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booknook(cross-posted from my journal in full)
In my previous review I mentioned that I read three horror books this year that dealt with occult music, and that they all disappointed me. This novella was number three. Not only was it not that good, it downright pissed me off.
I was willing to be totally sold on this. Instead I got a misogynist, repetitive mess full of clichéd writing.
Warning: I am going to spoil the shit out of this book that you will not want to read after I'm done. My deepest insincere apologies. By the way, some of the quotes are totally Not Safe For Work. And there is mention of sexual assault.
Let me set the mood first.
In the very first chapter, Cross muses about Keith Richards (who, at this fictional point in time, has died years ago) that he'd "shuffled off to that long-lost Valhalla to spend eternity drinking wine off the tits of beautiful women."
A few paragraphs later, the producer says that he used to be a fan of Cross' band and learned to play guitar because of it, and that "your songs were always a favorite with the ladies."
Shortly after that, Cross explains that "[i]t started with the gypsy, the woman who called herself Camilla [...] She was our undoing."
Yup, this is a story about a woman tearing an all-male band apart. Because women are bitches and harpies, when they're not being sexy and giving you a hand-job. Because Camilla gives Cross a hand-job in the next chapter. (That this sexual act does not end in an orgasm does nothing to compensate me for the awkward descriptions I had to endure, such as "She'd already fished me out of my pants and had me worked into a bar of iron before I stopped her.") When introducing her into the narrative, Keisling has Cross say that "she was our Yoko Ono". Later in the book, Cross states "Hell, just look at your history of rock. Look at the Beatles or Nirvana, Yoko Ono or Courtney Love. You introduce a variable into an otherwise balanced equation and it tips the scales."
I fucking detest this Yoko is to be blamed for the Beatles' break-up bullshit. Loathe it. Absolutely loathe it. It has no basis in reality, just like the conspiracy theory that Courtney murdered Kurt has no basis in reality. But women be bitches, am I right?
Basically, Camilla is 40% sex on legs and 60% destructive scheming psycho girlfriend. (In the whole novella, there is one (1) small moment where she almost has a real personality hinting at a depth of emotion beyond evil and/or seductive.) She sexually assaults the band members during a ritual - which, like the handjob scene, is described rather clunkily.
Oh, and then there's the chapter where Camilla gets their current producer out of the picture by faking that he violently assaulted her. Because, again, women be bitches, am I right?
Now that's been established, let's discuss the actual occult stuff and the mystery in the novel. It's also... not good.
Admittedly, the actual mythos around The Yellow King is rather sparse, so any author would have to face the difficulty of not having much source material to work from. The different planet or possibly different universe the Yellow King lives in, is described very little. (See the Wikipedia entry for Carcosa.) You can still do something great with it - for example, the first season of the neo-noir series True Detective incorporates some of the mythos and there it was used as a background flavour of dread, poisoning your mind slowly through hints and symbols. It isn't explained or made understandable, and in my opinion that's how it should be.
The problem with The Final Reconciliation is that Keisling tries to shine a spotlight on it and turn it into a central part of the narrative. See, the band (influenced by Camilla and her supernatural abilities) records the titular album and the music somehow opens a gateway to Carcosa and/or summons the Yellow King. Camilla forces this into motion because she's not really a human, she's actually from Carcosa, was banished to Earth and now tries to return and reclaim her lost glory.
This creates several further problems, a major one being repetition. Keisling uses the same motives and images over and over. The same vista of Carcosa (the only one we have from the source canon) is visited repeatedly through visions and dreams that the characters have, with very little incremental change. If you want to drink yourself into a stupor, start by taking a shot every time the word "mask" or "masks" or "taking off [your/the] mask is mentioned. Or the fact that Camilla has weird eyes. Or each time there is foreshadowing along the lines of "if only I had known then..." or "I should have..." or "...but I'll get to that."
Keisling understandably tries to pad this with his own additions to what the inhabitants of Carcosa (and therefore Camilla too) are like, but unfortunately it does not mesh well. The idea that the mask-wearing, robe-clad figures that Cross meets in his visions of Carcosa are hiding a terrifying not-face is a good one, but there's so much else that never comes together in a coherent fashion. Camilla is a mess of attributes and skills. She speaks in a guttural voice sometimes (from what I understood, that's when the King in Yellow speaks through her), her eyes change colour, she can levitate and put a spell on people by being supernaturally charming. At one point Cross thinks she's sucking the life out of Johnny, and it's unclear whether he means that metaphorically or suspects her of actually having this effect. Near the end she turns into a stereotypical movie monster stomping - I mean, levitating - through bloody carnage in a concert venue, first quipping like a Marvel villain ("Aww, Johnny, come on. [...] I thought we were in love?"), then screaming nonsensically while the building burns around her. ("No mask?" [...] "No mask!" - Please take another two shots for the "mask" thing.)
