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The Galleria
Everyone confides in taxi drivers.
The masses enter Hammond’s cab, impart their life stories or depressing woes, and return to the city streets, taking a little bit of him with them.
Life changes when a young woman named Shaara leaps into his cab, an adherent to a cult, a group indulging in pleasurable depravity in a tower to the south. Tonight, she goes to rob them. Her presence alone wakes Hammond from life’s monotony.
When she later goes missing, he takes it upon himself to stalk the nocturne for her whereabouts and her secrets, entering a hedonist nightmare in which desire is a dangerous game. Bikies, drug addicts, sex addicts, corrupt cops, murderers, and human monsters await Hammond in the dark.
And behind a door on the top floor of the cult’s tower dwells a secret far more terrible than anything Hammond or his customers could imagine.
The masses enter Hammond’s cab, impart their life stories or depressing woes, and return to the city streets, taking a little bit of him with them.
Life changes when a young woman named Shaara leaps into his cab, an adherent to a cult, a group indulging in pleasurable depravity in a tower to the south. Tonight, she goes to rob them. Her presence alone wakes Hammond from life’s monotony.
When she later goes missing, he takes it upon himself to stalk the nocturne for her whereabouts and her secrets, entering a hedonist nightmare in which desire is a dangerous game. Bikies, drug addicts, sex addicts, corrupt cops, murderers, and human monsters await Hammond in the dark.
And behind a door on the top floor of the cult’s tower dwells a secret far more terrible than anything Hammond or his customers could imagine.
147 pages, Kindle Edition
Published January 2, 2024
2 people are currently reading
41 people want to read
About the author
Alexander Michael
10 books35 followersAlexander Michael is a writer of speculative fiction, and a member of the Australasian Horror Writers Association. The open sky is a wellspring of new ideas. What fuels his work is simply witnessing nature in its most raw forms. His fiction deals with the truth of things: midnight occurrences unseen by most; the past and its claws; and the magic that can still be seen if we open our eyes in time.
For fans of horror, fantasy, literary, and an intricate story.
For fans of horror, fantasy, literary, and an intricate story.
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Displaying 1 - 7 of 7 reviews
December 8, 2023
The visual language and style of Alexander Michael's The Galleria is a powerful force that pulls you in and holds you until the end.
The Galleria is a neo-noir novella. It is also partly horror. It's an exploration of occult themes and mysterious eroticism that permeates the main plot of the story. The sexual nature is not an afterthought, and the author does not shy away from describing everything in verbatim detail. Be sure, this is an adult-only book.
Despite the explicit sexuality found in the story, it is not for nothing. Deeply woven into the fabric of The Galleria are ancient mysteries presented in a slick, smooth, and stylish manner of a modern world. Tapping into the same strange worlds as David Lynch and Stanley Kubrick, with the stylistic overtones of '90s David Fincher, and the sensibilities of a post-2001 world of psychological thrillers and the wandering existential crisis of rampant materialism, the author delivers a nightmarish descent into a dreamlike Brisbane. What, where, why, and even when? Questions, questions. There is a great eroteme stamped into this book. It's a mirror. It's a window. Within these pages are the rituals of an old world. A new world. Our world. The mysteries that are revealed upon the igniting of a candle in a dark room.
And beyond the very specific nature of its plot are its characters. With a limited cast, Alexander Michael weaves his marionettes together into a web of intricate pieces; no one character can be separated; no one character should be. Each one has enough depth to carry the story along when the plot meanders in the background. The prose is carefully executed to construct a world of shadows that kindles man's fear of not only the night, but of the swollen sun from a prophetic dream, from a hieroglyphic, from a forgotten but felt subconscious. This is a writer who knows his toolkit.
I don't often read books with this explicit subject matter, and to be honest I was reluctant to do so, but I knew from Alexander Michael's previous novella, Home, that he was a visual writer who, despite the genre, has a story to tell. I was not disappointed. What a fascinating, remarkable book. At times The Galleria had the dark noir quality of William Hjortberg's Falling Angel, but without the more noticeable twists of that novel. Nevertheless, this is a significant milestone in Alexander Michael's writing career that demands attention.
I received this book for free for review purposes. But my opinion is my own. To prove that, I've also pre-ordered the book.
The Galleria is a neo-noir novella. It is also partly horror. It's an exploration of occult themes and mysterious eroticism that permeates the main plot of the story. The sexual nature is not an afterthought, and the author does not shy away from describing everything in verbatim detail. Be sure, this is an adult-only book.
Despite the explicit sexuality found in the story, it is not for nothing. Deeply woven into the fabric of The Galleria are ancient mysteries presented in a slick, smooth, and stylish manner of a modern world. Tapping into the same strange worlds as David Lynch and Stanley Kubrick, with the stylistic overtones of '90s David Fincher, and the sensibilities of a post-2001 world of psychological thrillers and the wandering existential crisis of rampant materialism, the author delivers a nightmarish descent into a dreamlike Brisbane. What, where, why, and even when? Questions, questions. There is a great eroteme stamped into this book. It's a mirror. It's a window. Within these pages are the rituals of an old world. A new world. Our world. The mysteries that are revealed upon the igniting of a candle in a dark room.
And beyond the very specific nature of its plot are its characters. With a limited cast, Alexander Michael weaves his marionettes together into a web of intricate pieces; no one character can be separated; no one character should be. Each one has enough depth to carry the story along when the plot meanders in the background. The prose is carefully executed to construct a world of shadows that kindles man's fear of not only the night, but of the swollen sun from a prophetic dream, from a hieroglyphic, from a forgotten but felt subconscious. This is a writer who knows his toolkit.
I don't often read books with this explicit subject matter, and to be honest I was reluctant to do so, but I knew from Alexander Michael's previous novella, Home, that he was a visual writer who, despite the genre, has a story to tell. I was not disappointed. What a fascinating, remarkable book. At times The Galleria had the dark noir quality of William Hjortberg's Falling Angel, but without the more noticeable twists of that novel. Nevertheless, this is a significant milestone in Alexander Michael's writing career that demands attention.
I received this book for free for review purposes. But my opinion is my own. To prove that, I've also pre-ordered the book.
February 19, 2024
The first and probably last time I will review my own book. Why not? If you like tightly plotted and quick descents from normality into dark, unsettling underworlds, then this novella is for you. Out of my three releases, this one has the most potential to get out there: it is the most accessible and most driven story. Take a chance on it. Anti heroes galore. Horror. Mystery. Just the right amount of metaphysics and supernatural horror.
January 24, 2024
Thanks so much to Alexander for sending me a digital review copy of this one!
I wasn’t really sure what I was getting into with this one, as I saw a brief synopsis, but I’m fairly open to going into everything blind either way.
The story does feature a foreword that illustrates there are three interconnected novellas that can be read in any order or the reader doesn’t need to read the other two novellas at all, as all things lead towards a full length release coming up. I can safely say that I never felt lost or that I was missing something by having not read the other two, which was great, but I could imagine other readers who’ve read the other two as well, will have enjoyed whatever little Easter eggs that have been dotted throughout.
What I liked: The story follows a cab driver, who has a love/hate relationship with his job. It pays the bills and he gets to meet eclectic people, but he also dislikes a large percentage of the crazy folks who hop in late at night.
On one seemingly normal evening, a young woman jumps in, and has a strange hypnotic effect on him. Within their short interaction, she opens his eyes to some potentials that lay just beyond what we can normally see and from there, he becomes almost obsessed with her, hoping she gets back in nightly.
Michael does a great job with this scene and then having her burrow under our taxi drivers skin. It’s an element that can either work or not, but in this case, we get to walk that line between ‘enough already’ and ‘he needs to find her!’
As the story unfolds, she disappears and he takes it upon himself to find her and its at this point that we go from a fairly mundane story to a seedy underbelly world where drugs, sex and violence lead the way.
Describing things like Clive Barker or Barker-esque can sometimes be overused, but in this case its spot on. Reading this I felt like I was reading something that Stanley Kubrick adapted from Barker. An ‘Eyes Wide Shut’ through Clive’s imagination, if you will.
What I didn’t like: Truthfully, this book was really, really solid, but it never completely grabbed by the throat and held me down, forcing me to turn its pages. I think this is just more of a case of the ‘noir’ aspect to it, that this readers brain typically stays away from, as it never fully connects. So, this one will definitely grab others WAY more than it grabbed me.
Why you should buy this: Michael has done a wonderful job of taking a ‘basic’ character and thrusting him into a world he clearly doesn’t belong in. It makes for some uneasy and awkward moments, which are only heightened by our Taxi drivers desire to find the girl, but also to see everything that he has been missing out in his boring life. A very unique take on the classic ‘fish out of water’ trope.
I wasn’t really sure what I was getting into with this one, as I saw a brief synopsis, but I’m fairly open to going into everything blind either way.
The story does feature a foreword that illustrates there are three interconnected novellas that can be read in any order or the reader doesn’t need to read the other two novellas at all, as all things lead towards a full length release coming up. I can safely say that I never felt lost or that I was missing something by having not read the other two, which was great, but I could imagine other readers who’ve read the other two as well, will have enjoyed whatever little Easter eggs that have been dotted throughout.
What I liked: The story follows a cab driver, who has a love/hate relationship with his job. It pays the bills and he gets to meet eclectic people, but he also dislikes a large percentage of the crazy folks who hop in late at night.
On one seemingly normal evening, a young woman jumps in, and has a strange hypnotic effect on him. Within their short interaction, she opens his eyes to some potentials that lay just beyond what we can normally see and from there, he becomes almost obsessed with her, hoping she gets back in nightly.
Michael does a great job with this scene and then having her burrow under our taxi drivers skin. It’s an element that can either work or not, but in this case, we get to walk that line between ‘enough already’ and ‘he needs to find her!’
As the story unfolds, she disappears and he takes it upon himself to find her and its at this point that we go from a fairly mundane story to a seedy underbelly world where drugs, sex and violence lead the way.
Describing things like Clive Barker or Barker-esque can sometimes be overused, but in this case its spot on. Reading this I felt like I was reading something that Stanley Kubrick adapted from Barker. An ‘Eyes Wide Shut’ through Clive’s imagination, if you will.
What I didn’t like: Truthfully, this book was really, really solid, but it never completely grabbed by the throat and held me down, forcing me to turn its pages. I think this is just more of a case of the ‘noir’ aspect to it, that this readers brain typically stays away from, as it never fully connects. So, this one will definitely grab others WAY more than it grabbed me.
Why you should buy this: Michael has done a wonderful job of taking a ‘basic’ character and thrusting him into a world he clearly doesn’t belong in. It makes for some uneasy and awkward moments, which are only heightened by our Taxi drivers desire to find the girl, but also to see everything that he has been missing out in his boring life. A very unique take on the classic ‘fish out of water’ trope.
d-n-f
April 30, 2024Not giving a rating since I did not finish this and stopped at a little more than halfway through. It was hard for me to stay engaged when I didn’t care for any of the characters and found their actions unconvincing and difficult to understand. The MC Hammond was very unlikable and I couldn’t wrap my head around why he made it his mission to try and find a girl after a brief encounter and already thinking of her as a “sex goddess” and wanting to marry her? Which is a shame because the idea of a taxi driver trying to find a missing girl who belongs to a depraved sex-cult is so intriguing.
This is the third book I’ve read by this author and “Home” is still a solid favorite of the three. While the author has good ideas, it’s the execution that’s lacking for me. But not every book is for every person so if this book is on your radar I’ll still tell you to give it a shot since you may end up enjoying it more than I did.
Many thanks to the author for a copy of this book (with a gorgeous cover design) in exchange for an honest review.
This is the third book I’ve read by this author and “Home” is still a solid favorite of the three. While the author has good ideas, it’s the execution that’s lacking for me. But not every book is for every person so if this book is on your radar I’ll still tell you to give it a shot since you may end up enjoying it more than I did.
Many thanks to the author for a copy of this book (with a gorgeous cover design) in exchange for an honest review.
March 11, 2024
Part noir, part supernatural, all dark! This book lures you in with a sex cult and handcuffs you with grey characters and a twisted plot! This story will drill doubt into those with a hero complex. The characters are all tied to each other by a complex web in which any thread you follow leads to obscure possibilities.
This is a must read if you enjoy complex, dark characters, dark themes, and ominous plots.
This is a must read if you enjoy complex, dark characters, dark themes, and ominous plots.
January 6, 2024
Alexander Michael was kind enough to provide me a sneak peak of this novel, and I wasn’t disappointed.
Alexander Michael’s prose, not to mention his uncanny ability to craft scenes, is the star of the show. I’m really quite in awe of his talent.
Galleria is grungy and depraved. Yet it never feels obnoxiously obscene. Perhaps it’s the prose that’s the guiding force to elevate the material, and maybe that’s why I get some Clive Barker-esque undertones: a fine balance between horror and beauty.
All in all, for such a short length and a low price, I recommend giving this a shot. It’s one of the better—if not best—indie horror novels I’ve read.
Alexander Michael’s prose, not to mention his uncanny ability to craft scenes, is the star of the show. I’m really quite in awe of his talent.
Galleria is grungy and depraved. Yet it never feels obnoxiously obscene. Perhaps it’s the prose that’s the guiding force to elevate the material, and maybe that’s why I get some Clive Barker-esque undertones: a fine balance between horror and beauty.
All in all, for such a short length and a low price, I recommend giving this a shot. It’s one of the better—if not best—indie horror novels I’ve read.
Read
May 15, 2024DNF at 57%
Displaying 1 - 7 of 7 reviews