09/10/2025 Exploring the Labyrinth by Kit Power: Shades, essay 13
- Candace Nola
- Sep 10
- 7 min read
Exploring The Labyrinth
In this series, I will be reading every Brian Keene book that has been published (and is still available in print) in order of original publication and then producing an essay on it. With the exception of Girl On The Glider, these essays will be based upon a first read of the books concerned. The article will assume you’ve read the book, and you should expect MASSIVE spoilers.
I hope you enjoy my voyage of discovery.
Shades
And so, we reach something of a milestone in this project; the first of many Keene titles that are collaborations. In the case of this novella, the story is set in a town that features heavily in the work of Geoff Cooper, according to the author’s note at the start of the book. I also understand that Levi, one of the principal protagonists of the book, is a recurring figure in Keene’s own Labyrinth mythos (and if I’m right about that, good, because he is, on the evidence of this outing, a fascinating character).
Shades is, at heart, a coming-of-age story, in which a 12-year-old boy from a deprived background, with a neglectful alcoholic single mum, is taken under the wing of an older, wise mentor who tutors the child in the ways of magic.
In and of itself, this is a story template that has transcended cliché to become an outright archetype, of which the Harry Potter multi-billion-pound franchise is only the latest incarnation. Still, looking at Potter and this work side by side does tease out some fascinating differences that I think help shed light on why Shades is such a superb novella. So, let’s do that.
First up, there’s no Hogwarts here; the fact of Danny’s burgeoning magical awakening does nothing to affect the reality of his day-to-day: attending school, negotiating his somewhat one-sided friendships with the gang of kids he hangs around with, and attempting to manage his alcoholic mother. Sure, Levi’s gruff friendship and tutelage provide a welcome respite for the kid; an oasis of relative calm where he‘s free to explore his newfound abilities, but still, his material social reality is fundamentally unchanged. Indeed, as the narrative develops, it’s made worse, as his newly expanded reading material brings him to the attention of one of his teachers (who is not what he seems), and as an attempt to use his newfound powers to cure his mother’s alcohol addiction goes seriously wrong. Additionally, his friendship with his gang is destroyed when one of their member, having been possessed by the reanimated soul of a career criminal, attempts to rape a classmate, and Danny doesn’t just intervene, but also informs on his friend to the authorities.
This last is an especially heartbreaking moment; Danny does what is unambiguously the right thing, in both preventing and reporting the attempted rape, and yet the impact on his social group is instant, seismic, and permanent; the breach of boy’s omerta an unforgivable sin. By this point in the book, we’ve already gotten a sense of how fragile Danny’s position in the group is, and how one-sided and conditional the friendship of the other boys is; still, I found myself genuinely upset as that friendship deteriorated, and as Danny realised just how precarious and conditional that friendship had always been. It’s a canny and utterly plausible account of the teenage boy pack mentality, and Keene and Cooper tell it with both empathy and an unflinching, pitiless honesty.
But all this is to illustrate a wider point about class. Put simply, Danny and Potter are both, at the start of their stories, blue-collar kids with troubled home lives. However, while the Rowling version of the story swiftly becomes a narrative of wish fulfilment, as Potter discovers his parents were heroes, he’s actually fantastically rich, and he’s off to stay at the coolest boarding school in the world, for Danny, his material reality remains as difficult to navigate as ever; only now, he had the added complication of having access to a power, tied to his emotional state, that has enormous potential but over which he has only tenuous control.
Keene is an unapologetically blue-collar writer; that’s a product of his own background but also reflects the audience he explicitly states he is writing for, and that focus is also reflected in his characters. There are no secret millionaires here, no secret destinies (with the possible exception of Terminal, the ‘Author’s Preferred Text’ version of which has become a matter of intense interest for me). On the rare occasions we do meet the mega-rich, like Ramsey in City Of The Dead, they are presented as almost alien in their pathology.
Keene plays his own personal politics pretty close to his chest, and he’s obviously perfectly within his rights to do so; still, I find this aspect of his work both interesting and suggestive. Certainly, the other artists that I immediately think of with a similar focus, King and Springsteen, also produce work that is small-p political, often with a focus on the working class, and that is part of what shines about their work, to me. And look, cards on the table, I think all art is, inevitably, political, especially prose novels. When you write about people, with infinite choice in who and what you write about, decisions like this matter; and that Keene is concerned to present stories about a group otherwise much underrepresented, and frequently maligned elsewhere in popular fiction, is, in my view, very much to his credit.
