LATEST PRESS
Kungmin Horangi: The People's Tiger (Daikaiju!) - AS if!
"Kungmin Horangi: The People’s Tiger,” by Cody Goodfellow appears at first to be just another American-style military story, though the central idea is an interesting one. Worth reading simply for use of the term ‘kaiju-mongers.’ The black sense of humour only hinted at in the early parts of the story, however, is given its head towards the end, and I found myself enjoying the nasty twists and turns. -Tansy Rayner Roberts
Waking Waco (Jigsaw Nation) - Strange Horizons
As with any anthology, some of the stories are successful while others fall short. Goodfellow's tale of Peabody's reintegration into society is a hysterical bit of hyperbole that, given the principle that the future is always stranger than we can imagine, makes for a surreal and terrifying bit of precognition: fast food cryogenics, facial barcoding for criminals, organ bootlegging and corporate-stamped plastic replacements, paramilitary ambulance services and serial-killer theme parks. -Mark Teppo
A Drop Of Ruby (Third Alternative #41; Spring, 2005) - Tangent Online, April 2005
Cody Goodfellow's "A Drop of Ruby" concerns a child kept in a basement for years, and the doctor who claims her. Again, conventional in that you know that has to be bad. "They called her Jane Doe Seven, the seventh unidentified female of the year when they found her at 1:30 a.m. on April 13 of last year.The media, with its unfailing gift for degrading tragedy, christened her the Mole Girl and the El Segundo Cellar Dweller, and so gave her the names by which many of you included her in your prayers." Goodfellow unflinchingly shows you just what can be done with such a story, even when you think there's no more horror to be plumbed. Good writing can always open the trapdoor to the emotions, catching you by surprise as you fall through.
Whispers Of Wickedness
Whispers Of Wickedness, A flawlessly written piece, this highly original concept could very easily have been dismissed as too far-fetched, if it hadn’t been handled in such a masterful way. A hidden goddess is given the opportunity of engaging with the world in a startling new way. Difficult to outline the story without giving too much of the intricately-plotted tale away; suffice to say, try taking the idea of vampirism – and turning it on its head, and you might be getting somewhere close.
Book Of Dark Wisdom, Vol. 4 - September 2004
Hybrid literature is a tough sell. Who will read it? How will it be marketed? Where will it get shelved in bookstores? Use to be a time when you could visit a particular genre section and peruse the titles until you stumbled upon a literary gem. With most bookstores placing all literature together, how will anyone ever find these novels that defy categorization amongst the thousands that line shelves? Lots of authors are happy being lumped in with the likes of everyone else, believing it gives their work more credibility. They also happen to be the ones who love to give that esoteric response about not writing in genres—that they are beyond genres. Author Cody Goodfellow doesn’t hesitate to say that he writes horror.
Goodfellow’s project is a two book venture: Radiant Dawn and Ravenous Dusk. If you read one, you have to read the other. Not because they’re a packaged deal, but because Dusk is not just a sequel to Dawn. Dusk is, in fact, the resolution. Think Lord of the Rings. You could stop at The Fellowship of the Ring but you would be missing the whole point. As you read Radiant Dawn and Ravenous Dusk, though, you will probably find yourself flipping to the back cover and rereading the teasers, trying to place the story into some kind of context. Is it horror? Military thriller? Science fiction? Give it up. Goodfellow creates a universe with its foundation resting on H.P. Lovecraft’s Cthulhu Mythos, while ushering you into a world of “horror” that defies formulas. Everything gets thrown into the literary pot to tell this rip-roaring story—government conspiracy theory; apocalyptic nightmares; technological exploitation; current political events; evolutionary science; Biblical references—and is stirred wildly. Written in a style that attends to detail, one gets the feeling that Goodfellow is channeling a 21st century Lovecraft.
Set in Death Valley, Los Angeles, Washington D.C., Idaho and Iraq (written post Gulf War but prior to the latest incursions and the tragedy of 9/11), the story revolves around three characters who have little physical interaction with one another but are each caught up in an evolutionary plan to transform humans. A rogue scientist utilizes ancient technology from the Old Ones—those who came from beyond the stars to set up housekeeping on earth—for his own personal benefit. Story goes that these Old Ones developed a race of slaves, the Shoggoths, to do everything the Old Ones didn’t want to do—which was everything. One day one of the Shoggoths achieved sentience (`a la those bone wielding apes from 2001: a Space Odyssey), which spread like a virus amongst the other Shoggoths. Thus ended the supremacy of the Old Ones—unfortunately the Shoggoths didn’t fare any better. But that’s all background to the story itself.
Protagonists Zane Storch, a Gulf War vet, Stella Orozco, a nurse dying of cancer, and Martin Cundieffe, an FBI agent with an unknown secret, find themselves battling Dr. Keogh’s plot to use cancer as the catalyst for transforming humans into a higher order species—himself. Unlike ordinary heroes who battle the evil from the outside, these three discover that they are insiders who must destroy the mutations, and possibly even themselves, to preserve humanity—the world’s and their own.
