As I posted a couple of days ago, I'll be at the South Side Irish St. Patrick's Day Parade and a party at a friend's house, so I won't be posting tomorrow.
Now it's time for the long-awaited, long-anticipated recap of...
A prolific author of what he termed “dark fantasy,” Charles L. Grant (1942-2006) wrote twenty-nine novels and countless short stories. The Curse, from 1977, was his first novel; Riders In The Sky: The Millennium Quartet 4, in 2000, was his last. He also wrote under the pseudonyms Geoffrey Marsh; Lionel Fenn; Simon Lake; Felicia Andrews; and Deborah Lewis. In addition, he was an officer of the Science Fiction Writers of America, president of the Board of Trustees at Horror Writers of America (which also gave him a Lifetime Achievement Award in 2000), and was on The Burry Man’s Writers Center’s board of advisors (http://charlesgrant.novelhost.net/biography.htm).
Despite all that, however, he never really became a “household name” in the same way that Stephen King has; I had never heard of him until I bought Symphony in a small bookstore in Downtown Kenosha.
So...The Millennium Quartet.
Symphony (1997): The Horseman is DEATH. The story concerns a preacher in a small, unnamed East Coast town. Down on his luck and ill, he suddenly finds himself able to perform miracles. Is it a gift from God…or something more diabolical? Meanwhile, some travelers pick up a hitchhiker named Stan, who quickly finds out that he's the one in trouble...
This is the softcover edition of Symphony. It provides an object lesson in Millennium Hunting, namely that things made during the Y2K craze often featured color-changing "holographic" material, as seen above.
In the Mood (1998): The Horseman is FAMINE. Crops, fish, and animals are dying, and the world is starving. Meanwhile, somewhere in the heartland of America, a family reunites for a gathering, and the travelers bring death along with their baggage. A young boy and his mother are on their way; Dad, who is in New Orleans, has woken up with the ability to detect violence. He, too, is about to join them, and this will be a gathering to remember.
I borrowed Books 2 through 4 from public libraries affiliated with our own in Evergreen Park's, which is why they are the hardcover editions. The paperback edition featured the same cover art, but with a white background.
Chariot (1999--are you noticing a pattern here?): The Horseman is PLAGUE. A new strain of smallpox has devastated the whole world. Las Vegas is humanity’s last stronghold. A man named Trey makes good use of his ESP on the slot machines. His luck will never run out until he tries to leave the city. Meanwhile, the Reverend from Symphony and the Father from In the Mood are looking for Trey…and, unsurprisingly, so is Plague.
Riders in the Sky (2000, obviously): The Horseman is
#WAR! HUH! Good God, y’all! What is it good for? Absolutely nothing!#
The battle lines are drawn. All of the important characters we met in the last three books have gathered on an island in the Atlantic, and they’re planning their big assault on the Horsemen. Will they succeed, or will they die trying?
I certainly don't know, because I haven't read the book. I read Symphony all the way through, and found Grant's disconnected prose and subtle, spine-tingling way with horror...unengaging to say the least. His prose averts its gaze when it should leer, and the quick cutting between scenes takes one out of the narrative. Grant has a habit of keeping the terror mysterious at the times when he needs to reveal it the most; Stephen King said in Danse Macabre that "even H.P. Lovecraft knew that sometimes you have to put on your fright-mask and go 'booga-booga-booga.'"
The Millennium connection was subtle, even tenuous (nebulous, if you're uncharitable). It's a tetralogy of rising terror that leads to a thundering climax, full of sound and fury, ultimately signifying nothing.
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