| DARKER THAN NIGHT |
Owl Goingback Nominated for the Bram Stoker Award for Best Novel! When best-selling author Mike Anthony inherits his grandmother's country home, he is excited to be escaping the concrete and steel of the big city. He looks forward to introducing his kids to the wonders of the great outdoors. What he discovers, though, is that his boyhood home has become a repairman's nightmare, reflecting his grandmother's apparent insanity. Every surface in the house has been painted a dark green, almost black, color. Shelves have been nailed to the walls, along the perimeter of every room on the lower level and basement. On these shelves resides his grandmother's collection of Hopi Indian kachina dolls, all of them displayed facing the wall. Along with the kachinas, ugly wooden masks adorn one of the library walls. Mike and his family begin the hard work of cleaning out the house. Dozens of garbage bags are filled, and a large crew of carpenters, painters and repairmen is brought in to begin the process of fixing, repainting and cleaning up the house. But strange things begin to happen when the masks are removed from the walls. Cracks form in the newly painted library wall and in the newly tiled kitchen floor. Inexplicable stains appear on the kitchen floor, gradually darkening until they look just like the faces of demons. And at night the kachinas move. Stranger still are the shadows that begin to appear—shadows which seem to be alive, and very dangerous. All but invisible at night, they disappear completely in light, but they are vicious. The Anthonys' beloved pet cat is the first to feel their wrath. A trained guard dog is next. What are these strange creatures? What do they want? Why have they come to inhabit the Anthony family home? And can they be destroyed, before they destroy the Anthonys? Following his award-winning novel of Native American dark fantasy, CROTA, Owl Goingback again brings an ancient Native American tale to life with a work sure to make you afraid of the dark. "If any writer knows how to keep you up late reading, it's Owl. He remains one of our most accomplished writers of horror fiction...DARKER THAN NIGHT scared the pants off me."—NEW YORK TIMES best-selling author Terry Brooks "A chilling tale... Mr. Goingback creates a story line that rivals the best of the genre's masters... One of the year's best horror novels."—BOOKBROWSER "I like Goingback because he writes about monsters. There aren't enough contemporary monster books these days, and most of the monsters we do see are drenched in pathos. Goingback's monsters are bad critters that have nothing to do with people, they just want to eat them, basically. He writes drive-in books, excellent lunch-hour reads, approachable, entertaining trips. This isn't to say it's light fare, necessarily, but it's the elemental care, the campfire tale, that's all too rare these days. And this one in particular made me admire my own Kachina dolls all the more...—Gothic.net "Owl Goingback, a Native American of Choctaw-Cherokee descent, approaches this material with an insider’s knowledge. DARKER THAN NIGHT he utilizes the Hopi creation myth to fashion a highly readable thriller. ... His fluid style instills a pervasive sense of disquiet with strange, yet subtle incidents, gradually building rhythm as the threats become more overt. Once all is made clear he kicks in the four-barrel and races toward a dazzling and highly cinematic finale. More concerned with generating terror and excitement than a high body count, DARKER THAN NIGHT makes a fine addition to any horror lovers bookshelf."—HELLNOTES BOOK REVIEW (Garrett Peck; Vol. 4, Issue 4 — January 28, 2000)
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