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BEST IN SHOW: THE TOP FANTASY & HORROR WRITERS OF OUR TIME

There are lots of articles ranking the very best books in a particular genre, and there are also lists ranking the best writers and books of all time. Whilst a sense of hierarchy (this thing is more perfectly executed than that thing) is important in criticism, it should never come at the sacrifice of palette. The old-fashioned saying “Different horses for different courses” rings true: we go to certain genres and writers for specific experiences, whether we know this consciously or not. And so, I wanted this ranking list to work a little differently to most. Instead of saying who is the “best” (because of course we will all have different definitions of what constitutes “the best”), I wanted to showcase writers who excel at delivering particular experiences. Picture it like this: rather than looking at who is sitting on the biggest pile of gold, I instead wanted to point you towards the writers who possess very niche, gleaming treasures… I also exclusively wanted to feature living writers. I love the classics, but there are so many hugely talented authors working today.

Of course, this list—like all lists—is entirely subjective, but it might just help you to find the right writer to scratch a particular itch, a particular artefact you’ve long sought in the paradoxical desert of over-saturation. In addition, there are a good number of phenomenal authors who did not make this list, authors like John Durgin, Richard Thomas, Iseult Murphy, Brian Barr, Eric LaRocca, Anna Smith Spark, and more... The reason they did not make this list is no aspersion upon their literary abilities, and simply a reflection on the aesthetic focus of this article and the limitation of space!

So, without further ado, here are the best in show, my choice fantasy and horror writers and the particular delights they offer up. They have such sights to show you!

The best to make me believe in the supernatural… Lee Mountford

I had the privilege of meeting Lee Mountford in 2022 at the Self Publishing Show in London, a conference for independent authors run by Mark Dawson and James Blatch. He is one of the most kind-hearted and humble souls writing today. However, not only that, but his fiction is truly unique. He has taken the “haunted house” formula to another level of intensity, combining gothic verisimilitude with supernatural intensity. Lee Mountford’s Perron Manor, which is part of his Haunted series, will immerse you in the dark history of the eponymous house, a history so intricately interwoven with real history that you will find yourself Googling “Perron Manor” to see if such a place really exists. The mantle of reality cloaking Mountford’s work is, quite frankly, terrifying. With a torturer’s artistry, he makes you believe one small thing after another, until finally we reach a crescendo and come face to face with supernatural horror in its purest form—and are forced to believe that too.

It is shocking to see how quickly esteem can turn into infamy.”

Inside: Perron Manor

The best to make me care about f*cked up people… Christa Wojciechowski

Christa Wojciechowski is one of the most original writers working today. Her work is equal parts psychological horror, erotic thriller, and something altogether more mythopoeic. There were therefore a number of reasons to include Christa Wojciechowski on this list, from her startling and dark eroticism (which is so much more than pornographic, but almost spiritually harrowing) to her scalpel-sharp command of prose, but ultimately I settled on what may be her greatest gift: making me care about objectively awful people. Christa Wojciechowski has a unique gift for creating characters of rich psychological depth, and rendering those psychological interiors in ways that don’t feel expositional. Her characters are often broken, wrestling with addiction and vice, and many of them do terrible things in the name of love or in an attempt to survive, but somehow we still love them, forgive them, and care about them. Christa Wojciechowski has made me weep for abominable people, people who—were I in my right mind—I might wish were locked up. This is her dark genius, and I hope more people get to experience it.

If he only knew how good I was at tapping into veins, every one except the one of truth.”

Oblivion Black

The best to make me peer into the abyss… S. C. Mendes

I first encountered S. C. Mendes by chance. I was a big fan of the publisher Blood Bound Books and therefore monitored the books they released. They had put put a novel entitled The City, authored by Mendes. I confess, I did not pay it much attention at first, but then I heard online rumours in the form of cryptic reviews, rumours that the novel was not entirely what it appeared to be. One rumour used the phrase “lizard people”. Needless to say, my curiosity got the better of me. Nothing could have prepared me for The City. It is elegantly written and terrifyingly brutal, a vision of total horror that yet conceals in its gory excrescences a pearl of wondrous hope. It is a book of psychological layers, of Dantean ingenuity and spirituality, and not for the faint of heart. In short, The City was and is a totally life-changing book. There are many “extreme” horror authors out there, but I find much of their work lacks the spiritual power that a true hell descent mandates. Mendes will make you peer into the abyss, but not because he is a fetishist or likes violence or depraved sexuality, he will make you peer into the abyss because he has been to hell and returned to the land of the living to share with us its dark lessons.

The City seemed cold this time, but it no longer felt foreign. The carnival atmosphere was like a discarded lover: the terrain was familiar, but its company was unwanted.”

The City

The best to make me care about a relationship under duress… Dan Soule

Dan Soule is the literary James Herbert you did not know you needed in your life. His books take classic horror concepts, such as a mummy or an alien invasion, and transform them into heartfelt, modern, and epic narratives. His greatest talent, however, is his ability to describe relationships—whether a friendship, family relationship, or a romantic entanglement—that you immediately become invested in. Dan Soule understands that “no man is an island” and every individual is bidirectionally entangled in a network of relationships that continuously modify and define them. Balancing Dan Soule’s elegant relationship work, however, is the horror itself, which often threatens to tear the relationship apart, or else to warp it so out of shape that it is no longer recognisable or wholesome. The stakes of Dan Soule’s books are therefore always higher than high because we care so much about a particular bond. Dan Soule uses this tension to grip his readers by the throat. 

Dawn was still a distant shore for all those souls cast adrift on the night.”

Savage

The best to make me afraid of the woods… Steve Stred

I’ve been a fan of Steve Stred for a long time. There are so many things I love about his work, from his brutal, direct prose-craft, to his grounded and believable characters, to his interesting takes on religious and occult themes. However, there is one thing Steve Stred is becoming known for above all others, and with good reason: making people shit-scared of the woods. Many of his stories take place in the forests and wilds, yet the theme never seems worn out. As a competent outdoorsman, Steve Stred knows his way through the wilds, and he uses that knowledge to create terrifyingly believable works of horror that make me never want to see a tree or go for a night-stroll through the forest ever again. I may sound like I am being flippant, here, but we all know it takes consummate skill to imbue a familiar and beloved location with a sense of dread. Spielberg’s iconic film Jaws made an entire generation of people, multiple generations in fact, terrified of the water, and is rightly praised for this incredible feat to this day. Steve Stred is to the forest what Spielberg is to the sea, a maestro who can tap into our deepest fears.

His dreams that night were filled with visions of the trees swaying in the wind.”

The Stranger

The best at world-building… Carlton Mellick III

This might seem like a highly controversial choice. Surely, the title of best world-builder should belong to a classic fantasy author or someone writing alternative history novels. To my mind, however, Carlton Mellick III is simply untouchable when it comes to creating a world that is internally consistent and believable, yet also fantastical and totally surprising. Whether he is exploring the internal anatomy of a fallen kaiju (The Big Meat), a world of modern conveniences and metropolises populated by faeries, elves, and nymphs (Full Metal Octopus), or else a futuristic universe in which the population crisis has been solved by “combining” people (Biomelt), Mellick always delivers. His skill is in making the world-building an integrated part of the storytelling. There are no info-dumps: characters and their actions reveal the world’s mechanics organically. His concepts are outlandish—they don’t call the genre bizarro for nothing—and yet he makes them feel more grounded and realistic than the most pedestrian literary fiction novel. We believe not only that such a place could exist, but that all the people living in it are real too, and are products of this unique (and sometimes disturbing) world. Mellick has so many talents as a writer. He remains one of the only writers capable of making me cry when reading what is ostensibly tentacle porn. Yet, his world-building methodology is worthy of attention for anyone looking to write their own fiction and learn from a master.

At least his wings haven’t been clipped. At least he’s still beautiful, even if his beauty is only allowed to shine when he’s safe behind closed doors.”

Full Metal Octopus

The best to take me on a dark adventure… Rob J. Hayes

Rob J. Hayes is swiftly becoming a favourite author. I bought the first book of his War Eternal series based on the cover alone, but what I found within surprised and delighted me: a compelling, unique fantasy narrative that manages to hit all the fantasy tropes I love so well whilst making them new. The War Eternal is a five-part series (I am currently on the final book) that follows Eskara Helsene, a sourcerer (the spelling is significant) who is imprisoned for being on the losing side of a war. There are so many things to praise about this series: the narrative voice is astounding, the world-building is fascinating and well-handled, and the dialogue between its rogue’s gallery of characters will put a smile on your face and strike to the heart in equal measure. But, what I love most about The War Eternal is the story vivifies a feeling I had not experienced for a long time reading fantasy: that I was on a mythical, dark, but wondrous adventure. Whether we are journeying to the site of a terrible war between magicians, through an underground city of the Djinn, or to the floating city of the Rand, or to the bustling, phantasmagorical cities of Polasia, Rob J. Hayes’s story instills that sense of wonder and adventure that so enchanted me as a child reading every fantasy book I could get my hands on. In my view, this sense of adventure is sorely lacking from so much of fantasy these days, which tends to focus more on battles and politics (for those who enjoy these, however, there is plenty to be found in War Eternal). So, if you’re ready for an adventure, I highly recommend his masterful series.

They had always intended me to be a weapon used against the Terrelan Empire, but what if I was more? What if could be more? What if, instead of being a weapon used by one empire against another, I was a weapon to be used against a God?”

The Lessons Never Learned (Book 2 of The War Eternal)

The best to surprise me… Brian Bowyer

As a student of the five act structure, an editor, and someone who has spent a lifetime working with narrative and fiction, I find that I am rarely surprised these days. This isn’t as bleak a picture as it sounds, as I find a great deal more pleasure in the journey of a story as a result of my studies. For example, if the identity of a killer is going to be revealed, I usually find I’ve worked out who it’s going to be, so instead of focusing on the “surprise” of the reveal, I tend to focus on how the reveal is executed. It’s a different mindset, but yields just as much enjoyment. However, as you've probably gathered, everything I’ve just said gets thrown totally out of the window when we discuss the work of Brian Bowyer. When reading a novel by Brian Bowyer, I can safely say at no point do I ever know what is going to happen in the next paragraph, let alone in the next chapter. This isn’t because his books are full of random and meaningless events. His stories have a dreadful, inexorable logic to them, pulling you towards some moment of revelation or horror—or sometimes even heroism—that is totally unexpected yet hair-raisingly cathartic. Perhaps the greatest example of this is his novel Flesh Rehearsal, where a character on a dark and twisted arc suddenly arrives at a moment of transcendental redemption almost too epic to put into words. Bowyer surprises his readers at every turn—and yet you sense that he is not trying to surprise you. His work isn’t strained, or preposterous, or conceited, simply totally and utterly alive. Be warned, if you want to read Bowyer’s work, you are going to be faced with horror so demented and twisted it will turn the stomach of even a hardened veteran, but the horror is often worth it for the—here’s that word again—surprising glimpses of hope, love, and faith that emerge from the darkness.

