Jago

The main novel, Jago, has the classic grimy feeling and disturbingly real characters that are typical of Newman's writing, but much less humour than you usually find in his books. It also makes some perspicacious but uncomfortable points about human nature and reality. All in all, it's very good, exciting and frightening, but less fun than his other works. The short stories included at the end, however, are a wonderful reward. The characters of Jago are translated into other settings of vast originality and sweep you along through the nearly-familiar world with frequent bursts of laugh-embarrassingly-loud wit. They have the feeling of old fashioned adventure stories laced with a lot of dry, black observational comedy and it all works perfectly. Honestly, the three bonus short stories are worth the price, even without the novel.

It's not often that a novel is set in Somerset, with its yokels talking in softly burred accents, and it's less frequent that those novels are apocalyptic page turners. Newman, one of Empire magazine's film critics, took every bad horror movie he could think of and lumped them into Jago. And then he went further, including the Green Man (if you're scared of Morris dancers or forests, that will make it much, much worse for you), the War of the Worlds, children's sick jokes, and much more. There's few things that made an impression on me the first time round; there was the farmer rutting with the soil of his farm. A sentence like "Farmer Maskell fertilised his fields" tends to stick with you, if you're a teenage boy. Most of the other sexual references (and there's a few, this being a more respectable version of a lurid Shaun Hutson horror) passed me by when I was younger, or I just blotted them out. I'd completely forgotten about the pub full of sick jokes (which is something I remember Will Self doing similar things with in The Quantity Theory Of Insanity), I'd never encountered the Ramones so I wouldn't understand the `gabba gabba' references and somehow I'd forgotten all the religious imagery. The F***ing Hell feels reminiscient of Slither, which appeared in cinemas about 15 years later, but I suppose the collapse of flesh into monstrosity predates that, with films like Society and much more besides. I suppose it would be surprising if I hadn't forgotten something; Jago is a hefty wodge of a book, and although some things will stick with each reader (the Moebius strip of a plot is probably one of them) there will be details you forget, or just miss in the first place. With twenty more years of reading horror, it's nice to appreciate some of what Newman was doing. Just like a one-man Cthulhu Mythos machine, he was intertwining the vampire stories and their protagonists, with some of his Somerset Wild West material, with any film he could think of, into a clever (and it knows it's clever, almost irritatingly so) mesh of storylines. Some of the harsher stuff, like the Farmer Maskell subplot, with its body horror, is a bit hard to take, and some bits link together almost too neatly for satisfaction, but the overarching premise, that truth is only visible by pain, is sustained well throughout, and even at the end I was still startled by some of the events. It's nice to read a book where everyone hurts, and the author may care for his characters but isn't scared about killing them when necessary. I think The Quorum is more enjoyable, and the Anno Dracula sequence more commercially viable, but if you wanted a literary equivalent of a lurid 80s Euro-horror, this would be right up there.

It took a long time for me to trudge through this English country horror story, a tale of cult possessions and a kind of alternate Glastonbury festival which feels a lot like Hotel California: you can check out any time you like, but you can never leave... Jago was written back in the early 1990s before Newman's success with the AD series. It certainly feels like an early novel and doesn't have the polish and drive of his more recent stories, nor much of the acerbic wit or sharp-eyed satire. Instead it feels more like a lumbering old James Herbert horror-mystery -- nothing wrong in that, but it's a far cry from the captivating world of the Diogenes Club. There are moments of eye-opening excellence; some genuinely shocking sequences and some wonderfully weird inventions. But perhaps Jago wasa bit too ambitious in trying to weave together so many different perspectives and themes: Newman more than pulls it off in later books, but here I got bogged down in some of the rambling narrative. I'm almost surprised they didn't take a severe set of editorial scissors to it for the new edition: it always hurts to leave some of the action on the cutting room floor but it would've been a better book for it. An old-fashioned door-stopping monster of a book. Best read on holiday, over several days, when you have time and inclination to do little else. 7/10

This book really gave me the creeps, equally sickened and entranced.

Jago was originally published in 1991 and comes under the heading of 'speculative fiction' which is just about perfect; this is one of the strangest novels I've read. The plot flits between supernatural, science fiction, fantasy, religion, superstition, Armageddon and folklore with a dollop of horror just to round things off and it's a long, long read at 500+ pages on Kindle. For the first 200+ pages Newman takes his time to build the world into which you're about to be thrown. The scene setting throughout the book is exceptional and one of it's strengths. In this case we're transported to the small village of Alder in the West Country where there's soon to be a festival of huge proportion, similar to Woodstock, and the population of Alder is invaded by a sea of visitors. In the middle of this sea of life stands cult leader, former priest, Anthony Jago who suddenly turns to the dark side and begins using his supernatural powers to create mayhem and misery. The world begins to break down around the festival goers and the villagers. What's real and what's not?. Horror comes at them in weird forms and from many different directions but much of that horror has been dredged up from inside themselves and manifests itself in weird, bizarre behaviour and 'acting out'. I enjoyed that Armageddon in this instance might be caused more by the toxic nature of people than toxic chemicals. That was clever. Be aware there is some strong imagery and this writer is not afraid to go over the top but; take it all with a pinch of salt because he also throws a lot of disturbingly comic moments into the mix to break things up. Will the world be saved?. Well; there are some good guys here as well as bad guys but I'm going to leave you to read the book to find out what happens.Expect the unexpected on every level. Jago reads like 1970/1980s horror the time when authors didn't make sense of what they wrote because horror and supernatural fiction could be oddly psychedelic. Think Ray Bradbury, Graham Masterton or early James Herbert. It's true to say Kim Newman ramped things up with Jago. Completely disturbingly and in parts superbly good.

loved it

I was hooked at the beginning but a third of the way in I started to get very bored and skimming chapters with less interesting characters. In the end I just read the last chapter. Made me feel glad that I had given up on it. First time I've given up on a book.

After reading Newman's Anno Dracula on several occasions, when the chance to read and review a publisher's copy came up, I jumped at the chance. However, after reading it, I'm almost at a loss as to how to approach it in review. So, let's try this: The Good: Newman has a wonderful style and is to my mind one of the foremost writers of the horror genre. He takes the time to fully develop his characters, and make you truly want to root for them in the face of whatever horrific situation he's devised. His thought process is truly twisted, so don't expect your "run of the mill" horror novel. There were moments while reading this novel that I was either horrified, or grossed out, which is generally the intent of horror. The climax of the novel also makes up for what comes next. The Bad: This is a 300 page novel packed into a 643 page shell. Newman is a master of universe building, but spends so much time putting the pieces in place, it holds back the novel. It took me six months to read this novel. Every time I got fed up and said, "where the hell is this going," I'd put the novel down and read something else until I was ready to attempt it again. There's also some subtle irony in that we don't meet Anthony Jago, beloved leader of the Agapemone cult (and whose name graces the cover) until almost halfway through the novel. There's never really any development of his character, except through brief moments from his past, and even then they're told from the point of view of those around him. We never really get an explanation of what makes this God on earth tick. The Ugly: There are some truly disgusting moments in this novel, so be forewarned. On the other hand, if you love a good gross out, then this is the book for you--if you're willing to invest the time. For me, I think I'll go re-read Anno Dracula.