Whisper House Press

I picked up Rage on a lark, thinking it might be some kind of horror-sci fi mashup, and… it was not that, but I’m glad I took a chance on a book I wouldn’t have chosen had I read more about it. Here’s how I’d describe Rage: Maberry’s book reads like Tom Clancy for the modern era—without the weirdo baggage that guy carries with him into every novel.

It would be easy not to take a book like this seriously. How often did I laugh or chuckle aloud at the melodramatic absurdity the narrator and characters spewed on the regular? Often. At least once every other page or two. But what does that mean? I’m not sure. After all, I kept reading. At no point was I reading and thinking, “This is bad” as was the case at every chapter turn in a few Dan Brown novels I suffered myself to read back when they were the rage (so to speak). I don’t do that to myself anymore. If a book is bad, I put it down. If it’s not to my taste, I put it down with more respect. This book was not bad, and it appealed to my tastes.

So that suggests a question that might help a potential reader decide if this book is for them: To what taste did this novel appeal? It appealed to the version of me that watched all of the Jason Bourne and Mission Impossible films, the Capone who read the first four Richard Marcinko (founding commanding officer of Seal Team Six) books back before I reached the age of majority (when I did not grow out of these guilty pleasures). It was the Capone who sees every James Bond movie multiple times and will defend to my last breath that Skyfall is not only the best Bond film but one of the best movies ever made, the aspect of Capone finding Le Carré a bit soft and dry… it’s that part of me who loved this book. In fact, I immediately called a friend who works for the State Department and recommended it to him—FSOs will either love or hate this book, I figure—for the fantasy it portrays and for the clear battle lines drawn without a hint of moral ambiguity.

I have a feeling Maberry can churn these out half-asleep, but there’s a great skill about it. It’s not character-driven horror—my bread and butter—nor is it realistic fiction depicting the hard facts of realpolitik in all of its slow, indomitable action. It’s one thing following another in a tide of absurd one-liners and an unexpected amount of scrotum-punches, squeezes, grabs, and kicks. It’s a torrent of events. We don’t really care about these characters. Some are introduced obviously to fall. The third-person storytelling when the protagonist waits off-screen feels like what it is: a plot device designed to deliver to the audience what information it needs to keep them at least a little worried that the good guy (who it’s obvious at all stages cannot possibly fail) might get a boo boo while he’s saving the world.

So, is Rage great literature? Maybe. Probably not. But it’s not bad. It’s pulp, but it’s well-executed pulp. If I could execute half as well, I’d be proud of myself. There might even be a bit of symbolism buried in this narrative—something about rage being like a virus, the blindness that accompanies seeing enemies everywhere will destroy those who allow it to overtake their better instincts… maybe so.

Mayberry is a deft hand—an operator almost as skilled as his erstwhile titular character, Joe Ledger. And if you’ve got some of the same base urges as I—to see the bad guys get their asses kicked, the good guys win every fight (with a bro-side-hug acknowledging emotional trauma), and a bull-headed sense of morality take precedence over nationality and politics… Rage is for you.