The Millennium Quartet, Book 2: In
the Mood
by Charles Grant
Tor. © 1998, Charles Grant. 342 pages (paper).
Granted, some of John's troubles are relatively minor. His
resemblance to one of the most recognizable figures from American history
lets him in for tiresome jokes and unwanted nicknames, but that's more of
a petty annoyance than a real problem. Then there's the effect he has on
just about everybody he meets: Perfect strangers feel compelled to open up
and tell him their life stories, whether he's interested or not. Also annoying,
but hardly fatal--and actually an asset in his current line of work.
Then again, some of John's other problems are a little more
serious: His career change from successful but stultified accountant to
struggling writer has dealt his marriage the coup de grace. His wife, Patty,
has left him, taking their little Joey with her. Then there is the matter
of the writing assignment John's patron, a published author and former accounting
client named George Trout, has handed off to his protégé: traveling
around the country interviewing convicted serial killers for a book aimed
at getting inside the minds of murderers. The killers open up to John as
readily as anyone else, so he's able to conduct scores upon scores of productive
interviews. But as he is discovering, the insides of murderers' minds are
not healthy places to spend time. As the interviews progress and the pain
of separation from his family grows more and more acute, John Bannock finds
himself seeking solace in the bottle with increasing frequency.
And finally, there's the little matter of the mark.
John Bannock has been marked to confront one of the
Four Horsemen
of the Apocalypse.
So says Father Casey Chisholm, the only clergyman who has ever
succeeded in impressing the decidedly non-religious John. The two men met
and struck up a friendship when John interviewed a perpetrator in a New Jersey
prison where Casey was ministering to the inmates. To hear Casey tell it,
he himself was marked to oppose Death, who came to his home, a quiet New
Jersey hamlet called Maple Landing, in the guise of an attractive woman named
Susan. Many of Casey's parishoners lost their lives, and Death came within
a hair's breadth of destroying the whole town and killing Casey to boot.
For all his respect for Casey, John would dearly love to disbelieve
this story. Believing it, after all, would necessarily entail accepting the
idea that he, too, is marked and must shortly undergo harrowing experiences
paralleling the priest's. Surely Casey is mistaken, unbalanced by the horrific
violence he witnessed. Surely the Four Horsemen don't really exist, much
less ride in human form. It's a crazy idea.
Crazy, but it might explain some things: The incomprehensible
motive so many of the killers John interviews seem to share, for example.
Or why John is haunted by the ghost of a still-living person, his wife, Patty.
The recurring dreams John has, dreams of floating or flying, accompanied
by a crow with impossible, bright-blue eyes. Why John is being followed by
a mysterious televangelist whose broadcasts about the Book of Revelation
cause madness in faithful viewers. Why John, like Casey before him, seems
recently gifted with a sort of miraculous
power.
Yes, Casey's crazy idea about the Four Horsemen explains a
few things.
And if the Horseman in question happens to be Famine, it might
also explain the drought blighting the United States, the increasingly frequent
shortages of foodstuffs, and the freakish weather afflicting John's hometown
of Vallor, Illinois.
Welcome back to the spooky world of Charles Grant's Millennium
Quartet. The second volume of the series, In the Mood, continues
the apocalyptic tale begun in
Symphony. Readers of
the first volume will recognize much in the second: Grant's skill at creating
believable characters, his deft interweaving of plot strands, and his ability
to turn the ordinary chilling are all in evidence in the now-familiar
Quartet formula, which pits a flawed but fundamentally decent
human being against an avatar of one of the Four Horsemen of the Apocalypse.
However, there are also differences. In the Mood is in some
ways a subtler piece of writing than Symphony. Though less satisfying
allegorically and in terms of poetic justice, this second installment does
a better job of keeping the reader guessing. The prime example is the treatment
of the given Horseman's avatar: Whereas Symphony piles clue
upon clue that Susan is, in fact, Death personified, In the Mood
successfully casts suspicion first on one character and then on
another, and maintains the mystery of Famine's identity until shortly before
the novel's conclusion. Furthermore, Famine's method of gathering human followers
is much more insidious than Susan's straightforward recruitment of would-be
killers Lupé and Stan. Grant's approach to readers of this installment
is similar to the favorite modus operandi of one of Famine's minions, a killer
who likes to drop victims from great heights: Knock them off balance. This
approach offsets the novel's minor deficiencies and makes In the Mood
an entertaining scare.
