Eight Cylinders is the newest novella by Jason Parent and published by Crystal Lake in November 2020. The story focuses on Seb, a mid-range Las Vegas criminal who is gravely injured during a shootout with a mobster after a deal gone bad. Seb flees Vegas in his Charger, and after consulting the magic 8-ball he plucked from the mobster’s eye, drives through the night and through the desert mountains. He awakens to find himself in a small desert camp with his wounds treated. The camp is full of other criminals and ne’er-do-wells (Earl, Malcom, Mary, Red, Sly, Helen, Skeeter, Malcolm, and Angelique) who all seem to come from different times and places. Seb and his companions are all trapped in the camp because giant tentacles shoot out from the mountains that encircle the area that whisk away unlucky persons who wander too far away. After Mary falls mysteriously ill and unresponsive, the motley crew band together to use their arsenal of vehicles and weaponry to escape the gigantic mollusk monster of the mountain and back to civilization.
If the above synopsis sounds fast-paced and cinematic, that is because Eight Cylinders is. Be it consciously, unconsciously, or coincidentally on Parent’s part, Eight Cylinders leverages elements from a variety of film (and video game) sources and blends them into a new narrative that gives the novella a cinematic quality. Examples of influences or apt comparisons include Fallout: New Vegas (both the game and novella begin similarly with the main protagonist being shot by a Las Vegas mobster and then being resurrected outside the city), Cube (all the characters are criminals trapped in a location they are trying to escape), Tremors (general tone of being trapped in a podunk desert locale with hidden monsters about), The Mist (characters who leave the safety of the area are quickly killed), Evil Dead 2 (similar fates for the main character at the story’s end), and Mad Max: Fury Road (climatic driving sequences through a desert) along with fast pace, car action sequences found in the likes of The Transporter and The Fast and the Furious series of films.
Though the tone is first and foremost an action centric, Lovecraftian elements seep into the story brining shades of horror and the grotesque. Overtly, the giant tentacles hidden in the mountains leverage distinctive Cthulu-ian imagery, but Eight Cylinders takes a self-aware approach to using Lovecraft elements. The antagonist character of Sly verbally references Lovecraft by equating the hidden tentacles to that of Cthulhu and referring the mountains that surround the camp as “The Mountains of Madness.” Unlike zombie films that are afraid to use the zed-word, Eight Cylinders embraces its few instances of being a metatext and uses it to full and realistic affect without relying on winking or easter egg-ing.
If there is an element in Eight Cylinders that seems out of place, it is that of the hero, Seb. In Crystal Lake’s promotional material for the novella, they quote author James Chambers who equates the story to a redemption tale, which Eight Cylinders certainly is. The issue is that Seb does not seem like a character who needs redemption. Though his character is a criminal, his portrayal in the story is extremely noble and he often thinks of others and their wellbeing. The few instances of selfish moments are quickly pushed aside to showcase his more positive leadership qualities as he puts others before him. If Parent was trying to write a criminal, anti-hero like that of Vin Diesel’s Riddick character, then it did not quite come across. Seb is still a fantastic character, easy to identify with, to follow along and root for, but he does not come across as a character who has done a tremendous amount of egregious activities in his past to merit his punishment in the desert mountains with the other characters.
Regardless of Seb’s portrayal, his predicament is extremely relatable to readers, especially in the current period. Though probably written in the “before times,” Eight Cylinders manages to tap into the fears and emotions many are feeling during the COVID-19 pandemic: trapped and wanting to escape, but unable to leave their homes (desert camp) due to a deadly virus rampaging around (mountain tentacles). The purgatory nature of the book echoes the never-ending nature of the pandemic that currently does not seem to have an end in sight.
Clocking in at 102 pages, Eight Cylinders moves as fast as the cars within. The novella combines aspects of the pursuit genre with Lovecraftian monsters to create a gripping (be it armrests or steering wheels) tale that is fully loaded.
Links
Eight Cylinders can be purchased at the Crystal Lake store or at your bookseller of preference.
Jason Parent can be reached at the following platforms: