The King in Yellow Tales: Volume 1

by Joseph S. Pulver Sr., Rick Lai (Introduction)

"No one does the darker side of surreal better than this man." - Laird Barron

Nearly two decades before True Detective helped popularize The King in Yellow, Joseph S. Pulver, Sr. was writing poetic tales based upon Robert W. Chambers's King in Yellow. Collected within this substantial volume of madness, murder, and spectral tragedy are tales of Carcosa, the characters that inhabit the "play," and Chambers's cosmic horror. Pulver’s tales adhere to Chambers's core ideas and themes, and they retain all the mystery of Chambers's originals.

Joseph S. Pulver, Sr. has been acclaimed by many notable editors, writers, and reviewers as the contemporary heir to Robert W. Chambers’s King in Yellow. Have you seen the Yellow Sign?

Genres: Horror, Weird Fiction, Short Stories, Fiction, Cthulhu Mythos, Lovecraftian, Anthologies

321 pages, Kindle Edition

First published May 23, 2015

Reviews

[Paul Perry · Rating 3 out of 5]

After finding the recent Pulver edited anthology A Season in Carcosa a very mixed bag, I thought Id try this collection by the man himself. It starts very, very strongly; the first five stories are gloriously creepy and scary, modern-set noir-tinged Yellow King tales fraught with menace and madness, utilising many of the tropes of Chambers' original stories to stunning effect. Publication dates aren't listed for individual stories, but I can well imagine these were an influence on the original True Detective TV show.


Unfortunately, nothing else in the book hits that level of quality. There are many good stories but, for me, nothing great and frankly too much filler. Part of the problem was, perhaps, reading it as a block rather than dipping in, as Pulver's reliance on Cassilda and other fragments from the Yellow King play becomes somewhat repetitive.


In many of the stories the author also writes in a style that is neither prose nor poetry (or possibly both), going from normal block paragraphs to

setting out
the words

in

poem-like


forms/that/use

white space


and make use
of

punctuation{in}odd[and]
experimental ways.



I didn't find this very effective - although, full disclosure, I have never been a fan of shape poems and find stream-of-consciousness writing generally insufferable, so perhaps I'm the wrong audience. The longer of these pieces I found myself scanning through as there didn't really seem to be a great deal of content within the form.


I will definitely return to Pulver, perhaps trying some of his longer work or something not so narrowly focused as he can undoubtedly be a great writer.

[House Hendry · Rating 5 out of 5]

tl;dr: This is amazing, buy this book.

Joseph S. Pulver is the King in Yellow –sorry True Detective fans; the Yellow King does not reside in Louisiana where he drives a power mower. No; this particular bEast resides in Berlin where he writes a form of Weird Fiction that seamlessly blends Noir, Beat, and Decadence with a cosmic kind of horror which can in turns wash over you with deliciously off kilter poetics before filling you with a dread that works its way into the darker, most hidden, reaches of your psyche.

The King in Yellow is a collection of short stories in the French Decadent tradition written by an American, Robert W. Chambers, in the 1890s. Pulver has been producing work which riffs off of the King in Yellow stories for decades and he is the person most responsible for keeping the yellow flame alive as a field of literary exploration in its own right for all that time. During the 20th Century Chambers' work was brought into the mythology created by H.P. Lovecraft and the strange denizens that wreak havoc in Chambers' work were turned into ancient and terrible alien gods by the acolytes of Lovecraft, even though he only made passing reference to them in his own work. Pulver has all but severed these ties to Lovecraft and instead seeks to explore the maddening influence of the more mysterious aspects of Chambers' work: the titular play which drives mad any who witness or read the second act, and the Yellow Sign which casts a baleful influence over all who are unfortunate enough to encounter it.

That's not to say that Pulver has abandoned all Lovecraftian elements; the first story proper in this collection, 'Choosing', is a post apocalyptic nightmare merging both mythologies into a bewildering scream of frustration and pain. Frustration at one's powerlessness to resist horrors heaped down upon us by those protected by power and tradition; pain at the suffering inflicted upon those about whom we care by those stronger than us. To me this story seemed to speak of the way in which women, as a body of people, are abused and maltreated by society and the powerlessness of individuals to confront and challenge this maltreatment. Of course the story is also a brilliant horror tale and it's testament to Pulver's skill as a writer that his works can be read in different ways and to varying depths.

“To no particular where, just went. Stepped right into August like it was a voyage or a baptism. Stopped in his cheap room, grabbed his stuff and left. Somewhere down the road he'd find her. The wind would take him to her”

-'Carl Lee & Cassilda'

Pulver's hard-boiled, noir infected, prose in the 'Carl Lee & Cassilda' triptych of stories takes Chambers' creations and places them firmly into America's bourbon soaked underbelly of hustlers, hookers, lunacy and bloody murder. This dark sensibility and affinity for the broken refugees and cast-offs of society permeates much of Pulver's work and his characters reflect this darkness. You will not like some, or many, of the characters in this book but then: you're not supposed to. These are the stories, after all, that lurk in rain drenched alleyways waiting to seize an unsuspecting passerby and to turn their world upside down.

Joe Pulver is no a fearful writer and his prose in this collection illustrates this eagerly as he experiments with the form and function of the English language. Happily jumping from beat infused noir to decadent stage plays and poetic verse. His playing with form suggests to me that the printed page is going to give the reader the greatest appreciation for his work –though a regular e-reader may render the prose as it was initially meant to be read, I read this on my smartphone and the reflowing of some of his more poetic tales has guaranteed that I am also going to seek this collection out in paperback.

