Prepare to descend with me, ladies and gentlemen, into the Twilight Inanity Zone.

 

"Dark Angel" by Gary Alan Ruse, 1989

From Phantoms, edited by Martin H. Greenberg & Rosalind M. Greenberg, 1989

Grade: D-

 

Ah... my friends, I can tell you're gathering around, drawn like vultures to the sweet carrion smell of a D- grade. Don't pretend you don't prefer the bad reviews. I probably would. It's entertaining to watch me rant on like a deranged, grammar-obsessed madwoman. This story was saved from total failure by the fact that Ruse, bless his deluded little heart, does know how to properly construct a sentence in the English language. Unfortunately for him, he doesn't know what to do with it afterward, but we all have our failings.

 

We start out with the following premise: terrorists are invading New York (their faction/cause/purpose is never explained, but that's okay because they're TERRORISTS, y'all, not actually people) and, naturally, their intended target is not the Empire State Building, not the Statue of Liberty, not the World Trade Center, not any number of important government and/or commercial centers, but the cast and crew of Broadway's revival of Webber's Phantom of the Opera. Leaving aside the revival bit (poor Ruse had no way of knowing in 1989 that Phantom was going to turn into a sprawling, multi-decade event), someone will have to explain to me why, exactly, terrorists with lots of firepower are going to target a goddamn musical cast instead of the many other useful things they could be doing or more influential people they could be shooting. The FBI agents at the beginning (yes! there are FBI agents--or so we know because Ruse tells us so, despite the fact that they are the most piss-poor excuse for national intelligence/security I've ever heard of) inform the leading man and lady, our main characters Lawrence and his wife Caroline, that they are being targeted because they're the media's darlings and the terrorists want exposure. Because that's what terrorists do, or something. I begged for thirty pages for someone to explain who the terrorists were and why their leader wasn't bright enough to either A) shoot some people who mattered more in the grand scheme of things, or B) just blow up the entire theatre during a show, because that makes so much more sense from a media grandstanding point of view than chasing down the lead actors after hours does, but my prayers went unanswered.

 

My hate affair with the dialogue in this piece begins now, and stretches on into eternity. This isn't just bad dialogue--it's mind-blowingly bad. The characters all sound like upper crust British actors in the most boring adaptation of a Jane Austen novel imaginable (and that's coming from someone who loves some Jane Austen, people). Listen up, aspiring novelists: no one in the entire world talks like that. Especially not modern-day New Yorkers. And why does every sentence uttered by the main characters end in an ellipsis? What bastard taught Ruse that the mighty ellipsis should be abused and degraded with constant, gratuitous use that makes me think that all his characters must have been the recent recipients of frontal lobotomies? And what kind of FBI agent says shit like, "It would be folly not to warn you"? Seriously? What the hell? I am rendered pre-verbal by confused indignation.

 

And the prose, oh, sweet god, the prose. The prose ALSO talks like a terrible stuffy old British actor in a bad period drama, except it's PROSE. It's unbearable, unendingly painful, and pretentious to an impressive degree. I'm all for using unorthodox or archaic sentence structure where appropriate--see the Malzberg review I just put up--but this is not appropriate. It's Ruse running around shouting, "HEY LOOK GUSY I AM SO SMART I DONT EVEN TALK LIK A HUMAN NEMORE!" Also, there are far too many commas in pointless places, and random noun capitalization in case there wasn't enough pretension. For an example of what is so tragically wrong with this prose, consider the following sentence from page 23:

 

"The stark black and white of [his shirt] made all the more terrible his funereal look."

 

I TOLD YOU. Oh, it's technically correct, but why the fuck would you pull shit like that in a gritty, New York-and-terrorists modern-day narrative? Was something so terribly wrong with "...made his funereal look all the more terrible," (besides its very unnecessary drama) that Ruse and his copy-editor(s) were UNABLE TO REST until it was put in ASS-BACKWARDS ARCHAIC FORMAT? I really want to know. What exactly motivated this insanity? Is it meant to sound more like Serious Literature (I snorted just writing that, because Serious Literature would kill itself on prom night rather than dance with this story)? Is everyone but me just on acid? Someone, please explain, because this shit keeps me awake at night.

 

REGARDLESS OF PROSE AND DIALOGUE (sweet mother of god, we're only to the writing style and I'm already foaming at the mouth... sorry, folks, I hope you're wearing protective gear), there's always the plot, right? Right? Even though we started with terrorists pursuing innocent musical actors? My outraged questioning continues. If FBI agents come around to tell you that you may be in imminent danger of terrorist attack (I will take this on faith since I have no idea what the FBI's policy on house calls is), are they allowed to then tell you you're forbidden to tell the rest of the cast and crew? Doesn't that violate some laws or something, and leave the government open to being sued like there's no tomorrow? I'm just confused. I don't know enough to say for certain, but this seems like seriously grey territory. Wouldn't you want to... you know... close down the show for a little while at least, to prevent flaming, lead-filled death to your audience and cast? Maybe I just don't understand the business world.

 

The show goes on. Caroline and Lawrence, naturally, not only produce and direct the show (apparently) but also play Christine and the Phantom. Handy, that. The prose and dialogue continue to fail at the world, until she was opening an "envelope of purest white" and her husband was asking, "Have I a rival?" and I was weeping, oh, yes, I was giving up because I knew I still had 25 pages left to go and I just wanted the badness to stop. Somewhere in all the depression, I absorbed the fact that someone is leaving Caroline flowers and little secret admirer notes. Her husband fails to be properly concerned about this, in my opinion: or rather, he seems barely to notice. I don't demand he be a jealous cuss, but he should probably at least notice. But then I realized that neither Lawrence nor Caroline actually had personalities, so I figured I should stop whining about how they don't act like people who aren't made of cardboard.

 

But then, after fifteen days of the performance, hallelujah! The FBI calls and tells them all is well! Terrorists have been caught just over the border in New Jersey, so they are probably safe! THE FBI CALLS THEM, AND GIVES OUT SENSITIVE INFORMATION REGARDING TERRORISTS, OVER THE PHONE, TO CIVILIANS. Wtf. And then, the FBI immediately REMOVES ALL EXTRA SECURITY FROM THE THEATRE AREA, because CLEARLY the threat has abated, and OBVIOUSLY there could be NO FURTHER TERRORIST ACTIVITY in the entire NYC area, and let's go get some ice cream, guys, we SAVED THE WORLD. John talked me down so I didn't wake the neighbors in a righteous rage over this completely cockamamie contrivance (alliteration!).

 

So, of course, after the next performance, six crazed terrorists jump out of a car with machine pistols and start shooting at the hapless Broadway stars. In the middle of the night on a deserted street, so I'm a little confused about the whole "They're doing it for the publicity!" thing. But then again, it is NYC on Broadway, so there really is no such thing as middle of the night/deserted street... which leads me to my next questions, which is WHY IS THERE NO ONE ELSE WITNESSING/RUNNING/SCREAMING/CALLING THE POLICE about this? MEN WITH MACHINE GUNS. People notice that. Especially when they're shooting up a very public street. This story doesn't involve suspension of disbelief; it involves embracing the lunacy because it's the only way to keep from taking a drill to your head out of sheer frustration at all the ridiculousness.

 

As an aside: how much would I have loved this story if it were tongue-in-cheek? SO MUCH. This would have made a great parody of the ridiculous things fan writers tend to do. But it's all very, very srs authr bzns, so instead of delighting me with satire, it makes me sad about the state of editors' standards worldwide.

 

Anyway. We haven't yet gotten to the best part, which is when Caroline's mysterious flower-sending admirer totally shows up--in a cape and mask, yet!--and SERVES UP A BOWL OF PAIN to the terrorists! Yes! The Phantom: FREEDOM RANGER. He drops the theatre chandelier on one of the terrorists (it's my understanding that, what with all the scaring the crowd and potential lawsuits, chandeliers for productions of Phantom are extremely secure and carefully maintained, but who the hell is even paying attention to little pinpricks like that when the rest of the plot could have a truck driven through its holes?) and drags Caroline and Lawrence off to his private subway (!) beneath the Majestic Theatre. I was curious, so I did a little (not very much) research because this sounded like such an outlandish claim; however, like most outlandish claims, it turned out to be true. There were several privately owned and operated subway lines and tunnels beneath New York City, dating from as early as 1905 on until the city officially bought all the subways and closed down the remainders. So that's not as far-fetched as it at first seemed, though little trifles like maintaining it and keeping anyone from noticing it are another story.

 

I tried to do some analysis. My poor, limping notes always start like, "So in this case, the original role of the Phantom has been supplanted by ARE YOU KIDDING ME? YOU CANNOT BE SERIOUS." It's hard to fight.