Grant's characterizations seem even stronger and more convincing
than in his previous Quartet novel. Although there is no one
who can quite compete with Reverend Casey Chisholm, John Bannock is a strong,
believable leading man and is supported ably by a large and very diverse
cast of characters: In the Mood features unlikely killers even
more dehumaized than Symphony's, a spunky waitress, cynical New Yorkers,
laid-back Louisianans, high-school sweethearts, Bible-thumping preachers,
twin giants, a cute little boy, a cantankerous Santa Claus lookalike, small-town
cops, and some of the nastiest fictional in-laws ever. Almost totally absent
from In the Mood are the improbably eccentric, "goofy" supporting
characters who, initially at least, marred Symphony.
Two other significant differences between the first and second
Millennium Quartet novels are also noticeable: Symphony's
explicit and extensive use of musical metaphors for the apocalypse is muted
in this volume. The primary musical reference (to the famous swing tune that
lends the novel its title) is admittedly important, but understated. Horses
and riding, on the other hand, figure much more prominently than in the first
novel. The stable in Vallor is the location of several crucial scenes, and
the horses boarded there play two important roles: Their odd and sometimes
agressive behavior helps establish the requisite creepy atmosphere, and they
assist in Famine's final assault on John Bannock and his hometown.
I mentioned above that In the Mood is less satisfying
allegorically than Symphony. The problem has to do with the
personification of Famine. This Horseman fairly cries out for depiction as
a grotesquely emaciated figure, but Grant goes another route enirely. His
depiction is certainly imaginative, but doesn't really evoke the concept
of death by starvation. Those who have read my review of Symphony
may well wonder why I praise Grant's depiction of Death as Susan,
who looks a lot more like a Yuppie than like any traditional depiction of
the Grim Reaper, while criticizing his depiction of Famine as too ordinary.
What's the difference? It's a matter of specificity: Death is general, but
Famine is particular, as are the remaining two Horsemen, Plague and (presumably)
Warfare. Famine is a specific form of death, so a personification of Famine
ought to be specific. Otherwise, why bother with a personification at
all?
The matter of specificity also raises a question about Famine's
human minions. It makes perfect sense for Susan to recruit humans to commit
murder, because anyone who kills others in any way can be seen, allegorically,
as serving Death. But if Famine is going to recruit human followers, they
ought to kill by somehow contributing to the spread of starvation--but they
don't. They kill in a variety of ways, just like Susan's "friends." Another
possibility would have been to make hunger the motive for their murders,
but Grant does this only once, when a hungry street punk tries to kill John
and his friend Lisse for their picnic lunch. Aside from that one incident,
there seems to be little connection between the activities of Famine's followers
and what ought to be Famine's distinctive method of dealing death: causing
starvation. Also, the Second Horseman's supernatural assault on the natural
world never seems as real as the First's does. Death's murderous heat wave
is palpable, but Famine's starvation remains largely an abstract problem
that never seems to seriously endanger any of the main characters.
Another quibble is a theological one carried over from
Symphony: Is the end of the world God's will? And if so, is
it right for humans to try to oppose it? In the Mood raises
this question, but doesn't resolve it: While interviewing a death-row serial
killer who had been active in her church before her murder spree, John asks
if she fears meeting God. Not at all, she says, and explains that, although
she isn't sure God will forgive her, she isn't afraid to face Him because
her murders were part of His plan. Were they? Casey isn't around and John
is not inclined to theological speculation, so we never get an answer.
Finally, like Symphony, In the Mood suffers from
the occasional annoying glitch. For example, I would expect an experienced
writer to know that "smote" (p. 71) is the past tense of the verb "to smite,"
not an infinitive in its own right. A teenager who has been waving a birch
switch as he speaks throws it away, and then has it inexplicably "still in
his hand" on the very next page (pp. 115-16). Another teenager, we learn,
keeps hearing from her grandmother--who is dead. The girl tells her to leave,
and we never hear from Grandma again--why? Why bother mentioning that a character
can communicate with the dead and then never do anything with that concept?
Perhaps Grant has plans to bring this character and her spectral granny back
in a later volume--and I hope he does, because he could use the opportunity
to tie off other loose ends as well: the fate of certain Symphony
characters, for example, and just desserts for In the Mood's
despicable muderers. The lesser glitches, though, are simple editing problems,
and I'm surprised that Tor didn't do a more thorough job before sending this
novel to press.
But don't let these quibbles prevent you from enjoying the
In the Mood. It is an intelligent, sophisticated scare filled
with biblical imagery and informed by Christian principles, a standout in
the field of apocalyptic fiction. It left me hungry for more millennial action.
Bring on the Third Horseman!
Edited March 19, 2000. Updated May 26, 2000.
Copyright ©2000 by Steven R. Solomon. All rights reserved.
Book Review
by Steve Solomon
IF THERE'S ONE THING JOHN BANNOCK HAS PLENTY OF, it's problems.
Personal problems, family problems, career problems--he pretty much has the
bases covered. No one could blame him for feeling a little sorry for
himself.
Please send comments to
srsgm@pacbell.net.