Dark Theatres (Delta Green) [Paperback]

Delta Green: Dark Theatres was published in the Delta Green role-playing game's heyday in 2001. It is a sequel of sorts to Delta Green: Alien Intelligence (long out of print and difficult to acquire), a fact made clear by each short story's introduction by the editors (John Tynes and Bob Kruger). As a result, some of the fiction feels as if it's a part of a larger missing story.

Once More from the Top by Adam Scott Glancy is a retelling of The Dunwich Horror from the point of the Marines. It is intercut with dialogue between Delta Green agents and someone who was there. For some reason all of the current-day text is italicized, which makes it a bit difficult to read. There isn't much of a conclusion - we already know how the story ends - but it does nicely set up the fatalistic collection of short stories set in Delta Green. Four stars.

Night and Water by Dennis Detwiller is a World War II tale featuring the Karotechia. The twist ending comes across as a little "I'm rubber, your glue." It's not bad, but it differs considerably in tone from the more fatalistic installment by Glancy. Three stars.

Russian Dolls by Robert E. Furey freaked me out. It details SaucerWatch, a UFO investigative group who blindly follows Grey aliens to their ship and thence to another planet. It's basically a retelling of PROJECT SERPO (Google it). Knowing the truth behind the Greys in the Delta Green universe only enhances the eerie nature of what happens in this story. There's no redemption, no twist, no gotcha moment. The poor dupes trusted the wrong beings and are summarily experimented on like lab rats in a cage. Five stars.

As I See It by Greg Stolze is about an agent who becomes suffused with supernatural powers that he uses to combat evils from beyond. I run a Delta Green campaign and sometimes I think that the characters are a little too superheroic for the genre's setting, but Stolze confirmed that my take isn't unusual. Three stars.

Suicide Watch by Arinn Dembo is a retelling of Kurt Cobain's complicated relationship with Courtney Love and his subsequent suicide, wrapped in the warm confines of a King in Yellow tale. Dembo lends a noir vibe to the story; one of the characters is named Chandler. Her writing is superb--so good, in fact, that other stories pale in comparison. Five stars.

The Corn King by John Tynes is the weakest of the bunch because it relies on events that have happened and will happen in the Delta Green universe. Haven't read Alien Intelligence? Too bad, this tale won't make much sense. Two stars.

Good Night, Bach Ma, Good Bye by Benjamin Adams is an interesting tale about a nameless horror hidden in a mountain guarded by lepers. Because it doesn't have much connection to the Cthulhu Mythos or the Delta Green organization it feels only loosely related to the setting. It's like a different story was adapted to fit. Three stars.

The Fast Track by Martin E. Cirulis features an agent turned by Nyarlathotep against Delta Green. Or it would, if anything was resolved by the end of the story. And yet it has a disturbing side in a pregnant agent whose spawn of evil gives her an advantage against the dark. It's those kinds of moral choices that make Delta Green worth reading. A fitting bookend to match Glancy's equally grim tale. Three stars.

I enjoyed Delta Green: Dark Theatres as much for the craftsmanship of the authors as for an insight into how Delta Green plays out in fiction. It's clear the authors/game designers don't always agree; Glancy is fatalistic, Detwiller is pulpy, and Stolze is superheroic. The best of the bunch, Dembo, isn't a game designer at all, but Dark Theatres is worth picking up for her tale alone.

DELTA GREEN is the modern adaptation of Call of Cthulhu. Drawing on the same body of UFO lore and paranormal activity as the X-Files, DELTA GREEN has tapped into something very deep. And of course, once you have a successful RPG, you might as well start the fiction flowing, right?

Dark Theaters has some fairly lenghty short stories, designed to flesh out the world of DELTA GREEN. Some clues and hints are elaborated on; what exactly happened during the fabled raid on Innsmouth in 1928? What was the final mission of Gen. Fairfield? We find out more about the summoning by the Karotechia that was a dress rehearsal for the end of the world, but the entirety of the episode remains tantalizingly removed.

Dark Theaters, like the rest of DELTA GREEN fiction, is about what it means to be human. Or not human. The monstrosities which are called up and cannot easily be put away serve to highlight our humanity. But in the end, humanity is just short-hand for a fundamental incomprehension of the universe. We are carrying on a rear-guard action against reality, buying our fellow-man time for ... what? To say that humanity loses in the end is to pretend that there are other players, rules agreed upon, some validity to having tried and lost. Life is a game of solitaire, and we're not playing with a full deck. All is meaninglessness, a blowing of the wind.

And yet humanity means staying in the game. Like Lucifer, the real patron saint of lost causes, we know that we will lose and darnit, we are going to keep playing the hand we were dealt. It gives meaning to life, death, and the passing of the seasons, the sacrifices we have made and those we have sacrificed, to play by the rules, even if there aren't any. So let us cheer for the hero and jeer for the villain, and not go gently into that dark night.

This anthology of Delta Green short stories presents a good introduction to the conspiracy/horror concepts of the DG world. Some stories are better than others, and each tale has it's own merits, but the story by Arinn Dembo stands head and shoulders above the rest. The story, a DG-flavored explanation of the life and times of a rockstar who closely resembles Nirvana lead singer Kurt Cobain, is truly fantastic in my opinion. I'm probably a bigger fan of the story because of the unsolved mystery of Cobain's death, but it's well-written and sucks you in with a mixture of present-time and flashback sequences. I recommend the book as both an introduction to DG, and as a source of fresh new historical fiction authors.

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