In his triumphant first foray into full-length novels, Joshua Dagon has unleashed the rich and compelling tale of the fallen angel, Marbas, and the circle of friends who risk everything to oppose a dark and growing evil. Set in the vainglorious world of the Los Angeles club scene, these novels adeptly confront dogma, addiction, ambition, and revenge with the powerful forces of optimism, friendship, redemption, and above all, love.
By the end of The Fallen, readers are whole-heartedly caught up in the lives of the characters, and upon completion of Demon Tears, they long for another chance to laugh and cry with Joshua Dagon’s beautifully crafted characters.
Nicholas Reynolds had messed up: he’d taken two party drugs that didn’t get along with each other. Now, his glamorous Saturday night plans had been reduced to throwing up in a thin, lightless alley.
Up until tonight, Nick had been doing well enough, even by Los Angeles standards. A model-slash-actor of respectable success, he was young, healthy, very attractive, and the hub of his requisite clique. He was generally popular and appreciated—although perhaps not enough by the guy he was dating who, interestingly, insisted they were not dating.
Though, what made this particular evening truly remarkable for Nick was not his life-threatening overdose.
No, it was the enormous demon who also thought Nick’s lightless, Hollywood alley might be a good place to hide...
Excerpt
Nick was only slightly alarmed by the idea of seeing a gargoyle in
the alley. He thought he was hallucinating. A little side effect of
mixing the wrong drugs, perhaps. It wasn’t common for him to get
warnings about possible negative interactions from freelance dealers
in, let’s call it, ‘amateur pharmaceutical services.’
Even though the first bump of Special K that his boyfriend gave
him back inside the club probably would have been more than
enough—considering that Nick had already downed two doses of the
GHB he’d acquired that afternoon—he didn’t refuse when Darren
went on to say, “Take two. They’re small.”
So, he took another hit of K. However, since he didn’t think the
little plastic bullet was working correctly, he did three more after that.
Had Nick waited just ten minutes before snorting the additional
hits of K, he might have reconsidered. He might have given himself
the chance to notice that the two compounds were enhancing each
other significantly—both of them being essentially central nervous
system depressants—and he was getting very high, very quickly.
Then again, Nick didn’t know the specific chemical distinctions.
He knew that K, or Special K, was a dried cat tranquilizer, which, oddly enough, made club dancing, among other things, a euphoric
pleasure for people. Also, he’d heard that GHB was really just a liquid
amino acid supplement, but was suffering from incredibly bad press in
the States. He didn’t understand why. He thought the stuff was
wonderful, and couldn’t possibly imagine ever having sex again
without first indulging in a little G-cocktail.
Although Nick was new at using it, the dealer he’d seen that day
did explain how to portion the GHB so it wouldn’t knock him out.
Nevertheless, it was a very busy weekend, and this very popular
amateur pharmacist’s apartment soon contained two more customers,
both of whom were consistently semi-bulk buyers. Consequently, in
his haste, he’d neglected to mention to Nick that mixing G with K
might make him sick—or even very, very sick—and that mixing G
with alcohol might kill him. Oops.
Darren didn’t know Nick had taken the GHB or he likely wouldn’t
have offered him any Special K at all. Nick wasn’t in the best of
moods. He took the second dose because Darren was acting like such
a jerk. No, Nick wasn’t going to refuse any additional drugs. So far,
his evening really hadn’t been very pleasant, and any assistance in that
area was therefore more than welcome.
Not only did Nick’s boyfriend not know what he’d previously
taken, he also didn’t notice when both the letters, the notorious G and
K, started to fight with each other inside of Nick and sent him running
to the men’s room.
The men’s room in a popular Hollywood club on a Saturday night
is the stupidest place in the world to which to run if you think you’re
going to be sick, unless you feel like getting the crap beaten out of you
for heaving all over the guy in front of you in line. Suddenly noticing
this, Nick took a deep breath, wiped the sweat off his face, got a
reentrance stamp from the bouncer, and ran outside to puke. He just
barely made it up the street two blocks, around the corner, and into a
secluded alley before he started vomiting uncontrollably.
The majority of the drugs had already been absorbed. Nick’s
awareness was quickly becoming considerably slim. He didn’t notice
when his knees buckled and he collapsed onto an empty cardboard
box, or that he’d already destroyed his four-hundred dollar pants, or
that there was an exceptionally large demon sitting in the shadows.
He was extremely disoriented and becoming rather light-headed,
having vomited the as-yet unabsorbed contents of his system in
several consecutive bursts, mostly Evian and Diet Sprite. He then had
to suffer his body’s vigorous attempt to continue vomiting for the next
several minutes. So, when the creature eventually spoke to him, he
certainly wasn’t ready to sprint away in fear. He did register shock,
but nothing near panic or terror, at encountering the apparent
apparition, and all the while felt only temperate curiosity that he was
talking to it.
