Halloween Town: 09/25/10

"Halloween Town" is the longest story in the October / November issue of Fantasy & Science Fiction. I remember liking the usual setting (a town down a very deep crevasse perpetually in shadow so that it's always twilight. Unfortunately the plot of the story hasn't stayed with me.

Clyde Ormoloo can see into the darkest recesses of a person's soul when he's in full light. So he has requested a move to Halloween town at the bottom of Shilkonic Gorge. The townsfolk don't take kindly to strangers so he has to work hard to win his place amongst them.

As with John of "John's Reading" I found the length a bit long. The novella is around seventy pages long. There's a lot crammed into the plot: a dead cat, potentially dangerous creatures living in a cave, a power struggle over the control of the town and ultimately Halloweentown trying to reinvent itself.

The tone of the story and the sense of an underlying dark mystery reminded me of The Santaroga Barrier by Frank Herbert. Of course the setting is completely different but there is a kinship in the mood.

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