Nightworld

March 26, 2012
Revised significantly since its first printing in 1992, this apocalyptic horror thriller makes a dazzling finale to Wilson’s long-running saga of Repairman Jack and his clash with cosmic titans that began with The Tomb (1984). In modern Manhattan, and around the world, daylight hours are shrinking, signaling the malignant Rasalom’s successful deflection of the Ally, earth’s cosmic protector. When a bottomless sinkhole opens in Central Park and begins spewing forth monstrous carnivorous insects, Jack; his immortal mentor, Glaeken; and their gang of do-gooder confederates scramble to recruit a young boy endowed with miraculous healing powers and to retrieve a pair of talismanic necklaces that are their only weapons for averting the doom Rasalom has planned for the planet. Wilson grafts drive-in B-movie horrors onto a plot with metaphysical substance, and the result is a carnival funhouse ride of a story that still offers food for thought. Agent: Albert Zuckerman, Writers House.