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The Truth of Carcosa
In 1984, an exiled author, Salvatore Archimboldi, accepts the help of a psychotherapist to write his new book. He hopes to transform his traumatic memories into literary genius. But the resulting book, The Truth of Carcosa, is pure evil. Horrified, Archimboldi suppresses the book and wills all traces of it, his correspondence, and any copies to be totally destroyed.
Long after Archimboldi's death, in a chaotic age of resurgent nationalism and violence, one of the only havens for his work is the ALI, the Archive for Literary Investment, where a biographer and his protégée search through Archimboldi’s correspondence for clues on the evil manuscript as they attempt to stop unscrupulous firms with their own plans for the manuscript.
Told from the perspective of a madman obsessed with The Truth of Carcosa and a ragtag group of friends, it becomes clear that this book is more than a book—and that it might be the answer to a bewildering set of questions: Why is the Archive so desperate to preserve Archimboldi's work? Why do so many corporations seem hellbent on seizing any scrap of this mysterious manuscript—and at whatever cost? What are the strange, dancing monsters that appear wherever Archimboldi's work is discovered?
And who—or what—is the Yellow King?
Long after Archimboldi's death, in a chaotic age of resurgent nationalism and violence, one of the only havens for his work is the ALI, the Archive for Literary Investment, where a biographer and his protégée search through Archimboldi’s correspondence for clues on the evil manuscript as they attempt to stop unscrupulous firms with their own plans for the manuscript.
Told from the perspective of a madman obsessed with The Truth of Carcosa and a ragtag group of friends, it becomes clear that this book is more than a book—and that it might be the answer to a bewildering set of questions: Why is the Archive so desperate to preserve Archimboldi's work? Why do so many corporations seem hellbent on seizing any scrap of this mysterious manuscript—and at whatever cost? What are the strange, dancing monsters that appear wherever Archimboldi's work is discovered?
And who—or what—is the Yellow King?
464 pages, Hardcover
First published January 13, 2026
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December 15, 2025With the recent resurgence in Robert W. Chambers-inspired cosmic horror, such as the wonderful A Game in Yellow from Hailey Piper and the epic sword-and-sorcery spin in Jonathan Maberry's Kagen the Damned novels, I had high hopes for Jacob Rollinson's debut.
The Truth of Carcosa unfolds in dual narratives, one half being your traditional third-person presentation and the other an epistolary via a written report from which the book gains it's name. It starts off as a nicely literary work, and the near-future setting of a London in the throes of a civil war against the far-right fascists that have seized control makes for one hell of a relatable and compelling entry point given our current state of affairs.
Sadly, nearly a hundred pages in, Rollinson's Carcosa has shed any sense of immediacy and poignancy, along with the more interesting aspects of its setting. What started off with compelling promise has given way to the slowest of slow burns, with each page becoming a lead weight upon the narrative. Twenty-one percent in, and I've lost absolutely all interest. I'm bored and finding little reason to pick up this book again, so I'm out.
The Truth of Carcosa unfolds in dual narratives, one half being your traditional third-person presentation and the other an epistolary via a written report from which the book gains it's name. It starts off as a nicely literary work, and the near-future setting of a London in the throes of a civil war against the far-right fascists that have seized control makes for one hell of a relatable and compelling entry point given our current state of affairs.
Sadly, nearly a hundred pages in, Rollinson's Carcosa has shed any sense of immediacy and poignancy, along with the more interesting aspects of its setting. What started off with compelling promise has given way to the slowest of slow burns, with each page becoming a lead weight upon the narrative. Twenty-one percent in, and I've lost absolutely all interest. I'm bored and finding little reason to pick up this book again, so I'm out.
January 16, 2026
BWAF Sinister Selection
BWAF Score: 7/10
TL;DR: Rollinson takes the “evil book” premise and actually makes it feel dangerous again, not just a cute bookshelf creepypasta. This is a jittery, brainy, occasionally hilarious spiral about archives, state violence, and the unbearable itch to break out of your own skull and finally mean something to someone else. It lands, hard, even when it’s being a weird little freak about it.