They spoke of him on the radio again—he who was currently between names—and he didn’t like it. He turned the radio off. Much better. Now, the only sounds in his car were the rumble of the engine and the music of his tires on the road… He drove out of the hills into the city. With a couple of hours to kill, he decided to look for someone to sacrifice to the ancient gods of death.”

Flesh Rehearsal

The best to make me afraid of having sex… Nikki Noir

Nikki Noir is a truly original voice in dark fiction, combining eroticism, the occult, cosmic horror, and more besides. Her Black Planet series is a powerful coming of age story that plunges us into the depths of human depravity and supernatural evil, a tale of innocence in the face of cataclysmic corruption. One of the most brilliant aspects of her writing is the way she uses the erotic elements of her stories to cloak the dagger she is about to drive into your heart. She lulls us expertly into a false sense of security, titillating us with scenarios that are all too believable perhaps because they mirror the darkest human yearnings, only to then ambush us with scenes so horrifying they seem to have leapt from a John Carpenter movie. Nikki Noir is the sadomasochistic seductress of the written word who has frankly traumatised me into periods of abstinence.

Riley rose from Jordan’s crotch, letting the gore drip from her mouth, still praying to the dark quarters of the universe. Hopefully, the watchers were as satisfied as she was.”

Black Planet

The best to make me feel awe… Clive Barker

Most of the authors on this list are independently published. That’s because I genuinely read more independently published fiction these days. I find indie fiction is where the really interesting writing is happening, where authors are experimenting, taking risks, and painting unique landscapes upon the canvas of the human mind. However, that is not to say I only read independently published fiction, and credit has to be given where credit is due, such as to the great master Clive Barker. For many horror and fantasy writers, Clive Barker is where a love of the genre began, and it’s easy to see why: his prose is angelic, his imagination one of the most fecund to have ever found expression via the pen, and his ability to challenge preconceived notions of desire, morality, and beauty are frankly, to quote the great man himself, “legendary even in hell”. However, if I had to pick one faculty of Barker’s writing which most draws me to him, I would say it is his capacity to instil awe. In our modern world of cynicism, scepticism, and desensitisation, awe is a rare and beautiful thing. Yet, Clive Barker’s stories, whether short or long, almost unfailing evoke it. Barker writes like one who has tasted the magic of the world, fully imbibing it, so that it has become a part of his very being. Reading his work, we can taste a little bit of this magic too.

All his adult life, he’d asked why. Why God? Why meaning? Why love? Now he realized his error. The question was not why; it was why not?”

Everville

Thank you for taking the time to read this (very lengthy) article! I hope you enjoyed reading about these amazing writers, and that it played havoc with your TBR pile. Please do share this so others can discover the amazing work these writers are doing, and maybe find their new favourite author in the process! And lastly, if you have a particular author who offers up a particularly rare gem of experience you would like to suggest, please do leave a comment and let everyone know! 

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The Pallid Mask: unpacking the symbolism of masks in cosmic horror

The English occultist Andrew D. Chumbley once wrote, “mistake not the mask for the face, nor the symbol for the symbolised” and yet in this wisdom we see one of the central paradoxes of the human condition exposed: our fascination with idols and representations juxtaposed with a desire to lift the mask, pierce the illusion, and find the truth.

The human desire to fashion false images has been with us since the earliest beginnings, from the golden calf forged by the Jewish exiles in the Book of Exodus to modern day celebrity worship; virtually every history, mythology, and oral tradition tells us that human beings have always worshipped false idols. We have always, in other words, mistaken “the symbol for the symbolised”.

Nicolas Poussin: Adoration of the Golden Calf

But along with this has also been a quest to probe reality, whether through spiritual or scientific means. Both have merits and drawbacks, of course. But it is this enquiry into the true nature of things that drives us to constantly interrogate both symbol and symbolised, both mask and face, and ask the question of how we differentiate the two.

It is this vice, or perhaps a better word would be ignorance, that separates us from the animal kingdom, for animals do not inhabit the realm of symbols, and therefore only know of direct interactions with reality. Animals can, of course, perform deceptions: cloaking themselves, even disguising themselves as other animals, but these parlour tricks are mere sleights of perception, not of intellect. There is a world of difference between mistaking one animal for another, for example, and mistaking an image of God for God Himself.

And God—or one other phrase to use might be “true reality”—is really what we’re looking for in life, whether we consciously know it or not. All of us are born with a sense of profound connection to the universe. This is personified in the childish belief that if we point our finger at a plane and say “Crash” the plane will actually crash. We believe so strongly we are part of a whole system that our mere thought can influence another part of that whole, even condemn hundreds of lives to death. Of course, this influence can work positively as well, but most of us first encounter the potency of our own minds in a negative context as we test the limits of our own power (something children are hardwired to do). Unfortunately, adulthood—with all its pressures—often breaks our sense of connection and instils in us a belief that all things are separated. This leads to a yearning to know the true nature of reality—something we already knew, but have become ignorant of.

In The Matrix, we see the urgent desire brilliantly expressed by the character Morpheus:

What you know you can't explain, but you feel it. You've felt it your entire life, that there's something wrong with the world. You don't know what it is, but it's there, like a splinter in your mind, driving you mad.”

Morpheus in The Matrix (1999)

This desire is a longing to lift the mask and see the true face of the world.

Masks are in many ways the “other side” of symbols. A symbol is a sign that conveys meaning. Words are symbols, a mechanism to deliver meaning to another person. Masks, on the other hand, are often used to conceal a reality. However, in order to conceal something, we have to create a new reality—an illusion—to take its place. Thus, the theatrical masks of the commedia dell’arte, Japanese Noh masks, and the props of Venetian masquerade are all stylised to either resemble archetypal emotions or else fabulous monsters and beasts. Masks are lies that paint over the truth in order to forge a new one. Symbols, on the other hand, are an attempt to describe the truth. The problem is that symbols often obscure true reality just as much as the mask. The word “fire” is not fire. A map is not the territory. If you look at Everest on a map and place your finger upon it, you have not touched Everest. The map is useful, of course, in order to help us navigate the territories of life. But it is not life itself.

We need symbols, but we must also be wary of them. We need masks to function in society, but we must also be careful lest we begin to think of the masks around us as faces, mistake our own mask as our true nature, or even begin to think that insubstantial constructs are actual reality.

A great example of this is to be found in money. Money is not real. This is no new philosophical statement, it’s fairly broadly understood at this point. Money is a concept that is collectively agreed upon by the human race in order to help society function. It has no true meaning. It is not “real”. If all the banks in the world crash tomorrow, in reality, nothing with have changed, and there is no reason for any bloodshed or harm. But we all know, deep in our hearts, people will go out and kill one another if such an event occurs, all because of a symbol, all because of an illusory mask.

This is a form of madness our species is subject to. We have not evolved much from worshipping the golden calf. And the Pallid Mask created by Robert W. Chambers, author of The King In Yellow, is a perfect embodiment of this. For the mask brings madness to those who wear it. And soon, one cannot tell the difference between a mask and a face.

Camilla: You, sir, should unmask.

Stranger: Indeed?

Cassilda: Indeed it’s time. We all have laid aside disguise but you.

Stranger: I wear no mask.

Camilla: (Terrified, aside to Cassilda.) No mask? No mask!

But there is a flip side to this. Just as we must not mistake the mask for the face, we must also recognise that perhaps we are wrong to assume that face and mask are separate. In our quest to surgically divorce mask from face, symbol from symbolised, we violate the original unity of the universe. Intriguingly, in Carcosa, the dark fantastical landscape over which the King in Yellow reigns in Chambers’ mythos, masks and faces are often synthesised, made One in the all-powerful realisation of truth:

The mask of self deception was no longer a mask for me, it was a part of me. Night lifted it, laying bare the stifled truth below, but there was no one to see except myself, and when day broke the mask fell back again of its own accord.”

Man in the Pallid Mask by Adam Lane.

Perhaps then, this is the greatest wisdom? That there is neither mask nor face either, only the ceaselessness of here and now, the interplay of symbol and symbolised in the endless dance of the King in Yellow’s eternal court… When such a dance becomes ubiquitous, when all know its steps, a new era shall begin, perhaps not dissimilar from that described in “The Greater Festival of Masks” by Thomas Ligotti:

"For the old festival has ended so that a greater festival may begin. And of the old time nothing will be said, because nothing will be known. But the masks of that departed era, forgotten in a world that has no tolerance for monotony, will find something to remember. And perhaps they will speak of those days as they loiter on the threshold of doors that do not open, or in the darkness at the summit of stairways leading nowhere."

***

I hope you enjoyed this article on the nature of reality. If you want to read more about Carcosa and the Pallid mask, then you might be interested in my upcoming book inspired by Chambers, The Claw of Craving; you can listen to an extract from the first chapter, here. I’d like to take a moment to thank the incredible folk at Blood Bound Books, Joe Spagnola and S. C. Mendes, for being brave—or perhaps mad—enough to publish my take on the mythos.

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The Beauty of Carcosa

When I was eleven years old, a friend of mine, Rob, used to live near a large shopping complex called Castlepoint, in my home city of Bournemouth. Like me, Rob was an avid reader, and we would often make trips to the Castlepoint Waterstones (the UK’s equivalent of Barnes & Noble) together. Most of the time we would not even buy books—because buying them new was expensive—but simply browse the rows and rows of shelves. We shared a love of dark fantasy, but like many bookstores, one had to wade through the celebrity biographies and pretentious literary fictionsections to get to the good stuff: fantasy, science-fiction, and horror. These three profane genres, along with graphic novels and manga, were relegated to a secluded place on the first floor, right at the back of the shop, in a curious, windowless nook that took up only six feet by six feet. However, despite the fact our favourite genres had been hidden away, the shop manager possessed the wisdom to make something of this little nook (knowing it would call the most reliable and avaricious of reading addicts), laying out old armchairs, putting up fairy lights around the high, ebony bookshelves, and creating what seemed a little pocket out of time for those who loved fantastical tales, tales of wonder and magic and adventure and horror, tales that stretched the imagination rather than reinforced the bleak zeitgeists of modernity.

My friend and I would often spend hours sitting in that nook, taking books off the shelves and reading them while reclining in the armchairs, discussing our favourite stories, and of course writing our own, though we rarely set anything down on paper. In those days, storytelling was an ephemeral process—and that only made it more magical. I would spend weeks—and I do not exaggerate here, the man hours were absurd—crafting the most compelling narratives my tiny brain could conjure, only to use them all for a one-shot D&D campaign that we would never revisit. But that was their magic, the very fact that—like dreams—they would cease to exist the moment we decided to wake up. Some of my friends still talk about those one-shots; they have become our own personal mythology. They exert more power because we can never get them back, because they have no fixed form. Many writers would do well to remember the pure joy and escapism of this childhood creation. As a recent father, I now recognise that some of my best stories are tales I make up on the spot to help my daughter get to sleep. I wouldn’t dream of writing them down. They are for her, for the moment, and all the more beautiful for how they will fade back into the dreamscape from whence they came after they’re told.

This ritual of visiting Castlepoint’s bookstore with Rob continued for around seven years, until I was eighteen. The only reason we stopped going is because I went to university in another city. Our friendship was not impacted one jot—we’re still friends today, and still read like maniacs and share many books together—but all traditions have their endpoint. But before this end came, Castlepoint Waterstones had one last gift to give me. I am fairly convinced, in fact, it is the last book I ever bought there.

One day, I was browsing the horror section (Rob stood on the other side of the nook, looking at the science-fiction), when I spotted a slender volume. The book did not look like it belonged. What was a Wordsworth Classics edition doing on a horror bookshelf? Surely the book belonged in the classic literature section, which, to be fair, was the only other section of the bookstore I spent much time in (me and Rob were both in agreement that Frankenstein was one of the best novels ever written).Taking this curious book off the shelf, I was surprised by its rather rudimentary cover: a man in a hood with a pale mask—nothing more. The title read, The King In Yellow. I had two immediate thoughts. Firstly, why was the border of the book cover in red not yellow, given its title? Secondly, I thought I recognised the author’s name. In fact, I ignorantly had confused myself, thinking that Robert W. Chambers was Robert E. Howard, the author of Conan. However, mistakenly believing the book might have some relationship with Conan turned out to be serendipitous, given my love of sword and sorcery, and so in a rare moment of spontaneous retail therapy I decided to buy it.

Little did I know, I had just purchased a book that would shape who I am. Not just as a writer, but as a person.

I remember the exact moment I opened the book and realised that something life-changing was about to occur. Unlike my usual procedure, I hadn’t looked at the contents of the book in the store—I normally always perform a “first line test”—something had compelled me to take the book home first. Secure in my room, somehow feeling like I was doing something more profane than simply reading fiction, I opened it, discovering to my great surprise an epigraph in the form of a poem, “Cassilda’s Song”. Opposite the poem was a quote in French, and the opening lines of the first story in the collection, “The Repairer of Reputations”. I was familiar with poetry—in fact, I was an avid devourer of it. And I had read a few books with epigraphs in Latin, modern European languages, or even Japanese. But something about the combination of the two, and the mounting suspicion that this was not a poem written by another author but by Robert W. Chambers himself, that already the book was weaving its magic about me, gave rise to—and I hate to sound like a Lovecraft rip-off here, but it’s the only phrase I can muster that feels true—an indescribable sense of mystery. I knew then, though I’d read but a few lines, that these stories were not going to give me all the answers. They were going to tantalise and tease me like LeMarchand’s puzzlebox, offer me a glimpse of something beyond my current conception of reality.

All of this leads up to me first reading the word “Carcosa”.

What many writers these days do not realise is that words are not just magic in the metaphorical sense, they are magical in the literal sense. Sound is magic; magic is sound. The creation of new sounds is the creation of new meaning. That is why music undoubtedly reigns supreme in the arts; at the very least it is the most universal medium. And that is why one can read a word like “Carcosa” and intuit what it is trying to convey, or rather feel some sense of evocation—like the rising of a memory in connection with a smell, a form of distant synaesthesia—without that word having any contextual framework or etymology that is traceable with intellect. I remember repeating the word several times, ensorcelled by it.

Carcosa was a place described in terms of hushed terror, but awe and wonder too. This is perhaps best expressed by the concluding lines of Chambers’ story “The Court of the Dragon”: “Then I sank into the depths, and I heard the King In Yellow whispering to my soul: ‘It is a fearful thing to fall into the hands of the living God!’” More than once reading the collection, every hair on my arm stood on end. The above quote was certainly one of such moment, but there were others. Despite the horror, Carcosa was a place I wanted to go, a place of dreams where one might meet the living God in all His dark splendour. And indeed, it’s a place I’ve revisited many times in my life.

The first time came several years later during 2014 when a show called True Detective aired on HBO. During the second episode, the detective Rust Cohle (played by Matthew McConaughey) reads from the journal of a young prostitute who has been murdered in a ritualistic killing: “I closed my eyes and saw the King in Yellow moving through the forest. The King's children are marked... they became his angels.” As I heard the name of The King In Yellow spill from the lips of Matthew McConaughey’s sociopathically intelligent detective, chills went down my spine. Chills of nostalgia, chills of recognition, chills of anticipation. Cohle subsequently remarks, “It reads like fantasy.” This is a strangely important comment, for it hints towards one of the keys as to why the Carcosa mythos is so enduring and so original. Though it is often described as cosmic horror, and indeed Lovecraft greatly admired Robert W. Chambers and even incorporated the King In Yellow into his own pantheon, The King In Yellow is fantastical as well as horrific, mysterious as well as dreadful, and beautiful as well as strange. Carcosa is not just a black void full of nameless horror, nor is it the horrifying sunken city of R’lyeh (which can only offer us death or madness), it is a place of dark wonders and living fairy tales, a place that you want to reach despite your common sense telling you not to peer too closely into the abyss.

Watching the mythos come alive in the capable hands of Nic Pizzolatto, True Detective’s creator and writer, lit a fire, causing me to dive back into the mythos once again. I discovered to my shock that Robert W. Chambers was not, in one sense, the originator of Carcosa. Indeed, the first mention of Carcosa was to be found in a short story by Ambrose Bierce entitled “An Inhabitant of Carcosa”, a fantastic reading of which can be found here. Bierce’s tale is even more elusive than Chambers’ subsequent interpretation, but what the two share is a sense of loss and a sense of liminality, that however far Carcosa might seem, it is but a step away—and yet, you shall also never reach it in truth. All we can do is stare at the megalithic ruins and wonder. Yet, should we stare long enough, these ruins might begin to speak…

I next visited Carcosa in the hands of Brian Barr. By chance I stumbled upon a short story collection he had released entitled simply Brian Barr's King in Yellow: Stories Set in the Robert W. Chambers' Mythos. The cover instantly grabbed me, not merely because of the phenomenal artwork, but also because it was a similar red to my Wordsworth Classics copy of The King In Yellow, which I still have to this day. I’d never heard of Brian Barr before; he is an independent author, and nowhere near as well known as he should be. But I decided to take a punt. I’ve honestly found more joy and gems in giving independent authors a chance than I have ever found reading big name trade authors. That’s not simply a biased statement from one who is also an indie author (and who’d very much like people to take a chance on him), but the honest truth. Barr is an absolute genius (I’ve read many books by him since), and I found myself riveted from the first line of his astonishing re-imagining of the mythos. Here was somebody not merely homaging Chambers and Bierce but completing re-inventing the theology of The King In Yellow in modern style. He did this partly by incorporating occult elements, such as astrology and kabbalah, into the mythic weave of the story—at the time, I was only just beginning my own study of the occult—as well as introducing alternative history and science-fiction into the mix. I was already inspired to revisit Carcosa, this time on my own terms, but Barr’s modern collection is what really convinced me I had to do this for my own sanity.

It was inevitable—destiny, perhaps—that one day I would try to write a story in the Carcosa mythos. After all, there was a strange synchronicity in that the fateful day I picked up Robert W. Chambers’ work, I was in the presence of another Robert, my friend. That early encounter forever shaped my understanding of dark fantasy, of grandeur and beauty nestled like a pearl in the scum of terror and dread, all the more beautiful for how it is nearly subsumed. For many years, I tried to come up with a tale, but nothing I wrote felt right. I definitely had something to say about Carcosa, but I did not quite know the way to say it. I had wild ideas and concepts, but what was really missing was character. I had the where, but not the who or what.

But then, one seemingly ordinary day in 2022, I was visited by the black goddess Kali, the goddess of bloodshed, ruin, but also creativity, and she showed me the way. She opened the doors of Carcosa to me anew.

It is in keeping with the legacy of Carcosa to leave it at that and say no more on the mysteries divulged to me by this eidolon of my own desires and fantasies, this inner Muse of decimation and beauty. Suffice to say, once she had left her mark upon me, the story flowed and flowed, and I became possessed by it, just like the characters of Chambers’ tales become obsessed and then possessed by the cursed manuscript of the eponymous play: The King In Yellow.

In the words of Chambers, “The time had come, the people should know the son of Hastur, and the whole world would bow to the black stars which hang in the sky over Carcosa.”

That hour is upon us, friends, when the King In Yellow shall return, and all of you shall witness the beauty of Lost Carcosa!

***

You can find out more information about my upcoming book inspired by Carcosa, The Claw of Craving, as well as listening to an extract from the first chapter, here. I’d like to take a moment to thank the incredible folk at Blood Bound Books, Joe Spagnola and S. C. Mendes, for being brave—or perhaps mad—enough to publish my take on the mythos.

There is also going to be a Carcosa-related treat coming soon for those signed up to my mailing list. So, why not subscribe and receive the blessing of the Yellow Sign (you’ll also get a free sci-fi horrornovella right off the bat)?

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THE LIFE AND LEGACY OF NICHOLAS APPLEYARD, AUTHOR OF GRIMMSBANE

Hello my dear friends,

Today I have tragic news, but also hope.

For over a year, I worked with a writer called Nicholas Appleyard. He was a phenomenally talented author writing a fantasy epic called Grimmsbane. Sadly, he passed away on Christmas Eve of last year, due to cancer, before his book could see the light of day. He is survived by his wife and his daughter.

I can’t begin to express how I feel about this. Over the course of working with Nick, we became friends. I won’t pretend we were best mates, or exceedingly close, but we shared a laugh and a love of old-school fantasy stories.

It was Nick’s dream to see his book in print. And he was so damn close. The only items left to complete were a final edit, the book’s description, and the technical process of uploading it onto Amazon. Nick was within a hair’s breadth of realising his life-long ambition.

Over the last few months, I’ve been working alongside his wife and daughter to help put the book out into the world. It is, after all, what Nick would have wanted. All the royalties will go to his daughter, whom he adored and whom the book is dedicated to.

I’m asking all of you now to support this book, so that we can remember the life and legacy of a great man: a father, a friend, and a fantastic writer.

But you shouldn’t buy this book just to support his family, or to honour a dead poet, though both of these are certainly worthy causes. You should buy this book because it’s actually bloody brilliant. In my Foreword to Grimmsbane, I wrote:

His writing was not only passionate and rousing, as any good fantasy epic should be, but hair-raisingly supernatural, romantic, blackly comic, and deeply psychological. At times it was a struggle to edit his manuscript because I simply wanted to read on and discover what happened next...”

