Sabat, Bloody Sabat

It's tricky to know where to start today. You may recall I posted a while back with a book review (https://angerinamansuit.blogspot.com/2017/01/anger-in-dust-jacket.html) which quickly became one of my most read posts and I think it still is. But then, who wouldn't want to read about me waxing both lyrically and positively about a trashy 80s pulp novel where giant crabs take to the land in Wales and cause all kinds of bloodthirsty havoc? I've read a further two of the ensuing 6 sequels and they are just as delightfully schlocky nonsense as the first; man cannot live on crabs alone so I thought I might have a pop at one of Guy N Smith's other works. What to go with though? More rampaging animals perhaps in Caracal where said African wildcat cuts a swathe of destruction through smallholdings across the Shropshire countryside? Pretty sure there's one with a baboon too. Guy really digs African mammals apparently. Or maybe one of his supernatural efforts like The Sucking Pit which could easily be a euphemism as much as a location. When you're looking at blurbs though, there was a clear frontrunner; Sabat.

Check out the first few lines of the official synopsis:

"Mark Sabat, ex-priest, SAS-trained killer, exorcist, is a man with a dreadful mission. Driven and haunted, he has to seek out and destroy his mortal enemy."

How could you not be excited by that? Quite aside from having that absolutely weirdest career trajectory imaginable, Sabat already sounds like The Man. I can't imagine there are many trained killers knocking around the clergy, any more than I can imagine men of the cloth clamouring to get past basic training and learn how to garotte a man with his own shoelaces. Statistically though you might have thought there's at least one, but he isn't likely to want that as part of the public record.

Indeed, things start out fairly well. Not only is Sabat a bit handy in combat situations, he also has the uncanny ability to project his astral form while he sleeps for some nifty reconnaissance and plot exposition as well as using it to battle the dark spirits intent on doing all manner of shady business on the earthly realm. That's fair enough, but it seems that Sabat's brother was similarly talented but spent too much time as a kid smoking behind the bike sheds and shoplifting Wham! bars from the local newsagents and is now an agent of evil. Well, WAS an agent of evil, because he's now a disembodied spirit who has partially possessed his own brother after a mostly botched exorcism involving a .38 revolver. I kid you not; Sabat can add carrying the tortured evil soul of his own brother Quentin to his already shining CV. He also has a slightly unnerving obsession with his own erection which frankly gets weird much quicker than you might even have thought. I don't think I've ever had to read a one man sex scene before; creepy just doesn't quite have the right feel to it, but in the absence of a better word let's just go with that. Grim.

Plot wise, we're looking at a fairly standard Satanic cult that needs sorting out before they resurrect the very lifeless corpse of The Most Evil Man In The Village, but honestly I almost didn't get through enough to find out what happens. Where the Crabs series seems fairly light-hearted and full of James Bond-esque casual sexism, Sabat: The Graveyard Vultures (to give it its full title) is just outright rapey.

You might expect a Satanic Cult to be a bit evil so it isn't wildly unexpected when about two chapters in the cult leader with the wildly charismatic name Royston defiles a corpse in front of his butt naked coven. It's a whole load more uncomfortable when he decides to follow that up by raping and sacrificing one of the living witnesses directly afterwards. But, you know what, they're an evil cult, they're going to do that sort of thing. What you don't expect is your hero to get in on the action. That's right folks, Sabat is supposed to be the good guy here and he's just as bad as the guys he's meant to be stopping.

So at one point about half way through the book, Sabat is psychically attacked by the coven and he manages to despatch them down to the last demon who takes the form of Miranda the prostitute and fully paid up, if slightly unenthusiastic coven member. He proceeds to psychically rape her in order to defeat her which is shitty enough until he decides to go visit the real Miranda for more information. As she's a prostitute, she obviously tries to seduce our 'hero' before trying and failing to stick a knife in his neck so Sabat in his infinite wisdom rapes her to teach her a lesson. That is simultaneously the most uncomfortable thing I think I've ever had to read or write. She promptly falls for him of course and decides to betray her evil master which in turn leads to her being forced into sex with a skeleton before getting sacrificed herself. Second most uncomfortable thing I've ever written. Jeez...

I don't quite know how to feel about the whole thing. I thought this was going to be like the Exorcist with machine guns but it turned out to be something thoroughly different and not in a good way. I did finish it off, but only out of a sense of hoping there might be some sort of atonement or something. In those terms, Sabat does get his sorry ass saved by a kick ass woman who isn't doing it because she wants to hump him (despite the fact that the only emotion he can muster towards her is based on his constantly present hardon) but she's in it for 5 minutes. For shame. I mean you could probably excuse it as the evil of his brother poisoning his judgement and making him do questionable things, but that doesn't ever get referred to and is frankly a cop out anyway.

I'm really genuinely gutted if I'm honest. What was supposed to be a fun, trashy, escapist read ended up really sinking my spirits. Not only was the coolest sounding protagonist ever a total shitlord who was completely useless at actually doing anything heroic without ruining it by being a horrendous sexual predator, it's kind of put me off reading any more Guy N Smith. You could really easily have had the same story without all the sexual assault; it would have worked just fine and I'd probably be singing the praises of another fine piece of kitschy horror. I should probably have stuck with the goddamned caracals.