Darker Than You Think by Jack Williamson

It reminds me of an occult fiction I tried to read as a teen.

Write about her preternatural stillness, intense stare, predatory presence, silent breathing, anything other than her “long green eyes.” It’s every other sentence. Please write something about a beautiful woman that isn’t about her looks and constant expressions and her appeal to men. This just after writing about barbees cleverness and his hunches and his imperviousness to the charms of women. Home girl stabbed a kitten and because she’s preternaturally gorgeous he suddenly forgives her for being shady af. Every time Barber talks to her he’s captivated by her perfection to the point of obsession and idiocy. I get that the mysterious character of April is attractive and all, but the author writes about her “long eyes” and “slightly oriental eyes” and “long green eyes” and “large eyes” after every freaking sliver of dialogue.

I just can’t get past the sloppy writing. If I have to hear one more description about April’s eyes. The second person named Grand Master by the Science Fiction Writers of America, he was always in the forefront of the field, being the first to write fiction about genetic engineering (he invented the term), antimatter, and other cutting-edge science. Jack Williamson (1908-2006) published his first short story in 1928. When Barbee finds out, he’ll wish he’d never been born. Then his friends begin dying one by one, and he slowly realizes that an unspeakable evil has been unleashed.Īs Barbee’s world crumbles around him in a dizzying blizzard of madness, the intoxicating, dangerous April pushes Barbee ever closer to the answer to the question “Who is the Child of Night?” Inexorably drawn into investigating a rash of grisly deaths, he soon finds himself embroiled in something far beyond mortal understanding.ĭoggedly pursuing his investigations, he meets the mysterious and seductive April Bell and starts having disturbing, tantalizing dreams in which he does terrible things - things that are stranger and wilder than his worst nightmares. Who is the Child of Night? That’s what small-town reporter Will Barbee must find out.

Darker Than You Think by Jack Williamson