And if that were not enough, here is the description of the book, along with a review I wrote for Nick before he sadly passed away:

Conan The Barbarian meets George R. R. Martin in this epic revitalisation of the sword and sorcery tale…

In times past, the Grimm Horde—a cursed people corrupted and commanded the dread sorcerer Aihaab—were defeated and banished to the underground kingdom of Ash Ul M’on. Their master, Aihaab, was slain, and the world breathed a sigh of relief.

But now fell auguries whisper that the darkness has returned. Crows circle the skies. Men quarrel and worship the shadows. And a changeling warrior, Steeleye, adopted by the noble clans of the North, dreams of a vast field of destruction and death in which a beautiful red-headed woman calls to him.

Though Aihaab was defeated, his seven dark servants—great demons of old—were not. Called by the Goddess of Death, The Morriggu, Steeleye must now embark upon a quest to rid the world of these ancient terrors before their new master, a force far more terrifying than Aihaab, completes the work Aihaab left undone…

Grimmsbane is the startling first book in the intended Steeleye series, an epic sword and sorcery tale in the tradition of Robert E. Howard. Combining heroic fantasy with cosmic horror, Grimmsbane explores the psychological price of heroism, the meaning of fellowship, and what it means to face one’s death with courage.

Most fantasy is described as ‘epic’ but really isn’t. Grimmsbane is. Somehow Nicholas Appleyard has resurrected the classical sense of epic heroism, and more than that, has combined it with profound, modern psychological insight. With rich characters and compelling mythology, Grimmsbane is a feverously passionate narrative of death and glory; page-turning fiction at its very finest.” —Joseph Sale, author of The Book of Thrice Dead

You may have noticed that Grimmsbane was intended as the first book in a series, and this may put some people off buying. I understand this sentiment, as no one wants an unfinished story. But Grimmsbane is a complete and satisfying tale. What’s more, I have every faith that the series is going to be continued, either by Nick’s daughter—who is also a talented writer—or by someone else who knew and loved him.

Ultimately, all storytelling is an act of “passing the torch”, either onto the next generation, or simply onto the next soul willing to listen. My hope is that the legend of Nicholas Appleyard continues to be told and retold for generations to come, and that his inspiring book catalysts the birth of new fantasy writers sharing his sense of heroism, of humour, and of beauty.

Grimmsbane is available here:

Amazon UK

Amazon US

Amazon CA

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What My Five Favourite Films of All Time Can Tell Us About Storytelling

There’s lots I don’t like about Hollywood, but I love film. I think, in another life, I might have wanted to work on a set, even if only in a small supporting role behind the camera. But then, I love storytelling too, and the fantastic thing about novels and poetry is you need no permission or producer to bring it into being! (Of course, the brilliant independent filmmaker Joel Haver would argue that you don't need those for film, either, but that's a huge topic for another time). 

Collaboration and constraint often breed creativity and solutions, and thus films can offer us a very unique narrative insight. Because the screenplay is inherently more disciplined and “formed” than the novel, there’s much we can learn from our film-industry counterparts (and vice-versa, of course).

In this article, I wanted to talk about my five favourite films of all time, and what they—surprisingly—have in common that we can learn from as storytellers. I want to make two things clear, however, before I begin. Firstly, there is a certain film I love that is notably and auspiciously absent from the list. Namely, The Lord of the Rings. The reason for this is twofold. Firstly, I’ve already written so extensively about this film, and the books on which it is based, that it’s probably time for a re-fresh. Secondly, I regard The Lord of the Rings as really being in a category of its own—totally unique and unassailable. So, it wouldn’t appear on a list like this, for it cannot really be compared to anything else! The second thing I want to make you aware of is there will, by necessity, be spoilers for the five films I have chosen, so read on at your own peril if you do not want to know what happens, and want to check out these astonishing films for yourself.

Firstly, I’ll list the films. Then I’ll discuss what links them and what we can learn.

In no particular order:

CALVARY (2014)

Dir: John Michael McDonagh

A “good priest”, Father James, is told, in the confession box, that he will be killed in seven days. This astonishing Irish drama follows Father James’ journey he faces his own calvary.

THE FALL (2006)

Dir: Tarsem Singh

Set in 1915, stuntman Roy Walker (Lee Pace) lies paralysed in a hospital bed. Awaiting an uncertain future, he meets another patient, a little girl called Alexandria, and offers to tell her a story in exchange for her fetching him more painkillers… Roy’s intoxicating tale comes to life in Alexandria’s imagination, and the act of storytelling itself becomes transformative for them both.

SILENCE (2016)

Dir: Martin Scorsese

Based on the 1966 novel of the same name by Shūsaku Endō, Silence tells the story of two seventeenth century Jesuit priests who travel to Japan in order to locate their mentor and friend, Father Ferreira, as well as spread the Christian message. However, the Japanese inquisitor, Inigo-Sama, wishes for Christianity to be utterly stamped out from Japanese soil…

KILL BILL VOL 1 & 2 (2003 & 2004)

Dir: Quentin Tarantino

The Bride sets out on a quest for revenge against Bill, her master and former lover, after he shoots her through the head on her wedding day whilst she is still pregnant with his child.

V FOR VENDETTA (2005)

Dir: James McTeigue

Based on the graphic novel by Alan Moore, V For Vendetta is set in a dystopian, totalitarian Britain. But a vigilante, identified only by the codename “V”, has made it his mission to destroy the government.

On the surface, these five films may appear wildly dispirit. We have historical dramas, comicbook adaptations, bloody revenge stories, and fantastical meta-narrative. But in truth, all of these films share three things. I’ll begin with the broadest similarity and progress towards the detail.

1) Astonishing Endings

Not just good endings, nor even great endings, but astonishing endings. You may argue that this is entirely subjective, and to a degree it is, but all five of these films have Act 4 revelations that punch your gut so hard you forget which way is up, and then follow that up with an Act 5 catharsis that feels like spiritual healing.

For example, in Calvary, the final shot of the film is the daughter of Father James, our heroic priest, visiting his killer in prison. The killer looks with astonishment, even terror, through the glass window as she picks up the phone in order to speak with him, a single tear rolling down her face. We know, from an earlier, foreshadowing conversation Father James had with his daughter, that she is going to forgive his killer. This is the ultimate and unexpected triumph of good over evil—borderline shocking in its implications. Yet, isn’t that the quintessence of the Christian spiritual method, to triumph and overcome through mercy, to subjugate through submission?

Similarly, in V for Vendetta, the mysterious V is finally slain after heroically defeating Creedy and Sutler, but his ultimate objective is achieved when—in a sublime moment—his body laid upon a bier of explosives and sent hurtling into the tunnels beneath parliament. To the sound of Tchaikovsky’s magnificent 1812 Overture, V brings parliament to the ground from beyond the grave. This would be brilliant cinematically in and of itself, but it is made more brilliant by V’s earlier speech: “The building is a symbol, as is the act of destroying it.” We understand the full, symbolic implications of V’s victory over totalitarianism, and therefore feel the weight of the catharsis all the more heavily.

By emphasising the symbolic action of the story, rather than simply the literal, V for Vendetta, Calvary, and indeed the other films on this list, achieve endings which are not simply “resolutions” to the plot, but go one step further to impart thematic wisdom and psychological healing.

So, what is the lesson here? The lesson is “do not be afraid”, in the words of the biblical angels. It is better to reach for something grand, something magnificent, something life-changing than it is to settle for mediocrity. The endings of these films testify that the attempt will be remembered forever after—in some ways, even if you fail. And whilst you may not please everyone, you are going to touch a good many more souls than you would if you just resigned yourself to a “standard” or “genre-trope” ending. Go for broke. Go all out with your ending. Don’t hold back.

2) The Power of “Slow”

Modern films—especially Marvel—unfold at a frenetic pace. Most scenes are barely two minutes long. Wham bam—on to the next thing. This gives us no time to unpack emotional content, or to process what we have just seen. If ever we are left in any ambiguity or doubt about what just happened, normally someone quickly explains it with some expositional dialogue or “witty” remark.

But the directors of these five films I’ve chosen all understand the power of slowing down. Perhaps the best example of this is to be found in Kill Bill. Quentin Tarantino is notorious for his long scenes, which can feel drawn out to the point of excruciation, but that is why his dramatic moments: his surprises, his violent explosions, and his revelations, feel so powerful and so earned. In the final confrontation of Kill Bill Vol. 1, where The Bride faces down her ultimate rival (save perhaps Bill himself) O-ren Ishii, rather than leaping into a fight, Tarantino suddenly slows the pace to a crawl. The Bride and O-ren circle one another, measuring the defences of the other. The majestic Spanish guitar of Santa Esmeralda’s cover of Don’t Let Me Be Misunderstood kicks up. This is not only highly stylistic, it’s also highly realistic. Truly great fighters don’t just launch themselves at each other. They size each other up. If Kung Fu is not your thing, watch two boxers in the ring. Not even Tyson Fury, with all his weight and power, just runs headlong at his opponent. He circles, he measures distance, he takes his time to figure out his opponent’s strength and weaknesses.

We have waited two hours, or thereabouts, for this fight between O-ren and The Bride, yet Tarantino knows we will wait just a little longer, making us feel every footstep, every movement of the eyes, every adjustment of the sword grip, to the point where when the two epic warriors finally explode into action it is –let’s use the word we’ve been dancing around here—orgasmic.

Similarly, in Martin Scorsese’s Silence, the film spends two hours building us up to the moment where Father Rodrigues (played by Andrew Garfield) must face the ultimate test of his faith, morality, and human dignity (designed with horrifying ingenuity by the inquisitor, Inigo-Sama). Will he allow others to suffer due to his refusal to step on an image of Christ? As Father Rodrigues contemplates stepping on the image, the sounds of his fellow man suffering a constant background, time slows to a crawl. The world falls into deafening silence. We feel we are frozen in a moment, within the very “point of power”, the eternal now. This suspension and slowing down allows us to feel the full epiphanic weight of what is about to happen next, which is a revelation so powerful I will leave it as a surprise for those of you who have not seen the film.

So, what can we learn from this? Slow down. Waaaay down. Most storytellers, whether film-makers or novelists or poets, rush. In my recent interview with Grady Hendrix, which you can find here, he talks about how the aspect of writing he finds hardest is sufficiently slowing a scene down for it to be felt at a deep level by the reader, populating the narrative with enough detail that it comes alive. He concludes by saying, “When I edit, and find a scene that isn’t working, I know either it needs more, or it has to come out.” This is contrary to common ideas about editing I see being spread around, that the ultimate end-goal is to simply shave off word-count. As Scorsese and Tarantino show us, sometimes more is more, but only if you’re prepared to slow the audience down, to force us to stand still and observe with all of our focus and attention. As Thomas Aquinas observed, “Beauty arrests motion.”

