The Fury

John Farris’ psychic horror thriller The Fury is an extremely 1970s novel. The horror story of psychic heiress Gillian Bellaver and the Sandza family consisting of father/agent Peter and psychic son Robin, it manages to have both the good and bad of its genre in full, making it a very “mean 51%” book.

The Fury has genuinely atmospheric tension, excellent body horror, and a serviceable plot that anyone who’s seen Carrie and/or Scanners can get into. It also has horrendously purple smut scenes and incredible pretentiousness. For every “good icky” scene like horror powers manifesting, there’s a “bad icky” scene like-well, pretty much all of the “naughty” there is.

Beyond that, it just has too much missed potential. There’s an entire metaphysical world described past the immediate characters that reminds me of the Warp from Warhammer 40,000, but instead of exploring that and the emergence of superhumans, Farris spends way too much time on middling action and not-so-middling character scenes.

Still, this is unique enough and good enough that I’d at least recommend giving it a shot. I can see different readers having different tolerances for its weaknesses.