A Lower Deep (Mass Market Paperback)

In this, his first novel length adventure (see Piccirilli's excellent collection, Deep Into That Darkness Peering for previous tales), the Necromancer finds himself caught up in the macabre activities of his former coven, led by his nemesis Jebediah DeLancre. DeLancre has an interesting proposition for the troubled mage-if the Necromancer assists the coven in forcing Christ's return to Earth, DeLancre will resurrect Danielle, whole and undamaged. Thus, he's forced to choose between the love of his life and triggering Armageddon.

Almost overwhelming in its vision and scope, A Lower Deep is a difficult, often exhausting, read. Bursting with incident, exposition, and myriad characters (living, dead, and living dead), it's a book that sometimes feels as if it was forcibly compressed into too small a package. Whether this was a conscious decision on Piccirilli's part, or whether an editor forced it on him, the book could benefit from a little "seam letting," allowing the author a little more latitude to tell his expansive tale.

One senses that Piccirilli was shooting for a literary version of Wagnerian opera. Instead, the novel resembles nothing so much as a James Bond movie. All the elements are there-a flashy opening sequence, the inevitable witty banter with a villain intent on wreaking global chaos (although the villain turns the tables on the Necromancer by telling him "You're insane."), a globe hopping hero, and a final confrontation between enemies with nothing less than the fate of the world at stake-the Necromancer even drives a Jaguar! As is often the case with a Bond film, its parts are more interesting than the whole, a shame because Piccirilli was obviously reaching for something more. Although he creates some unique and disturbing set pieces along the way (the finale is spectacular), their power is diminished by the sheer amount of work readers must do to keep up. In the end, Piccirrilli gets an "A" for effort, but a "B" for execution.

It is the story of an unnamed protagonist who is called the "Master Summoner", or the "Necromancer" and a little demon type companion called Self who are lured back to the grounds of his old coven by Jebediah DeLancre. Nercromancer has not been back since his love, Danielle was killed, and has been told that if he helps Jebediah out, the old coven master will raise the young woman from the dead.

So the Necromancer travels around with Self; encountering Death, the Angel Uriel, the Angel Michael, and a host of other vaguely described demons on a quest that I personally felt was not well plotted out. Because of its lack of direction, I found it to be rather boring.

Even with this, it could have been muddled through if Piccirilli's writing style wasn't so flat and one-dimensional. Short sentences that do not flow together, and a "monotone" you can actually hear while you are reading is what caused me to loose interest very quickly. None of the characters ever fleshed out or came alive, the description and dialogue were extremely unanimated, causing me to neither love nor hate any character in the book. The dialogue is stilted except for the Necromancer's conversations in his head with Self, those turned out to be pretty decent and believable, adding a humorous twist.

And lastly, the entire length of the novel felt like a sermon on practicing Witchcraft. Piccirilli goes into great detail on which square fits which circle during what type of moon causing this particular hex to shape into a widget. Yawn. On top of that is the tone implying that these are details that we should already know; so the result is like sitting through a lecture in college with a hangover and Ben Stein as the lecturer.

Want to visit hell for awhile? Pick up Edward Lee's "City Infernal" instead. Want something with a subtle demon? Pick up Robert R. McCammon's "Swan Song" instead. Jack Ketchum, Brian Lumley, John Shirley, Edward Lee; all are far better writers and more worthy of your money.

I did give this book two stars instead of one simply because I liked Self. It seemed Piccirilli focused most of his better description on the little demon, and Self captures all of the good dialogue, like a good demon should.