The Imaginary Realms of

Gilbert M. Stack

1 Welcome to Halcyon by S.G. Tasz

Halcyon is a mining town gone bust. After more than a century and a half of endless streams of gold coming out of the ground, the mines have finally played out and the town withered and died to a size of roughly 500 people. It still has, however, its glorious shopping mall which has a few (very, very few) stores left in operation as the manager of the site tries to think up a way to make the mall thrive again.

Cari is a sixteen-year-old girl with an abusive, alcoholic, mother who is working at the Suttermill Department Store on its last day before giving up the ghost and going out of business. Her supervisor is a surly woman who saw her dreams destroyed when the gold ran out and both her parents (like the rest of the town) lost their jobs. Despite the supervisor, Suttermill has been Cari’s escape from a truly unhappy life—so much so that it amazes me that she can keep her good spirits and not have fallen into the bitter depression that clearly infects so much of the rest of the town. Cari’s only friend is Rex—the teenager who runs the movie theater. Together they make the best of a bleak and dismal life—not in a romantic way but through a genuine and touching friendship.

The novel kicks into high gear when Rex and Cari get stuck in the mall after closing because Cari tries to get her mother the cigarettes and booze she is demanding. After dark, the mall is a very different place and Cari and Rex quickly find themselves in a literal struggle for survival as they learn that demonic creatures emerge into the mall every night and attempt to escape into the larger world. The only thing standing between them is a couple of security guards who clearly have a lot of secrets of their own.

This is a fun, very fast paced, short book which introduces what promises to be a very interesting series.

2 Veiled Threats by S. G. Tasz

Cari and Rex joined a team of mall-cops-turned-demon-hunters at the end of the last book and at the start of this novel, we learn a lot about what is really going on in the dead town of Halcyon. I loved the backstory. It’s a make-or-break moment for a series like this and Tasz clearly “makes” it. The sweet town legend of a minister and his flock traveling west in the nineteenth century when they happen upon gold in the streams of Halcyon could not be further from the truth—and that truth sets the scene for a rollicking good time for Tasz’s readers. There’s a deal with the devil at the heart of the problem. Actually, there are several deals with the devil and a bunch of angry men and women who sold their souls and don’t want to pay the piper.

Whereas the last book boiled down to a simple “kill the monsters” problem. This book shows that the threat is much more insidious than some ravenous beasts emerging from hell every evening between midnight and 1am. That depth is going to serve this series well in future novels.

3 Long Moon by S. G. Tasz

The first full moon in January is a time of great power for the nefarious entities of the underworld, and this full moon one of the demonic original settlers of Halcyon is making her bid to return to the physical world through a disgusting construct of poisonous centipedes. As if that weren’t bad enough, Cari is in danger of being fired because she can’t find a weapon that doesn’t make her look like a Keystone Cop when she handles it and that makes her a danger both to herself and her comrades in arms. All of that sounds bad and the fighting hasn’t even started yet. Demons can possess as well as poison and kill and that means that at any time the buddies on your right and left could become the enemy going for your throat. The action starts early and doesn’t stop even on the last page of the story.

While all of this is going on, Tasz continues to make a valiant effort to humanize and develop backstories for the cast of supporting characters. So in addition to Cari’s troubles with her alcoholic mother and her mother’s boyfriend, Cooper is having marital problems, and John is wracked with self-doubt, wondering if he should have made his own deal with the devil to save the town. It’s a very good story presented in small digestible bites.

4 The Mourning Sun by S. G. Tasz

When you’re reading about a demonic attempt to initiate the apocalypse, it’s hard to argue that things can get more serious, but in The Mourning Sun they certainly get a lot more personal. At the end of the last book, Cari attempted to kill her mother’s abusive lover. In this novel, we learn that he’s among the possessed and it may not be possible to terminate him at all. As if that isn’t bad enough, he’s implanted a sort of demonic seed into Cari’s mother and it’s highly unlikely that anything can help her.

This is the most emotionally depressing of the books thus far. We didn’t like Cari’s mother at all—nor did Cari—but that doesn’t mean that anyone wants demons to possess and damn her. And there’s also the very serious problem of what to do with her regenerating lover. He can’t be allowed to go free, but he also can’t be kept under lock and key as he’s one of the few people left in Halcyon who would be missed.

This one is heart-wrenching from start to finish.

The January Hours by S. G. Tasz

The January Hours collects the first four books of the Dead Mall series and adds an original story as a bonus. It’s set in the town of Halcyon, a mining town gone bust. After more than a century and a half of endless streams of gold coming out of the ground, the mines have finally played out and the town withered and died to a size of roughly 500 people. It still has, however, its glorious shopping mall which has a few (very, very few) stores left in operation as the manager of the site tries to think up a way to make the mall thrive again.