3) A Relationship With God and the Divine

This one may prove controversial for some readers, but it’s impossible to ignore it. All of these films both implicitly and explicitly make their spirituality known. And it should be noted, when I say “spirituality”, I don’t mean simply propaganda for a specific religion or preaching any kind of dogma. However, these works explore what it is like to have a relationship with the Divine, how challenging, harrowing, but also transcendent that is.

In Kill Bill, we are told, “When fortune smiles on something as violent and ugly as revenge, it seems proof like no other that not only does God exist, you’re doing his will.” This has to be one of my favourite quotes of all time, for it hints at the deep mystery of God, not the romanticised image that we so often see portrayed in an attempt to make Him more palatable. Similarly, in V For Vendetta, we are told “God is in the rain”—as Evey Hammond raises her arms to the thunderstorm raging over the city, and finds that in truth the thunderstorm is raging within, that she has discovered her inner power as a result of V’s esoteric and cruel teachings.

In The Fall, the relationship between the Divine and man is more subtly conveyed, but that does not lessen its impact. It is the little girl, Alexandria, with her innocence and fecund imagination that represents both the Divine and the Divine spark within human beings. As a jaded, cynical, and depressed adult, Roy Walker abuses his creative gift, manipulating Alexandria into getting him pills which he uses to attempt suicide. Even after he is exposed by the failure of his suicide attempt, Roy continues to abuse his gift—and Alexandria’s impressionable mind—by corrupting the wonderful adventure story he was previously telling her with darkness and despair. However, Alexandria’s purity proves Roy’s salvation (“the light shines in the darkness, but the darkness has not understood it”, to quote St. John), for she demands he change the narrative, and finally she breaks him, forcing him to the point of self-revelation, catharsis, and healing. Changing the narrative changes him as a person. The Divine imagination illuminates the darkness of the human condition—and Roy’s paralysis is healed.

All of these stories, to greater and lesser degrees, using different imagery and metaphors, address the nature of the Divine and man’s relationship to it (plus, we might say, the Divine in man). And I would argue—again risking controversy—that there is really no more important theme one could explore. A relationship with the Divine is about far more than faith, in one sense. Critics and cynics often forget that faith is more than merely a “belief”, but also a responsibility, a commitment to uphold tenets (not always successfully, but that is where the human part comes in). Therefore, to believe in the Divine, to work towards a relationship with the Divine, is to improve oneself, not in a snobby, arrogant way (though some fall prey to hubris), but rather as earnest embodiment. These five films all motivate and inspire us to find our own Divine connection and therefore to become better, richer, more loving and awakened human beings (awakened, that is, to the Mystery of Life). This is is Art fulfilling its highest purpose!

So, what’s the lesson? In short, consider how your work might explore a relationship with the Divine. And if you don’t believe there is a Divine, consider what the next best thing might be: Beauty, perhaps. Or Love. The important thing is that it’s transcendent, rather than something that can be described by numbers and facts.

I’ll leave you to meditate on these lessons with a quote from Calvary that I think summarises my approach to storytelling and editing, “I think there’s too much talk about sins and not enough talk about virtues...”

***

Thank you so, so much for reading this far.

For more exclusive articles like this, as well as behind the scenes videos and interactive polls, you can subscribe to the mindflayer’s Patreon https://www.patreon.com/themindflayer.

You can also purchase my book on creativity, The Divine, for 99c on Amazon.

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Review of Conversations With Dead Serial Killers by Ashley Lister

Hello my dear friends, and welcome to the New Year. I hope 2023 is going to be a blessed, productive, and rewarding one for you. Let’s make 2023 the year of magic. And speaking of magic, there are few things more magical than a great book. Today, I am reviewing Ashley Lister’s Conversations With Dead Serial Killers, a black as night horror-comedy with layers of Dantean symbolism to boot.

I’ve written previously that one can tell the merits of an author’s work often by the first line alone. If what I’ve said is true, and not just pretension on my part, then Lister’s work is clearly up there with the greats, because his opening line is an absolute humdinger:

The thing that few people appreciated about Ed Gein was his skill as a seamstress.”

That pretty much sets the razor-sharp, blackly comic, and morally grey tone of Conversations With Dead Serial Killers.

Stylistically, Ashley Lister reads like grimdark Terry Pratchett. He shares Pratchett’s flare for comedic timing (which is exceptionally difficult to pull off in prose), as well as Pratchett’s ability to marry the perfect character to the perfect environment to generate organic hilarity. However, unlike Pratchett, Lister is also a master of gut-wrenching body horror, who has taken more than a few tips out of Clive Barker’s handbook. As a result, you have an interesting juxtaposition of laugh-out-loud humour and scenes that will remain indelibly imprinted on your mind’s eye for their sheer visceral horror.

The premise of Conversations With Dead Serial Killers is a stroke of genius. Derek and Clive are two brothers working in business together. Derek is a charlatan medium who does live performances, communicating with dead loved ones. Clive is his “behind the scenes” guy who drip feeds him researched information to make the cold readings sound authentic. However, Clive is also a serial killer (don’t worry, we find this out in chapter one, so it’s not a major spoiler). And not only this, but Derek is about to encounter his first real spirit, who has come back to the land of the living to set Derek straight and help him stop his brother.

Clive is a copycat killer. In other words, he emulates the works of his “personal heroes”, the famous serial killers of the past. He’s an obsessive who’s memorised the name, deeds, and dates of virtually every serial killer across the globe who ever lived. The sheer amount of work and research Lister has put into Clive’s hobby is quite frightening; as a horror author with an obligatory interest in serial killers I considered myself fairly well read on the subject, but Lister not only displays an encyclopedic knowledge of the most infamous serial killers (through the mouthpiece of Clive) but also of killers so obscure you wonder how deeply and darkly he had to delve to acquire such knowledge.

Needless to say, I was hooked from page one. Lister expertly sketches out the two brothers’ more-than-shady characters but also provides compelling insights into why they are the way they are. Perhaps one of the most innovative strokes of brilliance in this is Clive’s motivation: which is simply that the process of brutally murdering people gives him pleasure. Rather than glamorising Clive by trying to make him seem deep, philosophical, or complex, Lister hits home with the simple and ugly truth: most killers are not particularly interesting people, nor particularly complex. Yet, because Clive’s heinous (and primitive) acts are juxtaposed with Derek’s far more complex moral greyness and the spirit Sam’s running commentary, Lister’s story is anything but simplistic. There are times we feel immensely sorry for Derek. Yes, he’d a fraudster and philanderer of the lowest order. Yes, he’s morally bankrupt. And yes, we suspect there is more he’s not letting on. But, he’s also an intelligent underdog battling his environment, and we can’t help but sympathise with his plight.

Perhaps one of the most interesting threads in the book is Derek’s “coming to terms” with the existence of the supernatural. This is done through his encounter with the ghost / spirit, Sam, who also plagues Derek with dreams in which he descends through the circles of Dante’s hell—a place Sam assures Derek he will end up if he doesn’t change his ways. If you’re getting A Christmas Carol, or perhaps even more accurately Bill Murray's Scrooged, vibes from this, you’re not far off. And as is certainly the case in Charles Dicken’s masterpiece, there is an argument to be made that Sam represents Derek’s conscience, perhaps even his super-ego. There are moments in the book where Sam is actually able to “control” Derek and force him to admit things—and expose truths—that he otherwise would never have done or been able to do. I had to wonder at these times whether Lister were not ever-so-subtly using the supernatural device as a metaphor for the human tendency to externalise and compartmentalise our psyche. In this way, we have the full trifecta. Clive represents Derek’s id, his base urges. Derek even confesses that at times he’s found thoughts of violence vaguely arousing, but it’s a precipice from which he’s never leapt, more for lack of courage than moral compunction. Sam is his super ego, as we’ve already established, trying to morally reform him. And Derek himself is the ego lurking in the middle, a morally grey specimen torn between two polarities of psychic force. I’m not suggesting this is the de facto interpretation of Lister’s work, but great writing stimulates deeper thinking, and Conversations With Dead Serial Killers is undoubtedly great writing: intellectually razor sharp, thought-provoking, and passionate too.

If I have one criticism of Conversations With Dead Serial Killers it’s that it ends quite abruptly (in other words, I wanted more!). A startling revelation comes to light, and the novel then ends before I fully had time to digest its import or meaning. I also think that the big softie in me was looking to see more of a transformation in Derek. This isn’t really a criticism, more a matter of personal taste. I’m a sucker for a big redemption arc, and what we get here is perhaps grittier and some would say more real, which is very fitting given the tone of the book. As a last thought, I honestly would love to read a sequel to Conversations With Dead Serial Killers. I think Derek and Sam in particular have a lot more story in them. That’s how you know a book is not just an intellectual creation, but inspired and inspiring. Lister has created something unique, not a genre-hybrid but a stylistic chimera, and I can’t wait to read more of his work.

You can purchase Conversations With Dead Serial Killers here:

Amazon UK

Amazon US

Amazon CA

If you enjoy these reviews, then please sign up to my mailing list to receive updates whenever a new review goes live.

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Entering Carcosa Part 8: Deadly Premonition

Hello my dear friends. Entering Carcosa has returned from beyond the veil. For those who don’t know what Entering Carcosa is, way back in 2018 I started up a series of articles talking about modern epics in unconventional mediums, such as videogames, anime, and anthologic series. There were seven installations in this epic series before I finally called it a day; seven seemed apt as it’s a divine number, and a number intimately connected with the epic. For example, epic heroes have seven key qualities1.

However, I recently had an experience so earth-shattering that I’ve been compelled to reopen the warped gateway to Carcosa and add one additional entry: Deadly Premonition.

For those who know what Deadly Premonition is, you may be scratching your heads; can it really be considered epic? But trust me, if any narrative has earned its place in the halls of dim Carcosa, home of the epic, it’s this unconventional masterpiece by the mad genius SWERY65.

So, what is Deadly Premonition? In short, it’s a 2010 videogame released exclusively for the Playstation 3 (it subsequently was re-released in various formats, including a Director's Cut, which is the version I played). It had one of the most divisive launches of any videogame in history, with players at loggerheads over whether the game was a strange masterpiece or a janky failure. Over time, the game and its creator has developed a cult following, and Deadly Premonition has become legendary in the industry as one of the most unique and original games ever made.

When I settled down to play Deadly Premonition, albeit twelve years late to the party, I knew something of what to expect. Or so I thought. I’d seen clips of the game on YouTube. I’d seen memes made out of some of the game’s more esoteric or gonzo moments. But the truth is, as Morpheus says to Neo in The Matrix, “There is a difference between knowing the path, and walking the path.” And, “You cannot be told what The Matrix is. You have to be shown.” I’d been told a lot about Deadly Premonition, I knew a lot about the game, but honestly none of that could prepare me for what I experienced.