Jacob Rollinson is, fittingly, an academic librarian with a creative writing PhD, and you can feel that whole “I have handled strange paper in cold rooms and it has handled me back” energy in every page. He’s published shorter work in lit venues, and this book reads like the moment his interests snap into a bigger, more confident shape: cosmic dread filtered through institutional language, bureaucracy, and the dark comedy of people clinging to procedure while the world liquefies around them.
Our POV is Sol, a man trying to stay sober in a country that’s coming apart at the seams. He falls in with Scottie and Judith Bea as they chase a suppressed manuscript connected to an exiled author, a book so toxic it was meant to be erased. The hunt drags them from grimy city danger into the supposed safety of Greenwood Community, and then right back out again, because safety is always conditional and people get real shitty when they’re scared. A denunciation note about a “Cannibal House” and rumors of skin-changing injections pull them into the orbit of militias, corporate enforcers, and an encroaching something that doesn’t give a damn about human rules.
The book keeps switching the lens you’re looking through, like it’s daring you to keep your footing. A burned-out living room becomes an archaeological dig site, and the plot literally coughs up its own haunted paperwork: a sealed folder containing a “Special Report” and a thick slab of correspondence, turning the novel into a nested dossier that feels both bureaucratic and cursed. It’s a great trick because it makes the reader do the same thing the characters are doing, digging through artifacts, trying to figure out what’s real, what’s propaganda, what’s cope, and what’s infection.
Rollinson also nails the specific modern terror of institutions going feral. There’s a killer scene where a UN-branded “fact finder” shows up and everyone performs order while quietly admitting, basically, nobody’s in charge. The horror isn’t just the cosmic stuff. It’s the way authority keeps changing uniforms, rebranding itself as “procedure,” and demanding obedience while failing to protect anyone.
And then there’s the philosophical hook that gives the dread real meat: loneliness as a structural feature of language, the idea that most of what matters inside you can’t be fully transmitted to anyone else. The “report” sections frame it as loneliness being baked into communication itself, and the novel uses that as both thesis and curse. When the narrative pivots into the claim that “True Communication” might be possible, it doesn’t read like a gothic flourish. It reads like the relapse thought at the edge of a bad night, the moment your brain goes: what if the impossible fix is real though? That is such a smart way to modernize the Carcosa mythos. The King in Yellow is not just a spooky monarch in the distance. It’s the promise of finally being understood. Which is, in human terms, the most dangerous drug imaginable.
Stylistically, this thing is a smartass and I mean that as a compliment. It can do crisp, propulsive paranoia in the “regular” chapters, then turn around and give you these cool, controlled archival passages that feel like someone trying very hard to sound sane while their internal weather turns apocalyptic. The sentences have a clipped, slightly formal bite when they’re in report-mode, and a more breathless physical panic when Sol is moving through spaces where the geometry feels wrong. It’s not purple. It’s not minimalist. It’s that delicious middle: lucid, detailed, and increasingly untrustworthy in a way that makes you keep reading because your brain wants the pattern to resolve.
The themes that linger are the commodification of art and memory, and the way authoritarian hunger always rebrands itself as “safety” and “procedure.” In this world, corporations show up with lawyer-warrants and militias show up with uniforms, and everyone points guns while insisting they are the adults in the room. The cosmic horror expresses those themes by making information itself feel predatory. The book keeps asking what happens when stories, documents, and evidence aren’t neutral but hungry, when they don’t just describe reality but start rewriting it.
By the time the epilogue hits, the story has basically swallowed its own receipts. You get this security-footage vibe, a kind of “here is the official record” artifact that morphs into something like an art film recap of Sol’s ordeal, complete with a disorienting detour into time weirdness and an attempt to solve the problem from inside the system. It’s a bold move because it refuses the comfort of a clean ending. Instead it gives you the true cosmic horror closer: the feeling that the narrative itself has become contaminated, that even the version of events you’re holding in your hands might be part of the trap.
So, if “True Communication” is possible, is it salvation, or just the final form of invasion? Because sure, maybe you don’t have to be lonely anymore. But also, what if the price is that something else finally gets to speak through you?