 

Now, Caroline and Lawrence are clearly much too stupid to be allowed to breed and pass on their genes. Some unknown dude grabs them in the middle of the terrorist attack, drags them underground, and then says, "Get on my secret train to go to my secret abode of secrecy! Also, you don't know me!" AND THEY DO IT. The real rub is that there's an exit into the normal, NYC government-run subway at Times Square RIGHT THERE, and they could have left, but instead they got into the train car with the crazy masked dude. Don't normal people haul ass to, I don't know, THE POLICE? LAW ENFORCEMENT? when people start shooting at them? The NYC subway is FULL of police. Some police officers hang out there, fully armed, at pretty much all times. The Phantom tells them that there wouldn't be enough police in the subway station to protect them, despite the fact that it is a subway station full of people, and also, TERRORISTS ARE SHOOTING MACHINE GUNS IN THE STREET. Is it not plausible, perhaps, that half of New York's finest are on their way or already choking the area like blue-suited locusts? Not enough police there to protect you, my ass. Of course, if these police are as inept as the FBI are in this story, maybe I would be worried, too.

 

It's around this time that Ruse completely gives up on giving Caroline and Lawrence even the semblance of distinct personalities, instead letting them fade into the grey "they did" language they so clearly belong to. Honestly, amid the clusterfuck that is this story, I'd be surprised if anyone really noticed.

 

Of course, the terrorists are pursuing them through the subway tunnels. OF COURSE. Not that that makes sense, mind you, since the terrorists are after exposure and publicity for their cause (what cause? I DON'T KNOW, SHUT UP) and probably don't want to be running around in abandoned subway tunnels with only a 50% chance of ever catching their quarry or finding their way out. But that's okay. Because they're TERRORISTS. They aren't people who do very bad things to further a cause! They're insane and somewhat stupid bloodhounds who will COMMANDEER AN AMAZINGLY CONVENIENT SERVICE TRAIN AND DRIVE IT THROUGH UNKNOWN TUNNELS TO KILL YOU, if you happen to be an innocent Broadway performer, EVEN IF THAT MAKES NO SENSE. Shut up! They're terrorists! They're like mindlessly evil orcs and they don't have to have motivations!

 

Should I just give up and conduct the rest of this review in all caps? No, no, that would be an abuse of my shift key. But my frustration is clearly bleeding through, isn't it?

 

But, sure, okay. They go to the Phantom's house, where he has lots of creepy wigs and masks, yadda yadda. He also has security cameras which show him everything that happens in the Majestic and in his little corner of the subway system, which is very convenient and also doesn't make a lot of sense, but haven't we given up on that by now? Caroline and Lawrence have to choose between being disconcerted by being able to see the terrorists drawing nearer, and seeing a lot of pseudo-body-parts that squick them out. But now, when they demand once again to know who their mysterious admirer is, comes the clincher.

 

IT'S THE REAL PHANTOM OF THE OPERA, GUYS.

 

I'm not kidding. It's really actually Erik, of Paris Opera House fame circa 1881. When, like a reasonable person, Lawrence states that this is impossible, Erik (it IS Erik! Swear!) tells them perfectly calmly that he's 158 years old. The justification for this patent impossibility? "Age is meaningless for one such as I. I am a freak of nature."

 

AARGH.

 

Okay, I'm all right. I shook it off. Whew. But SERIOUSLY? What the fuck is this? This makes less sense than skydiving naked over a volcano using spaghetti for line. I am offended, as a reader, that I am expected to buy this. Do I look like an idiot (all right, no one is looking at me since I'm reading and not talking to a person face to face, but my statement's intent stands)? Even I, with absolutely no medical training and only the basics of college biology, know that people with debilitating and/or severe deformities or medical conditions usually have much shorter lifespans, not longer. Particularly in 1880's France, ESPECIALLY if they happen to live underground, scare and abduct people, and probably have no medical care. Even better--Lawrence and Caroline totally buy it! They believe, yo. I have no idea why, but they do. They don't assume, like I or any other sane person would, that this is probably either A) someone playing a joke on them in very poor taste, or B) a loony that they should back slowly away from without making any sudden movements. Not only does this completely insane idea devalue the crap out of Leroux's original Phantom character--downgrading from the Opera Garnier to the Majestic Theatre? Ouch times a hundred--but I just don't GET it. Why? Someone explain WHY, for pity's sake.

 

(It's not really the point, but for god's sake, why wouldn't he get some plastic surgery in this day and age instead of wearing a succession of masks that creep people out? He's independently wealthy, or so Ruse insists. GET THEE GONE, CHARACTER THAT DOESN'T MAKE SENSE.)

 

I was almost too despondent to care when Erik's blind yet nubile young wife wandered onto the scene. Sigh. Blind chick = cop out, tacked on romance = tacky, author missing the point = certain.

 

The sole cool part of this story was embedded, unsurprisingly, in a thick, treacly current of crud. The intrepid terrorists, undaunted by the fact that they're in an unknown underground abode with absolutely no exposure or egress--THEY'RE GONNA GET YOU, ACTORS--have boarded Erik's private elevator and are even now rising toward the rather upset occupants of the Phantom's apartment. Erik chooses the most reasonable course of action: he pats his blind wife's hand and fails to explain to the poor woman what's going on, and then sits down and starts opus-izing at the organ. For one single moment in the story, I was in sympathy with the characters: they, too, did not think this was an opportune moment to start getting his groove on. Nevertheless, he does, and at the climax of his composition, the bottom falls out of his elevator and all the terrorists fall down the elevator shaft to their presumably messy deaths. I love the idea of a musical key, for security or anything else, I really do. Sadly, I don't think it was done well here--like everything else in this story, it was impractical and unrealistic. For an example of this done nicely, oddly enough, you can turn to Gene Wilder--the musical key that unlocks one of the doors in Willy Wonka's factory in the original Willy Wonka and the Chocolate Factory was great.

 

Then there's some more awfulness and some more things that failed, but frankly, I am tired now. One musical key is not enough to save this story from being utterly mired in bullshit from a very large, retentive bull. It avoided the dreaded F by the hair on its chinny chin chin.

 

This is like some sadistic person playing with my emotions. First: some god-awful crap. Then: Time-Tracker! Then: Dark Angel! Watch Anne's brain explode and her twitches bloom into full-blown bipolar disorder!

 

 

THE AUTHOR RESPONDS:

Hi—Thanks (I think) for all the attention re “Dark Angel,” even if most of it was negative (but why are you 20 years behind in your reading? And I thought I was behind schedule!).

 

I just felt compelled to point out a couple of things. First, and there’s no way you could have known this, my story as it was originally written and submitted, had as its lead characters Andrew Lloyd Webber and Sarah Brightman during the original production of Phantom of the Opera—not the fictional characters in a “revival” as it was published, which may explain a few of the points you were questioning. I thought when the editors had asked me to write a story for the themed anthology that a neat high concept plot bringing Webber and his then wife face to face with the real Erik would be a lot of fun, for me to write and hopefully for the readers as well, but the editors, perhaps with lawyers looking over their shoulders, chickened out and had me change the names, etc. Webber, of course, with his fame and multi-millions, would have been a prime kidnapping target. And I would suggest that you are thinking of terrorists with a post 9-11 perspective, which does lend itself to expecting more grandiose attacks. Back when the story was written, “terrorists” were a bit more small scale and sometimes like those in South America in various groups who frequently kidnapped Americans and others, preferably wealthy ones, to raise money for their political causes.

 

Okay, I’ll plead guilty to disdaining profanity and admiring an earlier age when both the written and spoken word had a certain ear-pleasing elegance and style, certainly compared to today when much of “language” as an art form seems to have dropped to the level of rap lyrics.

 

Regarding the seeming impossibility of Erik being 150 years old---Well, we have some normal folks these days who are getting close to that, although to a young gal like you that must seem hopelessly ancient. Anyway, Gaston Leroux, who authored the original novel, never fully explored the true nature of Erik’s weirdness. He could have been a mutation, or an alien, or an abandoned and adopted demon child. Who knows? Speculative fiction regularly deals with supernatural beings and others who are either immortal or who at least live longer than us mere mortals, and after all, a fantasy story is not intended to be taken dead seriously. “What if,,,?” is the springboard for adventure.

 

Okay, so maybe the lead characters were foolish to jump on Erik’s private subway car (and you are to be applauded for researching the existence of such things) instead of running for the cops to elude the bad guys. But if characters always did the sensible thing, most movies and many books would abruptly end in the first five minutes (or five pages) because that would be the end of the story. Game over. Bye-bye. How many horror movies have you ever seen in which the folks in danger ran outside the old house instead of going down in the basement or looking behind the creaky door? We’re screaming at them, “No! No!”, but they go on and do it anyway. Weirdly enough, that seems to be part of the fun, although it often annoys me as well. But I wanted to suggest that the couple was compelled by the hint of something special as well as by Erik’s commanding, almost hypnotic presence.

 

And the musical key with the organ and elevator, by the way, was inspired by a scene in Bob Hope’s “Ghostbreakers” movie, one of my favorites.

 

Okay—I’ve said what I wanted to say. I’m pleased that you are at least reading on a regular basis, in an age when something like 80 % of Americans don’t (can you imagine?). If you run across a copy of my epic fantasy novel, “Morlac,” in a second hand book store, or abandoned on a subway seat, perhaps you might find that more to your tastes (but be forewarned—the dialogue is not contemporary!).

 

Best wishes—

Gary Alan Ruse

www.garyalanruse.com

 

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