Amoral Characters, Part 2

In my ponderings on amoral characters I've done some ruminating on Derrick Ferguson's Diamondback: It Seemed Like a Good Idea at the Time. The interesting, and perhaps subversive thing about It Seemed Like a Good Idea at the time is the utter lack of good characters--and by "good" I mean characters with moral fiber or some moral rectitude, characters that choose the right more often than they choose the wrong.


Derrick Ferguson's story is populated by sleazy tramps, crooked politicians, cops on the take, power-hungry crime bosses, and blood-thirsty assassins (and that's just the first few pages). Normally this sort of set-up leaves me cold, because I like a character I can root for--someone who is trying to do the right thing and is battling against the overwhelming forces of evil. However, there is something compelling about being in the thick of things while this assortment of sordid characters conspire against, double-cross, and then triple cross each other.

One of my favorite of Derrick's characters is the voodoo-practicing crimelord, Toulon, who weaves juju talismans into his dreadlocks and is rumored to keep his heart in a box somewhere outside of his body. Maybe I like him because he's a family man--his one redeeming quality--but that still doesn't go too far in offsetting the fact that he's a merciless killer that dabbles in human sacrifice to demon gods.

Because both Diamondback and my novel, Devil Take the Hindmost, take place in the same sandbox of the City of Denbrook (the brainchild of Mike McGee) our various characters sometimes cross paths. In fact, I borrowed Toulon and he appears in the pages of Devil Take the Hindmost just long enough for him to wind up with a chest full of lead fired from a .50 caliber Desert Eagle handgun.



You see...when you borrow someone's character it's important to treat that character with the utmost respect. And in Denbrook, the land of amoral characters, shooting somebody on sight is the ultimate sign of respect.