For those used to more traditional game-reviews, this article is not going to go deep into gameplay mechanics—although there is a lot to be said about them. This series is about epics and narrative, and so we’re going to keep pretty focused throughout on what makes the story of Deadly Premonition, and how it’s unfolded to the player, so special.

The premise starts off in a relatively familiar fashion. FBI agent Francis York Morgan is dispatched to an isolated town in rural America called Greenvale. A young woman has been murdered in a particularly brutal fashion, and York is something of a specialist in cases involving the murder of young women. The reason for this is twofold: firstly, he’s an expert profiler who understands the psychology behind the killers, especially killers who prey on vulnerable girls; the second reason, of course, is a deep personal motivation which is only revealed towards the middle of the story.

Detectives—which is essentially what York is—are really the equivalent of the knight-errants of classical literature. Knights are men and women bearing special badges of office and talismans of authority, charged with a quest, something they have to go out and seek by whatever means they have available to them. Detectives are no different. They are special individuals granted a badge of office and weapons that allow them to go out and seek the object of their quest. In most cases: the Truth. This is quite an intriguing development of the quest theme because it allows the quest to unfold not just spatially but also chronometrically, aka, across the sands of time. This is very relevant for discussing Deadly Premonition, which is incredibly preoccupied with our relationship with time.

But to come back to knights, in other words, we have an archetypal setup: knight on quest, detective on mission. However, York is anything but conventional, and the quest he is about to see to its dark conclusion is metaphysical, spiritual, indeed, even cosmic.

Let’s explain why York is so unconventional. Please note this is going to involve spoilers, so if you want to go into Deadly Premonition blind, then please stop reading and enjoy on your own terms! In honesty, it’s probably the best way to experience the game. However, if you don’t have a PS3 or aren’t likely to play it, then enjoy my all-too-brief examination.

There are two things about York that make him such a unique and fascinating character. Firstly, there’s his weird and wonderful mind. Our introduction to York sees him driving down a rain-slick highway towards Greenvale. He’s on the phone with one of his FBI superiors. He’s discussing a case, or at least that’s what we think. He describes how the victim is in an abusive relationship.

They both need each-other. It’s called interdependency. Yeah, I know. He does terrible things to Tom. Nasty, even sadistic things. But that’s fine, as long as that’s what Tom wants...”

About mid-way through York’s monologue, you realise he’s talking about the cartoon Tom & Jerry. I laughed out loud at this. But while it’s a hilarious gag, and instantly locates York as a kind of obsessive nerd with glimmers of genius, it’s also a subtle foreshadowing of what’s to come. Indeed, a terrible co-dependent (or interdependent as York terms it) relationship is at the heart of the villainy plaguing Greenvale, and one of the members of this relationship is even called Thomas!

So, York’s whacky mind, which draws comparisons with unconventional sources, is one point of interest about him. But if that were not enough, he also talks to himself. Or rather, he talks to an imaginary friend called Zach. This is perhaps one of the most powerful and important aspects of the entire story. On a surface level, Zach basically seems like a cipher for the player themselves. York calls on Zach for guidance, and as we—the player—are literally “controlling” York in the game, there’s almost a sense of Zach being the guiding hand of the player upon him. This meta-device doesn’t come across as pretentious, however. Instead, it establishes a kind of delicate intimacy between York and the player. Suddenly, you feel very responsible for York, like he is baring his very soul to you. It’s also a good excuse for York to explain complex ideas very directly to the player. Lastly, it’s also played for a few laughs: picture if you will the anxious inhabitants of Greenvale when they realise that their supposed expert FBI investigator has an “imaginary friend” advising him on the case!

If this were all Zach was, it would make for great entertainment. But just over halfway through the story, we realise Zach is something more. Indeed, the revelation of what or who Zach is, is perhaps the most astonishing scene in the whole game. Although, having said that, it has stiff competition, because there are at least four or five other moments of sublimity that indelibly leave their mark. But I’m skipping ahead.

York explains to Emily—the deputy Sheriff of Greenvale and a woman whom he slowly starts to develop feelings for throughout the story—that when he was seven years old, his father killed his mother then put the gun to his own head and committed suicide. York witnessed the whole thing. In the depths of this tragedy, however, York heard a still, quiet voice, like Elijah does in the Old Testament. The voice said, “I am here with you. I will always be here with you. You are not alone.” The voice comforted the traumatised seven-year-old York and became his companion ever since.

I confess the revelation Zach is not merely a narrative joke, but connected to something so deeply traumatic, so deeply moving, so deeply spiritual, shocked me into floods of tears. I thought I understood what Deadly Premonition was: a zany horror game with great dialogue and janky mechanics. But this made me realise Deadly Premonition was going to offer a lot more, it was going to become a spiritual journey.

And indeed, there’s even more to say about Zach. In the final terrifying confrontation with the evil at the heart of Greenvale, where York must face an impossible choice, we realise that York’s memories of the event of his parents’ death are not entirely accurate. He has suppressed one truth because of the pain. The truth is that he was originally Zach. Zach is his real name and his childhood self. His pure and uncorrupted divine self. York is the bitter and hardened armour he has built around it. York is essentially a personality construct, an image Zach has made up that fits his idea of what a “man” or “detective” should look like. Zach is the true version of himself, a vulnerable and scared version, an inner child.

If you're paying attention, you'll realise that this "interdependent" relationship between York and Zach is a mirror of the evil interdependent relationship foreshadowed by the Tom and Jerry joke at the start of the whole story... Premonition indeed. And this, of course, means that unlike the villains, who are stuck in their ways, York and Zach have to change, which leads us to arguably the most incredible moment of. the whole story, a moment that took my breath away.

At the crisis point, the protective personality construct, York, recognises the spiritual danger faced by Zach and Emily, recognises that the inner child might be finally killed if he does not act, and sacrifices himself to protect the inner child. It’s a moment of astonishing beauty and pathos. It not only has massive psychological implications, for don’t we all have these armoured shells we use to deflect pain, and aren’t there always situations that cause us to make difficult choices about them? But it also has Jungian and metaphysical meanings. York is Zach’s projected self, a cigarette-smoking anti-social persona. But he is also a protective angel constructed from a child’s terrified imagination. Throughout this story, York has acted like a guardian angel, shouldering the burden of horror and pain so that Zach doesn’t have to. But in the final moments, Zach must stand on his own and face the very evil that scarred him in the first place. I don’t think I need to use any of the technical terms surrounding epic literature to convey the simple fact that this is epic, cathartic, even sublime.

These examples all come from the main story of Deadly Premonition, the meat and bones, but the brilliance is that just as much loving attention and detail was paid to the minor characters and side-plots (bear in mind that all good epics must show scale and scope). Indeed, there is a b-character called “The General” who owns a junkyard, and does car repairs. York notes early on that “The General” is actually wearing a Sergeant’s insignia, and begins to suspect that most of The General’s war stories are in fact bullshit. Over the course of the game, you can run errands for The General, and each time you complete one he will fix up your car (which has in-game benefits) and share another war story.

The General tells us three tales. The first is exceedingly comic, centred around soldiers nearly dying from diarrhoea. The second is a little more grounded, in that it details how the soldiers failed to make an attack upon an enemy base in time, which resulted in mass casualties. In both of these stories the General repeatedly expresses his hatred for their squad’s Sergeant, a man called Timothy, whom the General refers to as “cry baby Timothy”. Timothy is one of those officers with very little military experience, elected due to their degree qualifications and little more. Timothy continually exhibits behaviours of cowardice, which enrages The General even in memory. York notes, however, that the General spends a lot of time talking about Timothy considering how much he supposedly hates him… The third story reveals the truth of the matter. The General nearly died from dehydration during one particularly gruelling battle. He collapsed and blacked out. When he awoke, there was water on his face and in his mouth. A body lay next to him, dead. Thesoldier had run back and forth between a puddle and carried water to The General’s parched lips. It was “cry baby Timothy”. He was shot dead saving The General’s life. The General could not psychologically reconcile the man he hated and thought of as a coward with the man who risked his life to save him. Hence, The General’s contrary,cantankerous, and divided nature, and why he wears a Sergeant’s lapel even though he eventually rose to a much higher rank. If this isn’t genius writing, I don’t know what is.

And that’s just one of the many side stories you can find in the town of Greenvale. Deadly Premonition is a treasure trove. Every time I thought I had exhausted a character’s dialogue they gave me more. Every time I ran an obscure errand for a character, I told myself the payout would be trivial, and yet I was rewarded time after time with depth: dialogue, cutscenes, story, and all of it interconnected, all of it adding up, all of it becoming part of this glorious whole. Indeed, in any great story, every microcosm reflects the whole. This is important, especially when Deadly Premonition takes on such deep themes.

And what are these themes? It would be easy to see Deadly Premonition is a bit of an eclectic mess, equal parts Twin Peaks, Japanese anime, and True Detective (although Deadly Premonition actually came out four years before True Detective, and I can't help but see parallels—the opening shot of True Detective's first episode is almost identical with the opening of Deadly Premonition; was Nic Pizzollato inspired?). However, despite the mix of tones and influences, the narrative is remarkably cohesive, and focused on two core themes (which themselves are interrelated). 

The first of these is quite obviously Time. It’s a suitably epic theme, explored by many of the world’s greatest poets and writers. If there’s any doubt Deadly Premonition is fixated on time, consider that one of the climactic showdowns of the game happens inside a clocktower, and indeed, the clocktower is a location we return to time and time again throughout the story, at one point travelling back in time to witness an event from the ‘50s that shaped the town forever. Quite apart from the game mechanics themselves, which forces us to establish a relationship with time via a real clock you have to adhere to (in other words, you have to be certain places at certain times to see things happen – shops open at regular hours, and all the townsfolk obey their idiosyncratic routines), the narrative of the game is brimming with explorations of what time means. The mysterious capitalist (those are the exact words used to introduce him—you have to love the sense of humour) Harry Stewart, for example, tells York that he became rich because he understood timing. It’s not about how fast you do something, it’s about doing it at the right moment. York is constantly—and counterintuitively—slowing down during his investigation, rather than rushing, which infuriates many of the townsfolk and the other police officers. However, his unconventional methods produce results. By moving backward we move forward. This is one of the primal underpinning qualities of an epic, for all the true epics understand the bidirectional relationship with history necessary to create a cultural artefact.

