Upon the conclusion of Jonathan Janz’s Children of the Dark, readers were left wanting. Janz teased and tortured readers of that novel with a stinger that the story was not complete. When the book was published in 2016 in a very small print run, it wasn’t known whether or not the story would see it’s continuation. Since then, Janz has grown into one of the larger names in modern horror, with a dedicated fanbase and critical appreciation. As such, the second installment: Children of the Dark 2: The Night Flyers published a few months after the re-issue of the first book. It is nearly impossible to discuss the second book without spoiling some of what transpired in the first book, so enter with caution.
Last summer, sixteen-year-old Will Burgess lost many of the people he loved most. Now he’s imprisoned in the Sunny Woods Rehabilitation Center, a facility for troubled youths. Separated from his surviving loved ones and terrified of a change inside him, Will is tormented by a new group of bullies and a sadistic government doctor. When his only ally, an orderly named Pierre, tells him there have been sightings of winged creatures with glowing red eyes, Will believes him.
Because Will has seen the Night Flyers too.
Even worse, he learns the monstrous Children are still lurking underground. They want revenge on Will and will stop at nothing to destroy everyone he cares about. Will and his friends, new and old, must band together to fight the forces of darkness—both human and supernatural. But as Will learned last summer, evil is relentless. And it won’t rest until its hunger is sated.
The sequel picks up shortly after the events of the first novel, with Will Burgess a “guest” at Sunny Woods Rehabilitation Center, after the massacre that occurred in his hometown of Shadeland. As he is one of the lone survivors, he is a party of interest but nobody believes his story about large, white humanoid subterranean creatures as the perpetrators of the massacre. Why would he be believed when the creatures he describes are supernatural and beyond human understanding?
We, the reader, know he is telling the truth. The truth doesn’t really matter, though, because Will is also a target of some of the more violent “guests” at the Center. As the novel opens, Will has been in the rehabilitation center for about a year. He’s developed an antagonistic relationship with one of the doctors assigned to him (Dr. Klinger) and the one with whom he had a decent relationship (Dr. Fleetwood) has been assigned. His only true friend is Pierre, one of the custodians, largely because Pierre’s niece Anita has claimed to see a creature matching the description of a Night Flyer, the creature Will saw at the end of the first novel. It seems Dr. Klinger is being told to keep Will’s story from going wide and public. Almost like somebody might be aware that the Children…and the Night Flyers are real. It isn’t long before the monsters descend and Will’s life is in the cross hairs of these creatures once again.
Children of the Dark was fresh in my mind since I read it only a month or two before picking up COTD: The Night Flyers so Will’s story was relatively fresh in my mind. I’d had a storehouse of empathy in my head for him, but even with that, Janz does a wonderful job of layering in more empathy and sympathy, making Will one of the more ‘easy to root for’ protagonists I’ve had the pleasure of reading. Of course, it helps that Will is the first-person narrator, which immediately builds up a connection between reader and protagonist. Layered on top of that is how driven Will is driven by his love for Peach, his little sister who has been stuck in the foster system.
As the action expands beyond Shadow Hills and Will’s hometown to include government officials, the scope of what these creatures are widens. This isn’t just a localized threat, the “Children” and the “Night Flyers” are more than just local monsters like the Jersey Devil or Mothman. As the story ratchets up the tension and barrels towards an exciting climax, I got the sense that the story of Will Burgess is not quite complete. Don’t get me wrong, there’s a conclusion to the events of the novel, but there’s also promise of a lot more story to be told. These two novels are forming a modern monster horror saga tinged with roots in cryptozoology and folklore and populated with wonderful, endearing characters. His novel Savage Species is connected in that it features the same monsters, but different characters. I’ve yet to read that one but soon, I shall.
Janz continues to make the case that he’s one of the pillars of modern horror fiction. His books have a great balance of character and plot, there’s terrifying monsters and creepy scenes balanced with humor. I find his “economy of words” to be quite high, his novels rarely eclipse the 400-page mark, but I always find myself entrenched in his world and connected to his characters rather quickly. Few of those characters across the 7 novels I’ve read from him; however, are quite as endearing as Will Burgess the star of the two Children of the Dark novels.
Highly Recommended
© 2024 Rob H. Bedford
Paperback | April 2024
https://jonathanjanz.com/
Review copy purchased
