The Keep

C'mon, vampire vs. Nazis, you root for the vampire, right?!? Or is it really a vampire? Well, who cares as long as the Nazis go down. And go down they do, but the real evil behind that vampire-thing is dangerous on another level.

In this entry for [[[The Secret History of the World]]], we get a larger crack into the ages-long battle between good and evil, though it might not be characterized so simply by the combatants. This part of the larger story is extremely well-told and engaging. The creep factor is off the charts. The horror is horrific. The final battle is epic.

Just one little hang-up - the female lead in the book is set-up early in the novel with some really strong elements and voice. Then her place devolves into a sex object show more and her scenes become almost bodice-ripping, at least when she's not about to be assaulted. Look, this part of the book is relatively small compared to the attention paid elsewhere, but it still irritated. Wilson has done so much better with female characters in other books.

And, then on last nit - there's a two page ending slapdashed in after the big battle that is way too happily ever after. It's an assault on what was otherwise a great ending. Look, if Wilson needed to keep the hero alive, fine - at least leave it a little vague, but this running into each others arms is nauseating.

4 1/2 bones!!!!!
Highly Recommended!!!!! show less

The Keep is by far one of the more memorable horror novels I've read over the past decade. It's got different degrees of evil at work—the "entity" (what I'll call it so as not to spoil the mystery) is obviously one type of evil at work, but then there's the Nazis too, so it's an odd feeling to be rooting for one evil to defeat another evil so that Good may (possibly) prevail. Well written, well imagined, a constant eerie menace is palpable in the literally abysmal air of The Keep's adversarial pages.

It started so well.

It was an interesting for my eyes being set in World War II and involving antiheroes. The Nazis were a good set of semi villains that were going to go up against what I presumed would be some existential horror.

Unfortunately around about the middle of the book the story becomes much more pulpy and deteriorates towards the end. Fun but no more so than that.

F. Paul Wilson created an elaborate 'secret history of the world' as the basis for many of his horror novels. 'The Keep' (1981) is the first of these - in this case, the first of a cycle built around the 'Adversary' - and probably the best known because it was made into a cult film by Michael Mann two years later.

The book is not remarkable although if there is one thing Wilson really does well, it is visceral horror and dread. The effect of good genre writing is vitiated by two weaknesses - an implausible emotional dynamic and some bad history, not only in the politics and geography of the holocaust but errors like having the British at Verdun!

To make horror plausible everything around the horror - the context and the human psychology show more - must hang together. Similarly the fantasy history does not fit well with the more visceral horror where the emotional effect lies in building up credible layers of evil - Wehrmacht, Iron Guard, einsatzgruppen, unholy ancient monster.

Despite the Lovecraftian implications surrounding the monstrous Molasar/Rasalom, his evil seems to be more the abstract one of what he might do rather than the very real evil done by SS Sturmbannfuhrer Eric Kaempffer and his not-so-merry men. Still, Wilson at least tries to make us think about the doctrine of the lesser evil.

Having been critical though, it has to be said that Wilson, when he is good, is very good indeed, especially when dealing not only with what it must be like to be faced by murderous zombies but also, after Thomas Nagel, 'what it is like to be a zombie' in one chilling scene.

The novel falls into that common psychological fantasy of the enclosed and bounded evil space (the Keep itself within a closed Transylvanian valley whose pass seems oddly without a second open end) although here it is also set in a bounded evil world (of Nazi domination). Its actors are lost to the rest of humanity. It is Gothic at heart.

The characters mostly manage to be well drawn and plausible stereotypes although the love story surrounding Glaeken (the flawed hero-protagonist) and Magda (the Jewish spinster) breaks the spell somewhat. She is real as is her professorial father but Glaeken is not. And the love interest simply becomes a bore and a distraction.

The finale (which I shall not reveal) is almost operatic. Wilson almost carries it off but the book should be read for the set piece moments of horror and character dynamics and not really for the plot. The monster has his moments of menace but all too often comes across as Sir Jasper in a Victorian melodrama.