Though difficult to believe, Radiant Dawn is Goodfellow’s first novel. He writes with the confidence of a veteran writer, lending credence to the whole venture. If a fault lies with any of these powerhouse novels, it is within Dusk. Even with a substantial plot and promises of taking the Mythos to another level, the protagonists’ mutations disenfranchise the reader. So little humanity exists between the three characters that you might find yourself losing empathy—that characteristic necessary for reader to stay attached to the story. But hooked we remain, if not a bit dissociated, through sheer style and plotting.
And maybe that solves our first dilemma—where do books like this fit? Within horror itself is a whole niche of Lovecraftian-based fiction. Writers have been building on that universe since its inception, but little exists of anything of this magnitude. Radiant Dawn and Ravenous Dusk contribute a whole new realm of possibilities. If you’re not familiar with H.P. Lovecraft’s Mythos, you are in for one hell of a ride. And if you are, you may find yourself wanting a bit more Mythos and a little less hybrid. However, the ride Goodfellow takes us on is still marvelous and visionary. -Eunice Magill
RAVENOUS DUSK PRESS
Talebones #27 - Winter 2003
Ravenous Dusk is the sequel and conclusion to Radiant Dawn, which I read andreviewed in Talebones #21, way back in 2001. I greatly enjoyed Radiant Dawn, in which Sgt. Zane Storch, an Army Special Forces Gulf War vet, becomes embroiled in a factional fight upon which the fate of humanity might hinge.
Sgt. Storch's story continues in Ravenous Dusk, with new factions, conspiracies, revelations and bizarre plot twists. The military background and action rings true, the writing is tight and the characterization is great. I can't even begin to describe the plot in a capsule review, but I'llsay that even though it's farther out there than what I normally read, I still enjoyed the heck out of it.
This is a well-written action/conspiracy/sci fi/Lovecraftian novel. If you appreciate any two or more of these categories, you should check it out. -Mike Walsh
RADIANT DAWN PRESS
Jack Olsen
A new and original author bursts onto the scene. Cody Goodfellow has written a slam-bang, cut-to-the-bone adventure-espionage-military-apocalyptic thriller that defies classification and almost creates a genre of its own. His tricky plot hangs together like a Chinese puzzle, his descriptive passages leap off the page, his dialogue snaps and crackles with the authenticity of real life. Radiant Dawn is a major accomplishment. -Jack Olsen, author of 31 books, including the best-selling Doc: The Rape Of The Town Of Lovell and Son: A Psychopath And His Victims, both of which won Edgar awards from the Mystery Writers of America.
Talebones Issue #22 - Fall 2001
Radiant Dawn--OK, so I admit that I was a bit skeptical when I received the review copy of Radiant Dawn from some outfit called Perilous Publishing. After reading Radiant Dawn, I must now confess that not only is the book better than I expected, but it's better than many I've seen from mainstream publishers.
The story follows the adventures of Sgt. Zane Storch, an Army Special Forces Gulf War vet suffering from Gulf War Syndrome. Sgt. Storch, who both fits and defies the paranoid war vet stereotype, becomes entangled in a secret war between two factions fighting for what may be the fate of humanity.
My biggest gripe with this book, or maybe the publisher, is the line at the end of the last page, "Coming in 2001- Radiant Dawn II." It's three-quarters of the way through 2001 and no book in sight! I really would like to read the next one, and if that's not a recommendation I don't know what is. -Mike Walsh
Cinescape Online - Winter 2001
Goodfellow's descriptive, engaging writing style had me hooked from beginning to end… I truly relished Goodfellow's pull-no-punches style, which I found, in places, to be a cross between a less wordy Stephen King and a more coherent William Burroughs… I winced more than once while reading Radiant Dawn (that's a good thing!) and as I pored over each page, I kept thinking that fans of The X-Files would really like this book. While considerably more violent and graphic than the TV series, it's got all the elements of skullduggery, paranoia and the questioning of authority that us devotees of that show delight in…. In sum, Radiant Dawn is an excellent novel, well-written, fast-paced and meticulously thought-out. -Staci Layne Wilson
Amazon.com Reader Review - January 2001
A friend recommended this book to me and it turned out to be a pleasant surprise. It suffers from none of the weaknesses that have, in recent years, caused me to steer clear of the genre. It's paranoid survivalists, clandestine government agencies, a rogue militia and a reclusive cult all coming together in California's high desert. There's enough craziness to be fun and enough reality to be scary. Although the action is almost constant, the characters (many, many characters) are all interesting, well-drawn individuals.
The main character, Storch, is a former soldier suffering from the ill-defined Gulf War syndrome. He has ended up in a community of hermits and other misfits who just want to be left alone. Sgt. Storch doesn't get the quiet retirement he's looking for though. His survivalist store is raided by what seem to be federal agents, but nothing is as it seems in this novel. If you don't mind a lot of mayhem and the occasional exposed intestine, this is a good way to take a fresh look at what it really means to be human and whether "human" is always a good thing to be.
-amandaclaire from San Diego, CA United States