Zod
Wallop
William Browning Spencer, White Wolf, $5.99
Zod Wallop is a book I picture lying in wait for readers
in the space between REM's "Let Me In" and Maurice Sendak's
Where the Wild Things Are. What are you looking for in a
book: the end of the world? Death? Dismemberment? Slavering monsters?
Romance? Conspiracies? All of this and a monkey to boot, hard to
beat that.
Harry Gainesborough's dead daughter is the engine that drives
the book, both the one you hold in your hands and the two versions
within. You see, Harry Gainesborough was an increasingly successful
children's book author and illustrator until he stopped writing
after the death by drowning of his only daughter, Amy. Four years
-- a divorce and a bout of alcoholism that ended in his agent committing
him to a psychiatric hospital later, he's still not over it.
He did manage to finish the book he'd started before Amy's death,
the ubiquitous Zod Wallop, but what the world doesn't know
is that the bestseller, whose film rights Harry's agents now want
to sell, is a fake. After the tortured protests from a fellow inmate
at Harwood Psychiatric facility and the theft of the only copy of
the manuscript, Harry rewrote his dark and terrible original draft
into the saccharine sweet version that went on to sell so well.
That inmate, Raymond Sweet, is the other half of this novel. He
is the nexus between possible worlds, heaven and hell, madness and
hallucination. He is Harry Gainesborough's biggest fan, with talents
that are more than a little on the disturbing side. Ever since he
nearly drowned at an early age he seems to have been endowed with
immense psychic abilities which are acting as the conduit for the
darkness' within the original Zod Wallop to come to our world.
William Browning Spencer has obviously spent much of life immersed
in books; reading, writing, and contemplating them. As much as this
is an adventure, horror, or fantasy novel, it is also an exploration
of where a novel resides within and without us and our relationship
to fiction. Zod Wallop is a Schrodinger's book: if no one
ever opens it, is the story inside still there?
The characters are pretty believable, with fears and motivations
that are clear -- and sometimes -- understandable. Unfortunately
there are a few talking heads, including Harry's ex-wife; although
we know he loves her, there's not enough here to give us any real
idea as to why. But the antics and the relationships between the
inmates of the asylum, their families, employees and employers keep
the interest level high. The warring CEO's are creations to be proud
of, and, by the end, you'll be looking over your shoulder for them.
If we're lucky, Speilberg will come along and completely bastardize
Zod Wallop into a movie; on the other hand, Tim Burton might
get his hands on it and give us the only road movie to end the millennium
with.
I recommend it to any fan of kid's books, horror, fantasy, or even
'modern American literary fiction. Talented writer, good book, as
the book jacket says, "Readers are not encouraged to attempt
living out its events, however."