THE EXCAVATOR by J. M. DeMatteis (with Vassilis Gogtzilas)

Hot off the digital press is THE EXCAVATOR, a new novella by J.M. DeMatteis, copiously illustrated by Vassilis Gogtzilas with a cover and ten interior illustrations. The pair previously collaborated on the AUGUSTA WIND comics.  Details on the new book, including many of the illustrations and a long sample, over on the publisher's site.

I've written more than once about my affection for many of DeMatteis' comics before, a field he's been prolific in for over four decades. His prose fiction is much more rare, with only the novel IMAGINALIS and the prose sections of ABADAZAD before this (both very enjoyable). While those were children's literature, heavily influenced by classic work by the likes of Lewis Carroll and L Frank Baum, this new one is definitely an adult story.

I highly recommend it, and it's a bargain at 99 cents (even better, included with Kindle Unlimited in Canada, not sure about other places). It moves fast, has a lot of twists, ends up in an interesting place and manages to put in a lot of emotional depth intertwined with the fantasy narrative.

Might spoil some stuff best discovered in reading after this point.

It begins very much like a classic TV anthology show, like the TWILIGHT ZONE (a show DeMatteis has some experience with), with the story of a woman who suddenly finds that all the memories of one of her children have vanished. This is disturbing enough, then she finds the memories are being held for ransom with the threat of more erasures, or excavations as the blackmailer calls them.

At this point I think I've got a handle on it, it's going to be a ZONE thing (or maybe BLACK MIRROR, with some early references to dark web crypto payments for the ransom). But then the FBI get involved, and it becomes more of a dark action/horror story, with hints of police procedurals. Then there are several more twists. Very well paced, and very well told in a visual manner as you'd expect from someone with as much comic book and screenplay experience as DeMatteis, every step of the way I could see this mentally as a comic book or as a movie. The Gogtzilas illustrations help with that as well, all moody and full of foreboding. I did have one little plot quibble still open at the end, but it was minor, and I may just have missed something.

It ends in a place where there could very much be further stories in this world (in fact, I wouldn't be surprised to one day see this adapted as the two-hour pilot to an EXCAVATOR series for one of the fifty streaming services available now). If there are, I'll be there for it.