The other key theme of Deadly Premonition is in the title: Premonition. Magic, divination, sixth sense, and all of this occult goodness woven into the quotidian fabric of everyday reality. Whilst undoubtedly SWERY learned a lot from David Lynch’s Twin Peaks in this regard, SWERY’s magic has its own unique flavour. Indeed, though York uses rational deduction and psychological profiling, most of his methods of detection are entirely esoteric, which comes in handy, as his enemies are also using supernatural means to achieve their ends. The intermixture of ordinary and occult is no better typified than by York’s coffee, which has an uncanny knack of predicting the future. One senses that SWERY sees the magical in everyday life and understands that every person has their own idiosyncrasies that allow them to have a relationship with the universe. The genius of the writing is the empathy with which these idiosyncrasies are rendered.

But more than this, premonition is also connected to destiny, and a sense of destiny—or fate—pervades Deadly Premonition. York (or should we say Zach) is meant to come to Greenvale. Indeed, the evil at the heart of Greenvale is directly connected to his tragic past and the mysterious scar that warps his hairline. Only York can cure Greenvale’s sickness. The ultimate victory of good over evil—though won at a heavy price—is written in the stars (and shown in the swirling milk within the coffee cup—as above, so below!). The ending of Deadly Premonition therefore feels not only earned but inevitable—and like all great epics, will probably stay with me for as long as I live.

***

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Footnotes

1They are from an unusual place or land, they have an unusual power, they usually have a keen sense of justice (even if it is a warped one, such as Satan in Paradise Lost), they possess magical weapons or equipment, they are in some way royal, or dispossessed of something that belonged to them, they are often orphaned or not raised by their true parents, and lastly, they possess a tragic flaw or weakness.

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11 MAGICAL BOOKS TO READ THIS HALLOWEEN

Hello my dear friends,

I’ve been silent for a while, but mindflayers never sleep, we simply dream in our dark labyrinths to wait out the aeons until it’s time for us to reclaim the surface world.

As it’s Halloween, which is my favourite day of the year, a magical time of year in which anything is possible, I have 11 magical and horrifying book recommendations for you! Some of these are recently-reads, and some are oldie-goldies. Either way, they’ll ensure you have a spooktacular Autumn and Winter. These are not in a particular order, so without further ado, here they are…

1. Songs of a Dead Dreamer by Thomas Ligotti

Okay, I’ll admit I’m quite late to the Ligotti party, but I’m so glad I’ve arrived. Ligotti combines psychological insight, impressionistic and poetic prose, and cosmic horror in the vein of H. P. Lovecraft to produce his own unique brand of darkness that is as addictive as it is unsettling. Songs of a Dead Dreamer is a collection of short stories—each one allowing the reader a glimpse into the blackest of unknowns, exploring existential questions of love and being. If you’re not a regular reader of short stories (in which case you’re not alone as I prefer longer mediums) I’d still recommend this compelling collection. Venture to the further reaches of the human psyche, to places where alchemy is not merely about the transubstantiation of matter but also of spirit. Glimpse the darkest worlds where only the truly mad can find their home. Songs of a Dead Dreamer is like an acid trip into the heart of darkness, one that cannot leave you unchanged.

SONGS OF A DEAD DREAMER

2. Witchopper by Dan Soule

Dan Soule has written many books, all of which I love, but Witchopper is a very special tome. This story explores the relationship between father and son, between light and dark, between faith and chaos, between atavism and restraint, and explores what it means to grow up. It’s a story of post-Edenic loss of innocence told with tremendous passion, fierce intelligence, and fearless honesty. It’s a book not afraid to challenge social mores, sensibilities, or traditional ideas of morality. But at the same time it’s a hopeful story of redemption and love conquering all. The scope of this book is such that no brief review can do it justice, you’ll simply have to travel to the rural town of Southwell, and find out for yourself…

WITCHOPPER

3. All of Me by Iseult Murphy

I’ve reviewed All of Me previously on this site: it’s probably one of the best novellas I’ve ever read. This is a story of Faustian pacts, body-image, and the near-impossibility of self-love. It’s a harrowing and surprising tale that had me riveted from page one to its emotional, moving finale. Whilst it bills itself as body-horror, and there’s plenty of that to go around, the aspect of the book that will stay with me is the powerful psychology explored through its principle characters, a psychology which is as believable and sympathetic as it is unnerving.

ALL OF ME

4. Petite Mort by Nikki Noir and S. C. Mendes

Over the last year or two I’ve reviewed several works, both long-form and short-form, by Nikki Noir and S. C. Mendes, including a novella they wrote together called Algorithm of the Gods and the short story #DeadSealChallenge. Mendes and Noir are an awesome writing team—their styles blend effortlessly—and some of the ideas they come up with would make a bizarro author jealous. What I truly love about their work is how rich it is with symbolism, so that each sentence, image, or event feels loaded with meaning and purpose. While there is plenty of gross-out for even the most diehard fan of gore, and sex to satisfy the porn addict, the guts and orifices are never pointless titillation but a mechanism to explore deeper themes. Petite Mort is a collection of Mendes and Noirs’ shorter collaborative fiction, including Cucumbers and Comforters (which I reviewed here) and other horrifying wonders. If you’re curious about Mendes and Noir, this is the place to start.

PETITE MORT

5. We Sold Our Souls by Grady Hendrix

Those who know me knows how much I adore Grady Hendrix. He is an incredible writer who manages to combine the humour and humanity of life with a rich texture of darkness. Of his many books, My Best Friend’s Exorcism is undoubtedly my favourite. However, one book by Grady Hendrix that is often overlooked when I see discussions about his body of work is We Sold Out Souls. This is a fundamentally occult tale that explores conspiracy theories, Faustian bargains, and the intimate connection between rock ‘n’ roll and the dark powers. Balanced against feisty heroines is the ever-present malignancy of the dark eye, which is at once Sauron-like but also something altogether less fantastical and more disturbing. Several scenes in this book are so vividly described they will never leave you (if you’re claustrophobic, then you’ll probably want to tap out of this one), and the plotting is elegant and cunning in how it dovetails. This is a story of the pitfalls of success, the injustice of the world, and the timeless struggle between good and evil.

WE SOLD OUR SOULS

6. Flesh Rehearsal by Brian Bowyer

I reviewed this book fairly recently, but you will have to forgive me for recommending it again, because Brian Bowyer is simply a genius. Flesh Rehearsal shares some similarities with We Sold Our Souls, it’s a book about heavy metal, occultism, powerful women, and the darkness dwelling in human hearts—but it’s also surprisingly a book about love.In many ways it’s a deranged novel, written with feverously intense prose that cuts to the heart of matters with the precise brutality of a sacrificial blade. Flesh Rehearsal embodies the wisdom of John Ruskin, “All great and beautiful work has come of first gazing without shrinking into the darkness.”

FLESH REHEARSAL

7. Incarnate by Steve Stred

Almost every single book by Steve Stred would be appropriate for Halloween reading, but I think Incarnate is one of Stred’s most disturbing and accomplished books. Incarnate is particularly potent because it takes on so many horror tropes—holidaying in a remote location, a haunted house, a séance gone wrong—and yet remakes them into new, weird, and wondrous forms. Just when I thought I could predict what was going to happen, Stred throws a curveball. And the unconventional way Stred approaches writing horror scenes—sometimes narrating from bizarre or unexpected perspectives—casts a deeply unsettling spell over the reader. Stred is one of the few authors who can make me feel dread, and Incarnate succeeds in doing just this. If Shirley Jackson had lived to write a sequel to The Haunting of Hill House, this might have been it.

INCARNATE

8. Inside Perron Manor by Lee Mountford

Continuing the theme of haunted houses, Lee Mountford’s introductory novella to his Haunted series is a sublime masterclass in epistolary or “found footage” horror. Written from the perspective of a paranormal investigator obsessed with an ancient, malevolent house, Mountford inveigles us in the occult and disturbing history of Perron Manor to the point where we begin to lose our sense of reality. The aim of all good verisimilitudinous horror tales is to destroy the reader’s perception of the truth and make them believe, against all odds, in the reality of the tale, and Mountford succeeded so well in this I actually googled “Perron Manor”… Do you need any more encouragement?

INSIDE PERRON MANOR

9. Piranesi by Susanna Clarke

In recent years, I’ve largely found myself preferring indie and self-published books to traditionally published ones—they take more risks and they explore unchartered territory—but there are exceptions to the rule, and Susanna Clarke is one of them. Piranesi is a phenomenal book that explores occult ideas, including the dissolution of the Self, the presence of other planes of existence, and much, much more. The horror here is subtle—a horror of not knowing one’s own mind, of doubting reality to the utmost extent. The tale is told in a style that is hauntingly imagistic, making the familiar strange and the strange familiar. There are a number of surprises in this story, but even if you work out the true nature of things, the journey to get there is so thrilling, so heroic, so mysterious that you will want to re-read it again the moment it finishes.

PIRANESI

10. Oblivion Black by Christa Wojciechowski

This may seem an odd choice, as it is less fantastical and overtly “horror” than the other selections on this list. But likePiranesi, the horror in Oblivion Black is subtle yet no-less present. Oblivion Black is at its heart a novel about addiction and beauty, and how the two interrelate. It explores the story of a recovering heroine addict who takes up a job modelling for a legendary sculptor—erotic tension and unspoken desires ensue. However, beneath the sculptor’s charismatic facade lies darkness and trauma, just as our heroine, Ona, stills feels the draw towards her addictive past. Both are liberated by the creation of art, but even art can be corrupted when it is made with ill-intent. Oblivion Black is shocking, provocative, seductive, beautiful, and horrifying all in equal measure. And it’s sequel, Hierarchy of Needs, which I had the pleasure of beta-reading, is even more so. Don’t miss out.

OBLIVION BLACK

11. Melmoth The Wanderer by Charles Maturin

Four years ago, I wrote a ridiculously long article about Melmoth The Wanderer. My feelings about the book have not changed since then, I still regard it as the underrated masterpiece of Gothic fiction. What stands out about this novel is the style in which it is written, which is at once poetic and precise yet also labyrinthine and haunting. Maturin ensnares the reader in the runnels of Melmoth’s mind until we begin to think like the deranged anti-hero who threads his way through the complex layers of this book’s framed narrative. Imagine Inception written by Mary Shelly and Christopher Marlowe and you have a sense of the warped genius of Melmoth The Wanderer. Everyone should try reading this book at least once—though be warned those who succeed may end up mad!

MELMOTH THE WANDERER

Well, that’s my 11 recommendations for this spooky occasion. Have a terrifyingly joyous Halloween my dear friends. And stay classy!

***

Thanks for reading this epic-sized blog! If you’ve come this far, then I can only profusely thank you for your dedication. If you want to support my work, including the production of more detailed content like this, then you can head on over to my Patreon where I post monthly content, from essays to behind-the-scenes videos to exclusive cover reveals and beta-reading opportunities. 