Considering that the reader gets told from very early on that Camilla is bad news and possibly not human, and that something terrible happened at the band's final concert where everybody died, the only mystery left is finding out what exactly went down and how it all went to shit. But Keisling sprinkles in so many details through foreshadowing that you can relatively quickly guess where this all is going. (With all the later talk of masks and how you need to take them off, consider p. 14 - which, in terms of the actual story, would be p. 2: "Reggie used to smile like that all the time before his face was torn off. Old Reggie's smile was never quite the same after that." - And while I'm at it: The second sentence is a weird addition, implying that Reggie lived on after his disfigurement, but he died mere minutes after the de-facing.)
Did I mention there's a bland twist at the end that made me groan? It's on the level of "The slasher disappeared from the cop car" and "Twilight Zone protagonist gets carried screaming into his padded cell". The screaming is not hyperbole. Here's the final sentences before the epilogue, behold:
And if anyone might wonder why I haven't spent a single word on the other band members and their characterization (I doubt that anyone would wonder after all I've said, but it's hypothetically possible!) - BIG SURPRISE, they're made of cardboard! Everything happens too quickly! We are constantly told, not shown! IT MATTERS NONE
I swear by Andraste and the Maker, I did say to myself, oh this will be a short review, maybe a paragraph or two! But the bad facets of this are like a fucking clown rope trick, you think you're done but there's even more, and I took that personally.
It sucks. This book suuuuucks.
Fuck, I'll never get those hours back.
In my previous review I mentioned that I read three horror books this year that dealt with occult music, and that they all disappointed me. This novella was number three. Not only was it not that good, it downright pissed me off.
TAKE OFF YOUR MASK.
Thirty years ago, a progressive rock band called The Yellow Kings began recording what would become their first and final album. Titled “The Final Reconciliation,” the album was expected to usher in a new renaissance of heavy metal, but it was shelved following a tragic concert that left all but one dead. The sole survivor of that horrific incident was the band’s lead guitarist, Aidan Cross, who’s kept silent about the circumstances leading up to that ill-fated performance — until now.
For the first time since the tragedy, Aidan has granted an exclusive interview to finally put rumors to rest and address a question that has haunted the music industry for decades: What happened to The Yellow Kings?
The answer will terrify you.
Inspired by The King in Yellow mythos first established by Robert W. Chambers, and reminiscent of cosmic horror by H. P. Lovecraft, Laird Barron, and John Langan, comes The Final Reconciliation — a chilling tale of regret, the occult, and heavy metal by Todd Keisling.
I was willing to be totally sold on this. Instead I got a misogynist, repetitive mess full of clichéd writing.
Warning: I am going to spoil the shit out of this book that you will not want to read after I'm done. My deepest insincere apologies. By the way, some of the quotes are totally Not Safe For Work. And there is mention of sexual assault.
Let me set the mood first.
In the very first chapter, Cross muses about Keith Richards (who, at this fictional point in time, has died years ago) that he'd "shuffled off to that long-lost Valhalla to spend eternity drinking wine off the tits of beautiful women."
A few paragraphs later, the producer says that he used to be a fan of Cross' band and learned to play guitar because of it, and that "your songs were always a favorite with the ladies."
Shortly after that, Cross explains that "[i]t started with the gypsy, the woman who called herself Camilla [...] She was our undoing."
Yup, this is a story about a woman tearing an all-male band apart. Because women are bitches and harpies, when they're not being sexy and giving you a hand-job. Because Camilla gives Cross a hand-job in the next chapter. (That this sexual act does not end in an orgasm does nothing to compensate me for the awkward descriptions I had to endure, such as "She'd already fished me out of my pants and had me worked into a bar of iron before I stopped her.") When introducing her into the narrative, Keisling has Cross say that "she was our Yoko Ono". Later in the book, Cross states "Hell, just look at your history of rock. Look at the Beatles or Nirvana, Yoko Ono or Courtney Love. You introduce a variable into an otherwise balanced equation and it tips the scales."
I fucking detest this Yoko is to be blamed for the Beatles' break-up bullshit. Loathe it. Absolutely loathe it. It has no basis in reality, just like the conspiracy theory that Courtney murdered Kurt has no basis in reality. But women be bitches, am I right?
