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World of Hurt
by Brian Hodge
(Earthling Publications, $40, 151 pages, hardcover.)
Review by Gary Couzens
 Fourteen
years ago at the age of seventeen, Andrei drowned. For thirty-eight
minutes, he was dead, but was brought back to life by doctors. Ever
since then, he's been haunted by what he found on the other side, as
he tries to rebuild a life for himself. He contacts via a chatroom another
near-death survivor, Kimmy. But when she is grotesquely murdered, Andrei
realises that Heaven -- or the horrible reality he once glimpsed --
is out to reclaim him.
World of Hurt has a premise that's reminiscent of the Final
Destination series of films. But the resemblance is a superficial
one. While the film series became an excuse to string together several
elaborately gory setpieces, Brian Hodge's short novel (it's around 50,000
words) goes in an entirely different, more serious direction. As well
as Andrei, we meet his French work colleague Manon and the killer Bruce,
both of whom have designs beyond the obvious on Andrei.
Hodge's novel has a slightly fragmented feel at first, being mostly
in third person with some italicised sections in first person from a
narrator who isn't identified straight away. Hodge does demand you pay
attention, as at times he doesn't identify the viewpoint some of the
third-person sections are from, apart from "he", leaving it
for the reader to work out. The initial effort does pay off, and the
novel leaves you with a vision of the afterlife that's more unnerving
in its implications than actually scary, which survives a somewhat anticlimactic
ending.
It's often said that the novella or short novel is the perfect length
for horror -- though nowadays it's not one that is usually commercially
publishable. However, it's a hard length to get right, and I'm not convinced
that Hodge has quite succeeded in World of Hurt. I'm the first
to complain that too many novels these days are bloated beyond their
natural length by publishers' dictates -- and I'm old enough to remember
when 40 to 60,000 words was quite an acceptable length. I'm very glad
that there are publishers like Earthling willing to publish novellas
and short novels that the majors won't touch. But for me I wanted more
than World of Hurt delivered -- its ideas and their implications
were too big for the book's short compass. (Admittedly, Hodge points
out in an afterword -- which you shouldn't read until you've finished
the novel -- that World of Hurt, although it can be read in isolation,
is part of a series of stories with a common background.) This may be
a rare novel which isn't long enough.
Earthling's edition of World of Hurt has dustjacket artwork
by Robert Sammelin, a foreword by Stephen Jones, an introduction by
Brian Keene and an afterword by Hodge. It is available in a limited
edition of 500 numbered hardcovers, signed by the author ($40), and
a run of twenty-six lettered and traycased hardcovers signed by Hodge,
Jones, Keene and Sammelin ($250).
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