In the current King in Yellow tribute ecosystem, this one earns its place by not just name-dropping Carcosa, but by making the concept feel like a modern infection: memetic, bureaucratic, and opportunistically monetized. It reads like a strong “arrival” novel, scaling up the author’s weird-comedy-and-dread instincts into something bigger and meaner without losing the bite.
A well-crafted, distinctive mindfuck that weaponizes archives and loneliness into genuine cosmic dread, and it mostly sticks the landing, even when it’s being a spooky little paperwork pervert.
Read if you want cosmic horror that’s also about paperwork, institutions, and social collapse.
Skip if you want cozy occult puzzles instead of “oh shit, the world is peeling”.
BWAF Score: 7/10
TL;DR: Rollinson takes the “evil book” premise and actually makes it feel dangerous again, not just a cute bookshelf creepypasta. This is a jittery, brainy, occasionally hilarious spiral about archives, state violence, and the unbearable itch to break out of your own skull and finally mean something to someone else. It lands, hard, even when it’s being a weird little freak about it.
Jacob Rollinson is, fittingly, an academic librarian with a creative writing PhD, and you can feel that whole “I have handled strange paper in cold rooms and it has handled me back” energy in every page. He’s published shorter work in lit venues, and this book reads like the moment his interests snap into a bigger, more confident shape: cosmic dread filtered through institutional language, bureaucracy, and the dark comedy of people clinging to procedure while the world liquefies around them.
Our POV is Sol, a man trying to stay sober in a country that’s coming apart at the seams. He falls in with Scottie and Judith Bea as they chase a suppressed manuscript connected to an exiled author, a book so toxic it was meant to be erased. The hunt drags them from grimy city danger into the supposed safety of Greenwood Community, and then right back out again, because safety is always conditional and people get real shitty when they’re scared. A denunciation note about a “Cannibal House” and rumors of skin-changing injections pull them into the orbit of militias, corporate enforcers, and an encroaching something that doesn’t give a damn about human rules.
The book keeps switching the lens you’re looking through, like it’s daring you to keep your footing. A burned-out living room becomes an archaeological dig site, and the plot literally coughs up its own haunted paperwork: a sealed folder containing a “Special Report” and a thick slab of correspondence, turning the novel into a nested dossier that feels both bureaucratic and cursed. It’s a great trick because it makes the reader do the same thing the characters are doing, digging through artifacts, trying to figure out what’s real, what’s propaganda, what’s cope, and what’s infection.
Rollinson also nails the specific modern terror of institutions going feral. There’s a killer scene where a UN-branded “fact finder” shows up and everyone performs order while quietly admitting, basically, nobody’s in charge. The horror isn’t just the cosmic stuff. It’s the way authority keeps changing uniforms, rebranding itself as “procedure,” and demanding obedience while failing to protect anyone.
And then there’s the philosophical hook that gives the dread real meat: loneliness as a structural feature of language, the idea that most of what matters inside you can’t be fully transmitted to anyone else. The “report” sections frame it as loneliness being baked into communication itself, and the novel uses that as both thesis and curse. When the narrative pivots into the claim that “True Communication” might be possible, it doesn’t read like a gothic flourish. It reads like the relapse thought at the edge of a bad night, the moment your brain goes: what if the impossible fix is real though? That is such a smart way to modernize the Carcosa mythos. The King in Yellow is not just a spooky monarch in the distance. It’s the promise of finally being understood. Which is, in human terms, the most dangerous drug imaginable.
Stylistically, this thing is a smartass and I mean that as a compliment. It can do crisp, propulsive paranoia in the “regular” chapters, then turn around and give you these cool, controlled archival passages that feel like someone trying very hard to sound sane while their internal weather turns apocalyptic. The sentences have a clipped, slightly formal bite when they’re in report-mode, and a more breathless physical panic when Sol is moving through spaces where the geometry feels wrong. It’s not purple. It’s not minimalist. It’s that delicious middle: lucid, detailed, and increasingly untrustworthy in a way that makes you keep reading because your brain wants the pattern to resolve.
