HARD ROADS: Two Novellas by Steve Vernon



Grey Friar Press 2007



HARD ROADS is the latest offering by author Steve Vernon. Published in the U.K. by Grey Friar Press, it comes in either a signed (bookplate), limited hardcover edition of 100 copies, or an unsigned, limited trade paperback edition of 300 copies. Both editions include a snappy and stylish Introduction by author Norman Partridge.



As per the title, the book is comprised of two novellas, TROLLING LURES and HAMMURABI ROAD. Author Vernon sets both of these novellas in his "native" (bad pun intended) stomping grounds of Nova Scotia and Northern Ontario, Canada, respectively. Vernon's short fiction (around 50 stories and counting) has been frequently presented in genre magazines like Cemetery Dance
and Dark Discoveries, in numerous fine Anthologies such as CORPSE BLOSSOMS and A DARK AND DEADLY VALLEY, as well as in Chapbooks such as THE LAST STAND OF THE GREAT TEXAS PACKRAT and his prior Novella, LONG HORN, BIG SHAGGY, among many others.



Those who have read Vernon's fiction previously know to expect the unexpected, and to grab onto something firm and weighty as they begin the first few words of one of his stories. The reader is about to be swept away upon a whirlwind, roller-coaster ride into the far fringes of the Twilight Zone and beyond. It is always a thoroughly and intensely enjoyable ride, and in HARD ROADS, Steve Vernon does not disappoint the reader in the slightest.

In TROLLING LURES, Vernon presents a lyrical and mystical tale, rooted within a neat synthesis of Native American and Norse mythologies, but which the author makes uniquely his own, and as fine in its fashion, as any tale this side of Neil Gaiman. Poor Morgan Hillman, painfully riddled with a growing, inoperable gastro-intestinal cancerous tumor he has nicknamed "Big Billy," has decided to end his suffering and self-determined useless waste of a life, by driving his Volvo out into the vast and beautiful wilds of the Nova Scotia countryside and, after managing to get himself nicely anesthetized with liquor, blowing his brains out with a shotgun. The beautiful, but definitely dead, Native American woman who suddenly seems to be haunting him from the rear seat of his Volvo doesn't manage to deter Morgan. However, a brief chance (or is it?) encounter with a teenage girl he runs over with his car, and the even stranger appearance shortly thereafter of a speeding pickup truck with a young boy, chained like a dog to its back bed, and being driven by someone or something not quite ... paternal, definitely throws a major monkey wrench into Morgan's plans. Vernon takes off from this premise and introduces interesting characters like a nasty Troll straight out of Norse (and other) mythologies, as well as the mythical archetype of Coyote/Anansi/Loki. Once you start the novella, you won't willingly stop for anything less than an apocalyptic event.



The same can be equally said of the second novella comprising the book, HAMMURABI ROAD. In this story, Vernon introduces the reader to a pivotal night in the lives of three friends, Donny, Irvin, and the story's narrator, Hanlan, or Hanny, as he prefers to be called, and their acquaintance, Tyree. They are all the Northern Ontario equivalent to what we in the USA would refer to as "good ol' boys" - with necks of decidedly rubicund nature. Seems there was a recent, mysterious fire over at the Hammer Abbey Hotel back in town, and Irvin's older brother, Gilbert, died in the blaze. Irwin has pretty much decided that Tyree is responsible for setting the fatal fire, and enlists/bullies the aide of his friends, Hanny and Donny, in meting out suitable revenge upon Tyree. Of course, this being a Steve Vernon tale, things are not as they seem at first glance, and horror doesn't have to necessarily be supernatural in nature to be truly terrifying. Then again, because this is a Steve Vernon tale, betwixt the gut-wrenching terror, one will encounter moments of sheer hilarity and dark, gallows humor that will leave the reader gasping for air from uncontrollable laughter as well. Indeed, the novella contains a life-or-death confrontation with a very large, very mean bear, (not normally a topic ripe for its humorous connotations) which becomes, in Vernon's skillful mind and prose, a truly memorable and blackly-funny meeting. Indeed, the novella's title itself is a pun upon "Hammurabi's Code," the supposedly first written code of laws created by the famous and ancient king of Babylon, carved into a stele, or large stone monument sometime between 1790-1750 b.c.e, and which stele currently resides in the French Louvre Museum. King Hammurabi was rather a strict guy, and most of his enumerated laws are very much from the "an eye for an eye, a tooth for a tooth" variety. Very harsh and "old school" were the old king and his laws - but then, so, apparently is Irwin.



This book is exquisitely entertaining and well worth purchasing. I can think of no higher praise then to relate that even though I'd been supplied with a review file copy of the book, after my initial read, I wasted no time in placing an order for an actual paid copy of the limited edition book itself. I consider it a very worthwhile edition to my personal library, and you will as well.