The Immortal

by John Tigges

Genres: Horror

400 pages, Mass Market Paperback

First published January 1, 1986

About the author

Tigges began his career as an author and writer in 1973. He wrote more than thirty-eight books under his own name and pen names "Ned Stone" and "William Essex."

In 1976 Tigges was commissioned to write Jean Marie Cardinal, an historical novel. Teaming with James Shaffer, he wrote Dubuque: The 19th Century, Dubuque: The 20th Century, Iowa’s Last Narrow-Gauge Railroad, and Railroads of Dubuque, Iowa. Tigges wrote such novels as Garden of the Incubus, Unto the Altar, Kiss Not the Child, Evil Dreams, The Immortal, Hand of Lucifer, As Evil Does, Vessel, Comes the Wraith, Venom, and Book of the Dead. Under the pen name William Essex he wrote The Pack, Slime, and From Below. He wrote Mountain Massacre, and Rails to Hades using the name Ned Stone. Tigges founded the Sinipee Writers Workshop and taught writing seminars in Iowa and Wisconsin.

Tigges made many contributions locally to the field of music. He established the Dubuque "Pops" orchestra and co-founded the DUBUQUE SYMPHONY ORCHESTRA in 1956. Tigges served as business manager of the symphony for ten years and played violin with it from 1958 to 1968 and again from 1971 to 1973. In 1972 Tigges founded the Julien Strings, a society string orchestra. He led the group and played violin.

Reviews

[Anthony · Rating 2 out of 5]

80's trash. It was obviously cashing in on the Satanic themes popular at the time in music and movies.
Nothing special here other than the frequent use of gay bashing terms, (fags, queers, the homosexuals, etc) Must have been in vogue back then?
The villian in this book makes a deal with Satan and when he is asked if he is attracted to a man, he responds that he would never partake in anything so wrong or abnormal.... LOL! Really?? and you worship the Devil? Give me a break!
If you enjoy a pretty fast, no brainer of a plot book with characters making stupid decisions, go for it.

[Ethan’s Books · Rating 2 out of 5]

One night, Riley was walking with his dog Grendel, through the fields that surrounded his small house outside of town. A light in the distance catches his attention and decides to investigate. Once up close his eyes can’t process what he is seeing. It was an old stone church he had never seen before and in the church he could see black robes dancing in a macabre fashion. Chants begin to rise through the night sky, an alter rest at the front of the church, and on that alter Riley notices a man tied to it. Two of the black robes move in closer and what Riley can barely make out is a knife in one of the black robes hands. With a sudden flash of the knife making its final plunge, Grendel, the dog begins barking gathering the attention of the black robes. Riley, startled, and not wanting to give away his position, made a run for it and bolted through the fields trying to get home as fast as possible. Trying to process what he just saw he decides to wait on calling the police considering it was Halloween night, it must have been some kind of weird witch religion thing he didn’t understand. Upon going back the next morning he finds an old bible and dagger. Beside that dagger on the concrete floor he sees a puddle of dried blood. He takes the Bible and dagger, and phones the police. The police/Riley show up to the old church bewildered when they see nothing out of the ordinary. The old church was clean and the dried blood was gone....

This book had some great scenes such as spontaneous human combustion. (Which is a real thing, in case you didn’t know. Yup, you can randomly explode at any moment. It’s rare, but it happens).

This book was a fast paced read! I sped through all 413 pages in two and half days!

All in all it was entertaining, a little long and repetitive but it was easy to look past.

[DJMikeG · Rating 2 out of 5]

I've read several books by John Tigges and enjoyed them, for the most part. His prose is so dang affable, even when the books are a bit padded, they are still mostly enjoyable reads. This book, however, really wore on my patience. I think that there is a good story in this book. With about 100 pages of padding trimmed off, and maybe some different story choices, you would have a satisfying read. As it is, though, I found it to be a bit of a mess.
The premise has promise, and I thought I would be in for yet another fun horror novel by Tigges. But instead, the premise is mostly wasted. The main characters hem and haw endlessly, and really annoying padding, like a character thinking over what had just happened in the previous scene, kill any sort of momentum. Also, the characters make terrible, unrealistic decisions over and over again.
All that said, there are some interesting seeds of a story in here, but unfortunately, Tigges didn't water the seeds to fruition, and we are left with this, a mess.
Tigges is a usually quite good horror author, in kind of a low budget, B Horror movie style. He wrote 16 horror novels between 1982 and 1994, and the quality varies quite a bit. This one would have to be on the lower end of his scale. I will definitely read Tigges again, as I have mostly enjoyed the books I have read by him, but I couldn't recommend this one, except maybe for Tigges Completists, if any besides me exist!