False Magic Kingdom

by Jordan Krall

From Jordan Krall, author of BEYOND THE VALLEY OF THE APOCALYPSE DONKEYS, comes a novella in the tradition of early J. G. Ballard, later William Burroughs, and Barry Malzberg.

Exploring the concepts of personal and public tragedy, this is a book unlike anything Krall has written a collection of brief chapters in an infinite universe of physical and mental illness, urban destruction, and the cracks in society we fight to ignore.

Genres: Bizarro Fiction, Fiction, Horror

57 pages, Kindle Edition

First published May 4, 2012

About the author

Books include:

TENTACLE DEATH TRIP
FISTFUL OF FEET
MOTEL MAN
KING SCRATCH
BEYOND THE VALLEY OF THE APOCALYPSE DONKEYS
PIECEMEAL JUNE
SQUID PULP BLUES
NEWLY SHAVEN SAINT
UNFRUITFUL WORKS
PRELUDE TO SPACE RAPE!
SQUID KILLS
THE PISTOL BURPS
ALL POEMS MUST DIE
FALSE MAGIC KINGDOM
BAD ALCHEMY
THE GOG AND MAGOG BUSINESS
YOUR CITIES, YOUR TOMBS

Reviews

[Seb · Rating 5 out of 5]

I am speechless 😶

This novella is some literary work.

It hits hard and strong, especially when the pieces finally come together.

😲


Read in The False Magic Kingdom Cycle

[James Stone · Rating 5 out of 5]

I love irony. I love paradox. I love absurdity. False Magic Kingdom (and its sequel, Bad Alchemy, which I am now reading) is an exercise in all three. The author's note in the beginning of the book, that "This is my first attempt at non-genre fiction, I may have failed, I don't know, but this is a story I needed to tell."
I find it ironic that JK describes this book as a non-genre story that he had to tell. From my perspective and in my opinion JK and a few others have created a genre known as "non-genre." I love it. I love the paradox and I love how this story pushes the limits of descriptive language. Since we humans tend to like to organize and group similar things together and then name them, as in various genres of literature, non-fiction, mystery, sci-fi, romance, etc.
I just love this American/English language. It can be potently descriptive depending upon who is writing, and it can be baffling, failing to produce proper descriptors for various phenomena. I believe most of us know the expression, "I'm beyond words." We have a word for that: indescribable.
Just as a quick aside, reading JK's author's note, I was taken back to my Junior year in High School. It was a literature class and it as a delight to the young budding existential-phenomenologist who is typing this review. One of my best friends and one of the smartest people I have ever met, was carrying on a discussion with an increasingly frustrated Brother Diss (yep, that was his name, don't wear it out). The discussion over the phrase, "I have nothing." My friend Bob held that this was absurd, in that one cannot HAVE nothing. If one could have nothing, then nothing is something. I jumped in where I could; I swear this conversation was so enthralling and challenging that I never wanted it to end. This was going beyond literature and into some pretty deep philosophical territory and it was challenging, from my viewpoint, the limits of our language. Since I know you will want to know, for his failure to see that you can have nothing, Bob ended up spending the last third of the class hugging a huge vertical pipe in the back of the room and a week's detention. Power play, not fair.
Now, to the present, this fascinating book, with its jumping from 1st, 2nd and 3rd person perspectives in short blasts of visitations to moments in people's lives. It is a brilliant, ingenious approach to story-telling (and that makes it a genre in my, ah, book.) Deliberately not having a genre is to create a genre and as a now well-trained existential-phenomenological clinical psychologist, I find the machine gun like switching from one perspectival view to another, jumping from event to event to be a nearly triumphant phenomenology of human existence.
The style may drive some readers to question their sanity, but I found the style, the humor, the pathos, the gravity and its opposite, comedy, to be absurdly captivating. While not directly evident in any given passage, I do find myself reminded of Philip K. Dick, H.P. Lovecraft, and Jonathan Lethem. I have no idea to what extent JK has exposed himself to these authors, but he is kin from where I sit.
There is no sense going into the various scenes we visit and revisit since it is really the "non-genre" style that is on display here. I admit it, he's cracked into my top ten or so "must read" authors. What I love is that there is, at present, much more for me to read. Lucky me. Lucky you if you enjoy excursions into the absurd and the mundane co-incidentally, love having your brain twisted in a way that kind of tickles and are capable of serious suspension of disbelief, then the work of Jordan Krall is for you. If its not your thing, untwist your panties, you are definitely not having enough fun in life.

[Hakim · Rating 4 out of 5]

Jordan Krall, one of the undisputed masters of modern weird fiction, delivers an unsettling and highly entrancing book - Book 1 of the False Kingdom trilogy- with emotional depth and intriguing characters. Once I got accustomed to the rather unusually shattered narrative and started putting together the pieces of the puzzle, I couldn't put the book down.

[Kate · Rating 3 out of 5]

3.5*

[Sheldon · Rating 4 out of 5]

“False Magic Kingdom” by Jordan Krall is a significant departure from Krall's previous work. It's also one of the hardest to provide a review for more than one reason.

One can't really describe the book that well. It's a series of short chapters that take place from multiple viewpoints. These different stories have a very loose relation to each other. Some are hard to tell if they're related at all. We return to the different stories periodically as everything moves forward, and sort of cycle through each viewpoint as we move from chapter to chapter.

In short, each story seems to deal with personal or public tragedies, either a public shaming of some kind, or a quiet nervous breakdown that happens solely within the character's head. It's the very essence of literary fiction, and not at all like Krall's previous work in the bizarro genre, although some of Krall's bizarro-writing tendencies leak through on occasion.

So, why is it so hard to provide a review? Well, to start, it's sometimes a little difficult just to figure out what's going on. It gets confusing. Very confusing, especially when there are teases about some stories being related to others, so then one starts to look for everything that ties together and understand what the overall story or point is.

The second reason is that this book is the first in a trilogy. Having read the second book, Bad Alchemy , before writing this review, I can say that it is not a sequel but rather a direct continuation of the story. I have not read the third book, because it has not been released at the time of this writing, but so far it feels like this should have all been one volume.

However, I can understand why the choice was made to divide it up into three volumes, aside from simple sales. This book is not an easy read. It's definitely challenging. If the different volumes were included in one book, it would become very daunting and easy to want to give up. But since it's divided up into three piece, it becomes easier to chew, rather than trying to stuff the whole steak in your mouth, as it were, and one feels more compelled to read through them.

If you read this book, you must read Bad Alchemy. That's not up for negotiation. Bad Alchemy is what starts to tie things together, but not in a neat little bow; simply that you understand more about the relationship between the different stories and the characters. I will eagerly anticipate the third volume because I want to see where Krall is going to go with this, but being a literary novel, I doubt it's going to get that nice neat tie-up at the end.

Again, it's extremely difficult to give this a rating because it's literary fiction, which tends to be a bit obtuse to begin with. It's like trying to rate Ulysses or Gravity's Rainbow. It's also not self-contained, and I would prefer to reserve judgment once I've finished the whole series. I do like it up to this point, but without knowing the whole story and scope, it's really hard to tell how much I like it. In the meantime, I will give this volume the benefit of the doubt and give it 4 out of 5 stars, and especially giving Krall credit for trying something new.

[Jeremy Maddux]

Jordan Krall does with skyscrapers what Lovecraft did with tentacles, and it works. Why? Because isn't that what Americans are really afraid of these days? Think about it. It's an undisputed fact that the Cthulhu Mythos has penetrated the mainstream, with Call of Cthulhu card games, endless literary homages from modern horror authors, a Cthulhu plushie for God's sake! But what makes us weak at the knees isn't the Elder Gods or the Old Ones or Sumerian incantations. It's tall buildings and their fallibility when struck by airplane or explosives.

There's also some people with Oedipus and Electra Complexes, trying to figure out where they fit in a world where apathy means survival. I look forward to reading the other three books in this series. I think I've had enough tendrils, suckers, extra appendages, tentacles and gibbous moons that I openly welcome Krall's vision of sentient monoliths bent on exterminating humanity, or whatever the hell is about to happen in this series.

[Donald Armfield · Rating 5 out of 5]

From beginning with an "Argon Seizure" to the end "Fathers" Jordan Krall gives us thoughts and tears. " Unfruitful Works" gave me a tears, not literally but a very touching story.

My favorite character is Jessica. She has two stories. A day dreamer wondering where her father went. I hope we see more of her in "Bad Alchemy"

This is a great read I will be waiting with my glass of jet fuel and a cigarette for the next installment.

[Byron 'Giggsy' Paul · Rating 2 out of 5]

shortly, this just didn't work for me, but in giving it 2 stars I feel I should at least mention the writing wasn't bad, it just didn't come together for my interests and will likely give another Krall title an attempt in the future

[Steven Shroyer · Rating 5 out of 5]

Nothing short of brilliant. Reminds me of all the Burroughs I read in college!

[Justin · Rating 5 out of 5]

FALSE MAGIC KINGDOM is quite the puzzling read. There is A LOT going on. Several individual stories are told coexisting seemingly in the timeline. Corporate servitude, unstable people and mental illness are the themes that bond the stories together.

The characters are relatable as they tend to be people who are just sick of it all, tired and beaten by life. Many of the internal monologues seemed familiar in one way or another. It really delves into people's flaws, the ignorance of their own and yet, stays self consciously aware.

It's obvious the author has put a lot of personal experience into this one. This is a tremendous effort from Jordan Krall that does not fall short. This is not his usual pulpy genre fare (which I absolutely love by the way) but rather a more serious entry in his ever-blossoming literary career. The good thing is that Krall's personal touches still remain in the work.

There are some mysterious people copying texts of some great importance, an old VHS tape and automated answering message to nowhere. The mysteries just pile up one after another making me extremely eager to read the next of the trilogy (or quadrilogy), BAD ALCHEMY.

[R.A. Harris · Rating 4 out of 5]

A strange tale of multiple vantage points that seem to coalesce into one bizarre view point. Recurring themes of buildings collapsing/demolition, government conspiracy, buildings coming alive, suicide all paint a sad lonely world. It gets meta-fictional towards the end, with reference to previous lines being parts of stories within the story, and the storyline being lifted from films within the story. All very strange, evocative and sad.

The language Krall uses in this book is sometimes really surreal. Though some of the things he describes are beyond sense, they still evoke a sense of personal tragedy, perhaps some trauma, and inner turmoil.

I'll certainly be reading the rest of the trilogy, though I don't hold much hope that the resolution will be Hollywood style.

[Margot B · Rating 2 out of 5]

I loved the style of writing. I've always loved surrealism and the writings of William S Burroughs, both of which I would bet this draws influence from. The author also has a keen sense for figurative language.

However, beyond Burroughs, themes of bitterness and misanthropy tend to bore me. If that's your thing then you might love this book. The tone the author takes also seems to be more than a little pretentious at times. But perhaps this is intentional, meant to be ironic. I couldn't tell.

[Luke · Rating 3 out of 5]

Really unusual book. I've never read anything by Jordan Krall before, but I understand this is very different from his other work. Probably something that requires multiple readings to really wrap your head around. It's hard to imagine this book having a sequel because it's not really a single narrative, but apparently it does, and I'll definitely read that as well.