Next of Kin: A John Cleaver Novella

“I died again last night.” It’s a compelling first sentence to a novella told from the point of view of Elijah Sexton, a demon, and it promises a different and exciting new start to Dan Wells’s JOHN CLEAVER series. Sexton drinks memories. For a time, he killed people himself, “topping off” his memory as he pleases. Soon, though, imbued with a hundred thousand lives, he could no longer bear to kill. Instead, he works in a morgue and drinks the memories of the newly dead. He lives "from death to death, sometimes two weeks, sometimes three, holding on as long as I can while my brain slips away like sand in an hourglass, grain by grain, loose and crumbling, until I can barely remember my own name and I have to find another. I drink their minds like a trembling addict, desperate and ashamed." Other demons mock Sexton for loving humans, instead of using them, but his intimate contact with them made him a de facto member of the human race, his real self lost in the “overwhelming crowd” whose memories have been left in his brain: "I’ve lived as a banker in Nebraska, as a soldier in the Confederacy, as a Portuguese sailor in the Age of Exploration. I wove silk in the ancient dynasties, I fought and died on the banks of the Nile. The memories sink and surface like flotsam, more painful every time. How can I kill my own heart? How can I hurt them when their joys become my own? So I wait for them to die, and then I drink in peace." From the very beginning, then, it’s hard not to like, and even feel sorry for, Sexton. He has few friends; his one deep connection is with a man named Merrill Evans, a man suffering from a loss of memory that appears to be Alzheimer’s Disease. Evans is confined to the Whiteflower Assisted Living Center, which Sexton visits regularly. This is a demon with a conscience, a demon even worthy of pity. He is very nearly as fascinating as is John Wayne Cleaver, the star of Wells’s books. The action begins when Sexton begins to lose his memory a couple of weeks after taking his last draught, a man named Billy Chapman who appears to have died of exposure, who was married to Rosie and loved her deeply. Sexton’s memory always goes quickly towards the end of the period between his drinks, and it is soon apparent that Sexton will need to drink from the very next corpse that comes through the morgue, regardless of its cause of death (Sexton tries to avoid the worst types of deaths, as they are too horrible for him to relive; drowning is especially awful). It is fortunate that a body arrives that appears to be another exposure case, and Sexton drinks him without thinking twice about it. But the drink makes it immediately obvious that the man was killed, and Sexton recognizes the murderer. It’s time to leave town, but Sexton loves Rosie just as Billy did, and he can’t bring himself to leave her. So the machinery is set in motion, even if John Cleaver hasn’t appeared yet. The way Wells works this story in and around his novel, The Devil’s Only Friend, is masterful. The novel is narrated by Cleaver in the first person, so that what Sexton tells us in this novella fills in some blanks — though ultimately, those blanks are only blanks of emotion, rather than of events. It’s possible to read the novel without having read the novella, but the novel is richer and deeper if the reader has the melancholy of the novella as background. Wells impresses with his ability to weave the two stories around one another. And Sexton has a poetry about him that Cleaver doesn’t, making the prose unexpectedly lovely for a horror novel. Read Next of Kin either before or after you read The Devil’s Only Friend; it contains no information necessary to the enjoyment of the novel, and the novel will not spoil it. I’m glad I read it first, so that I already had a sense of Elijah’s character, and someone to root for in what is becoming increasingly clear is a war by humanity against the demons. It is a surprisingly gentle tale the complements a violent, angry and disturbing one. Originally published at Fantasy Literature website. 4.5 stars rounded up to 5.

I was excited when I saw that Dan Wells made a novella of John Wayne cleaver! The only bad thing I have to say was that the novella did spoil some of the plot for the ‘The Devils only friend,’ but it’s still enjoyable to read from a different perspective.

I was bored on a bus ride and this novella was a nice way to pass the time. Super interesting to see the inner workings of a Withered and expand the lore of the universe. It's been a while since I read the first three books, so I used this as a reintroduction to the John Cleaver world.

The John Cleaver series continues to impress me. It has some elements of other stories I love. Yet I have never read anything quite like this series. If you are reading this review you must be trying to decide if this short story is worth you time and money before reading book 4. If that is you I would highly recommend it to you. I have read book four. What this short story does is gives you the backstory of a character that you will meet in book four. It is also just a heck of a good story on its own. If you do read this first you will be privy to what is going on with this character. While John is wondering about him you as the reader will already have understanding. There are a few moments in book four that are even better if you have read Next of Kin. If you don't read this first then there will just be a little more mystery for your first time through The Devil's Only Friend. If you do read that first I would still say reading this is very much worth it. Short it is but totally worth it. Dan Wells is a fantastic author and the more time I get to spend in this world is always a good idea to me.

NOTE: Any summary of this book, including those in reviews, will contain spoilers for The Devil's Only Friend. Please read that book before proceeding. This story is basically a tie-over between the first and second John Clever trilogies. John himself is not the main character. Instead, we have Elijah, who is one of the "demons" of the sort John encountered in the first trilogy. However, he has no interest in destroying humanity. Instead, he seeks only to live his own life and to improve the life of a man who lives in a home and has no ability to form new memories. Unfortunately for Elijah, his demon comrades aren't about to leave him alone. As always for Wells, this is very well written and enjoyable. Cons: considering the price and size of this book, the typeface is unnecessarily small. It isn't unreadable, just surprising. Update: After I read this, the next John Cleaver book, The Devil's Only Friend, comes out. Unfortunately, one of the main tension-filled plot lines was completely spoiled by this book. I'm extremely disappointed. I highly recommend reading that book before this one, if you want to read both.

Well Damn it. Dan Wells did it again. I was so happy when I heard that Wells would be continuing the adventures of John Cleaver that I had to get this novella as soon as I could. I am not going to spoil a thing, but it's definitely the style of the first three books and from a different characters perspective. I bought this book on the 3rd of July and read a couple of chapters before bed. I was so tired. But the next morning I started it again so I didn't miss anything and finished it that morning. I just love this world that Wells has created and I love these characters. The style of writing is intelligent and easy to understand. I had no problems following what was going on. My only problem is that it didn't feature a character from the first trilogy that I was interested to know what was going on with. Guess I'll have to wait a year. I finished this novella wishing I had a novel, or two or three in my hands. I could read about these characters weekly. I would read the hell out of a serialized version of this book.

I liked this a lot and it gave some insight on the others. It really set the stage for the next books to come.

This is a spectacular story that packs an emotional punch. I couldn't put it down. I can't wait to read the second half of the John Cleaver (Professional Psychopath, rofl) series and learn more about this unique character.