Encyclopedia of Fantasy and Horror Fiction

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story from the monster’s point of view. Saberha-
gen’s supernatural fiction is more properly occult
adventure than horror, and his fantasy is generally
traditional and adventure oriented. On those oc-
casions when he attempts something at variance
from his usual subject matter, as in Dancing Bears
and Thorn,he displays a versatility that might bet-
ter be exploited in the future.


Sackett, Jeffrey (1949– )
One of the most frustrating experiences for a
reader is to discover a new writer who has evident
talent and who seems to improve from one book to
the next, but who suddenly stops writing or at least
is no longer being published. The crash of the pop-
ular horror field during the late 1980s apparently
terminated the careers of a number of very fine
writers, not the least of whom was Jeffrey Sackett.
Sackett made his debut with Stolen Souls(1987),
the least interesting and most derivative of his
novels. A museum acquires seven Egyptian cas-
kets, unaware of the fact that they are cursed and
that ancient spirits will be resurrected in each fol-
lowing the sacrifice of seven living people. It was
an inauspicious debut, and Sackett might have
been no more than a minor footnote if he had not
sharpened his skills for his next effort.
Candlemas Eve(1988) is a dramatic improve-
ment. A musician whose career is on the skids
meets two strange women whose influence helps
him to get his life back on track. Unfortunately,
they are using the powers of witchcraft to help
him, and in return they want his assistance in
avenging themselves against their enemies from
previous lifetimes. Although the novel falters in
the waning chapters, Sackett displayed much more
skill this time at creating plausible, complex char-
acters. This improvement continued in Blood of the
Impaler(1989), an indirect sequel to DRACULA,
(1897) by Bram STOKER. A descendant of
Jonathan Harker is tricked into raising Lucy West-
enra from the grave and with her help into causing
the restoration of Dracula himself. The novel is
well constructed and develops a suspenseful atmo-
sphere quickly and effectively. Mark of the Werewolf
(1990) is somewhat less impressive but still worth-
while. An aging werewolf has decided to destroy


himself, but before he can do so, he is manipulated
by a militia group who want to breed superwarriors
to further their cause.
Although Sackett had by then honed his writ-
ing skills, he continued to use ideas already in
common use in the genre. It was with his last and
best novel, The Demon(1991), that he began to
demonstrate original thinking as well as technical
competence. The protagonist is Sweet, a retired
sideshow geek, a particularly unattractive man
who finds it difficult to fit into a normal town be-
cause of the obvious animosity of his neighbors.
When a series of murders takes place in the area,
he immediately becomes a prime suspect and nar-
rowly escapes being lynched even though he is in-
nocent. Unfortunately for his tormentors, their
attack has freed the demonic spirit that has been
locked within his body and mind for many years,
and the result is a killer much more daunting than
the one they originally feared. Sweet is a thor-
oughly realized character, and the plot is filled with
surprises. Unfortunately, it was Sackett’s last novel.

“Sail On! Sail On!”Philip José Farmer
(1952)
Sometimes a fantasy writer takes a very absurd
premise, treats it seriously, and the result is a story
that sticks firmly in the reader’s memory simply be-
cause it is so audacious. The science fiction writer
Philip José Farmer rarely ventured into fantasy, but
this story from early in his career is certainly one of
his best. The story opens on the Santa Maria,one
of Christopher Columbus’s ships en route to sail
around the world, but Farmer immediately warns
us that something is different. For one thing, they
have electric lights aboard the ship. For another,
they are still in intermittent radio contact with
their base back in Europe.
A friar aboard the vessel enters into a discus-
sion of alternate worlds with two members of the
crew, leading the reader to believe that the story is
simply science fiction set in a world where history
did not follow the same course as in our own.
Farmer lulls us with additional detail, but then ca-
sually lets drop the fact that different-sized objects
fall at different rates in this reality, a clear violation
of the physics of our own universe. A short time

“Sail On! Sail On!” 301
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