NIGHTWORLD

Cataclysmic horror novel, sixth and final in a series begun with The Keep (1981). This is something of an omnibus, bringing together characters from the earlier novels in a last fight against the evil entity first met in The Keep, wherein Nazis occupying a Rumanian castle released the then vampire, timeless entity Rasalom. Although Rasalom seemed driven off, he reappeared as the motherless clone in Reborn (1990), which fathered the genius baby in Reprisal (1991). Now Rasalom, gestating in a cave in the earth beneath Central Park's Sheep Meadow, begins his final assault, feeding on humankind's fears and negativity for the force needed to occupy the planet. Rasalom faces Glaeken, his ancient enemy for good, who lives with his disease-ravaged wife Madga (girl heroine of The Keep) over Central Park West, but both opponents are pawns for forces of Good and Evil who battle on a scale that takes no account of human existence. The present novel has enough whiplash plot and flying horror to suffice for its own needs, although it often reads like Ghostbusters gone berserk. Sunrise comes late, sunset early as Rasalom shrinks earth's daylight. He opens a bottomless 200-year pit in the Sheep Meadow that goes not to China but to another dimension. Out of it fly horrible acid-bag bugs and chomping piranha bats, as night falls, and at last night falls permanently. Many heroes and heroines from earlier novels gather with Glaeken to fight Rasalom with dat-tay-vao, a miraculous Vietnamese necklace whose talent also inhabits the once-autistic child Jeffy. While giant black flying leviathans eat aircraft, more holes appear around the earth, one forming a whirlpool off Hawaii that causes the island to disappear under a reawakened volcano chain. Will Glaeken and the sword of day-tay-vao save mankind—and this novel get published? Gripping and gruesome super-comic-book stuff—but let's hope this is it.