You may not be able to judge a book by its cover, but sometimes you can get a pretty good hint as to where things are headed. So it is with Justin Gustainis’ collection The Devil Will Come: A Modern Collection of Devilish Fiction, the cover of which features a red-filtered Photoshop image of a business suited denizen of the Pit holding up what is presumably a contract. The image is striking, but not necessarily for the intended reasons.
According to the back cover text, the book’s overarching theme is, of course, the Devil, and if not Old Nick, then one of his servants. But the 21 stories here have a way of expanding the focus until it’s unrecognizable. While there are several pieces that feature the Devil, or a devilish minion, usually intent on making a bargain for someone’s soul, others feature Dracula, a fistful of werewolves, bank robbers, and suchlike. What’s left is the vague notion of “evil”, which, to be fair, sort of underpins an awful lot of horror collections.
There are some standout stories among the 21. “Janus” opens a little stagey, but brings it home for a powerful conclusion. “Damnation.Com” gives an unconventional riff on the standard sell-your-soul riff. “Reunion” is a crime caper with no supernatural elements, and it pulls no punches as it heads for its inevitable, tragic conclusion. And “Bump In The Night” is a surprisingly sweet psychic detective story.
Those are the highlights. The rest in the collection – and to a certain extent even these stories – are plagued by a couple of repeating issues that sandbag interesting premises. For one thing, an awful lot of Gustainis’ protagonists have very similar personalities. When you can swap dialog from a hard-bitten psychic detective with dialog from a disguised soul collector from hell and not necessarily notice a lot of difference, it tends to make the stories in a collection blur. Likewise, Gustainis likes to find one button and hammer on it, hard – the first sly reference to Carrie is clever, but by the third, the gag has run out of juice.
The real thing holding the stories here back, though, is the lack of payoff. “Meat Wagon” sets up a fascinating, disturbing scenario, then jumps straight to the aftermath. “Deal Breaker” revises the rules of selling your soul on the fly so that the climactic facedown becomes something less. And “Blood Moon Rising” and “Let Us Prey”, among others, are simple “gotcha” stories when their setups offered glimpses at something more.
In the end, I didn’t dislike the collection so much as I felt disappointed by it. There are some excellent story concepts here, and a handful of genuinely good stories, but too many fail to reach their potential because Gustainis plays it safe. Most of the horror is kept at arm’s length; much of the climactic action happens offstage or after the curtain falls. For lack of a better term, it’s the horror equivalent of comfort food, when it could have been something more unique and memorable. Those looking for a comfortable read will find a lot to enjoy here. Those wanting something with sharper teeth, however, will probably find it wanting. The Devil Will Come, perhaps, but if he does, odds are, it won’t be like this.
(EDGE 2016)
