Devil Information

The Nye Incidents

Lynn Devlin is a medical examiner who thinks she has seen everything Nye County has to throw at her. She copes with methodical, rational logic. But when a grotesque murder of a supposed alien abductee occurs that cannot be solved with her scalpel and microscope, Lynn finds her detachment is shattered, and her dreams haunted by large, dark, oval-shaped eyes. Now, only one thing is certain: There’s a killer loose in the alien abductee community… human or otherwise!

User Ratings and Reviews

5 Stars Cinematic. Very good.
I’ve always thought Whitley to be an excellent writer of horror fiction. I thought his first book on the UFO phenomenon, Communion, to be very good as well. Folllowng these books and for many years, I’ve mostly disagreed with both his optimism and his interpretation of many aspects of that same phenomenon, and I’ve wondered if there’s not a certain degree of confabulation coming out in his UFO-related work, a self-defensive mechanism to protect his own psyche from something that did happen to him. In this way he has a lot in common with Richard S. Shaver, whom I also believe experienced something genuine (as least to him), and I look at this in two of my own nonfiction works.

I started to put this review at www.mottimorphic.com, but that would be doing Whitley a disservice, since more people will see it here. While I may disagree with him about many things, I think he, and the other creative people involved in this project, have really done something exceptional here. This is an outstanding melding of horror fiction and UFOlogical lore. The subject matter, particularly the human mutilation phenomenon, is not for the squeamish (as the Brazilian human mute cases–you can find pictures online–bear out), and is not lightly dismissed. The Nye Incidents pulls it all off quite well, leaving questions which I can only assume will be answered in a sequel or sequels (such as the oceanic connection he seems to be postulating, which is to say, a hidden earthly nature to the UFO phenomenon), and it begs for some sort of theatrical treatment or longer novelization.

Whitley’s original night terrors are making a comeback in the horror realm, melding fiction with very real and very disturbing phenomena. I for one am glad to see him embrace the factual horror and terror of whatever fear and doubt he has himself experienced, without debating motives or various shades of gray. The non-humans in this book are evil–as the vast majority of experiencer accounts (real or imagined) bear out.

Very well done! I just wish it had been in color, but maybe that’s for the next one.

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Hack Slash Omnibus

At the end of every horror movie, one girl always survives… in this case, Cassie Hack not only survives, she turns the tables by hunting and destroying the horrible slashers that would do harm to the innocent! Alongside the gentle giant known as Vlad, the two cut a bloody path through those who deserve to be put down… hard!

User Ratings and Reviews

5 Stars Must Buy!!!!
Do you enjoy horror movies? Do you like hilarious comic books? If you answered yes to either of those, then you must purchase this book. Cassie is smart and funny. Vlad is just as good. The slashers they hunt all have original powers and stories. The art can be hit or miss sometimes (the Evil Ernie plotline is the weak link here), but overall it’s more hit than miss. The Omnibus collects the stories before it became a monthly comic, and the extras in this collection are amazing. Overall, this is money well spent for horror or comic fan.

3 Stars Erratic Collection of Pulp-flavored Fun
I really liked the cult feel of this collection. Hack /Slash, as a title, is especially good when it remembers to stay within its core concept Cassie Hack as hunter of B-movie-style serial killers (like “Dexter”, I suppose).

A few of the stories – “Girls Gone Dead”, “Slice Hard” and the collection of “Trailers” – were great. Campy fun with the genre. Tim Seeley uses his impressive knowledge of B-movie conventions and gives them new twists. The results are fun, silly, bloody and entertaining.

Unfortunately, Seeley strays from the core concept too often. His attempts to add more depth (especially in the egregious “Evil Ernie” cross-over) just come across as lurid and patronizing. Cassie Hack turns from movie heroine to fan-boy exploitation.

At its rare best, Hack/Slash is “Scream”, but the rest of the time, it felt like one of the inferior sequels

4 Stars Fun stuff.
This is a good read. Artwork may be hit or miss at times, but enjoyable overall. The characters introduced in this comic are all interesting. The bad guys are quite good, too. Some original takes on old standards.

Amazon has a habit of sending me damaged books, though, so if you like pristine copies, I’d probably just hit the comic book store. I’ve bought a few comic book volumes from Amazon and every one of them has had smashed corners, which is too bad because you can find good prices on a lot of these things.

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If you ever seen the movie Close Encounters of the Third Kind then you’ve seen the Devils Tower. This distinctive mountain landmark is hard to miss.

It became famous when Richard Dreyfuss began having visions of the Devils Tower with its flat top and ridged sides. Soon after having the visions he constructs a crew sculpture in his mashed potatoes. Needless to say his family is alarmed. He becomes more and more obsessed with the mountain. First he makes paintings of it, then he goes off the deep end. When he brings in piles of dirt from the yard to create a scale replica in his living room, his wife and kids leave him. It’s a very famous scene in the movie.

Eventually Richard’s character travels to Wyoming to see the real Devils Tower. Despite warnings from the military to stay away, he sneaks up to the mountain. There he sees an amazing spectacle. Aliens land after communicating with humans using a giant organ. Many people, abducted long ago, come off the ship. Richard’s character is amongst those who choose to travel with the aliens back to their home planet. Given the way Hollywood makes sequels, it’s surprising this open ending didn’t spawn a second movie. It still might. Later versions shown on television and released on DVD included scenes inside the ship. But these weren’t very well done.

Back to the real Devils Tower. It’s located in Wyoming. It’s a monolithic igneous intrusion, otherwise known as a volcanic neck. This is also known as a lava neck. It forms when magma flows out of a volcanic vent. It’s generally the sign of an active volcano. It’s not certain that this formation is such a plug. But many geologists believe it is.

The Indians have a legend about how Devils Tower was formed. Some Indian sisters were walking in the wilderness, picking flowers, when they came upon some bears. The bears chased them. The Great Spirit helped the girls by raising up the land upon which they stood. The Bears would not give up. They tried to climb up to the girls but as they neared the top slid back down. Their claws left the indentations in the side of the structure.

Another legend, this one told by the Sioux Indians, was of two boys wandering far from their village. A giant bear called Mato came upon them. It had claws the size of tepees, and it wanted to eat the boys for breakfast. The boys prayed to the creator to help them. He did, raising the ground beneath them. Just as with the stories involving the girls, and this one the giant bear tried to get at them from all sides but could not. Its huge claw marks remain.

Whether fantastic tales of giant bears or friendly aliens the Devils Tower is a great place to visit.