Synopsis:
“The voice in Veil is as present, strong, charming, singular, and desperate as any I’ve read. The story of a family man who will stop at nothing to protect those he loves. Even if those threats are beyond sanity, reason, and a once agreed upon reality. Janz has written another absolute gem of the genre.” —Josh Malerman, New York Times bestselling author of Bird Box
From beloved horror author Jonathan Janz, Veil is a heart-stopping story of one father who will stop at nothing to save his family.
It begins at night. People vanish from parks and city streets. Then in broad daylight, they’re dragged screaming into the woods, into the water, into the sky. People take refuge in their homes, but still the invisible creatures come, ripping people away from their horrorstruck loved ones. Spouses. Parents. Children. Nowhere is safe and no defense can stop them. Because nothing can save you from what you can’t see.
High school teacher John Calhoun loses his son the first night. A day later, they take his wife. For two months, he and his thirteen-year-old daughter manage to survive, but in the end, she is abducted too. In John’s darkest moment, he meets a motley group of survivors who have a secret: a near-fatal car accident has given one of them the ability to detect what normal human eyesight cannot.
The survivors believe they can replicate the brain injury that will enable them to see the creatures. To discover how they’re invading our world. To fight them. Desperate to save his family, John volunteers. And after the veil of invisibility is lifted, he and his new friends will risk everything to achieve the impossible: enter an alien world and bring their loved ones back.
Review:
Let me get this out of the way up front: I am, unabashedly, a Jonathan Janz hipster. I’ve been reading and reviewing his stuff for damn near a decade now, going back to his days as a new small-press horror author with Samhain Publishing, onto Sinister Grin Press, Flame Tress Press, and Cemetery Dance. I can count the number of his books I haven’t (yet) read on one hand, and they consist only of Marla — published as a limited edition by Earthling Publications with a print run of only 500 copies, plus 15 lettered, traycased hardcovers — and Tales From the Shadow Side, another limited release published by Thunderstorm Books, first as a hardcover limited to only 60 copies, and then as a limited, exclusive paperback edition. I have hardcover copies of both books, and of the stories collected in Tales From the Shadow Side I’ve read most of them elsewhere. I will get around to Marla one of these days, I promise.
Make no bones about it, I am a loud and proud Jonathan Janz fan. I tell you all of this so that you’ll know where I’m coming from when I tell you that Veil is immediately noticeable as a step-up in an already strong career of a gifted horror author. Children of the Dark still holds top-spot as my favorite of Janz’s works, but Veil is an immediate top-five contender at the very least.
I don’t know if it’s a culmination of Janz’s experiences as a writer, teacher, father, and husband, or possibly a boost in editorial and developmental support from his new team at Blackstone Publishing, but Veil has a definite next-level feel to it. There’s a pathos and empathy to it that, while certainly not absent from Janz’s previous works, feels more honed, not to mention a stronger sense of authorial confidence. Janz knew what he wanted this story to be, and if it wasn’t easy to write he certainly makes it look that way in the end.
Movie critic Roger Ebert once said, “It’s not what a movie is about, it’s how it is about it,” meaning that the execution of a story can be more important than the plot itself. It’s a sentiment I believe applies to books, as well. Janz’s execution in Veil is assured, presenting a story of an apocalyptic alien invasion through first-person narration of an everyman archetype. It’s easy to slip into John’s shoes and feel the chaos, the unknowing, the uncertainty of it all. At times it’s scarily familiar, echoing recent concerns from the covid pandemic, like grocery stores becoming hotbeds of both political and societal unrest, as nationwide lockdowns are instituted in an effort to keep people safe from an unseen killer while humanity engages in dick-waving contests to see who can be the bigger threat and/or the bigger moron, often at the same time.
Furthermore, Janz’s approach to the alien invasion itself is high-concept horror done right. Rather than going the route of the tried and true invading space force wreaking havoc with massive ships and laser beams, Janz finds a far more interesting way to truly personalize the effects these marauders have on society. The aliens themselves are an unseen threat, ripping holes in our dimension to abduct people seemingly at random. It starts off small and then escalates, pushing humanity to a breaking point, and is frighteningly effective the whole way through. They way John’s fellow Americans respond to this latest threat is not only spot-on accurate and realistic, but actually lived through, because we all saw these reactions first-hand as plenty of our fellow countrymen let their masks slip, metaphorically or otherwise. There’s plenty of large-scale disasters, like a chaotic evacuation from the city by panicked motorists on a highway turned abduction site, and plenty of room for more personal ones, such as John and his daughter coming under threat from a neighbor turned tyrant, like some homeowners association’s president from hell. But when John joins forces with a small band of survivors, the plan they come up with to be able to see the aliens is not only intriguing but flat-out dangerous. It’s also the one element I wish were mined a bit more deeply, particularly in terms of side-effects and unintended consequences, which never feel quite as significant or hair-raising as they potentially could be.
Veil functions well as a standalone, but by book’s end I found myself hungry for a sequel. Janz has opened up a unique world here that offers terrific series potential with plenty of room for growth, not to mention long-term repercussions from certain choices made. Maybe it’s just my love for films like Aliens and Jonathan Maberry’s Joe Ledger books, but I couldn’t help but wonder what a military horror book would look like in the world of Veil with Janz’s imagination and knack for crafting frenetic, action-packed set pieces leading the charge. We get a taste it on the civilian front, and I certainly wouldn’t mind getting more. Veil is great on its own, but the potential for more is even greater.
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