Book Review: Balefires by David Drake

David Drake is known first and foremost for his importance to the field of military science fiction, and many of his recent books have been space opera or heroic fantasy.  However, many of Drake's early publications were in the horror genre, often influenced by the classic pulp fantasy, horror, and "weird fiction" of writers like H.P. Lovecraft, Robert E. Howard, Clark Ashton Smith, and Manly Wade Wellman.

Balefires: Tales of The Weird and Fantastic contains 24 of Drake's fantasy and horror stories.  The emphasis is on Drake's early work from the 1960s and '70s, but the stories included span almost three decades.  A few have previously appeared in the David Drake collections released by Baen Books, but many have been largely unavailable since the 1960s or 1970s.

The settings are quite diverse.  Several of the stories, drawing on Drake's own experiences, involve American troops in the Vietnam War.  Drake's interest in history also frequently comes to the fore, with a number of stories stories set in Viking Age Scandinavia, the Roman Empire, or other eras.  There are also a number of stories set in contemporary America (including one about 30 miles from my home, which I got a kick out of.)  Some of the stories are clearly influenced by cosmic horror in the vein of Lovecraft or Howard.  Others portray evils on a more human scale, and a few stories are more in the mode of heroic fantasy, albeit of a very dark sort.  The one anomaly is "A Land of Romance," a fun, light-hearted story written in tribute to influential SF writer L. Sprague de Camp.

Drake's talent for depicting intense, furious action manifests itself a number of times, but the dominant mood of many of the stories is not visceral terror but a relentless feeling of cold.   Horror that draws its atmosphere from the idea of a pitiless, uncaring universe beyond human comprehension is quite common thanks to the popularity and influence of H.P. Lovecraft, but Drake does it better than most, and the effect is quite chilling.  (Among other things, I think Drake's relatively austere writing style, which is highly evocative while remaining very straightforward, is generally better-suited to this sort of bleak tone than the more ornate style often associated with Lovecraftian horror.)

Despite the cosmic horror aspects, however, much of what is horrifying in the stories is more personal in nature.  As is the case of in much of Drake other work (most notably his military SF),  the most terrifying things arise from human psychology- the psychological devastation left by trauma and violence, what suffering and brutality can twist people into, the dulling of emotion and conscience, and the things that  human beings will do, condone,  or become.

In addition, each story has a short preface written by Drake about how the story came about and the idea behind it.  These provide some very interesting information about various stages in Drake's career, as well as some of the influences that have shaped his work- growing up in Iowa, classic science fiction and fantasy, his military service in Vietnam, and his love of Classical history and literature.  It's quite interesting for the insights it gives on Drake's work, as well as his thoughts on horror fiction more generally and his first-hand accounts of what the field was like in the 1960's and 70's.

All in all, Balefires is a great collection of stories and an intriguing look at David Drake's roots.  I would enthusiastically recommend it for anyone who is a fan of Drake's work, and for anyone who enjoys horror and dark fantasy.

Stories collected in Balefires:

The Red Leer
A Land of Romance
Smokie Joe
Awakening
Denkirch
The False Prophet
Black Iron
The Shortest Way
Lord of the Depths
Children of the Forest
The Barrow Troll
Than Curse the Darkness
The Song of the Bone
The Master of Demons
The Dancer in the Flames
Firefight
Best of Luck
Arclight
Something Had to be Done
The Elf House
The Hunting Ground
The Automatic Rifleman
Blood Debt
Men Like Us

Necropath by Eric Brown

In the short time since its creation, Solaris Books has really impressed me, both with their authors and with their Solaris Book of New Science Fiction anthology series.  It was through the latter that I first became aware of English science fiction author Eric Brown. Necropath is the first book in a planned three-books series, to be followed by Xenopath and Cosmopath.  However, it is a self-contained story in itself.

Bengal Station is a huge spaceport in the sea between India and Burma, the entry point to Earth for the faster-than-light ships linking Earth to her colonies, and to alien civilizations beyond.  Its tremendous volume is home to millions of people, ranging from the richest to the poorest.  Jeff Vaughan is a telepath employed at the station, using his powers to help inspect incoming ships.  He is a tormented man, plagued by his memories of the past, dependent on drugs to help him shut out the endless roar of other people’s thoughts, and utterly without hope.

Strange events are taking place at Bengel Station.  Mysterious shipments are arriving from offworld, shipments Vaughn’s mind-shielded boss has forbidden him to inspect.  A series of men involved in space exploration in their younger days are mysteriously murdered.  A bizarre cult with origins beyond Earth is growing on the station, offering a mind-altering “communion” and promising to make all people one with their God.

Vaughn’s search for the truth behind these events takes him through the depths of Bengal Station, and will eventually lead him from Earth to one of humanity’s new settlements among the stars.  He faces corruption and betrayal among his colleagues, a mysterious figure hell-bent on hunting him down and killing him, and his own fear and despair accumulated from a past spent exposed to things no one should see.  Finally, he will face the force behind the disturbing events on Bengal Station- something far more horrible than a mere criminal conspiracy.

I liked Necropath quite a bit.  The central mystery develops well and becomes increasingly eerie as it progresses.  Jeff Vaughn is an interesting protagonist, and Brown does a nice job of putting a different spin on the much-used idea of a hero with a grim past.  Bengal Station itself is a great environment for a story, and its close juxtaposition of astonishing futuristic technology and desperate Third World poverty is striking.

While Necropath is largely a thriller/mystery story, it has a strong element of horror, and had a number of elements that made me think of H.P. Lovecraft- bizarre and cruelly uncaring intelligences, communities that conceal horrifying secrets, local people with stories of incomprehensible horrors, and knowledge so disturbing that brushing up against it is psychologically damaging.  Parts of the book are quite creepy, and the buildup to Vaughn’s discovery of the truth is effectively chilling.  I liked the way the horror, mystery, and science fiction elements of the book mesh.  The horrific elements are not merely grafted onto a science fiction base- rather, they are directly integrated with the science fiction and would not be possible outside that context.

I liked the book’s use of the idea of telepathy- some people have a natural affinity for it, but artificial augmentation is necessary to make the potential useful.  Especially intriguing- and feeding nicely into what I said about the horror element- is the idea of using telepathy on the recently dead, searching through a person’s thoughts for information as their nervous system sputters out.  This is portrayed as suitably disturbing, both to the reader and to the unfortunate telepath who has to feel the disintegration of another person’s self in the most intimate way possible.

I would recommend Necropath for any science fiction fan who enjoys elements of mystery or horror in their stories, and I look forward to Xenopath.  Telepathy doesn’t seem to appear in science fiction nearly as much as it used to, and I enjoyed Brown’s take on this venerable trope.