All in all a curate's egg of a book - not a masterpiece but with enough good qualities not to consign it to perdition and, of course, if you are not a stickler for historical plausibility and can take a bit of bodice ripping Gothic romance in your horror, then you may enjoy this a great deal. show less

A haunted castle....monsters.....rats.....and Nazis! F. Paul Wilson takes some tired old spook tropes and rewires them for this thriller, the first in a series, which proves to be a compulsive read despite a rather pat Hammer Horror type finale. Was made into a universally panned 1983 film (even Wilson hated it) heavy on the atmospherics thanks to a score by Tangerine Dream but not very faithful to the novel.

This is an unusual book for three reasons; it is the first book in The Adversary Cycle, which is also part of a bigger series of books by this Author called The Secret History of the World, it is also a very good standalone read if you don’t want to find yourself tied to yet another collection.

As much I loved this book I did feel that so much more could have been done with the character development of, what I feel were the three major players in this book. However, having said that, it could easily be argued that there are no main protagonists in this read at all as there are so many characters that are woven into this novels pages, and they are written in such a manner that they interact with each other flawlessly. From a standalone show more read viewpoint this lack of development may mar some readers enjoyment of the book and leave it lacking in their opinion, but for me I didn’t mind at all and it made me wonder if, as part of not one but two series, if these characters would be revisited and explained a little more in-depth. I wanted to know more about the mysterious red-haired man, and why the female protagonist dressed the way she did, but I didn’t find it in the pages of this instalment. The ‘evil’ in the novel is well written, both the seen and unseen coming off the page and hitting the reader right between the eyes, and at times making it even harder to put this book down.

Despite the lack of character development, this is really a gripping and page turning read. The Author skilfully depicts the location filling each page with menace and dread to the point where the reader begins to feel a chill in the bones. It is not the usual run of the mill horror/supernatural story, and the only thing that sparkles in this book is the reflection of the sun off the river. As the storyline progresses the Author makes the reader feel as if they know the kind of evil that the characters are dealing with, even throwing in some references to bygone images of the vampire; but are we really reading about a vampire, or is it just an impression the reader is given because it is easier for them to visualise this kind of creature?

My real complaint about this book was that midway through all the gore and violence, the Author suddenly decided to throw into the mix an unnecessary, in my opinion, sexual liaison between two of the characters. Although it didn’t take anything away from the book, it certainly didn’t add any new dimension or understanding to it either, and it made me feel as if the Author had reached some kind of block, and needed something to squeeze into this space until their creative juices started flowing again. The relationship could have been expressed in a lot more subtle and tension ladened way, given the circumstances and time the novel was set in, with no real need to resort to the easy out of ‘let’s throw them between the sheets’. I really enjoyed the thought-provoking pages when the ‘cross’ is discussed as it made me think more about the power we let objects have over us, and I do enjoy books that make me think.

If you are looking for sparkly vampires, fluffy werewolves and a neat and tidy stake through the heart ending to make you feel good, this novel is not for you at all. However if you enjoy reading something that makes you think outside the box, and will keep you captivated well beyond bedtime, pick this up and give it a read. I would highly recommend this novel to lovers of the non-fluffy horror and supernatural genre, and I will most definitely be reading more by this Author.

originally reviewed on: http://catesbooknuthut.com/2013/11/25/review-the-keep-the-adversary-cycle-1-f-pa...



This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivs 3.0 Unported License. show less

I Love it when a good book comes together. I remember seeing the movie many years ago and was intrigued by it. Now. Much older I have decided to read F. Paul Wilson’s catalogue. I honestly have to say that The Keep is a wonderful and very well written book and I look forward to some literary adventure over the coming months with his work. Some spiel on the film first. It is so disappointing that this gem of a movie was chopped to pieces by the studio. Clocking in at a little under two hours it seems the actual movie was around 4 hours long. Well….if you watch the theatrical version it is destroyed by some rather evil editing. There are clips of the director’s cut out there. (Well Pieces anyway) This movie would have been a show more defining 80s masterpiece if handled like it should have been.
The book is so well written and for some I can imagine it would be terrifying. Yes it was disturbing and had some great literary moments within. The characters are so well done they stand right in front of you as you read. The tension between the SS and regular German Army officers was very well done. I would love to read some more about Glaeken and his adversary. Maybe they will pop up in other books. The geographical descriptions are beautiful and you can almost smell the locales as the mountain fog rolls up your backside. While I will not say the story is predictable it quite obvious where it might be going. Overall it was a very enjoyable read and has prompted me to line up Wilson’s work (which I should have done decades ago) and knock’em down one by one. show less