[REVIEW] Born to the Dark – by Ramsey Campbell

1985. Dominic Sheldrake is now a lecturer on cinema. His and Lesley’s son small son Toby has begun to experience strange nocturnal seizures that no medical help seems to be able to treat. Meanwhile Dominic assumes the occultist Christian Noble is out of his life, but his influence on the world is more insidious than ever. Roberta Parkin has become a journalist and infiltrates the new version of the Nobles’ cult, but are the experiences it offers too powerful for her to control? In order to rescue his son from the cult, if he can, Dominic must undergo them too…

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Rating: 4 out of 5.

The second entry in the Three Deaths of Daoloth trilogy was more engrossing than the first, maybe because it’s from a parent’s perspective looking to protect his kid. Despite the frequently frustrating dialogue — I hate the way characters talk to each other in Campbell’s books — and sometimes overly dramatic actions/responses to things, I was really interested to see where this entry would take me. Unlike The Searching Dead, this entry has a very cosmic undertone throughout. It’s fantastical and interesting, although played quietly (as are most things in a Campbell horror). I especially enjoyed the final sequence in which we visit the sinking house. I am eager for book three to come my way.

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