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Slayer of Souls
This scarce antiquarian book is a facsimile reprint of the original. Due to its age, it may contain imperfections such as marks, notations, marginalia and flawed pages. Because we believe this work is culturally important, we have made it available as part of our commitment for protecting, preserving, and promoting the world's literature in affordable, high quality, modern editions that are true to the original work.
300 pages, Paperback
First published January 1, 1920
11 people are currently reading
153 people want to read
About the author
Robert W. Chambers
856 books576 followersRobert William Chambers was an American artist and writer.
Chambers was first educated at the Brooklyn Polytechnic Institute,and then entered the Art Students' League at around the age of twenty, where the artist Charles Dana Gibson was his fellow student. Chambers studied at the École des Beaux-Arts, and at Académie Julian, in Paris from 1886 to 1893, and his work was displayed at the Salon as early as 1889. On his return to New York, he succeeded in selling his illustrations to Life, Truth, and Vogue magazines. Then, for reasons unclear, he devoted his time to writing, producing his first novel, In the Quarter (written in 1887 in Munich). His most famous, and perhaps most meritorious, effort is The King in Yellow, a collection of weird short stories, connected by the theme of the fictitious drama The King in Yellow, which drives those who read it insane.
Chambers returned to the weird genre in his later short story collections The Maker of Moons and The Tree of Heaven, but neither earned him such success as The King in Yellow.
Chambers later turned to writing romantic fiction to earn a living. According to some estimates, Chambers was one of the most successful literary careers of his period, his later novels selling well and a handful achieving best-seller status. Many of his works were also serialized in magazines.
After 1924 he devoted himself solely to writing historical fiction.
Chambers for several years made Broadalbin his summer home. Some of his novels touch upon colonial life in Broadalbin and Johnstown.
On July 12, 1898, he married Elsa Vaughn Moller (1882-1939). They had a son, Robert Edward Stuart Chambers (later calling himself Robert Husted Chambers) who also gained some fame as an author.
Chambers died at his home in the village of Broadalbin, New York, on December 16th 1933.
Chambers was first educated at the Brooklyn Polytechnic Institute,and then entered the Art Students' League at around the age of twenty, where the artist Charles Dana Gibson was his fellow student. Chambers studied at the École des Beaux-Arts, and at Académie Julian, in Paris from 1886 to 1893, and his work was displayed at the Salon as early as 1889. On his return to New York, he succeeded in selling his illustrations to Life, Truth, and Vogue magazines. Then, for reasons unclear, he devoted his time to writing, producing his first novel, In the Quarter (written in 1887 in Munich). His most famous, and perhaps most meritorious, effort is The King in Yellow, a collection of weird short stories, connected by the theme of the fictitious drama The King in Yellow, which drives those who read it insane.
Chambers returned to the weird genre in his later short story collections The Maker of Moons and The Tree of Heaven, but neither earned him such success as The King in Yellow.
Chambers later turned to writing romantic fiction to earn a living. According to some estimates, Chambers was one of the most successful literary careers of his period, his later novels selling well and a handful achieving best-seller status. Many of his works were also serialized in magazines.
After 1924 he devoted himself solely to writing historical fiction.
Chambers for several years made Broadalbin his summer home. Some of his novels touch upon colonial life in Broadalbin and Johnstown.
On July 12, 1898, he married Elsa Vaughn Moller (1882-1939). They had a son, Robert Edward Stuart Chambers (later calling himself Robert Husted Chambers) who also gained some fame as an author.
Chambers died at his home in the village of Broadalbin, New York, on December 16th 1933.
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Displaying 1 - 14 of 14 reviews
August 24, 2018
This is a bizarre little book, even by the standards of vintage pulps. Fans of Chambers' macabre and psychedelic "The King in Yellow" will likely find themselves baffled by this tale of political intrigue that teams daring US government agents with a squad of young ladies with psychic superpowers to fight a "yellow peril"/Bolshevik/occult conspiracy out to topple the Western world. The book shares some similarities with the aforementioned title, with its supernatural elements and semi-foggy sense of time and place, but here those elements feel less stylized and more the result of awkward storytelling. Recommended for weird pulp completists, but for others seeking a far-out, two-fisted occult pulp adventure, try Paul Ernst's Doctor Satan stories instead.
May 30, 2023
Bit of a guilty pleasure this one. Were I any kind of book-snob I wouldn’t admit to liking it, because it’s pure pulp: global conspiracy, Asiatic magic, psychic battles, love-interest temple-girls, dastardly foreigners, episodic form…
… and seemingly wobbly cultural, historical and geographical knowledge, though I suspect it isn’t so much that Chambers doesn’t know that the Mongols, the Yezidi and the Assassins (let alone anarchists, German militarists and Bolsheviks) don’t go together, so much as that he just doesn’t care. It’s the forces of what, in 1920s America, passed for evil versus the forces of what, in 1920s America, passed for good. Make of that what you will.
Nevertheless, pure pulp; switch your brain off and enjoy the ride. It enters the eye as black and white text and reaches the brain as four-colour-printed panels. The best scenes (there are some pretty good ones) reached my brain as bits of adapted-from-comic-book film, if you know what I mean. On those terms; not half bad.
What you can certainly do, if you’ve read The King in Yellow, is set aside any idea that it’s gothic horror (except for someone’s face falling off at one point); and in the unlikely event you’ve read The Tracer of Lost Persons you can forget (except for a moderate amount of romantic slush) any notion of it being like that one. It is to books what Indiana Jones is to serious film-making, but there’s nothing wrong with that.
I think, on the whole, because the form is a bit episodic, and because the slush-to-plot ratio is a touch higher than I’d like, I’m going to call this one a high three. Approach with caution: too much of this stuff rots the brain.
… and seemingly wobbly cultural, historical and geographical knowledge, though I suspect it isn’t so much that Chambers doesn’t know that the Mongols, the Yezidi and the Assassins (let alone anarchists, German militarists and Bolsheviks) don’t go together, so much as that he just doesn’t care. It’s the forces of what, in 1920s America, passed for evil versus the forces of what, in 1920s America, passed for good. Make of that what you will.
Nevertheless, pure pulp; switch your brain off and enjoy the ride. It enters the eye as black and white text and reaches the brain as four-colour-printed panels. The best scenes (there are some pretty good ones) reached my brain as bits of adapted-from-comic-book film, if you know what I mean. On those terms; not half bad.
What you can certainly do, if you’ve read The King in Yellow, is set aside any idea that it’s gothic horror (except for someone’s face falling off at one point); and in the unlikely event you’ve read The Tracer of Lost Persons you can forget (except for a moderate amount of romantic slush) any notion of it being like that one. It is to books what Indiana Jones is to serious film-making, but there’s nothing wrong with that.
I think, on the whole, because the form is a bit episodic, and because the slush-to-plot ratio is a touch higher than I’d like, I’m going to call this one a high three. Approach with caution: too much of this stuff rots the brain.
March 24, 2017
Inane. I made it halfway through and could find no reason to go on.
November 22, 2019
(This is mostly a rehash of my response to JLin's review below, but that review is so old that I felt a need to post a fresh review of my own.)
The Slayer of Souls is very much a product of its time, but IMO, it's hiding a pretty daring feminist message beneath its seemingly traditional facade; and that, for all its cultural insensitivities, makes it an interesting read.
I've read a few of Chambers' romantic short stories (only *after* getting hooked by The King in Yellow; I don't normally enjoy romances), and his female characters are normally smart and confident women. I think he had a pretty modern attitude for his time. It's just too bad he had *zero* knowledge of the real cultures and religions of the Middle East and East - or even where those various cultures lived!
The Slayer of Souls is very much a product of its time, but IMO, it's hiding a pretty daring feminist message beneath its seemingly traditional facade; and that, for all its cultural insensitivities, makes it an interesting read.
I've read a few of Chambers' romantic short stories (only *after* getting hooked by The King in Yellow; I don't normally enjoy romances), and his female characters are normally smart and confident women. I think he had a pretty modern attitude for his time. It's just too bad he had *zero* knowledge of the real cultures and religions of the Middle East and East - or even where those various cultures lived!
April 29, 2012
Could have been better without the dudes. They were empty characters put there to keep the whole story from being too girl power. The female heroes just have to married or for some reason they can't wander around saving the USA from Bolshevist/Asian/anarchist/ devil worshiping bad guys. I have no problem with the love side story, scant as it is, but the american male agents were just as useless to the plot as they were in the story.
This entire review has been hidden because of spoilers.
July 6, 2009
Gothic horror, a bit older fashioned for today's readers, but pretty good. Not as good as Chambers' short stories, though, as in his collection "The King in Yellow."
November 18, 2014
Delicious pulp-era fantasy with a noir feel.
May 5, 2024
The story opens upon a girl, on a ship leaving Korea,wondering if the past four years have been a simple nightmare or if, in fact, her soul was stolen. I misinterpreted this opening and thought I might be in for a mind-bender of a tale about a girl who cannot remember her recent past, who may have lost her soul in an encounter with the elder gods, and who has to travel to the chaotic center of the universe or her own psyche to dig up the past.
Yeah, well, that ain't the book this is. The girl is a former temple-girl who was, rather inexplicably, taught dark magic, and who is, even more inexplicably, better at it than the locals who have dedicated their lives to it. She joins up with the feds and forms a sort of Teen Girl Squad made up of her fellow temple-girls in order to take down the people she escaped from, who are all descended from Hassan the Assassin and are, inexplicably again, out to take over the world, or at least the free world, or at least America.
It gets old pretty quick. There is a bit of a pulpy fun to be had reading this, and probably a giggly supernatural action-comedy could be made from it, but overall it is mostly repetitive and hand-wavy.
Yeah, well, that ain't the book this is. The girl is a former temple-girl who was, rather inexplicably, taught dark magic, and who is, even more inexplicably, better at it than the locals who have dedicated their lives to it. She joins up with the feds and forms a sort of Teen Girl Squad made up of her fellow temple-girls in order to take down the people she escaped from, who are all descended from Hassan the Assassin and are, inexplicably again, out to take over the world, or at least the free world, or at least America.
It gets old pretty quick. There is a bit of a pulpy fun to be had reading this, and probably a giggly supernatural action-comedy could be made from it, but overall it is mostly repetitive and hand-wavy.
June 11, 2025
En este libro los bolcheviques, anarquistas, sindicalistas y rojos en general son aliados de los adoradores del diablo asiáticos que quieren esclavizar a la humanidad. Está claro que no estamos ante una novela políticamente correcta o que vaya con los tiempos actuales, pero ¡a quién le importa! Es condenadamente divertida.
Es verdad que en ocasiones es reiterativa, los personajes muy afectados y el estilo arcaico. Sin embargo, los mejores pasajes tienen mucha energía y son emocionantes de una forma que no se ve en la literatura actual. Tiene un agradable regusto a viejo.
Por supuesto, no llega esta novela al nivel de "El Rey de Amarillo" y puede que ni siquiera tenga la calidad de los otros volúmenes de los cuentos completos sobrenaturales de Chambers, pero a mí me ha gustado más que estos últimos.
Lo recomiendo para quien sepa disfrutar de una obra de ficción aunque su mensaje sea terrible.
Es verdad que en ocasiones es reiterativa, los personajes muy afectados y el estilo arcaico. Sin embargo, los mejores pasajes tienen mucha energía y son emocionantes de una forma que no se ve en la literatura actual. Tiene un agradable regusto a viejo.
Por supuesto, no llega esta novela al nivel de "El Rey de Amarillo" y puede que ni siquiera tenga la calidad de los otros volúmenes de los cuentos completos sobrenaturales de Chambers, pero a mí me ha gustado más que estos últimos.
Lo recomiendo para quien sepa disfrutar de una obra de ficción aunque su mensaje sea terrible.
September 3, 2024
O livro é legal mas tem muita palavra da época e muitos termos em mandarim/japonês que são diffceis de entender, fora que o final foi muito apressado, não detalhou muito. Mas os personagens são ótimos.
April 18, 2021
How did I go half a life time not hearing about this book. It has romance, a capable female protagonist, the secret service fighting a psychic war, and ninjas. This book is amazing and FREE.
February 23, 2023
Demon-worshiping. Satan incarnate. Psychic warfare. Sounds wicked right? Nope. Boring, toothless, uninteresting. Bummer.
December 14, 2013
trapped in the thought that the Bolshevics were taking over the World...really paranoid thinking in 1923
January 18, 2016
This was an audio book from LibriVox.
http://librivox.org/the-slayer-of-sou...
http://librivox.org/the-slayer-of-sou...
Displaying 1 - 14 of 14 reviews