The themes that linger are the commodification of art and memory, and the way authoritarian hunger always rebrands itself as “safety” and “procedure.” In this world, corporations show up with lawyer-warrants and militias show up with uniforms, and everyone points guns while insisting they are the adults in the room. The cosmic horror expresses those themes by making information itself feel predatory. The book keeps asking what happens when stories, documents, and evidence aren’t neutral but hungry, when they don’t just describe reality but start rewriting it.
By the time the epilogue hits, the story has basically swallowed its own receipts. You get this security-footage vibe, a kind of “here is the official record” artifact that morphs into something like an art film recap of Sol’s ordeal, complete with a disorienting detour into time weirdness and an attempt to solve the problem from inside the system. It’s a bold move because it refuses the comfort of a clean ending. Instead it gives you the true cosmic horror closer: the feeling that the narrative itself has become contaminated, that even the version of events you’re holding in your hands might be part of the trap.
So, if “True Communication” is possible, is it salvation, or just the final form of invasion? Because sure, maybe you don’t have to be lonely anymore. But also, what if the price is that something else finally gets to speak through you?
In the current King in Yellow tribute ecosystem, this one earns its place by not just name-dropping Carcosa, but by making the concept feel like a modern infection: memetic, bureaucratic, and opportunistically monetized. It reads like a strong “arrival” novel, scaling up the author’s weird-comedy-and-dread instincts into something bigger and meaner without losing the bite.
A well-crafted, distinctive mindfuck that weaponizes archives and loneliness into genuine cosmic dread, and it mostly sticks the landing, even when it’s being a spooky little paperwork pervert.
Read if you want cosmic horror that’s also about paperwork, institutions, and social collapse.
Skip if you want cozy occult puzzles instead of “oh shit, the world is peeling”.
November 11, 2025
Thank you to NetGalley and Union Square & Co. for the e-ARC. I greatly appreciate it!
THE TRUTH OF CARCOSA is a unique take on THE KING IN YELLOW and his shadowy realm, Carcosa. I loved the references and Easter eggs throughout the story. It’s clear by the analyses of the original stories within this book that the author is an admirer of the Yellow Mythos, and handles the motifs exceptionally well. The manner in which the turmoil unfolds immerses the reader instantly, and how the separate lives of all the characters interweaved and came together in the end was beautifully done. I definitely look forward to revisiting this book on publication date.
THE TRUTH OF CARCOSA is a unique take on THE KING IN YELLOW and his shadowy realm, Carcosa. I loved the references and Easter eggs throughout the story. It’s clear by the analyses of the original stories within this book that the author is an admirer of the Yellow Mythos, and handles the motifs exceptionally well. The manner in which the turmoil unfolds immerses the reader instantly, and how the separate lives of all the characters interweaved and came together in the end was beautifully done. I definitely look forward to revisiting this book on publication date.
January 18, 2026
On paper, it has all the ingredients for a modern classic: a dual-narrative structure that pits a traditional third-person perspective against a "haunted" bureaucratic dossier, set against the backdrop of a near-future London fracturing under the weight of civil war and far-right extremism.
At first, I was totally hooked. The feeling of a country on the brink felt sharp, relevant, and genuinely scary. But around page one hundred, the story just started to drag. What started as an exciting chase for a forbidden book quickly turned into the slowest of slow burns. It felt like the author cared more about exploring the archive than actually moving the plot forward.
The "Special Report" sections, which I thought would be a creepy found-footage kind of thing, just felt like actual, boring office paperwork: super dry and a real chore to read.
The deep thoughts about loneliness and communication are smart ideas, but they pull you right out of the action until the plot feels more like an academic paper than a thriller.
By the halfway mark, all that urgent political drama was gone, replaced by a "story-within-a-story" gimmick that just kept the reader from connecting with what was happening.
At first, I was totally hooked. The feeling of a country on the brink felt sharp, relevant, and genuinely scary. But around page one hundred, the story just started to drag. What started as an exciting chase for a forbidden book quickly turned into the slowest of slow burns. It felt like the author cared more about exploring the archive than actually moving the plot forward.
