Unholywood: A Samantha Blazes Story
Author: Maria Alexander
Maria Alexander is a poet, screenwriter, and fiction writers of all styles. And she has an extensive bibliography of provocative non-fiction, in written, radio, and podcast form. But this is not a review about how cool Maria Alexander probably is. It's about the novella, "Unholywood: A Samantha Blazes Story", which first appeared in the "Hastur Pussycat, Kill!Kill!" anthology from Vox 13, June 2003. It has been listed on the preliminary ballot for the 2003 Bram Stoker Award in Long Fiction and received and Honorable Mention in Year's Best Fantasy and Horror #17.
"Unholywood" is a horror meets urban fantasy meets comedy story. In some ways is seems to have the tropes all too common to urban fantasy-the young, sexy heroine with special abilities who kicks butt etc. But Maria Alexander's unique combination of truly original supernatural creatures to fight and a heroine whose voice is more confident and original than you standard fair is what makes this novella stand out.
To briefly summarize, a group of screenwriters decides to take revenge on Hollywood production companies that they feel have ruined their cherished work. Albert Foley, one of the screenwriters, has discovered a way to summon Lovecraftian dark forces in an effort get revenge against a director. The opening sequence, in which Foley, another director named Easterman, and group of other writers discuss the ways in which Hollywood ruined their films is a hilarious parody of movie and filmmaking culture.
The target of this story is a studio executive named Roger Bancroft. Bancroft is self-absorbed, vain, and shallow. Bancroft’s assistant is killed by dark forces intended for him, he hires the services of Samantha Blazes. Rather than a flat parody of evil studio executive we are given glimpses into Bancroft’s life-the wife who left him and his odd young son who wants to be a priest (despite Bancroft’s seemingly agnostic belief system) going so far as to dress up in a fake priests’ collar and frock.
Samantha Blazes is a breath of fresh air in an overcrowded field of stereotyped characters. She is described as a ‘psychic detective’ which in this story seems to be somewhat close to a necromancer.
Quote:
Got demons?/ Go to Blazes/ Samantha Blazes, Psychic Detective/Shuggoth evictions, ritual cleansings, and tears mended in the space-time continuum (3)
Samantha is powerful, direct, and never shows the constant neurotic insecurities which seem to proliferate in female lead characters in fiction. There are lots of neurotic, insecure people in the story-but not Blazes.
The adventure moves along at a steady pace. There is a secret library under UCLA; a Goth club peppered with entertaining characters ; and lots of parodies of Hollywood lifestyle and the movie industry. What makes all these tropes unique are Alexander’s evocative writing style and truly unique dark creatures. No simple vampires or zombies, instead references to Native American wendigos, a creature referred to as ‘That Which Nature Abhors’ and in my personally favorite description (likely of all time),
Quote:
‘Antediluvian wings of pitch and craft tentatively broke the surface as if struggling from the chaos. (24)’.
The conclusion of the story hinges on well-known works in horror fiction and has more impact if you are familiar with horror stories and movies.
Criticisms are few. The PDF version had a few typos unfortunately and some odd section and line breaks. Not enough to be a poor product, but in the age of digital it is noticeable. There needs to be cleaner editing on the software end. I started to really like Samantha Blazes and if I had one complaint to make is I would honestly like a whole novel. Granted, the parody of Hollywood movie directors would probably be tiresome for novel length, but the character of Blazes is strong enough to have a longer platform.
Rating: (4 out of 5):
J) wats hanin wats wrong with ever body why dont nobody want to fight >) :Sp :crown: this a :mail: