Okultace

by Laird Barron

Laird Barron je jedním z nejvýraznějších hlasů současného hororu a sbírka Okultace se již dnes řadí mezi základní díla temné fantastiky 21. století. V devateru povídek se běžní lidé záhadnými způsoby dostávají do křížku se silami hladového, chaotického kosmu. Na pozadí velkolepých přírodních scenerií či naopak v stísněném soukromí omšelých pokojů svádějí boj s přízračnými entitami, které se je snaží bytostně rozklížit a získat na svou stranu. Barron je duchovně spřízněný s Lovecraftem, ale hovoří veskrze moderním jazykem a černé hlubiny bytí v současném světě, jeho vztahy, posedlosti a krutosti prozkoumává s takovou lehkostí, neohrožeností, smyslem pro detail a spisovatelskou bravurou, že je činí o dost přístupnější, než je tomu v případě jeho slavného předchůdce.

Genres: Horror, Short Stories, Fiction, Weird Fiction, Lovecraftian, Fantasy, Anthologies

320 pages, Hardcover

First published July 1, 2010

About the author

Laird Barron, an expat Alaskan, is the author of several books, including The Imago Sequence and Other Stories; Swift to Chase; and Blood Standard. Currently, Barron lives in the Rondout Valley of New York State and is at work on tales about the evil that men do.

Photo credit belongs to Ardi Alspach

Agent: Janet Reid of New Leaf Literary & Media

Reviews

[Bill Kerwin · Rating 4 out of 5]

Laird Barron is not just a "horror writer," he is a “writer,” someone whose gifts extend beyond the customary limits of the genre. As a consequence, he must be held to a higher standard, and, when he is, I believe he falls a little short of the mark.

Although Barron’s style is filled with memorable images, the sonority and rhythms of his prose are severely limited--surprising for a poet!--and particularly impoverished in their musical effects. His characters, no matter how painstakingly fashioned, have little inner reality: even his most lifelike creations--the he-man protagonists--are difficult to distinguish from one another, and the rest--the damaged women, the uneasy gay men, the affluent euro-trash--are little more than masks, mere engines to propel his plots in motion. He is much better at setting than he is at character, but even here he is limited, excellent at evoking the outdoors (wilderness areas, small isolated forests, a half-built hotel in the middle of a jungle) but mediocre at interiors. ("The Broadsword," featuring an aging apartment building, is a remarkable--and impressive—exception.)

He is good at suspense, superb with visceral horror (eyes turned to jelly, flesh ripped from flesh) and excels at disconcerting the reader, particularly in those eternal seconds when the rift in reality occurs, when life as we know it begins to buckle, right before it completely implodes. It seems to me, however, that the disorienting details Barron chooses in order to evoke such moments are often so fragmentary, so elliptical, that the resulting perturbation of the psyche does not lead to genuine metaphysical terror, but instead brings us immediately back to visceral horror, as flesh begins separating from agonized flesh once again.

I may be too harsh, for Barron uses his defects--as all true artists should--in the service of a consistent vision. Our world is a harsh, unmusical wilderness--Barron seems to say--and human personality is a mere fiction, a mask concealing a frail body and a frailer consciousness, both equally powerless over pain. When pain becomes intense, however, it may suggest another reality beyond this sham and suffering, but it is a reality that is chaotic, merciless and malevolent, a reality that relishes--and feeds upon--our most visceral pain.

Perhaps it is this “vision” that bothers me most about Barron. One of the reasons I read fantasy and weird fiction is that they expand my metaphysical horizon, making my world richer and more varied than before. When I read Barron, however, my horizon contracts. There is a lot of horror, and it is very well done, but it is a small enclosed space, and there is not much room for terror here.

Still, all these stories are good, and a few of them are unforgettable. I think the short piece “Strappado” is the finest, perhaps because it concentrates on absolute horror, not even aspiring to metaphysical terror, but the novella-length “Mysterium Tremendum” and “The Broadsword” are both artfully sustained and extremely powerful.

[Dan · Rating 4 out of 5]

Occultation and Other Stories is a collection of nine short stories by Laird Barron.

My quest to devour all of Laird Barron's works by the end of 2017 continues with this book, Occulation. As befits a Shirley Jacks award winner, this is something to behold.

While I'm reading Barron's works in the order I come across them, for the most part, I'm beginning to recognize all the Barronoid themes: isolation, loss, and helplessness. Barron's Earth, all but overrun by the cosmic horrors that are the Children of Old Leech, is a very richly-built world. I normally hate the term "world-building" but Barron constructs quite a place brick by brick with his short stories. The dohlmen on Mystery Mountain, the Children of Old Leech, and even the Broadsword Hotel are touched upon in stories in other collections, as well as The Croning.

Like all short story collections, I liked some stories more than others but I wouldn't say any were duds. The Broadsword and The Lagerstatte were great and Mysterium Tremendum was the best story I've read so far in 2017.

Barron's writing reminds me of Raymond Chandler's quite a bit, although there's some Jim Thompson and HP Lovecraft in there as well. Barron's so at home with the noir style that I've already pre-ordered Blood Standard , his 2018 detective novel.

I feel like I'm repeating myself but time is a loop. Laird Barron is not to be missed by horror fans. 4.5 out of 5 stars.

[Mindi · Rating 5 out of 5]

Quite a few people in the horror community have been encouraging me to read Barron for a while now. He's greatly revered in the community, and that made me want to read his work even more. It's safe to say that Occultation is one of the best cosmic horror collections I've ever read. So I owe a big thank you to everyone who recommended his work. Now I need everything he's written.

Every story in this collection is amazing. As usual, some of them resonated with me more than others, but the collection as a whole is fantastic. There isn't a single weak story here. However, I'll touch on a few of the stories that had the biggest impact on me.

The titular story Occultation is truly creepy. I do most of my reading at night while my husband is asleep beside me, and on a few occasions I just want to wake him up to shake off the heebie jeebies. I never do, but this one got to me a little bit. It's so bizarre and realistic all at once. This one will have you looking at odd stains and shadows in motel rooms with a sinister feeling in your gut.

Mysterium Tremendum is probably my favorite story in the collection. All bibliophiles dream of finding a mysterious book in an odd shop, tucked away on a shelf where no one else could possibly see it. Barron takes that idea and makes it a cautionary tale. Beware of dusty old books with titles in Latin and weird symbols on the cover. However, this book turns out to be a guidebook that lists secret attractions and hidden places of interest. Willem buys the book from a general store after the proprietor admits to knowing nothing about it. After learning that there is a hidden dolmen in a forest in Washington, Willem, his partner Glenn, and their friends Dane and Victor decide to try to find it. Eventually, their search for the dolmen stops sounding like a choice, and more like a compulsion.

The Broadsword builds the dread as you read, with an ending that truly chills the blood. The residents of the Broadsword hotel are sweltering in triple digit heat because the shady superintendent refuses to fix it. Pershing Dennard does his best to cope with the heat, but then odd things start happening at The Broadsword. Pershing's girlfriends sees a strange woman leave his apartment that no one else in the building saw. He then overhears a sinister conversation coming through a vent. As the odd occurrences continue, Pershing flees The Broadsword, but ultimately he must return. And that's when the situation escalates in an unfathomable way.

Finally, I really enjoyed the story --30--. That opening line is perfect, and immediately sets the tone for the entire tale. The story is so insidious I couldn't put it down. It's a bit of a slow burn that builds to a truly haunting conclusion. This one is another favorite of mine.

Cosmic horror lovers need this collection. Strike that. All horror lovers need this collection. I can't wait to read more from Barron. I'm officially a fan.

[Scott Rhee · Rating 5 out of 5]

Our garage light keeps going on in the middle of the night. We have an old detached garage, separate from the house, that we can see when we look out the back door. The light has a sensor that’s motion-activated, except that it’s only triggered when one is inside the garage. I assume its purpose is to provide light when one is scrambling in the garage at night. It gives me the creeps. I know, logically, that it’s probably a bird stuck in there or some other animal trapped inside, but my mind goes to weird places, so I immediately jump to: zombies or demons seeping out of a gateway to Hell or an alien egg has just hatched and a slimy little creature that is all teeth is running around in there...

My wife will attest that I’m weird and that I immediately freak out over the dumbest things. Something scratching on the ceiling, to her, is probably nothing more than a squirrel or raccoon scurrying, but to me it is: a deranged serial killer that has recently escaped from a loony bin is on our roof, trying to claw his way in with a machete...

I know what my problem is. I read too many damn horror stories and watch too many damn horror movies, so my mind is geared toward worst-case---and weirdest-case---scenarios.

Reading Laird Barron hasn’t helped, either.

I recently discovered Barron via a weird series of unrelated events. Okay, I’m kidding: I found one of his books at the library and was immediately hooked. Not as sexy or terrifying as the story I was going to tell, but it’s the god’s honest truth.

His first book of short stories, “The Imago Sequence”, I’m not gonna lie, scared the shit out of me. I wasn’t expecting it to be so creepy, intense, and extremely well-written. I haven’t read a short story collection of horror stories that has affected me that much since I was probably in middle school or high school, when I discovered both Clive Barker’s “Books of Blood” and Harlan Ellison’s “Deathbird Stories”, both of which I still consider to be the standard by which I rate most horror short story collections.

I finished his second book of short stories, “Occultation and Other Stories”, recently, and I’m still shaken up by it. The impact of Barron’s weird horror lingers like the after-effects of a horrible personal tragedy, one that can’t be explained rationally.

How to explain a Barron story? Take something innocuous---a dark stain on old wallpaper, a noise under the bed, an old book one finds on a store shelf that probably shouldn’t be there, strange whispering heard in a register---and expand on it through the most circuitous and convoluted way until it becomes something so unimaginably horrible and surreal that it’s almost logical, almost too unbelievably strange to be fiction. The horrors of Barron’s writing are too terrifying to be real, but in a completely irrational way, that is precisely why they must be real.

Every story in this collection will keep you up at night. Every story in this book will eat away your conscious thought like an earwig digging its way through the grey matter of your brain, slowly driving you mad.

This is why I’m certain that there is a creature that wants to rip my soul out and feed on my mind hiding behind a stack of boxes in my garage, and, at night, it likes to roam around, triggering the sensor light, waiting for me to come outside and investigate. My wife thinks I’m crazy, and maybe I am, but what if I’m not? What if I’m in a Laird Barron story? Ohmigod what if---

[Dr. Cat in the Brain · Rating 5 out of 5]

Weird fiction and cosmic horror is a lot like rocking a rhyme that's right on time.

It's tricky.

When its done well, it's one of the most effective forms of genre fiction because it communicates a fear and curiosity towards the world that is universal. But when done even slightly wrong it runs the risk of being a shambolic, knee-slapping, coffee-spitting, parody. Or me on a Sunday.

Cosmic horror and weird fiction touches on abstract (and very real) feelings connected to our condition and experience, but that horror is gossamer thin. It's fragile. You never know exactly how far you can stretch out the concept without it shredding in your hands like a spider-web. It's an extremely delicate balance and very few authors have the skill and utter madness needed to pull it off.

Laird Barron is one of them.

Laird grounds all of his stories in the humanity of his characters. He loves his monsters, his children of the old leech, he loves mythology and folklore and maps and ancient books and secrets hidden in untouched places. The enthusiasm towards the subjects is obvious and real. He communicates it well and gets it across to the audience. And gets them excited about the topics. But first and foremost, he's interested in people.

Maybe too interested.

He's interested in both the history of places and personal history. Each of his characters have a past, each character is haunted by that past and it's through that haunting that other things are allowed to slip in. And that's what makes his stories work. People are the anchor and also the gateway for his terrifying otherworldly concepts. A spoonful of realism helps the lunacy go down. His characters are already living in multiple worlds in their heads, so encountering another world, however fantastic, is not entirely unbelievable when they experience it.

Barron interweaves threads of personal background and cosmic horror until they become indistinguishable. He channels his audience through that passage, giving us very tangible realities and then eating those realities in front of us like some monster out of a Goya painting slurping down its own children.

Occultation and Other Stories is the second book of short fiction I've read from Barron and it knocked my brains inside out.

I've read several fantastic collections this year, including one from Shirley Jackson (excellent work), four from Harlan Ellison (legend and madman), Behold the Void and Beneath a Pale Sky by Philip Fracassi (absolute pants wrecking fun), Wireless by Charles Stross (my favourite of his books) and The Book of Cthulhu (which includes a masterpiece from John Langan). So when I say this is the best short fiction collection I've read so far in 2021, I am not shitting around.

This book features 9 stories, all of them well written by Barron. But when you get to the third story The Lagerstatte, the narrative blackens the sky, the bed sheets moisten and you know you're in the path of something dark and enormous.

The Lagerstatte is an emotional story where the death of loved ones and survivor's guilt gets so heavy, it feels like it sinks the audience backwards through the character's timeline. Where traumatic change is so devastating, it's like it changes the whole world (and in reality it does). It ripples backwards affecting how we look at the past, making us re-contextualise the present and how we see the future. Making survivors feel like Prometheus on the rock, chained and torn apart by their own guilt, destined to heal only to be torn apart again. It uses the language of cosmic horror to discuss the density of emotional trauma. How our pain can be a conduit for the unknown. 10/10

Mysterium Tremendum follows The Lagerstatte like a train chasing down two people on a handcar. It effortlessly draws parallels between tight knit social circles and forbidden cults. A play on expectations and secret histories that combines cultural folklore with the personal folklore of friends. And it's as slick as oil on a gold tooth. The characters are immediately relatable, I knew these people, have partied and gotten into fights alongside these people, they were like shadows of friends and times long gone. So in a haze of nostalgia I almost couldn't see the colossal white underbelly of the giant whale passing over my head as the story took a turn for the truly supernatural. And when that happened it shook the freaking fillings out of my teeth. We got shadows whispering sweet nothings, treasure maps of cosmic grotesqueries and a bear scene that grabbed me by the head and smacked me across a tree like a sandy beach blanket. This is some serious goddamn business. 10/10

Catch Hell: Out of the fire and into the swimming pool of razor-blades and peroxide. One of the most deeply unsettling Satanic horror stories I've ever read. I didn't actually think a Satanic horror story could unsettles me anymore. Especially one in the eye-rolling sub-genre of 'women seduced by the devil'. I thought I'd seen it all. But wow-wee. I was wrong. Laird Barron weaves a plot quilt out of anecdotes featuring paranoia, family issues, abuse, pain, isolation, lust, control and unapologetic evil. This one is like an Ari Aster film. It just demolishes you with the scope of its unrestrained viciousness. It is a tableau of sadism and misogyny from the human type to the cosmic biblical variation. Its monster embodies a primal cruelty that is so enormous and so personal, you can feel its hot breath in your ear as it totally eclipses the sun. Laird connects you with the protagonist in a very empathetic way and emotionally shreds them to pieces. A masterclass in horror. 10/10

Strappado: This one ate my guts like Antropophagus. I've seen stories that approached the dangers of consent and coercion, especially in regards to how society and the arts can push us into taking part in something that's self-destructive or abusive. But the ease and the sinister malice behind Strappado cuts to the bone like a burning hot Damascus blade going through silk. It's like if Takashi Miike made a Japanese version of Squid Game. I felt the teeth of this one sink into my freaking kidneys. 10/10

The Broadsword: After this story I needed to take a serious time-out. Like, go outside, smell the roses, pet the cats, search for weird worms in the trees, find out if that hole in the backyard really does go to another dimension. That kind of stuff.

The Broadsword swings down heavy, taking us for a trip that communicates the terror of schizophrenia, dementia and anxiety attacks, in a way that felt so accurate, I was having an anxiety attack while reading it. As much fun as it is for me to stand around like Fred Sanford holding my chest and waiting for the chance to breathe again, I wouldn't say I enjoyed this story, but its writing is exceptional.

But I don't hold it against the story. I'm a serious horror fan here, I'm in it for the thrills and the cerebral haemorrhages. So lets roll deep.

An old man living in a hotel full of lifetime residents finds himself hearing weird voices, as his family start getting scary phone calls and his girlfriend spots odd people going into his home. And from there reality begins falling to pieces. One part commentary on the terror of losing your own cognition, one part Dario Argento's Inferno. This is a 10/10. But it hit close. It hit snug.

--30--: This is the reason I picked up this book in the first place. The curiosity of weirdos. I recently watched the film "They Remain", realised it was based on a Laird Barron story and wanted to put the events of the film into the context of the original fiction. And heavens to murgatroyd, I knew everything that was going to happen and I still wasn't ready for it.

That's one of the great thing about adaptations, you think you hear a song and know a song, until you find out it's a cover. And you listen to the original and it's like discovering the song again for the first time.

It puts everything into a different light.

This short story is about two researchers with a past relationship investigating a land that was once the stomping grounds of a killer cult. Soon they make discoveries that bring out the hidden pains and frustrations of their past infatuation and magnifies the toxic elements of their connection until it spreads everywhere like a deadly spore. To bastardise an old quote: "These cruel delights have cruel ends." 10/10

Six Six Six: Another big batch of Satanic Panic to finish the book, as a couple unravels family mysteries and hidden pasts and oh my god, do not open the forbidden door. Seriously, have you never seen a 60s horror film in your life? What are you doing? Laird takes another fun conventional horror tale and uses clever character writing to give it meat and bones and teeth. And horns. Just sayin'. 10/10

Ultimately Laird Barron creates a perfect blend between cosmic horror and personal horror that defines the weird. It embodies a fear of ourselves. Where we look in the mirror and see the stranger.

In some cases that happens because of culture shock, because of trauma, because of relationships breaking down, or because of past relationships that never quite worked. Little itches in our minds that need to be constantly scratched. Until they're bloody. Until they're raw.

In other cases it is just random.

Things we see out of the corner of the eye in the wrong place at the right time. Images and ideas that stumble out of the woods and make us re-evaluate our whole existence. And then disappear again.

One fleeting glimpse.

And like that?

Reality cracks.

Like a tiny rock hitting the windshield that creates a small flaw that spreads and spider-webs across the whole of your world view. Until all you can see is the cracks.

The splinters.

That's the essence of the weird. And Laird Barron has obviously bottled it. Like a Lovecraftian Zoolander.

Okay I'm done.

10/10. Would read again.

[Adam Nevill · Rating 4 out of 5]

I've never forgotten my first encounters with certain horror collections, at different times in my life, that resonated with me - Lovecraft, Machen, Blackwood, Barker, T.E.D Klein, Ramsey Campbell, M John Harrison, Ligotti, Robert Aickman, among others. But they were books that transported me and made me want to write. I've come to Laird Barron relatively late, but I'm adding him to my pantheon of greats (and I don't use that word lightly). Just finished his first two single author works - THE IMAGO SEQUENCE & OCCULTATION - and they transfixed me (as did his other three books). I often read a few short stories in the evening before I crash, but on two occasions I only managed to read one story: PROCESSION OF THE BLACK SLOTH and HALLUCIGENIA. My God they're hellacious! I had to take time afterwards to mull over all I had just read and imagined, because the stories deserved an evening all to themselves. I'm marking these collection as "essential". For those yet to read them ... while stocks last, folks ...

[Bradley · Rating 4 out of 5]

While I do think that all of these stories are quite good and tickly my cosmic horror funnybone (do you hear the insane laughter right behind you?) I think I might have reached my saturation point for:

A: Satanists
B: dark insectoid horrors
C: otherworldly visitations

To be entirely fair, all of these stories are quite excellent for these themes. Much better, on the hole, than most. In fact, I totally recommend this for those of you who want a little extra Lovecraftian horror in their lives and want it dark, neat, and self-aware. :)

However -- each story, even for the really excellent treat of deep worldbuilding and thorough characterization, still tends to run the same formula for each story within this collection. Maybe that's a good thing? Maybe it's too much of a good thing? Good for theme, but not so much for reading them through back-to-back?

Not sure.

But still, this is very worth reading for fans of the subgenre. :) Barron has a real knack.

[Karl · Rating 5 out of 5]

This book contains some of the best writing I have had the pleasure of partaking in for quite some time.

It amazes me as to Mr. Barron's ability to keep me off guard.A story can begin at point A, and with the lush and vibrant story telling take you to point B and before you are cognitive of the event occurring you have been deposited into somewhere really really strange with no possible means of re-orienting yourself. And the stories stick with you long after you have finished them.

The stories are all first rate with not a throw away in the bunch.

With story number six “Strappado" Mr. Barron has made me a life long fan. This is the best story I have read in years. I had to re-read it twice after finishing it.

First Rate Top of the class. Amazing.

[Forrest · Rating 5 out of 5]

Barron is a writers' writer. Believe me. Writing is hard work, and one can clearly see the results of Barron's efforts. It's a mean trick to be able to write so beautifully, and yet so brutally. The universe of Occultation and Other Stories fits in a dark niche between Algernon Blackwood's "The Willows," Brian Evenson's Dark Property, and Hemingway. It's a rough and tumble corner on the interstitial edge between body horror and high literary tradition, with some elements of cosmic horror. Though his work has been called "Lovecraftian" (a term I am beginning to hate), Laird Barron's work is so much more than that. It is far from pastiche, and his writing chops are far better than old H.P.'s.

Take, for example, the first story in the collection. How do you take a novel's worth of sweeping cosmic horror on an epoch scale and a deep-reaching character relationship and cram it all into a 27 page story? I have no idea. But if you read "The Forest," you can see the results. Here, Barron out-Lovecraft's Lovecraft, but without the treacle. This is a horror short that is as fulfilling as any literary novel, if not more fulfilling (and with hardly any "filler"). Five not-everlasting, but very long-lasting stars. Enough time to see constellations reshape themselves.

The title story shows a deft, deceptive hand, using anecdotal side stories and strange shadows to distract the reader long enough and convincingly enough to sneak up and smack the reader in the back of the head with the ending. Four stars for "Occultation".

"The Lagerstatte" is Barron at his subtley-rotting, understated, insidious best. Danni, the protagonist, may or may not be coming out of, or at least working her way through a fugue-state brought on by the accidental deaths of her husband and son, compounded by a long history of family misfortune. It's an excruciating tale, but wrapped up in familial "softness". Five stars.

"Mysterium Tremendum" is one of the best stories of cosmic horror I have read in a long time. Take Blackwood's force of nature, Lovecraft's cosmic scale and alien-ness, Ligotti's pessimism, add a layer of sheer terror and outright creepiness and you will start to get the idea. But that's only the start. Add depth of character and plausibility of setting and you've hit the 2nd layer. But there is so much more. Five stars.

I wondered at the title "Catch Hell," at first. But I can't think of a more appropriate title for this occult-drenched folk-horror story of oedipa-electrall revenge(???). Somehow, Barron has made every character in this story broken; every character a perpetrator, and every character a victim. Five stars.

When avant garde performance art goes wrong and the observer becomes the subject, "Strappado" is the result. Horrific for its understatement, this tale will work into your brain and leave all sorts of uncomfortable holes. Five brutal stars that I'd like to forget, but can't.

What is "The Broadsword"? A story, the name of a hotel, a weapon cutting through the veil around this world. It is a ghost story, an alien invasion, a revelation of cosmic terror, and a deep dive into drunkenness and insanity. It is all of these things, all at once, so sudden that the lines between them is indistinct, but slowly unfolding, like a cancer of thought and soul. Five stars.

"--30--" is as visceral, brutal, as primal a story as I've ever read. I'm still not sure if the narrator was insane or not, whether it was not all some grand hallucination. And, whether it was hallucination or reality, was it all engineered by the government or not? And how to Toshi and Beasley, from the first story in this collection, figure into all of this? Are they only peripheral or is there something going on in the off-stage shadows with these two? With so many questions left unanswered, one must ask "but did you like it with all these questions"? Yes, I liked it because of the questions! Five stars

"Six, Six, Six" blindsides you. Who is the bad guy or gal? What is evil? Who, even, is the protagonist? Tough questions, none of which are answered by the last, stunning line of the story. This thing was crafted and crafted well. You can feel the work that was poured into this story, but you can't see the cut marks on the marble, so to speak. Brilliant story, brilliantly written. Five stars.

Yes, you can see the work that went into these stories, but they are so clean and smooth in their execution that you don't notice the chisel marks. That is the beauty of Barron's craft and what sets his work above that of most of his contemporaries, especially those writing in the horror and dark fiction genres. Few are his equal. Precious few.

I don't think there is such a thing as a "good guy" in Barron's stories. At least not in this collection. The vagaries are so well conceived, though, that the reader finds himself spinning in circles in the dark, waiting for a blow to the back that may or may not come. It's a chilling sensation, and worth experiencing again!

[Danielle The Book Huntress · Rating 4 out of 5]

Laird Barron clearly knows how to unsettle his readers. If there was a universal theme of the various stories in this book, it would be that every single story was unsettling, albeit in different ways.

Mr. Barron evokes memories of reading Caitlín R. Kiernan, HP Lovecraft, Arthur Machen, and even Algernon Blackwood in his tales in this volume. He finds the fearsome in such diverse subjects as the entities from beyond, the power of guilt, the overwhelming and uncomprehensible enormity of the natural world, and lets not forget, the darkness of the human heart. He even has shades of black magic and the diabolical in his stories. I would hesitate to compare him to the comparatively gentle horror stylings of M.R. James, other than the subtle nod to MR James in the antiquarian/bookish leanings of some of his characters. He's a bit more overt in his horror methodology than Mr. James. For all that, he never steps over the line into 'gruesome' and 'debauched.' Indeed, there are moments when sex and violence intertwine closely until they are hard to separate. Fortunately, this is done adeptly and with a subtlety that one such as I (who is admittedly quite squeamish of the combination of the two) didn't feel that she'd stepped into a no-woman's land where she felt she could no longer keep her feet traversing on the path into the dark world of horror that he creates in his stories.

This is a volume best not attempted at night. Even in the cloudless, startlingly bright, azure-skied and sun-washed landscape in which I read, I still felt those stirrings of unease that a good horror work should birth in its reader. This book is equally successful as weird fiction. I had that feeling that I didn't quite get what was going on--that there were questions unanswered, and the 'fearful unknown' was hinted at, and maybe I didn't want to go through that door that Barron leaves barely cracked.

Occultation and Other Stories exists in that gray area between modern-styled horror and the old-fashioned gothic horror that I prefer. And this was successful. I was not alienated in that I found the subject matter too extreme, too shocking, too overtly unpalatable for my tastes. Instead, this caused that shuddery feeling that I can appreciate, although some of the stories made me feel like I needed a sponge bath to remove the miasma of the dark, unfriendly organic, and somewhat visceral arena I had ventured into. But that is horror, my friends. Admittedly, I prefer my horror with an emphasis on the atmosphere, the shivers, and less on the repellent. But horror does have to take us out of our comfort zones, to make us feel unsafe, and Mr. Barron knows how to do that.

Recommended to readers who want to go to that dark, uncertain place for a few hours.

[Nancy Oakes · Rating 5 out of 5]

If you want the longer version, it's here; otherwise, read on.

Laird Barron is probably the only recent author I've read who can put together a compilation of his stories and keep me totally involved, off balance and maximally creeped out through the entire book without any exceptions. He's also one of the few horror writers in my experience who writes his stories with prose to equal pretty much any literary author, and he does not rely on cheap thrills, hack-em/slash-em gratuitous gore or gross shockers to strike a genuine chord of fear that continues to resonate long after the last page has been read. The dark atmosphere that envelops the book as a whole hits you the minute you open to the first story and then never lets up. Obviously I really liked Occultation; there's absolutely nothing like a few excellently-terrifying stories to get the adrenaline pumping. I just wonder where this guy gets his inspiration -- oh, strike that...I don't think I want to know.

As in Barron's The Imago Sequence, there is a focus here on the cracks in our "earthly architecture" allowing the unearthly inhabitants of the cosmos who lurk there to peek in or wander on into our landscape; more importantly, they also allow for the more earthbound to catch an unwanted glimpse of what's out there waiting in the shadows. Occultation also continues Imago's themes of absorption and transformation, although this time there is a bit more focus on the occult and the workings of madness than in the previous work, with more than a hint of our own mortal insignificance as aligned with the greater powers that lurk. Here's a quick rundown of these frightening little tales:

1. “The Forest,” a brief tale that in hindsight serves as a thematic preview to the following stories. A cinematographer, Richard Partridge, is invited to what will become both a reunion and a goodbye in the New England woods. His host is a world-famous filmmaker fascinated with "untangling the enigmas of evolutionary origins and ultimate destination," whose newest work offers Partridge a glimpse into Earth's future, along with the present means of communication with those who are destined to inherit the earth. Elements of "The Forest" will reappear later.
2. “Occultation," a story that takes place in a run down old motel along the desert highway. While a sleep-deprived couple boozes it up in their room, playing "Something Scary," getting high on X and stopping to have sex every now and then, a strange stain on the wall captures their attention. The light in the room doesn't work and the shadow continues to grow; in the meantime, while they partying and the shadow attract their attention, outside the room, "the world had descended into a primeval well."
3. "The Lagerstätte," which details a woman's decline into madness from her grief at losing her husband and son simultaneously in a plane crash. Or does it? Related in a manner that leaps around time in a nonlinear sort of way, the story has several jarring, discordant reflected directly from her mind, a place where the line is blurred and often shattered between hauntings, hallucinations, and reality.
4. “Mysterium Tremendum,” an offering about two couples who take a brief camping vacation into the woods of the Pacific Northwest guided by a strange antiquarian book called the "Moderor de Caliginis" found quite by chance. The story starts out slowly, but builds into one of the creepiest stories in this volume, as the group slowly realizes the truth of an earlier warning that "The Crack that runs through everything stares into you." Definitely one of the best stories in the book. The descriptions of the woods in this part of Washington are not only spot on, but downright chilling, as is the creepy ending.
5. “Catch Hell, ”which has much more of an occultish-type touch than Barron's normal fare, although it is one of the stories that definitely embodies his themes of transformation and the "dread of aloneness." A couple who've recently and mysteriously lost a baby come to the Black Ram Lodge, a former trading post in the 19th century which became a mansion before becoming a tourist spot. Just 40 miles east of Seattle in the hill country, it's a whole different world, as they will soon discover.
6. “Strappado.” Now we've come to my favorite story of the entire collection, one which absolutely necessitated a reread. Moving out of the woods, even out of the country, "Strappado" takes place in India, where two former lovers are reunited and eventually find their way to an exhibition of the work of an outlaw artist. To say more would kill it, but I came away from this story both times absolutely stunned at the sheer portrayal of the insignificance of human lives. Much like "The Procession of the Black Sloth," my favorite story in Barron's The Imago Sequence, "Strappado" is highly reminiscent of an Asian horror film. If they ever did make this story into a movie, leaving nothing to the imagination, I'd probably have to pass. It's that creepy, and the final few lines of this story really did a number on me in terms of its ramifications. The title is sort of a double entendre -- you just have to think about it for a while to figure out why.
7. “The Broadsword” features a retired field surveyor who has a secret that will ultimately return to bite him. A long-term resident of the old, arte deco apartment building known as The Broadsword, Pershing Dennard lives alone. His story starts with voices heard through a vent -- and an acknowledgement that someone knows he's listening. Once again, Barron starts the action very slowly and builds it to a horrifying climax that's still resonating in my head, and once again, there is a crossing of the "axis of time and space by means of technologies that were old when your kind oozed in brine," and a hapless human being caught in "the black forest of cosmic night."
8. “–30–" After just a minute of time on Wikipedia, I learned that " –30–" is a way journalists signal the end of a story. And indeed, an finish is captured in the beginning of this tale with the lines "You know how this is going to end." Two biologists who have past history but haven't been together for a long time are stationed together in a module within a hemisphere out in the desert of Washington state. Their work is scheduled to last for six months; the only relief is the occasional helicopter re-supply. They are situated in the former base of cult-like group called "The Family" whose killing exploits are legendary, much like the group under Charlie Manson in the 1960s. The Family is gone now, but there may be something lurking out there still. Or not.
9. “Six Six Six.” This is another story I had to reread. A young man and his wife inherit a big house in the forest, where events of the past continue to reverberate in the present and evil lurks within the very walls. Along with "Catch Hell," "Six Six Six" takes on more of a pure occult style; of the two, this one has much more of a haunted, claustrophobic atmosphere that oozes through the pages. I always wonder about the people in stories or in movies who come across a door bolted shut by every possible means and decide they absolutely must open it. Never a good idea.

I thought that after Imago the act would be so difficult to follow that it couldn't possibly be as good. Well, I was wrong. There are so many elements at work here -- human isolation, trauma, a new look at old ruins, the insignificance of humanity in a grander cosmic scheme, and more. The backdrop of the forest is absolutely perfect with its covering mists and darkness where anything is bound to jump out or worse...where things lurk just waiting to be stumbled upon.

Highly recommended -- darkness is definitely not needed for the hair on the back of your neck to stand on end.

[Gabrielle (Reading Rampage) · Rating 4 out of 5]

More Laird Barron! I am currently on a short story roll, as I don’t want to start a new big juicy book right before leaving on vacation, so I make do with small juicy stories instead. And my, is Barron a juicy writer! Not in the buckets-of-blood-and-gore sense; his way is much more subtle, oozing and surreal.

The prose has a strange and almost hypnotic rhythm. Sometimes it’s hard to keep track of which character is talking and where they are, but when it comes together, it paints a wonderfully creepy picture. His characters are lonely in an almost oppressive way: their isolation makes them utterly helpless. The world they live in is so much bigger than them and they becomes quickly disoriented when everything they thought was real ends up fading away. There does seem to be a pattern of Big City people ending up around hillbilly-types (or dilapidated rural places) and their minds (and sometimes bodies) getting destroyed, which I am not sure how to interpret. Barron himself has lived a long time in isolated places, and those certainly have a way of getting creepy – and he knows just how to capture that on the page.

I love the Lovecraftian bend of Barron’s world, with its ancient occult societies, strange creatures and stranger cosmos. I especially enjoyed “The Lagerstätte”, an exploration of grief that couldn’t have come out of anyone else’s brain; “Mysterium Tremendum”, a perfect, spooky novella that totally deserved the Shirley Jackson award; “Catching Hell”, about bad B&Bs, “Strappado” gives macabre art a new meaning; and "The Broadsword", an apartment building that makes the Bramford look quaint.

Despite the unfortunate cover art, I enjoyed this collection even more than “The Imago Sequence” (https://www.goodreads.com/review/show... it seems to hold itself together a bit more tightly, and gives the reader a more definite introduction to the Children of Old Leech – that get explored more fully in “The Croning”. 4 and a half stars.

[S̶e̶a̶n̶ · Rating 3 out of 5]

This was my first reading of Barron, and I probably should have started with his first collection, but the library only had this one. The standout stories for me were 'The Forest' and 'The Lagerstätte', both of which were award nominees, if that says anything—maybe, maybe not, depending on how much stock you put in such things. As other three-star reviewers have noted, many of the other stories just involve two or more characters passing the time as things get increasingly weirder and then something terrible happens. But I guess that's a horror trope I've never been particularly drawn to, unless the characters are compelling in an unconventional way, the situation and/or dialogue is absurd, and/or the weirdness is more subtle and/or surreal. But generally speaking those qualities tend to preclude the existence of a trope in the first place. I did enjoy the slow-burn suspense of '--30--', with its 'field researchers embedded in a sketchy remote area of desert' scenario (reminded me of Annihilation, but better, and this story preceded that novel) but was disappointed with the direction it went. (The revenge of the ex-lover felt banal and not particularly believable in context, and the ending was inexplicably vague, but not in a good way. It's a shame because I think Barron does a really good job with the pacing, and the way he has the two characters hold back information from each other as they both go out of their heads in separate ways. There were so many possibilities Barron could have explored further but in the end it just culminates in an explosion? I'm all for open endings but this one was far too muddied.) I still plan to read Barron's first collection, though, so maybe I'll have better luck with that.

[Paul · Rating 5 out of 5]

Laird's second collection is as breath taking and original as his first. Themes and style are built upon instead of recycled. Scenes in "Mysterium Tremendium" flat out creeped me out and gave me a nightmare or two. I can't remember the last time that's happened to me while reading fiction. One of the most important collections of 2010.

[Bill · Rating 5 out of 5]

I don’t know what it is about Laird Barron’s work that I enjoy so much. Yes, the dude can write. Yes, his characterizations are really good in short formats and his monsters are crazy cool. He also uses a lot of big “old-timey” words and that would usually turn me off, but LB makes it work and gives his stories their own voice and flavor. Dark, brooding and bleak. I realize he may not be for everyone, but I have enjoyed everything that I have ever read by him. This guy is fuckin’ good, man. Real fuckin' good.

[Lizz · Rating 5 out of 5]

I don’t write reviews.

Wow, Mr. Barron, colour me impressed! I read this when it was released and I liked it, but now… j’adore! Barron actually manages to capture the cosmic: what lurks in the spaces in between. Sounds emerge from the darkness. Faces change, just enough to let you know something is wrong. Watchers are being watched. Not to mention: extra joints, dopplegangers, smells of decay, ancient ruins, sacrificial altars, secret pacts with unwholesome beings, cults, sex, drugs and booze, fluids, nameless (and named) horrors.

I cannot decide which story is my favourite. I know that The Forest was my least. Every other story was brilliantly executed and The Forest was still very well written. Occultation and Six-Six-Six are much shorter than the rest, more conté than full story, terribly creepy and delightfully linked. The Broadsword had me checking my hallway and bathroom for monsters. I am not easily frightened, but here we are. After finishing Mysterium Tremendum, I actually looked over my shoulder when walking up to my house. Mr. Barron, why did you stop writing horror??!!

The Lagerstätte is a master class in writing about the empty hellscape of grieving. We get a real devil in Catch Hell and a look into dysfunctional relationships, with a decidedly occult twist. Strappado is bizarre, winding, dark, lush and horrible. And last, but not least, - -30- - takes you somewhere you know you shouldn’t go and you pay the price.

Book 2 - Laird & I Will Follow: A Laird Barron Retrospective

[Adam · Rating 3 out of 5]

Laird Barron's artistic vision and the stylistic intersection he shoots for are, at least in part, things I really like, and he's often good enough to pull them off. It's an attractive combination. But while there are some good stories in here, they just have too much putting me off to really hang.

So here's my litany of complaints: All of Barron's stories are just a couple of people hanging out until the weird shoe drops and one of them gets sucked into the earth or abducted by leech people or whatever. Each story has the two elements, then, the buildup and the release. The buildup is most of the story and it kinda lives or dies by the quality of the characters and how much atmosphere the clues can build. The first big issue is that these characters just don't jive with me. They lean hard on the hardboiled noir presentation, the jaded ex-pat and the grizzled veteran and the emotionally scarred divorcee. It's all distanced and masculine and that, plus all the sex and alcohol, make a lot of these stories feel like '80s action-horror movies in a way I just don't relate to. There are even a couple of entomologist characters, but I didn't find any of them much more than ciphers. A lot of them just get a bit tiresome--The Forest, Lagerstatte, and Mysterium Tremendum especially just take a lot of time getting to know their characters and that'd be great if it worked but these just bounced off me and the more they dragged out the less invested I got.

The other issue is that Barron keeps flubbing the worldbuilding. The children of old leech stuff is so cool and unique that I'm always confused when he just makes a facile conflation with Satanism. Even that is sometimes fine; he's got a good imagination and imagery and when he does Satanism for its own sake it can be pretty dark and satisfying. It's just that in a lot of these stories (Mysterium Tremendum is the worst offender) the clues feel like blunt placeholders. Characters will refer to their friends' dabbling in witchcraft in college, or find a book of Satanic rites and occult magic. And there'll be robes and pentagrams and goat skulls and all these symbols that have arguably less effect, especially in print, than Lovecraft's demons.

The predictable structure keeps the mythology from ever doing anything interesting; it always just opens contact with a bleak and malicious force that kills the character or they narrowly escape. That, plus the general interchangeability of the interesting stuff with traditional Satanism drains a lot of the interest and evocative power of the aesthetic for me.

The only story that really breaks that mold at all is among the best (Catch Hell). It gives the female protagonist some agency and there's actually an ending that resolves the character arc instead of just swallowing them in a pit. --30-- is the closest I've seen to the dark-Annihilation I deserve, and it even has an entomologist and coyotes and parasitoid wasps (he uses a real species in a way that doesn't accord with its real biology without explaining that to the reader as an oddity; if you didn't look it up you'd assume these were naturally social wasps. Unsure what that means tho). It just doesn't have interesting characters and fizzles out without going anywhere (fizzles in a dramatic and bloody way but still). The Broadsword is probably the best in the collection, the only really unadulterated weirdness, sprinkled evocatively throughout with superb pacing.

[Ben Loory · Rating 3 out of 5]

barron is a masterful writer with a distinctively flowing and hallucinatory style and i really loved this collection in the beginning. after a while, though, the hopelessness of the universe became not just overpowering but sort of silly. well, let's see how these poor schmucks get fucked over i started to say at the beginning of each story. which, okay, maybe i should've spaced them apart... but every single one was just "bad to worse." i need a little hope to feel the horror of hope's ruin.

but "mysterium tremendum" was pretty great.

[11811 (Eleven) · Rating 5 out of 5]

No one writes like this guy does.

[Vicente Ribes · Rating 4 out of 5]

Otro fenomenal libro de relatos de Laird Barron. Este es su segundo libro y me ha parecido incluso superior a "La sequencia Imago y otras historias". Una variedad de temas y una mitología propia que nos sumerge en relatos donde el miedo, el sudor y la sangre son casi palpables. Una excelente colección de historias cuya narrativa es además muy buena. Barron construye el ambiente poco a poco y te mete de lleno en sus cuentos. Los cuentos que más me gustaron:

Ocultación(***): Una pareja, tras pasar la noche borracha en una habitación oscura y sórdida de un motel, cuenta historias de miedo e intenta ignorar la sombra que parece haberse escondido en un rincón durante la discusión.

Strappado(****): Una pareja de amantes que viaja por la India recibe una invitación a una inusual exhibición de la exposición de Van Iblis. Van Iblis es famoso en todo el mundo por sus obras de arte escandalosas e ilegales, que involucran tanto a vivos como a muertos. Con un pequeño grupo internacional de turistas, los amantes deciden visitar la exposición, sin saber qué tipo de horrores les aguardarían.

El Broadsword(*****): Un topógrafo de campo jubilado vive en un hotel y empieza a oír las voces de un amigo desaparecido tiempo atrás en una excursión en el campo. Nadie parece prestar atención a su paranoia y las voces de las cañerías se burlan de él agazapadas esperando el momento para atacarle. Una historia genial y muy lovecraftiana.

Mysterious Tremendum(****): 4 chicos homosexuales se van de escapada después de que uno de ellos encuentre un viejo grimorio en una librería. Buscando un misterioso dolmen en una montaña encontrarán pesadillas difíciles de olvidar.

--30--(*****): Una pareja de biólogos se quedan a investigar la fauna de un remoto lugar de Alaska, encerrados en un complejo, comenzarán a sentir la paranoia cuando recuerden lo que ocurrió con una secta no lejos de su ubicación. Unas extrañas presencias harán su aparición y iniciarán su descenso a la locura. De lo mejor del libro, ambientación y descripciones muy gráficas.

Seis Seis Seis(****): Un hombre hereda una casa tras la muerte de su padre, un zumbado satanista. La mujer se llevará la sorpresa de su vida cuando el hombre le empiece a contar la historia oculta de su familia.

[Benoit Lelièvre · Rating 5 out of 5]

Laird Barron is unequivocally great. Pick whichever book of his and I'll be at least above average. OCCULTATION was, though, quite different from the literature Laird Barron got me used to.

I would say OCCULTATION is more conventionally Lovecraftian than his other work, but I wouldn't do it justice by saying that. The settings are more timeless and emphasize man's relationship with a Carnovorous nature. It doesn't only look up at the sky, but down into the bowels of the Earth, too. There are some straight Satanic stories too such as THE BROADSWORD, which I really liked. My favorite was perhaps THE LAGERSTÄTTE, about a grieving woman seeking reunion with her family at any cost. I loved the links between THE FOREST and -30-. Not my favorite from Barron, but it's better than whatever horror you're reading right now unless you're reading THE IMAGO SEQUENCE or SWIFT TO CHASE.

Barron is GOOD. There's no other way to say it. These stories are genuinely scary.

[Phillip Smith · Rating 4 out of 5]

4 to 4.5 for me. There are some truly inspired and creepy stories here. Well-written, engaging horror. I kind of hit a wall with "Mysterium Tremendum" and it took a while to pick this book up again. Maybe that particular story will be better on a second read through.

Favorites include: Forest, Lagerstatte, 30, and six, six, six.

[Malum · Rating 3 out of 5]

Short stories aren't really my thing, and this collection was a mixed bag for me. What I did like, however, was Barron's overall style. He avoids trying to shock the reader every other minute and doesn't try to be in your face with monsters and gore. Some authors can pull these elements off, but they more often than not misfire.
Barron, on the other hand, provides atmospheric slow burns that are more in the style of Lovecraft in the fact that all of his stories take place in a cold, uncaring world that relentlessly grinds people down, swallows them, and shits them out. Also, the fear of the unknown and unknowable are just as prominent as the fear of some beasty or boogieman.

[Pearce Hansen · Rating 5 out of 5]

The first thing that struck me about Occultation was that, after having read it and the Imago Sequence – Laird’s debut anthology – for the first time, I immediately turned around and read them both all over again. That’s never happened to me before with any other book – not sure what it means, just taking note.

Laird is often spoken of in the same breath with Thomas Ligotti, but they could not be more different. While I am in awe of Ligotti’s work, his universe is one of futility – of clockwork horrors that don’t even afford their victims the grace of personal animosity. Laird’s horrors are intimately personal, with a predator/prey relationship oft-times fraught with gleeful malice – while his protagonists are doomed, they oppose their fate with a frontiersman’s fatalism and stoic refusal to submit – this, I assume a result of Laird’s upbringing in rural Alaska. While the characters in both Ligotti’s and Barron’s tales wind up as no more than peristaltic grist for the maw of Lovecraftian horrors intent on provender, Laird’s protags at least have the decency to kick and struggle on their way down the gullet, rather than succumbing to the numb despair exhibited by Ligotti’s people.

Then there is craft. Laird leaves so much unsaid that the majority of his stories unfold puzzle-like behind your unconsciousness after you’re done with them, ultimately looming several times their original size back in your oh-so-vulnerable lizard brain. His wording, phrasing, and editing are flawless – literally among the best wordsmithing I have encountered among writers active today. I am reminded of Joyce Carol Oates’ very best in some of Laird’s work, or Ramsey Campbell at his most hallucinogenic – Laird’s characters are often face to face with facts and realities they refuse to recognize or acknowledge. Allusion is especially strong in all of Barron’s work.

This is strong stuff – not because of its often graphic violence, or its bleak Lovecraftian cosmological mindset – but more for Laird’s unrelenting insinuation. With Laird Barron, resistance is futile – if anyone reads a hundred years from now, he’ll still be in print.

Occultation has an introduction by WFA winner Michael Shea of Nifft the Lean fame, with a beautiful opening sentence: "Laird Barron's carnivorous cosmos . . ." which says much. All the stories are excellent, but a few stood out for me. 'The Forest' is one of those tales that you just can't stop thinking about when you're done. The title piece is one that would have reduced Kafka and his cronies to stitches if Laird somehow traveled back in time and read it out loud to them at one of their writer's gatherings. 'The Broadsword' almost qualifies as science fiction (though technically ANYTHING smacking of Lovecraft's oeuvre could qualify as such) with a masterfully open ending that makes you ask yourself (***potential partial plot spoiler***) whether it would be preferable for the whole story to a delusion on the part of the narrator -- trust me on this, if it IS delusion, the seconds after the end of the story can only be ugly indeed.

Deserving its own paragraph, ghost story Six Six Six is IMHO one of the finest short horror pieces I've ever read, on par with Poe, HPL, Machen or Ramsey. I foresee this tale being anthologized a lot in the future, it may even earn a position as a 'saw,' alongside such classics as William Hope Hodgson's 'A Voice In The Night,' or Saki's 'Svredni Vashtar.' It's THAT good, and it disturbed/infuriated me. Read it and weep.

[Brittni | semi-hiatus · Rating 2 out of 5]

Also here.

into a collection of cosmic horror with me, notably many in Washington State, where the strange, unusual, fever dreams from beyond the stars collide with reality.

Story Ratings
The Forest – 2 stars. Honestly, it was very difficult to follow what was happening even for a cosmic horror short.

Occultation – 3 stars. Had some decent tension in it, but overall lacking.

The Lagerstatte – 2 stars. Had some interesting moments and concepts, but the writing style was awful and it was overall meh.

🌟Mysterium Tremendum🌟 – 5 stars. Truly, the best short in this book and a really excellent cosmic/weird horror journey. I love the occult Atlas, I thought the characters were more than one dimensional, and it had a good ending. If you were to read one thing from this collection, this is it.

Catch Hell – 4 stars. Not super unique, but well written and really interesting to read.

Strappado – 2 stars. I just don’t really get the point of it, it was predictable, and it just…ends.

The Broadsword – 2 stars. There’s hints of an interesting cosmic horror, but honestly by this point in the collection I was just over the repetitive nature of characters, the situations, and the vague cosmic alien descriptions.

–30– – 1 star. I’ll be honest, I saw that Barron went back to using dashes for dialogue instead of quotes and just didn’t even bother with this one.

Six Six Six – 1 star. Same as above, I really wasn’t in the mood to torture myself with poor stylistic choices.

Overall Thoughts

As a collection, this really doesn’t work for me for a few reasons.

There is so much repetitiveness in each story that it becomes honestly a drag to keep reading, even spacing them out as I chose to do. In every story, there’s usually two main people in a relationship together. They get drunk, or high, or have sex, or all three in some vague order. Repeatedly. It’s like reading the same characters every time because they’re overall flat and one-dimensional, they’re in the same exact situations, and they’re just getting lit or having sex or thinking about sex or thinking about booze and on and on. I did enjoy that not all the relationships were heterosexual (in fact my favorite story centers on queer characters). I did get very tired of reading about booze, sex, and drugs by the third story.

The stylistic choices regarding dialoge in half the stories makes it a chore to read. It’s difficult to follow when the dashes are used to denote dialogue. If that’s intentional to make the cosmic horror more dreamlike or weird…it does not work. I powered through the first few stories with it and almost put the whole thing down because it doesn’t work well for me.

The stories just tend to end. Often, they end with the same kind of encounters – an alien being is impersonating a dead person that the main character has some guilt around in order to do something malevolent. The other way they just end is with nothing really happening or resolved. Again, not pleasant to read back to back.

Even though I wasn’t a fan of this whole collection, if you like cosmic horror give it a shot. It’s got rave reviews, but I think I’d enjoy them more if they were scattered in various anthologies and not all bound together.

[Bogdan · Rating 4 out of 5]

At a first sight I'm not such a big fan of Laird Barron work, but when I finished this peculiar volume of his stories, I must conclude that he certanly delivers scares and offers shivers down your spine.

I don't like his style with a lot, lot, of info about his characters and their situations, but I must admit that he has some very original & new ideeas and his thrills are on another level that those from others writers.

Only two stories I didn't read, those in the end, but with the rest I was really hooked into ending them.

I think that this is a solid & interesting manifesto of the way the horror has changed in our days.

I think you really must try this volume that hasn't some of his Lovecraftian stories, those that added a more weight on his writer name, just new & solid stuff that could interest not only a horror fan, but also a casual reader.

[Micah Hall · Rating 5 out of 5]

4.5/5

Another Laird Barron collection down and this is up there with the best. I faltered somewhat with The Imago Sequence due to that collection being more on the incomprehensible side of things. This collection is where Barron is firing on all cylinders and its interesting seeing how he's grown as a writer.

There are several absolute gems to be found here, my favorite being Mysterium Tedium, and none that fail to capture you with eldritch horror or creeping dread. That may be my biggest compliment of Barron: his ability to set the mood and feeling, making you really feel lost in the Pacific Northwest, heavily wooded land. I also am a complete sucker to continuity between stories and this collection has this in spades with callbacks to his later or earlier collections along with a hinted mythos.

As a side note, you continue to see the phrase 'time is a ring' of which True Detective lifted/plagarized for the first season.. Credit where it's due please.

[Merl Fluin · Rating 4 out of 5]

What can one say about this book that its adoring fans haven't said already? If you love beautiful writing (which I do), you'll enjoy and admire it (which I did). If you're also frightened by Lovecraftian cosmic horror (which I'm not), then you'll be terrified too (which I wasn't).

[xenia · Rating 3 out of 5]

grief is a sinkhole
a great gaping wound into the body of the earth

[Lindsey R · Rating 5 out of 5]

Amazingly eerie and disturbing stories. Best read late at night under the covers with a flashlight. Supremely enjoyed this collection and recommend not rushing through it. Take your time for best effect.