will on people, places, and things of all sorts, even a doll (which is always nice). Sharman creates a gloomy atmosphere, thick with malevolent evil and sludgy black shadows, and things are never quite as they seem.

                I’d read Sharman’s The Cats before and liked it, so I decided to grab this, his third novel, as well. Knowing there were killer-doll parts helped push it to the top of my pile. Sharman, real name Scott Grønmark, is a very good writer, with excellent descriptions and pacing. He uses similes liberally, but it doesn’t get annoying because he chooses the perfect words to paint his pictures. He uses similes like Ghastly Graham used spittle. This is one book that I would think about while at work, then rush home to dig back in. A real page-turner, I tell ya.

The Mountain King By George Ernsberger

The Mountain King
By George Ernsberger
1979 Berkeley
Paperback, 250 pages

 

                I read this book as a teen. In the years since, I couldn’t remember much about it, just that there were snakes, but I do remember that I liked it. I figure that since it has been over 40 years since I last read it, the time was ripe for a revisit.

 

                Four couples head out for a wilderness weekend to a remote cluster of homes (their own summer cottages) on the side of a mountain in the Catskills. Tranquil, beautiful, and restful. Except for pretty much everyone involved is a douchebag. One husband fantasizes about punching his wife in the face, many of them have had “a past” together, and assholism and cattiness runs rampant. It’s a good thing that during a massive storm, part of the mountain breaks loose and that sends hundreds of confused Timber Rattlesnakes down to make life hell for the humans.

 

                I have no complaints about the characters all being kind of unlikeable; that just means they are real. Ernsberger gives us an excellent portrayal of a group of damaged people. You know, like we all are. Of course, when the snakes are loose, I really root for them because snakes are better than humans. The Mountain King is a Timber who has been living on the mountain a long time. At roughly 7 feet, he is the king of the den. Ernsberger’s science is excellent and his passages from the King’s point of view are cogent, which is very impressive when writing for an animal who relies on instinct rather than thought.

 

                I liked the book a lot this second time around, though I’m willing to bet that I only read the juicy parts as a teen. The bickering and yammering between the humans wouldn’t have interested me and the human to snake death ratio is way one sided. Kind of like real life. Humans kill snakes way more often than vice-verse. Even though I’d like a lower snake mortality rate, this is a thrilling and well written adventure tale filled with claustrophobic situations and a feeling of dread and hopelessness.

 

                This appears to be Ernsberger’s only novel. He had been the vice president of Berkely Books prior to this book’s publication. The only other credits I can find are for two fantasy anthologies published by Avon in the late Sixties where he was the senior editor at the time.