The Devil's Alphabet

In this intriguing variation on the theme of "you can't go home again," Paxton Martin returns to the small town of Switchcreek, TN, after an absence of thirteen years. He has come for the funeral of his close friend and lover from his high school years, Jo Lynn. He had left Switchcreek after his minister father found him in bed with both Jo Lynn and their mutual friend Deke. It was also thought that he was possibly the father of the child Jo Lynn was pregnant with when he left. But more importantly, Switchcreek had undergone The Change. Jo Lynn had become a beta, with cranberry-colored skin and a hairless body. Although it was not yet known when Paxton left, the twins she was carrying could not possible be his. Beta females reproduce by parthenogenesis. Their friend Deke is an Argo, now seven feet tall with ashen skin and the strength of a wild animal. Deke is smallish for an Argo. And then there are the Charlies, whose growth made them first look like, by one description, weightlifters who had been consuming other weightlifters. But older Charlies go to fat. Pax's father weighs 500 pounds. A third of the population died during the The Change. Pax was among the few who were "skipped."

Gregory's novel has so much potential that there seems to be a tendency to judge its relative weaknesses more harshly than they deserve. Although it is filled with incidents ranging from suicide/murder, abductions, drug addiction, financial scams, and government quarantines, the narrative moves at a leisurely and unfocused pace. Gregory writes excellent dialogue, and many of the best elements come from the interactions between old friends and acquaintances who now happen to be giants or gargantuan beings prone to emitting a powerful elixir known as The Vintage. Speculation on the cause of the The Change has begun to focus on the idea of viral migration from parallel universes, which keeps the novel tenuously in the SF realm rather than horror or fantasy. The arrival of government troops and a quarantine suggests things might go more in the techno thriller direction, but no. This is a hybrid novel with interesting characters who could use a better climax than Gregory provides them.