The "Special Report" sections, which I thought would be a creepy found-footage kind of thing, just felt like actual, boring office paperwork: super dry and a real chore to read.
The deep thoughts about loneliness and communication are smart ideas, but they pull you right out of the action until the plot feels more like an academic paper than a thriller.
By the halfway mark, all that urgent political drama was gone, replaced by a "story-within-a-story" gimmick that just kept the reader from connecting with what was happening.
February 27, 2026
The Truth of Carcosa by Jacob Rollinson presents a modern horror work which combines cosmic dread and political thriller elements to create an unsettling mysterious story. The novel draws from Robert W. Chambers' The King in Yellow through its use of Carcosa as a mythic space which leads readers into a world where forbidden knowledge can transform and destroy everything it touches.
The novel centers on a book which exists inside another book: the fictional manuscript The Truth of Carcosa which Salvatore Archimboldi created as a 1984 work from his exile throughout the world. Archimboldi wanted to create art from his traumatic experiences but he ended up making something which he called “pure evil” and he tried to delete all evidence of its existence. A biographer and his apprentice search through Archive for Literary Investment records to find manuscript information which will reveal its location and meaning. They meet secretive groups and dark companies and strange creatures which exist because of the book.
Rollinson creates writing which disturbs readers while it challenges their intellectual abilities. The horror experience develops through atmospheric elements which create suspense and establish dangerous effects which come from acquiring knowledge. The story presents two different storytelling methods which include traditional elements and mixed components of letters and reports and archived documents to create multiple storytelling levels which reflect the characters' investigation process. The system increases mystery because it allows readers to experience the search for actual answers.
The novel succeeds in creating eerie atmosphere through its ambitious concepts but certain readers experience problems with its pacing. Fans of the show participate in discussions about character development during specific episodes.
The novel centers on a book which exists inside another book: the fictional manuscript The Truth of Carcosa which Salvatore Archimboldi created as a 1984 work from his exile throughout the world. Archimboldi wanted to create art from his traumatic experiences but he ended up making something which he called “pure evil” and he tried to delete all evidence of its existence. A biographer and his apprentice search through Archive for Literary Investment records to find manuscript information which will reveal its location and meaning. They meet secretive groups and dark companies and strange creatures which exist because of the book.
Rollinson creates writing which disturbs readers while it challenges their intellectual abilities. The horror experience develops through atmospheric elements which create suspense and establish dangerous effects which come from acquiring knowledge. The story presents two different storytelling methods which include traditional elements and mixed components of letters and reports and archived documents to create multiple storytelling levels which reflect the characters' investigation process. The system increases mystery because it allows readers to experience the search for actual answers.
The novel succeeds in creating eerie atmosphere through its ambitious concepts but certain readers experience problems with its pacing. Fans of the show participate in discussions about character development during specific episodes.
April 5, 2026
An interesting take on the King in Yellow/Hastur mythology, using classic cosmic horror ideas in conjunction with modern far-right politics and fascism. Very well written and a real page turner, I particularly enjoyed the "descent into madness" aspects common to Lovecraftian fiction, as well as the surrealist horror I associate with the King (some parts in particular reminded me of Impossible Landscapes, my personal favorite take on Hastur, Carcosa, and the rest). Unfortunately I was let down by the ending, specifically the last chapter and epilogue, as it completely deflated the power of the overarching antagonist (in my eyes at least). I understand why it had to end as it did since the allegory and themes at play would make a more traditional Lovecraftian ending send a bad message, but it was still disappointing when looked at through the lens of cosmic horror. Also, this is more of a thriller with some horror elements instead of the true cosmic horror exploration I was expecting given the premise, but it was still an enjoyable read. Recommended for fans of the King in Yellow, corporate conspiracy/espionage tales, and Delta Green.
7.5/10
7.5/10
This entire review has been hidden because of spoilers.
April 15, 2026
The truth of this book is that it’s a terrible slog. I was expecting something with a modern framework and the dread of The King in Yellow. Instead I got a dull tale about bureaucracy where you won’t believe what this acronym is doing and how that acronym is doing something else.