Not to mention, it plain makes for better stories; or, at least, better horror stories. Horror, after all, is at base about what scares us, and loss of agency is surely one fear that is close to universal. By focusing on blue collar protagonist, Keene reminds us that this particular horror is never far away from someone who lives paycheck to paycheck without health insurance, for someone entirely reliant on a spouse for financial and/or caring support; or, for that matter, for a twelve-year-old boy with an alcoholic mother and fragile, one-sided friendships.
With that in mind, Keene and Cooper understand the introduction of magic to such a situation is a double-edged sword, if not an outright time bomb, and would be even without an evil antagonist in the mix. Danny’s wrestling with the fact of his newfound power, both in terms of its potential impact and its limits, is at the emotional core of this book. We get to see this conflict both from Danny’s point of view and also that of his mentor, Levi, who is one of my favourite characters in this entire project to date. Levi understands all too well the problems Danny is facing, and the dangers of his increasing awareness of his power alongside his immaturity; but Levi also understands the inevitability of Danny’s discovery and tries his best to provide wise guidance and counsel, to try to steer Danny towards a less destructive path. At the same time, the power of the villain he’s up against means Levi has to be brutally pragmatic about both Danny’s power and his weaknesses, and the way the final conflict plays out shows both Levis deep wisdom, and a level of cynical realism that is painful… not least because his assessments are ultimately proven correct.
It’s clear from the narrative that Danny features as an older character in other work by Geoff Cooper, and my only (very) minor complaint is the sense that there’s a wider story that I’m missing out on that is only hinted at here. That said, the narrative overall stands on its own terms admirably, given that it’s incorporating mythos elements from both authors, and it feels consistent in both story and voice.
More than that, this feels like one of the most accomplished works in this project so far. The magical system is well described and instinctive, the villain and his plot well drawn and admirably creepy, and the novella zips along with trademark Keene pace and incident. Above all, though, it’s a vivid portrait of small-town blue-collar kid desperation; that feeling of being out of control, with more responsibility than you can handle, and where the stakes for failure are unreasonably high.
Shades feels like a significant piece of work in the Keene cannon; pulling together many of the themes that have preoccupied the author to this point, and elevating them in a taut, well written narrative that wastes not a single word in telling a rich and moving tale of childhood magic, as well as introducing, in the person of Levi, a fascinating and deep portrait of the Wise Man/Wizard/Mentor archetype. The novella pulls off the impressive trick of creating a character that feels simultaneously mysterious and known; archetypical, even mythic, and yet real, flesh and blood, tangible. I enjoyed Shades a great deal on its own terms, but I’m thrilled to find out what Keene and Levi have in store for me as this project continues.
Next up: Jack's Magic Beans
KP
6/10/19
LINKS TO WORKS BY BRIAN KEENE:
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BIO FOR KIT POWER:
Kit Power is an author of horror and dark crime fiction novels, novellas, and short stories, also a reviewer, essayist, and podcaster. The Finite, A Song For The End (BFA finalist, 2021), and Millionaire’s Day (BFA finalist, 2025) are his most recent fiction works; three novellas with interconnected elements that bring the apocalypse to his hometown of Milton Keynes in three very different ways. He encourages you not to read too much into that.
When he’s not gleefully visiting destruction on his hometown (fictionally), Kit writes non-fiction (much of which is collected in the two-volume My Life In Horror tomes, available wherever books are sold), reviews, blogs, and podcasts on subjects as diverse as Sherlock Holmes, Bruce Springsteen, and short horror fiction.
And if you enjoyed what you just read, please back his Patreon and buy his damn books, because the man needs to eat. Thanks.
Find Kit at the below links:
Find his podcast feed at https://talkingrobocop.libsyn.com/
Find his Patreon (free membership gets you the newsletter, as little as a $1 a month gets something new every week) at: Kit Power | creating Blog posts, Podcasts, Reviews, and Stories long and sho | Patreon
Find him on Bluesky: @kitgonzo.bsky.social
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