328 pages, Paperback
Published September 2024 by Union Square & Co.
So heads up, my reviews between now and next fall will be a little shorter than normal. I am very, very busy planning the 4th international Philip K. Dick Festival in Fullerton, CA from August 20-23rd. It is going to rule, so join us there if you can. I am also working on a SF novella, and the final edits of the sequel to The Last Night To Kill Nazis. Yeah, that is why the reviews have been a little shorter.
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As an archive nerd who has dug around the PKD papers, the very existence of this project is very exciting to me. In many ways, I am more glad this exists than I personally enjoyed the story. So let me be clear, this is an important book. I hope serious horror readers will check it out.
The first reason it is important relates entirely to the history of the project, when we lost George Romero, he had made a last trilogy of Dead movies, and it seemed Romero was accepting that is all Hollywood wanted from him. I personally was not a fan of the last three Dead movies and found myself wishing that he had gotten more of a chance to stretch his wings. The horror lit world was shocked to learn that Romero had left a Zombie epic half-finished when it was announced that Daniel Kraus would finish it. I had Kraus on my podcast and he hinted at this project years ago. This is the thing I wished we got more of- Non-Dead projects for Romero. There were a few excellent ones like The Crazies, Creepshow and The Dark Half, but also stinkers like Monkey Shines. No matter what, a novel by Romero would have been very welcome.
So the story goes that this was a novel that Romero started at some point and never finished. Daniel Kraus was the right guy to do this, besides being a very good, smart writer, he has finished a Romero (started) novel before and seemed to have a very strong concept of what Romero was interested in as a storyteller.
On its own, I am not sure there is much to Pay the Piper; outside of the context, the novel wasn’t exactly my cup of tea. Interestingly, Romero being a Pittsburgh lifer setting a novel in the bayous of Louisiana. Pay the Piper is a very regional story, with plenty of regionalisms. So plenty of Southern gothic vibes. Alligator Point is as vivid a setting as anything in King’s Maine, so again it had me wondering where that came from.
The characters are a strong point of the novel. There are several of them. As I think back on reading the novel, it is the people in the story, more than the horror elements, that stick out in my memory. Pete Roosvelt and his John Wayne obsessions are better character work that it appears to be at first. How much is Romero and how much is Kraus is impossible to tell, and frankly, doesn’t matter much. The combined powers helped shepherd a story with lots of points of view and kept them straight.
Daniel Kraus is doing important work here. I think this novel is important, that in this case is even more so than being entertainment. I can’t say it was a page turner; the book dragged a bit. That is perfectly fine. The most important thing happening here is honoring the work of a giant in the field.