In 'Saint Nicholas Hall', dedicated to America's Kafka –Michael Cisco, Pulver takes his creative muse and uses is as a scalpel to hone a beautifully realised modernist(?) prose poem that again plays with the form of the written word to fashion a phantasmagoric Carcosan cityscape through which the protagonist travels towards his confrontation with loss.

These are just a handful of the stories that make up this first volume of Jospeh Pulver Sr.'s collected King in Yellow tales. I highlighted these few as I feel they illustrate quite how deep a literary well Pulver is drawing from. This collection is an absolute must for anyone with an interest in the renaissance of weird fiction which has been underway these last few years. Pulver is a master of his art and you deserve to read him.

Info on where to buy the book in print or as an ebook can be found here(LINK).

Table of Contents

Introduction by Rick Lai
A Line of Questions
Choosing
Carl Lee & Cassilda
An American Tango Ending in Madness
Hello is a Yellow Kiss
The Last Few Nights in a Life of Frost
Chasing Shadows
Last Year in Carcosa
An Engagement of Hearts
Cordelia's Song
Saint Nicholas Hall
A Spider in the Distance
Under the Mask Another Mask
Epilogue for Two Voices
Yvrain's “Black Dancers”
The Songs Cassilda Shall Sing, Where Flap the Tatters of the King
The Sky Will Not Fall
Tark Left Santiago
Marks and Scars and Flags
Long-Stemmed Ghost Words
In This Desert Even the Air Burns
Perfect Grace
My Mirage
Mother Stands for Comfort
A Cold Yellow Moon (with Edward R. Morris Jr.)
Afterword by Pete Rawlik

[Marsha Altman · Rating 5 out of 5]

Mostly poetry.

[Simon · Rating 3 out of 5]

I have not read a lot of Joe Pulver's own writing (apart from Nightmare's Disciple and a few pieces in anthologies he contributed to or curated), but from what I understand after reading introduction and afterword, his writing is mostly like what is presented in this collection. Which means it is somewhere between prose and poetry, with "stream of consciousness"-like aspects, lots of atmospheric metaphors and similes and a lot of disregard of grammar and punctuation. Which means that, stylistically, it is hard to classify.
Which also meant for me that it was hard to read. These are not short stories that you simply read through, understand, and be done with them. No, that does not work. First, they make you FEEL the atmosphere, the emotions of the setting, the characters, the story, but without really understanding what is going on. Then, if you read them again, you get glimpses, and understand more. However, since Carcosa and the King in Yellow are representations of the weird, the uncanny, the mad and the confusing, you will never find a full explanation, or come to full understanding. Or if you do, maybe - just maybe - you have seen the Yellow Sign?
Anyways, I liked some of the stories. Some even a lot. Others were no more than atmospheric pieces for me. And then there were some I did not like. A mixed bag, but one well worth reading, or working, through.
Stylistically, though, Pulver is in a class almost his own (and certainly so in regards to weird fiction). Which makes it a shame that this book is not better proofread. The problem is that, with his style of writing, you can never be totally sure if what you stumble across are really errors or intentional missteps of language that your understanding grates over. That said, I have found quite a few instances were words were simply wrong, or missing completely without it befitting the style of the story. So I am sure there are mistakes in here. Now, proofreading stories such as these must be hard work, but if not done properly, Pulver's style loses much of its impact (as you don't really know where it ends and the errors begin). And that is the case here.

I would recommend this book only to readers with greater interest in Carcosa and the King in Yellow. Others might get easily frustrated by Joe Pulver's writing style.
However, my recommendation comes with a caveat regarding the somewhat subpar proofreading this anthology got.
And I entreat the publisher to once again proofread this anthology and update it, because the current situation does not do Joe Pulver's writing justice.

[Des Lewis · Rating 4 out of 5]

This book is Lethal Chamber Music striated among an earthcore-heavy tonnage of semantics, phonetics, syntax and graphology. I hope, by reading the whole review above, you will ‘get’ my enthusiasm for its unique pantheistic gestalt.
It is only God who can win a tontine, of course. Not an individual deity, but a singularity of tattered-mask PANtheism constituting all us animal-humans, warts and all, cosmic nightmares and Proustian promenades alike. That is God.

The detailed review of this book posted elsewhere under my name is too long to post here.
Above is one of its observations at the time of the review.

[Michael · Rating 2 out of 5]

Oof. Just a wee bit too much like a fever-dream in writing for my taste. And I liked Chambers' The King in Yellow when I read it about ten years ago, as well as the nods to it from the first season of True Detective.

[Ian Welke · Rating 5 out of 5]

The King In Yellow Tales is a collection of stories, vignettes, and poetic prose that is as dreamy and moody as the reality warping fictional play it takes its title from. Many of these are unconventional in form, but are nonetheless successful in delivering an all important sense of tone.

Pulver offers a dedication to each piece, and many of which are to Karl Edward Wagner author of my all time favorite King In Yellow story, “The River of Night’s Dreaming.” While none of the stories in The King In Yellow Tales are going to take over the top spot from Wagner, they all built upon a similar and wonderfully twisted sense of mood.

Speaking of mood, Pulver also lists music that inspired him or pairs well with the pieces in this collection. The man must have an eclectic and excellent range of taste in music to go from suggesting such a diverse assortment of music from Neko Case to Bob Dylan to Patti Smith to Eric Burden to Kevin Shields.

Overall, if you’re looking for a collection of short stories told in standard form, this is the wrong place. If you’re looking to open up your mind to a dreamy delivery of concept and mood, this is a perfect collection.

[tony · Rating 5 out of 5]

Joseph S. Pulver does it again.

A modern classic of Carcosian tales. This will stay with you long after it's over. Definitely must buy for lovers of The King.