Professional Reviews
The Fallen
With the right mix of fantasy, mysticism and portrait of the gay scene, The Fallen is a delightful book. Nick, Darren, Theo and Eddie quickly become dear friends and involve us with their questioning, experiences and happiness. A novel that offers entertainment, reflection and fantasy and that is very hard to put down once you have started. -- Delbert A Robinson Jr
Review: The Fallen
Joshua Dagon's The Fallen is a story, set in modern-day LA about a group of hot party-boys who stumble unknowingly into a battle between demons. Dagon's demons aren't all bad, though. In the demon Marbas the Black, for example, Dagon has found a hero who is beautiful and frightening, gentle and ferocious. He carries with him guilt at what he has done, and an unlimited resolve to protect those he grows close to. The backdrop of the City of Angels, with its decadent culture of sex and drugs, is the perfect playground for the supernatural.
Dagon guides the reader down the dark nighttime alleys of the home of the sun-soaked elite, exposing the terrifying underbelly of its soul. With each character, the reader begins to feel an understanding. While the heroes of the piece are certainly relatable, even the villains (like the half-mad with zeal priest who follows Marbas the Black to LA) garner some sympathy. These are not cookie-cutter copies of familiar personas. Through Dagon's careful dissection of each character's past the reader comes to understand why they do the things they do. There's a lot of backstory here, and bits of theology, mythology, and folklore thrown in for good measure.
It makes for one hell of an interesting read!
The Fallen is a delicious read, filled with wonderful detail, great attention to character, and as seductive a writing style as anything Anne Rice has ever composed. Dagon races along, telling the story with a freshness and wit (in fact, there are some big laughs) that seems to be sorely missing from many of his contemporaries. His is a highly recommended book. The story is continued with Demon Tears, as the chain of events that began in The Fallen are wrapped up and the mysteries explained. Though thick books, they read swiftly, and with Halloween approaching, what better time of the year to read about demons than now. -- Eric Arvin
The Fallen: Spellbinding
I predict that Joshua Dagon will be a force to be reckoned with in literature. His first novel, "The Fallen" is surely going to make people sit up and take notice. There are few authors around today who are able to craft characters as he does and at the same time infuse them with personalities that are extremely realistic. By the time I finished the novel I felt as if I had a whole new coterie of friends. I almost hated to close the covers of the book because I knew that once I did, my relationship with the characters would end.
I first began reading "The Fallen" after a long day at work dealing with new residents to Arkansas as a result of Hurricane Katrina and teaching two classes of freshman composition. I was completely worn out but I was anxious to get to the book. I did not stop reading until I finished it and it is quite a hefty tome--315 pages. There was something about the cover that said "read me" and so I sat down in my rocker and dug in.
This is not specifically a gay novel even though the main haracter is a gay man. It is more of a thriller that happens to have gay characters and that is the beauty of the latest in gay literature. It does not segregate us form the rest but rather includes us as part of the larger society. This is also a novel that takes place in the imagination as it spins the tale of the fallen angel, Marbas, and a group of friends who put everything at risk as they oppose a dark and menacing evil. And all of this happens against the background of the club scene in Los Angeles. There is even a bit of philosophy here as revenge and ambition and dogma are confronted by the forces of optimism, redemption and the strongest emotion of all, love.
Our main character is Nicholas Reynolds who had made made a series of mistakes in his life. As the book opens, he had taken in two party drugs that did not mix and what he had planned to be an exciting Saturday night out became a lonely night in an alley with him emptying his insides. Even with some of the mistakes he had made, his life had been progressing well in a world as an actor and in fashion, where many do not succeed or if they do it is for a short tme period. His sucess in both fields was amazing and he was young and good looking and was the leader of a clique of men that many wanted to be part of. He was popular and well liked and the only thorn in his side was the on-again, off-again relationship with his boyfriend who maintained that they were not boyfriends.
As we read, we learn that it was not the drugs alone that made this night a remarkable one. As Nick heaved his insides in that alleyway, there was another presence there. It is that presence that causes the plot of this book to move and it is that presence that keeps us reading. I do read a lot but it is rare that a book will keep me so absorbed that I read it from cover to cover in one sittting. "The Fallen" did just that. I was so engrossed that I did not even answer the phone when it rang. What is the best news of all is that the book is going to be continued in another volume---"Demon Tears" which is forthcoming in 2007.
I dare not compare the wrting style to another famous author who once wrote in a similar vein until she found religion (now there is a hint to keep you guessing) but I was reminded of her ability to hold the reader with her homoeroticism and compelling storylines. I predict that Joshua Dagon is on his way to a huge career in the field of writing and we all will be better off because of this. Get a copy of "The Fallen" and you will understand why. -- Amos Lassen, Literary Pride
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