Stage Fright By Garrett Boatman

 

Stage Fright
By Garrett Boatman
1988 New American Library
Paperback, 381 pages

                I know, I know… this one is way thicker than I tend to indulge in, but it piqued my interest, so I went for it. It’s a bit of a science-fiction story because it takes place in the not-too-distant future and features technology that doesn’t really exist. But Boatman says just enough and little enough to make the science work if you can just go with it, and it’s pretty rewarding if you do.

                There is a new way to be entertained… dreamies. Like the talkies when they took over silent pictures, dreamies are the next level of the theater-going experience. The dreamatron records the artist’s thoughts or dreams, stores them, and plays them back so an audience can experience them. The absolute king of the medium is Izzy Stark, whose horror work has made him rich and famous. But he needs to push the envelope even further. He discovers the drug Taraxein (a real thing, I learned!) which is made from the blood of schizophrenics. This, obviously, takes Stark’s dreams to the next level. And things start materializing without the need of the dreamatron; he can make his thoughts into matter. He can even take your fears and play on them.

                The book revolves around Stark, his girlfriend, his neighbors, members of his fan-club and his high-school chum/ biographer. He drags everyone into his world of nightmares, and nobody is safe. His fans are getting pumped up for the upcoming concert where he will reveal his new material to a live audience, at least to those who haven’t already fallen prey to Izzy’s murderous whims.

                This book is really nothing like I expected. I mean, the cover is of a skeleton playing a keytar! I thought it would be a silly synth-rock band horror tale, but it is so much more. Boatman tells a solid tale, if you’re willing to go along with the ride, and he is a talented writer. Not only can he write dream sequences that actually feel like dreams, but he has a way with words, too: after coming down from the drug, Stark feels like this; “… his head still ballooned, his skin crawled, a bloated nausea writhed eellike in his stomach.” That’s good stuff.

                I enjoyed the book, but it did get a bit overlong. You wait and wait for the big concert and once it gets there, I was waiting and waiting for it to end. Some of Stark’s images got a little silly; a penknife turning into a big barbarian sword… not my cuppa tea. Despite what I consider a bit of a misfire at the climax, the book kept me interested during its long page count and I have no trouble recommending it. Many of the dreamie vignettes are pretty damn cool. It has been reprinted by Valencourt as part of the Paperbacks from Hell collection and they kept the nifty original keytar cover.