Cari is a sixteen-year-old girl with an abusive, alcoholic, mother who is working at the Suttermill Department Store on its last day before giving up the ghost and going out of business. Her only friend is Rex—the teenager who runs the movie theater. Together they make the best of a bleak and dismal life—not in a romantic way but through a genuine and touching friendship.

The novel kicks into high gear when Rex and Cari get stuck in the mall after it locks down for the night. After dark, the mall is a very different place and Cari and Rex quickly find themselves in a literal struggle for survival as they learn that demonic creatures emerge into the mall every night and attempt to escape into the larger world. By the end of the first book, Cari and Rex have joined a team of mall-cops-turned-demon-hunters and over the next books learn a lot about what is really going on in the dead town of Halcyon.

I loved the backstory. It’s a make-or-break moment for a series like this and Tasz clearly “makes” it. The sweet town legend of a minister and his flock traveling west in the nineteenth century when they happen upon gold in the streams of Halcyon could not be further from the truth—and that truth sets the scene for a rollicking good time for Tasz’s readers. There’s a deal with the devil at the heart of the problem. Actually, there are several deals with the devil and a bunch of angry men and women who sold their souls long ago and don’t want to pay the piper. Now they’re trying to make certain that everyone else pays for their damnation.

In addition to the current storyline, the collection includes an extra novella that tells how the deal with the devil came to be broken—damning the entire town. What it does best is show how a very good man is pressured to sell his own soul for the supposed good of others. It was a nice bonus to reward fans of the series.

Finally, readers of my reviews may notice that I have rated the collection higher than I did the individual stories. That’s because the collection is stronger than its component pieces and I would recommend jumping into the first set rather than just getting the first book.

5 A Midwinter Nightmare by S. G. Tasz

Cari has been suspended from her place on the team trying to save Halcyon from demons and is now back in high school and not enjoying it very much. While she thought she and Rex were going to start dating, they didn’t, and she doesn’t understand why. To make matters worse, she’s being bullied by the two daughters of the man who was having an affair with Cari’s mother before getting possessed by a demon. The two daughters (who know nothing of demons) are taking out their rage at their father and Cari’s mother’s affair (and his death) on Cari, and when she fights back, she’s the one who gets in trouble. She’s grounded by her foster parent and forbidden to go to the Midwinter’s Dance—which is now being held on the Hellmouth at Halcyon Mall. (It turns out that there are some disadvantages to keeping the pending apocalypse a secret from everyone…)

This book is the best in the series so far at building up the danger. We’ve seen for four novels now that the mall is not a safe place after dark. Now every teenager in the high school (minus Cari) is going to be there. It’s almost as if the town is laying out snacks for its demonic tormentors. And the way in which the demons attack would be amusing if it all weren’t so very serious.

7 Everything Must Go by S. G. Tasz

This is the book that winds up the Dead Mall series. The Flooded Prophet has come to town in the form of an executive at the new store in the mall and he wants to permanently open the gate between the demon realm and our world. Standing against him are our small band of protectors and Cari with her new power. For me, the best element of the story was Sam—manager of the mall and the man our heroes have been trying to hide the demon incursions from. Sam has finally figured out what’s going on and he surprises everyone by standing by the team and the town. They’re going to need the help because failure means the apocalypse has begun.

The February Hours by S. G. Tasz

In the second compendium of Dead Mall novels, Tasz puts her heroes through the ringer as they struggle to hold off the apocalypse one day at a time. There is a lot of personal pain in this series. Cari has lost her mother, and while her mother sucks, having her possessed by a demon was a terrible way to go. Now Cari is being kept out of the action because Cooper, mall-cop-turned-demon-hunter, has taken her in but hasn’t told his wife about all the supernatural stuff. Naturally, that isn’t going to work out as Cari is one of the most effective of the security guard crew.

Cooper also has his share of heartache as his wife finally learns what’s going on and reacts quite realistically to his explanation. There’s also a very major surprise for John who continues to wonder if refusing to sell his soul was worth the danger his refusal has placed the world in. I think this is actually the single most interesting issue Tasz explores in the whole series. Would it have been noble for John to sell his soul to the devil to keep the good times going for everyone in Halcyon. My instinctive reaction is “no”, and my well-considered action continues to be “no”, but it’s a great question and John suffers terribly worrying that all the evil that is happening is his fault (even though it was really the fault of the people who made the first deals).

As to the conclusion of this series, all that I will say is that it was worth the read.