I suppose the idea is that corporations and reactionary immigration policies are their own kind of cosmic horror. To get that point across, we get a bunch of people sitting around talking about nothing worth hearing.
Mysteries abound as the main characters work to figure out things we can already guess because we’ve read actual good cosmic horror and King in Yellow mythos stories. This overlong book contains not a single fresh idea. Not a single surprise or anything that makes it worth reading. I could have used the time to read Chambers a couple more times.
I suppose the idea is that corporations and reactionary immigration policies are their own kind of cosmic horror. To get that point across, we get a bunch of people sitting around talking about nothing worth hearing.
Mysteries abound as the main characters work to figure out things we can already guess because we’ve read actual good cosmic horror and King in Yellow mythos stories. This overlong book contains not a single fresh idea. Not a single surprise or anything that makes it worth reading. I could have used the time to read Chambers a couple more times.
February 19, 2026
What a wild book. It appropriately feels mostly indescribable and I think the blurb I'd go with is "Control (the video game) meets Keith Rosson." It's not a perfect similarity but it's the best I can do. It's a book where there are a lot of ideas going on and some of them work brilliantly and some didn't on this read of it. I could imagine rereading this book and getting more of it on the second reading but it's also not an easy read. It's not one that makes me immediately want to pick it up again. I think if someone is looking for some very weird Lovecraftian fiction (like you want Laundry Files to be weirder by degrees of nth) that I think you should pick this up.
February 5, 2026
Similar to
Tell Me I’m Worthless
by Alison Rumfitt (definitely read them together), The Truth of Carcosa examines the rise of fascism in the UK through the lens of horror. In addition to Robert W. Chambers' classic, it also draws from Roberto Bolaño's
2666
with its search for the elusive author, a Latin American named Archimboldi. Unfortunately, Rollinson pulls back from the esoteric ambiguity that characterizes both Chambers and Bolaño in favor of a conventional thriller format that ties up neatly in one of those bombastic fight-for-your-life climaxes that are such a genre cliché. This may be more marketable, but is ultimately a letdown for us cosmic horror aficionados.
March 29, 2026
An intriguing addition to the King in Yellow mythos with a modern twist of today's cultural and political climate. While a little heavy handed with the theme, I enjoyed the cultural relevance and narrative structure. I did kind of feel like the ending wasn't quite satisfying but overall recommend for any fans of the original Chamber's stories.
February 5, 2026
a prescient geo-political thriller wrapped up in the cosmic horror landscape of robert w chambers. the story within a story within a story rabbit hole gets a bit confusing at times but i think it adds to the overall dizzying narrative.
fans of haunted media will get a lot from this one.
fans of haunted media will get a lot from this one.
March 25, 2026
An interesting new dive into cosmic horror. I really appreciated the meditations of the reactionary, violent movement inside this book. The closeness to reality, I think, lends to the story in a realistic way, that maybe this is happening?
April 17, 2026
I tried to get through this but I had to quit this at the 34th chapter. The stench of the Libtard nonsense was too much to overcome. You’d expect to hear this drivel from BLM and Antifa, but even with some H. P. Love craft sprayed over it all, it’s still a fouled toilet that won’t flush.
May 6, 2026
A brilliant riff on the King in Yellow and its related Lovecraftian elements. Rollinson manages to blend the weird, poetically horrific elements of weird fiction with a delightful critique of the banal, inevitable evils of corporate-backed fascism.
Review of advance copy received from Netgalley
wildly wild and weird ride throughout. the plotting works well and is quite effective, and it felt very grounded in the mythos while offering its own interpretation. 5 stars. tysm for the arc.
January 23, 2026
I loved how this novel interacted and played with Chambers’ work. I don’t know how I feel about the ending though.
February 13, 2026
A cautionary tale about the power of rhetoric, literature, legal precedence, and ideology.
April 18, 2026
Entertaining, but kind of just made me want to re-read The Sea Dreams it is the Sky, by John Hornor Jacobs.
April 24, 2026
Too British
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