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Review of Flesh Rehearsal by Brian Bowyer

Flesh Rehearsal is undoubtedly a work of dark genius. I say this knowing full well the word genius is frequently overused in contemporary discourse, and often awarded to work that is simply shocking or experimental, as though this were the only barometer of worth. However, Brian Bowyer’s novel is the real deal, a morbid beast of a book that explores existential questions such as what happens when we die, that comments on modern culture and our obsession with violence and sex, and, most surprisingly of all, shows how true love can stand in the face of darkness.

I often start my reviews by saying there is so much to unpack that it’s hard to know where to begin, but this is especially true of Brian Bowyer’s novel. His style is economic, which doesn’t mean that Bowyer doesn’t occasionally flex his poetic muscles for a passage of wonderful (or horrifying) description, but ultimately his preference seems to be cutting the bone—pun fully intended. This means that whilst the novel is a lean three hundred and sixty pages, more happens in the first fifty than in most trilogies.

One of the great distinguishing trademarks of the Russian novelists, particularly Tolstoy, was their use of action. Tolstoy’s prose is full of verbs, of doing, of movement. This creates a sense that the characters are dynamic and alive. Yes, there is introspection, but even the introspection feels active somehow. It’s as though all the characters and even places are caught in a kind of eternal stream, a ceaseless motion. Indeed, Tolstoy actively comments on this at times, calling this ceaseless movement “God”. Bowyer’s Flesh Rehearsal is similarly active. His verb tenses are almost never passive. All his characters are constantly alive and in motion, which gives the narrative an unstoppable momentum. Once I was hooked into the characters, and got a sense of who they were, I couldn’t stop reading.

This is a nice segue into the characters, who are—not to put too fine a point on it—fucking bananas. Firstly, there’s Gretchen and her sister Abby (a sly nod to Grady Hendrix’s My Best Friend’s Exorcism or pure coincidence?), who have suffered a lifetime of abuse at the hands of their father. These are arguably the most grounded characters in the book. We sympathise with their plight and we want the best for them. But we also recognise that, due to their upbringing, there’s a darkness in them too. And this darkness is expressed in strangely theatrical soliloquies about the nature of black holes, and death, and evil. In another book, these might feel out of place, but Bowyer’s masterstroke is really his setting, a setting that contextualises these surreal moments and makes them feel earned.

Dean Koontz once observed that, “I can forgive a writer a lot if they can wield a warp and weft of mood”. Flesh Rehearsal oozes mood. Every page is laden with Gothic dread. Though the novel is set in America, and the main action of the plot takes place in L. A., it is not the L.A. you can visit, it is the secret “dark side of the moon”, the side hidden from the conscious mind, an underbelly blacker than sin and certainly magical. Though Flesh Rehearsal is grounded in our world and real suffering and emotions, it is also unashamedly mysterious and supernatural. Bowyer taps into the sense that all of us, even staunch atheists, have had, that there is a world beyond our own just out of reach, and this life is just a “flesh rehearsal” for it. Occasionally, this world encroaches upon our own, and sometimes it drives men and women insane with what it reveals.

The strange characters inhabiting this dark fantasyland therefore feel like they are in their natural habitat. Out of the six main characters, four of them turn out to be either murderers or serial killers. The majority of these reveals aren’t big narrative revelations, by the way, it’s just part and parcel of living in this deeply fucked up world. One of the characters may or may not be gifted with superhuman powers—such as unnaturally long life and supernatural strength—as a result of appeasing the “gods of death”. Another is a prize-fighter who specialises in death-matches. But she also has a sensitive side and writes graphic novels.

Several of these characters are in a heavy metal band called Noctourniquet.

Let that name sink in.

As you’re hopefully beginning to realise, there’s little I can really do to prepare you for reading this book. It’s an experience as much as a narrative, a headlong plunge into abyssal black waters from which you may not emerge the same as when you went in. But having said that it’s an experience, the narrative in the Flesh Rehearsal is incredibly strong, governed as it is by the characters and their desires. Boiled down to its barest, barest parts, the book might be said to be a love-story. It’s girl meets girl, both of them damaged, but each of them capable of healing the other. The sweetness of this love-story is, I think, the secret to the book’s success, for without it the darkness of the world would surely overwhelm us.

And speaking of darkness, the second major component of the book is a thread that is deftly woven throughout the novel of a serial killer called The Lobotomiser killing women across L.A.. As I’ve already mentioned, there are several serial killers in this book, and we follow quite a few of them, but The Lobotomiser is distinguished from the others for the sheer awfulness of his murders and vile desecrations. Some scenes in this book will turn your stomach and make you nauseous—you have been warned.

The Lobotomiser is the king of the killers, and L. A. is his playground. We start with a very distant perspective on him: rumours and news reports, gossip and glimpses, but slowly we move closer and closer until we finally realise who The Lobotomiser is. The way the revelation is handled is sheer brilliance—Bowyer gives us just enough to know, to work it out for ourselves, and as a result it raises the hairs on the back of the neck. The novel reaches its climax when The Lobotomiser crosses paths with one of our star-crossed lovers. The tension of these concluding chapters is frankly deleterious to one’s health—we know exactly how bad it’s going to be if The Lobotomiser gets what he wants (seriously, it’s worse than you think). The stakes are real, and this makes the narrative electrifying.

But if this summed the narrative, then I still probably could not give Flesh Rehearsal the hard-earned descriptor of “genius”. There is another thread running through the narrative, however, the story of a twisted and conflicted Gollum-like man called Ludlow, and this is what takes it to the next level. Ludlow was undoubtedly my favourite character in the story: a drummer, a drug-addict, and a schizophrenic wrestling with reality itself. His chapters feature a wondrous intermixture of pitch-black humour and hair-raising terror. He is a dreadful person yet we also pity him because he does not seem to be in control (hence my comparison to Gollum, it is as if he has two sides).

Clive Barker once wrote in Imajica, “in any fiction, no matter how ambitious its scope or profound its theme, there [is] only ever room for three players. Between warring kings, a peacemaker; between adoring spouses, a seducer, or a child. Between twins, the spirit of the womb. Between lovers, Death.” Ludlow, to my mind, embodies this third actor or player, this dynamic element that cannot be predicted but we know will serve some greater narrative purpose. This purpose is fully realised at the end of the book where, like Gollum, Ludlow’s evil comes to serve good—it sends chills down my spine just thinking about it. And perhaps the most spine-tingling aspect is that Ludlow finally gets to have a moment of control, where he chooses—character development at its finest. 

Whilst Flesh Rehearsal is undoubtedly gonzo—one might even say borderline bizarro—it juxtaposes hyper-violence, drug-use, serial killers, vampires, and steaming-hot lesbian erotica with moments of profound pathos. I'd like to hope the world is not as dark or full of killers as Brian Bowyer’s version of L.A., yet artists use lies to tell the truth, and we see in it a mirror of the human condition and the struggle of being alive.

Stephen King once described H. P. Lovecraft as horror’s “dark and baroque prince”. After reading Flesh Rehearsal, I have to conclude that the title has a new bearer.

You can buy Flesh Rehearsal at the links below:

Amazon UK

Amazon US

Amazon CA

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Review of Reconstructing A Relationship by Micah Castle

Reconstructing A Relationship is perhaps one of the most surprising stories I’ve yet reviewed on themindflayer.com—at once a grisly modern re-telling of Frankenstein and an exploration of abusive relationships. Though short—of novelette length at around 58 pages—author Micah Castle manages to take the reader on an incredible journey.

I will say that reviewing this novelette almost feels like a disservice, because readers will be rewarded by going into the story knowing as little as possible. I didn’t read the blurb or look at any reviews—my only clue was the front cover—and I found myself transported. If what I’ve said so far is enough to whet your appetite, then go right ahead and dive in without any further context. You can thank me later.

But for those who need a little more, which is perfectly understandable, strap in for a wild ride.

Firstly, I’ll comment on the writing style. Micah Castle writes real sentences. That might sound pretentious, but it’s possibly the most truthful way I can say it. Some of the images in this story will send shivers down your spine. Yet, he doesn’t sacrifice character for the sake of lyricism; the narrative voice remains distinct and relevant to the character we are following.

Structurally, Reconstructing A Relationship resembles a two-act play, two complimentary dramatic movements divided by a midway perspective shift. Part 1 of the story focuses on Terry, a southern American woman who has lost the love of her life in a car accident. Terry is on a mission to reconstruct her relationship: literally. At first, we’re not entirely sure what Terry is up to—we know it’s suspect from the brooding atmosphere of the prose, from the paranoid way she behaves, but we can’t quite put the pieces together (if you’ll pardon the pun). Very shortly, however, it becomes clear she’s building a new body for her lover, Drew, and she’s prepared to do whatever it takes to find the parts she needs. Victor Frankenstein famously plundered graveyards for the materials needed to create his monster. But Terry has no qualms about finding fresher samples...

Terry’s immoral pursuit of the means to resurrect her dead lover creates a brilliant conflict in that we simultaneously feel sorry for Terry and how deeply her loss has affected her but are also appalled by her actions; we admire her ferocious determination but we also know she has completely lost her mind. Micah Castle’s prose uses free-indirect discourse to put us right inside Terry’s head, and we can’t help but feel sympathy for her, despite the fact she’s insane. We chalk up her mania to desperation and grief.

But then comes the midway perspective shift.

I can’t say too much about this, for fear of ruining the story for you, but suffice to say our perception of what is really going on changes dramatically—our assumptions fall out from under us and we are left with some truths even more grisly than the body parts and organs that have littered the pages of part 1. Whilst body horror pervades the entire story, part 2 takes us deep into psychological horror as well, exploring intense themes including abusive relationships. Refreshingly, however, Castle’s storytelling never feels like it is gratuitous for the sake of it or that he is trying to shock the reader—the situation is simply shocking in and of itself. What’s even more impressive is that he manages to retain characterisation. Too many horror novels, at the nadir point, turn their characters into two-dimensional cartoon villains who get off on sadism—abandoning all personality in favour of a purely “evil” archetype. Castle’s villains, however, are governed by genuine motivations, and though we hate them we still feel sorry for how wretched they’ve become.

In part 1, we turn pages because we are so invested in Terry’s mission and whether or not she will succeed; the narrative propulsion is astounding. I imagined that with a perspective shift it would be difficult to sustain such giddy narrative momentum, and yet the author not only achieves this, but the momentum actually increases, as does the overwhelming horror. I could not stop turning pages until I had devoured the rest of the book in one sitting.

What perhaps pleased me most about this story was its ending. There has been a recent fetish for horror novels that end so bleakly that the entire preceding narrative feels utterly pointless—again for the sake of shock value. Micah Castle understands, however, that having passed through such darkness we must emerge into light. The final moments of the narrative are hair-raisingly uplifting, a cathartic emergence from suffering and trauma into the possibility of freedom. This ending shows the novelette to be unashamedly allegorical—which is why I found it to be not just emotive but also healing.

Amazon UK

Amazon US

Amazon CA

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