Basically, Camilla is 40% sex on legs and 60% destructive scheming psycho girlfriend. (In the whole novella, there is one (1) small moment where she almost has a real personality hinting at a depth of emotion beyond evil and/or seductive.) She sexually assaults the band members during a ritual - which, like the handjob scene, is described rather clunkily.
"Now," she growled, "lick me." ... She defiled us. Our bodies, our minds. Our souls. I have scars in places you wouldn't believe.
Oh, and then there's the chapter where Camilla gets their current producer out of the picture by faking that he violently assaulted her. Because, again, women be bitches, am I right?
Now that's been established, let's discuss the actual occult stuff and the mystery in the novel. It's also... not good.
Admittedly, the actual mythos around The Yellow King is rather sparse, so any author would have to face the difficulty of not having much source material to work from. The different planet or possibly different universe the Yellow King lives in, is described very little. (See the Wikipedia entry for Carcosa.) You can still do something great with it - for example, the first season of the neo-noir series True Detective incorporates some of the mythos and there it was used as a background flavour of dread, poisoning your mind slowly through hints and symbols. It isn't explained or made understandable, and in my opinion that's how it should be.
The problem with The Final Reconciliation is that Keisling tries to shine a spotlight on it and turn it into a central part of the narrative. See, the band (influenced by Camilla and her supernatural abilities) records the titular album and the music somehow opens a gateway to Carcosa and/or summons the Yellow King. Camilla forces this into motion because she's not really a human, she's actually from Carcosa, was banished to Earth and now tries to return and reclaim her lost glory.
This creates several further problems, a major one being repetition. Keisling uses the same motives and images over and over. The same vista of Carcosa (the only one we have from the source canon) is visited repeatedly through visions and dreams that the characters have, with very little incremental change. If you want to drink yourself into a stupor, start by taking a shot every time the word "mask" or "masks" or "taking off [your/the] mask is mentioned. Or the fact that Camilla has weird eyes. Or each time there is foreshadowing along the lines of "if only I had known then..." or "I should have..." or "...but I'll get to that."
Keisling understandably tries to pad this with his own additions to what the inhabitants of Carcosa (and therefore Camilla too) are like, but unfortunately it does not mesh well. The idea that the mask-wearing, robe-clad figures that Cross meets in his visions of Carcosa are hiding a terrifying not-face is a good one, but there's so much else that never comes together in a coherent fashion. Camilla is a mess of attributes and skills. She speaks in a guttural voice sometimes (from what I understood, that's when the King in Yellow speaks through her), her eyes change colour, she can levitate and put a spell on people by being supernaturally charming. At one point Cross thinks she's sucking the life out of Johnny, and it's unclear whether he means that metaphorically or suspects her of actually having this effect. Near the end she turns into a stereotypical movie monster stomping - I mean, levitating - through bloody carnage in a concert venue, first quipping like a Marvel villain ("Aww, Johnny, come on. [...] I thought we were in love?"), then screaming nonsensically while the building burns around her. ("No mask?" [...] "No mask!" - Please take another two shots for the "mask" thing.)
Considering that the reader gets told from very early on that Camilla is bad news and possibly not human, and that something terrible happened at the band's final concert where everybody died, the only mystery left is finding out what exactly went down and how it all went to shit. But Keisling sprinkles in so many details through foreshadowing that you can relatively quickly guess where this all is going. (With all the later talk of masks and how you need to take them off, consider p. 14 - which, in terms of the actual story, would be p. 2: "Reggie used to smile like that all the time before his face was torn off. Old Reggie's smile was never quite the same after that." - And while I'm at it: The second sentence is a weird addition, implying that Reggie lived on after his disfigurement, but he died mere minutes after the de-facing.)
Did I mention there's a bland twist at the end that made me groan? It's on the level of "The slasher disappeared from the cop car" and "Twilight Zone protagonist gets carried screaming into his padded cell". The screaming is not hyperbole. Here's the final sentences before the epilogue, behold:
Aidan sank back in his chair. The air slipped out of the room, and for the longest of seconds, still silence took its place.
A moment later, the screaming started.
And if anyone might wonder why I haven't spent a single word on the other band members and their characterization (I doubt that anyone would wonder after all I've said, but it's hypothetically possible!) - BIG SURPRISE, they're made of cardboard! Everything happens too quickly! We are constantly told, not shown! IT MATTERS NONE
I swear by Andraste and the Maker, I did say to myself, oh this will be a short review, maybe a paragraph or two! But the bad facets of this are like a fucking clown rope trick, you think you're done but there's even more, and I took that personally.
It sucks. This book suuuuucks.
Fuck, I'll never get those hours back.
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