It is rumored that after music critic and producer Jon Landau saw Bruce Springsteen play for the first time, he stated that he’d “seen rock and roll future and his name is Bruce Springsteen”. Had I anything like Landau’s authority, I would use my platform to paraphrase him and say the same about horror, and Thomas Olde Heuvelt.*

I met Thomas Olde Heuvelt at the Midwinter Fair in the Archeon last november, where I was co-hosting the Paul Harland Prize awards ceremony with W.J. Maryson, and Thomas was one of the nominees. Based on excited reactions to his nomination on various forums, I’d already gathered that he had made quite a name for himself in Dutch-language genre fiction, and based on that (and, oddly enough, on his name) I’d assumed he was in his thirties or forties.

The first pleasant surprise (though age should not matter) was that he turned out to be 23. The second, even more pleasant surprise was that he did a reading at the Fair, and the short story he read was great. Then I got a chance for some conversation, and he was great to talk to, thoughtful, and that extreme rarity: a full-time Dutch genre writer. Then I learned he had not one, not two, but three novels out already, the first of them written when he was 16. Of course, I bought two, and got the pleasant surprise to end all pleasant surprises. The two books were so good I couldn’t put them down.**

Thomas is good. Thomas is very good. In fact, Thomas is so good it’s incomprehensible to me why his books don’t make the same splash a new Stephen King does. Or never mind King, think Koontz, or Straub, or even Timothy Powers***.

The first book, De Onvoorziene (The Unforeseen), is a classic Kingesque horror tale about a group of small town American friends confronting a monster in the woods around their town. While it is true that Olde Heuvelt had obviously payed close attention to King’s IT when he conceived the story, the setting, and the characters, the book would be impressive even if it was no more than that: a King emulation. But it is more. Much more. The novel truly bulges with talent. Olde Heuvelt switches between the points of view of the four friends without apparent effort and entirely convincingly, and even crawls into the monster’s head from time to time. That in itself is a feat not many first novelists could manage. He paints an immersive environment, appealing to all the senses to create a fully believable summer day in the deep forest. He brings the bond of friendship between the four protagonists to full, vibrant life like King at his best. He slows time to a crawl writing prose with abundant detail while keeping me completely fascinated, as only the likes of Koontz manage. When he dives into the flashback he needs to tell of the horror in Chris’s past, the emotion and tension are almost unbearable. And last but certainly not least: his horror is actually terrifying. Where King‘s Duma Key had me mildly worried, and Dan Simmons’ Song of Kali only slightly more concerned, De Onvoorziene got me spooked and had me looking over my shoulder in my own house.

Spooked, and impressed, and excited. Ask my wife about the excitement: every few pages I had to pause, turn to her and exclaim: “This guy is good!”

It’s a shame it was picked up by a small and obscure publisher, who apparently didn’t have an editor on their staff to polish the rough edges and cull some of the excess words.**** But only a small shame, because even without a couple of rounds of editing, the book is great. Not just great for a first novel, but great. If this is what Olde Heuvelt can do without an editor, I found myself thinking, I wonder what will happen when a real publisher picks him up.

Fortunately, that’s exactly what has happened. One of the two major genre publishers in Holland, Luitingh, has recently published Olde Heuvelt’s third book, Leerling, Tovenaar, Vader & Zoon (Apprentice, Wizard, Father & Son). This was the second book I read, and it delivers on the promise of the first. The talent is still evident, but this time the story is entirely the author’s own. There’s an economy of words that contrasts strongly, and positively, with the passionate verbal waterfall of the debut. No longer have the characters walked straight from an unwritten King novel; they are convincing, and emotionate, and dragged me right into their story. No monster in this book, or at least not the classical kind that lurks in the woods and feeds on fear; what passes for the monster here is all too human. And the other characters are all flawed, and fallible, and desperate; human, as well. Beautiful details, like the wife dying of cancer who writes a book of blank pages, and digs holes in her garden as a form of meditation; and death experienced as a collapse into dry autumn leaves; and a disturbing cubistic nightmare of unreality in one of the final scenes. The resolution is harsh and painful, but in a good way.

Is it perfect? Of course not. Where De Onvoorziene could do with just a little less words and passion, LTV&Z would have benefited from a little more. But I’m nitpicking now; it’s perfect enough for me.

In fact, the only thing that’s really wrong with LTV&Z is the marketing. The title suggests a classical s&s fantasy novel, and the cover art enforces that suggestion, but it categorically isn’t. This is a book in the style of Dean Koontz, with strong focus on normal people going through extraordinary and terrifying events. Or in the style of the aforementioned Timothy Powers, with magic and daily life seamlessly interleaving.

If you like any of the other writers I mention here, go get yourself an Olde Heuvelt book and start reading. If you’re an English reader, go bug your local bookstores until they start bugging their distributers to start bugging the publishers to buy the rights to this exciting “new” voice in horror land.