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(More customer reviews)I'll tell you something: When I pick up a first novel, no matter who the author is, I expect to encounter a fair share of hiccups throughout the book. It's a first novel, there a bound to be some rough spots. And that's a fine and natural thing. But here, with SOUTHERN GODS, the fist thing I took note of was that John Hornor Jacobs writes with an assured and compelling voice throughout.
The prologue of this novel is as fine a piece of horror literature as any I've had the pleasure of reading. And when Jacobs moves us into the Arkansas of 1951, you know he's got it down cold. Ramblin' John Hastur is an engrossing character, Bull Ingram is a likable guy, all the characters are rich and alive in the pages, and I'll take odds that once you start turning the pages of this novel you won't want to stop. There are some nods to H.P. Lovecraft, but it's all filtered through a solid Southern Gothic lens and reads like nothing else I've read before.
Even if horror isn't your thing, you pick up this book, you'll be hooked, because Jacobs can flat out write. A true pleasure to read, this a book that has earned itself a permanent place on my shelf.
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Recent World War II veteran Bull Ingram is working as muscle when a Memphis DJ hires him to find Ramblin' John Hastur. The mysterious blues man's dark, driving music - broadcast at ever-shifting frequencies by a phantom radio station - is said to make living men insane and dead men rise. Disturbed and enraged by the bootleg recording the DJ plays for him, Ingram follows Hastur's trail into the strange, uncivilized backwoods of Arkansas, where he hears rumors the musician has sold his soul to the Devil. But as Ingram closes in on Hastur and those who have crossed his path, he'll learn there are forces much more malevolent than the Devil and reckonings more painful than Hell... In a masterful debut of Lovecraftian horror and Southern gothic menace, John Hornor Jacobs reveals the fragility of free will, the dangerous power of sacrifice, and the insidious strength of blood.------"A sumptuous Southern Gothic thriller steeped in the distinct American mythologies of Cthulhu and the blues . . . Southern Gods beautifully probes the eerie, horror-infested underbelly of the South." - The Onion AV on Southern Gods"A bit of HP Lovecraft, a touch of William Hjortsberg, Southern Gods is an effective combination of cosmic horror and southern Gothictraditions. John Hornor Jacobs will turn heads with this debut." --Laird Barron, Shirley Jackson Award-winning author of The Imago Sequence and Occultation "In SOUTHERN GODS, John Hornor Jacobs turns the classic blues horrorstory of the devil at the crossroads into a true Lovecraftian nightmare. Steeped in Southern Gothic - and not for the faint of heart! - this is a bold and mighty debut written with breathtaking assurance. Powerful,horrific and beautiful, Southern Gods is a revelation and Jacobs is anauthor to shout about. Both deserve to go very far indeed." -- AdamChristopher, author of Empire State (Angry Robot, January 2012)"John Hornor Jacobs' fantastic debut novel, SOUTHERN GODS, is bothterrifying and beautiful. His eye for detail and compelling charactersmakes this one you'll remember long after you've finished it." - Stephen Blackmoore, author City of the Lost (DAW Books 2012) "Compulsively readable anddefinitely memorable, Southern Gods will ensure that you'll never hearradio interference quite the same way again." -- 5-time Bram StokerAward-winner Gary A. Braunbeck, author of Coffin County and Far Dark Fields "Great Yuggoth, what a great debut novel! With a sure hand forintriguing characters and deft plotting, John Hornor Jacobs establisheshimself as an author to heed. The prologue to this exceptional novel isone of the most terrifying things I have ever shivered through. It willkiss your paltry soul with fear. With superbly handled echoes ofChambers and Lovecraft, we encounter the mystery of that Tattered Man,Ramblin' John Hastur, who escorts us to the arcane secrets beyond thesun, beyond the stars, beyond that long black veil!" -W. H. Pugmire,author of The Tangled Muse"Hell-hound blues! Zombies! Lovecraft! Jacobs' engrossing gris-gris will take ya down to the crossroads and on then to the Deep Places where the hungry Old Ones sho gon git'cha!" -Joseph S. Pulver, Sr., author of SIN & ashes"John Hornor Jacobs. Remember the name, because if there's any justicein the universe, he's going to be a big deal one day soon. John's prose is by turns lyrical and tough-as-nails. He effortlessly conjures aneerie southern landscape that will surely haunt the dreams of anyone who reads Southern Gods." --Bryan Smith, Author of Darkened and House of Blood
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