The saga of detective Thomas Pillar has supernatural and horror aspects that grip the reader with the force of a rail train.
   Madmen, lunatics, ghosts and demons live alongside a man who has been through hell in his mind.
   Pillar’s Fall is a new novel by former Collegian news editor and TCC student Ben Eden.
   “It is braver to confront hell and God,” Eden said. “I think you get a stronger faith like that.”
   As Pillar investigates a hideous murder, he finds another world that only he seems able to see.
   We call them ghosts, but Pillar is already wrestling with a ghost in his mind, and now he is coming closer to hell.
   The story starts off fast and never slows down, which is what Eden describes as getting horror to work.
   “I like stories that thrill on several different levels,” he said. “Having a good scary story is just a start.”
   Eden explained that good horror has many different aspects that hold the reader, such as drama, action, comedy and sometimes romance.
   Eden believes that the marriage aspect in Pillar’s Fall is just as compelling as the ghost and hell aspect.
   “I personally could not put it down once I started reading it,” Anne Drake, coordinator of the learning center on NE Campus, said. “I loved it.”
   Drake, after reading the book, became Eden’s personal cheerleader and helped in the publishing process.
   She found an editor for the book and helped design the book’s cover. Drake also offered her opinion on the book.
   “I am brutally honest with him,” she said. “I told him my thoughts on likes, dislikes and changes.”
   Eden is marketing the book himself because his publisher is a small start-up company that does not handle that aspect.
   Eden worked as the district news editor for The Collegian while pursuing his degree and credits his journalism classes with his foundation as a writer.
   He said that when writing for the paper, he had to stick to the point and make it incisive, which works for fiction as well.
   Eden has been writing since junior high school, and although he is keeping his day job for now, he hopes to make writing payoff one day.
  The first draft of Pillar’s Fall was written in two months with the entire process of editing and rewriting taking more than a year.
  “It kind of became its own monster,” he said. “I get my horror side from my mom; we would watch scary movies all the time together.”
   Eden explained that the conflict of good and evil has always fascinated him, and he is also influenced by classic horror movies and some new.
   The Exorcist and the Sixth Sense come to mind readily, Eden said, but also the sci-fi series The X-Files.
   Eden explained that he really got into the storyline of the Dougett character and was always thinking of ways to improve or change the story.
   “I wanted to make it better,” he said. “I think a lot of stories have elements of other stories in them.”
   Readers may pick up elements of The Sixth Sense in Pillar’s Fall, but Eden believes that seeing and talking to ghosts is the beginning and the end of the comparison.
   According to Drake, who is Eden’s second mom, he was always drawn toward the horror type story and good and evil.
   “I think he is a natural,” she said. “He has always been a writer and has always leaned toward horror.”
   Drake said she was blown away by the evil characters in the book and wonders where this preacher’s son gets this stuff.
   Pillar’s Fall is the first in a series of nine books planned by Eden, who points out that the characters were introduced in this book.
   The second book, which Eden has already finished, picks up where the first leaves off.
  “I see the series. I have it all worked out in my mind,” he said, “It all builds up from book to book.”
   Eden believes that the book is really about one man’s journey to God and the thought that every man has a higher purpose if he is willing to reach for it.
   Pillar’s Fall will soon be in every TCC library thanks to Eden, who is donating a copy to each campus.
   Eden had book signings in Denton and Fort Worth last weekend.
   Future signings include Saturday, Nov. 1, at Hastings in Stephenville and at Hastings in the Woodhaven Shopping Center 5 p.m.–7 p.m. and on Saturday, Nov. 15 at Hastings in Waco.
   Those interested in orders and reviews can check Eden’s Web site, at www.PillarsFall.com.