The Upwelling by F. Paul Wilson
Crossroads Press (July 2024)
Reviewed by Dave Simms
F. Paul Wilson has been a grandmaster of horror, thrillers, science fiction, and medical mysteries, but it somehow feels natural when he slips into this mythos that he’s built for decades. Beginning with The Keep, and through the Adversary series, which launched the iconic Repairman Jack series, the tales of the Otherness thread through novels, sometimes peripherally, sometimes head-on.
While recent novels have been entertaining and well-written, it’s in this novel, The Upwelling, that Wilson reclaims the throne of what he has built — awesome storytelling with interesting characters that readers root for and wish for future adventures to enjoy.
His body just won’t burn.
Well, that’s an interesting beginning. For Pam Sirman, her world is upended but that’s not even the wildest thing about this novel. When her husband perishes in an accident, the corpse defies the laws of nature and will not succumb to the high temperatures required for cremation. What’s wrong — or what IS the man? Is it possible that he’s not quite human? Just hold on.
A freak upwelling in Atlantic City strikes, and it utterly obliterates everything in its path. The city, its buildings, casinos, homes, and people — all gone. It’s as if the town and it’s twenty-five thousand residents never existed. Chan and Danni had just been inside the town, celebrating with two other friends. Yet when it’s over, they’re alone, and can’t recall anything about the missing ten hours. They might not want to. Were they part of the reason the city is no longer in existence? And the people — what happened to them?
Chan and Dani begin to put the pieces together, remembering bit by bit about what occurred just before the upwelling. What did they do to cause this disaster? Or did they try to stop it?
He finds himself at the center of Dr. Wilson’s Secret History Of The World (if you don’t know what this is, read this and then go back to the beginning — the series ages well), finding himself in upstate New York with a strange cult that just might be connected to the Otherness. But which side are they on: for humanity or against it?
To say more would ruin the fun that is an F. Paul Wilson tale, stripping away the layers in an adventure that is also a horror story and a mystery, rooted in something Lovecraft might have envied.
Set partially in the Pine Barrens, The Upwelling is top notch storytelling from top to bottom.
Here’s to hoping that this novel sparks more stories with these characters and the events that are just as compelling as in Nightworld and the best Repairman Jack novels.
Strongly recommended for all. Required reading for FPW fans.
