CD Story Review #6: Fury's Child

THE COVER OF ISSUE #1

Richard Chizmar founded Cemetery Dance Magazine in 1988. It’s still in production today (now managed by author/ editor Brian James Freeman) & is considered one of the best horror mags of all time, having published and even discovered many of the genre's most famous and successful authors. This blog series is my attempt to read, review, and research every story CD has ever printed. As of Issue #70 (Sept. 2013), there are more than 500.

STORY: “Fury's Child” 
AUTHOR: David B. Silva
CD APPEARANCE: Issue #1 (Dec. 1988: Vol. 1, Iss. 1), story 6 of 12 

CD FEATURED A FULL-PAGE
PIC FOR "FURY'S CHILD"

PLOT:  Nick Fury is a musician. He plays guitar. But the story starts out telling us he should be dead.

The day Nick almost died he was working on a new riff in his basement when a thin sheen of leaking water makes contact with his guitar amp. Though he acted fast to unplug his equipment, Nick was nevertheless electrocuted and thrust into a surreal out-of-body experience. He first floats up through the ceiling, then through the roof of his house, then through the atmosphere, and eventually through the far reaches of the universe.

Nick sees a brilliant blue light at the end of a long tunnel and hears the most amazing music of his life. His mother (who is presumably already dead) then makes an appearance and speaks to him briefly before negating his belief that today is his day to die. The entire experience is much like we expect such a thing would be. It is- in a word- beautiful.

Then the story turns on us. A black, deformed hand pulls Nick's mother away from him and everything goes black. A moment later he wakes up in a hospital bed.

The next scene is at an undisclosed time later and Nick's (girl?)friend, Sadie, is begging him to come outside for just a few hours. He insists he needs to work on his new song, and we come to realize that Nick is obsessed with capturing the music he heard in the outer cosmos and that this has been going on for some time. Slowly & sadly, Sadie leaves & Nick barely notices.

Over the next 15 days, Nick composes non-stop, constantly frustrated as he attempts to recreate the music from his near-death experience. Little by little certain notes and chords click, and on the 15th day he finishes. He plays it through once to confirm it is the most important creative work of his career then invites Sadie over to hear it. She comes, listens, and cries at its beauty. It is further confirmation to Nick of what he has accomplished. Sadly, Sadie soon leaves and on her way home throws herself off the Golden Gate Bridge. The impression we get is that she could not handle the beauty of Nick's song.

The story comes to an end with Nick Fury coming to realize his brilliant song is dangerous. He wants to destroy the sheet music, but can't bring himself to do it. Instead, he locks it away and fends off calls from his manager about his lack of production. He loses fans, falls heavily to drug use, and appears to lose his sanity. The final paragraphs show Nick wondering once again what had reached forward and pulled his mother away as he stood at the threshold of death. He concludes only that Sadie now knows... and that if he picks up his guitar, his fingers would happily tell him.

REVIEW: 4 out of 5 stars.

SILVA GOT BOTH HIS PIC & AN
INTERVIEW IN THE PREMIER ISSUE.
IF YOU CLICK TO ENLARGE &
READ HIS BLURB, YOU'LL
UNDERSTAND WHY

I was oh-so-close to giving this one 5 stars. Indeed it probably deserves it. Silva's story is told far better than the others preceding it and leaves the reader with a much greater sense of wonder & appreciation than any CD story to date. However, it also had one thing missing... something that took me many minutes of consideration to nail down. That thing is a clear & distinct connection to the Horror genre. That's because this story is almost the antithesis of story 5 in this series of reviews... "Leg Man" was, if you recall, too gruesome for my tastes & lacked a certain finesse of story-telling. "Fury's Child" is, by comparison, too tame. I think it's only because Cemetery Dance billed itself from the outset as being a horror magazine that I had to make this distinction. In a standard fantasy magazine, this is easily 5 stars. Even in science-fiction it might have qualified. But for Horror... well, for Horror it is somewhat lacking in that key element to the genre that sets it apart from Fantasy or Sci-Fi: namely the ability to creep out the reader in some fashion. The only genuine creepiness is the vague suggestion that the blackened hand which took his mother was Nick's own... it was, after all, the contact point of his electrocution.

What really matters in this story, however, is the overwhelming ethereal feel Silva's words give readers. The description of what Nick Fury has gone through... the process by which he goes about discovering his song... the lingering image of his need to play the song again at the risk of his own life... all are- in that same, perfect word- beautiful.

Yet as a writer I must ask myself why Silva's images & concepts are the kind that stick. Allow me to quote my favorite passage from this story in order to explain what I think I've come to understand:

"Later, as he closed the basement door behind her, 

Nick smiled and slapped an open palm against the cinder-block wall. 

He had done it." 

This simple motion- this slapping of one's hand against a wall in exasperated contentedness- is what makes Silva a great writer. He doesn't push this moment in our faces. He doesn't feel the need to explain it. He merely shows us his character in the throes of a specific emotion and trusts we will get it. We do, and accuracy of what it looks like combined with his trust is- you guessed it- a beautiful thing. 

Regardless of the lack of the elusive 5th star, Silva has impressed me. I look forward to more of his works and to what he can do when he decides to actually prickle my skin.