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Black Star, Black Sun
“Black Star Black Sun is my tribute to Lovecraft, Ramsey Campbell, and the haunted fields of Somerset, where I seemed to spend much of my childhood. It’s a story about going home and finding horror there when something beyond human understanding begins to invade our reality. It encompasses broken dreams, old memories, lost loved ones and a fundamentally hostile universe. It’s the last song of a dying world before it falls to the Black Star.” – Rich Hawkins
186 pages, Kindle Edition
First published February 17, 2015
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Displaying 1 - 30 of 31 reviews
August 6, 2019
One of the most gripping novellas of cosmic horror that I have ever read. The dread and fear is palpable throughout, and though a sense of doom pervades the atmosphere and the encroaching events, it is impossible to look away from the inevitable.
March 1, 2019
This book presents may different kinds of horrors. Cosmic horror, personal horrors, community horrors and on and on and on. The beginning is an easy enough set up, introducing you to the characters and their lives and what they have dealt with and are currently going through, and at about the 30% mark the reader starts to get assaulted with a non-stop onslaught of what begins as spooky imagery and unsettling happenings until it ends in a terrifying and bleak way. There is stomach churning terror within these pages, as I said earlier, presented in many different ways. None of it is cheesy, there is no comic relief, and since I compare many books to movies in my reviews the only films I can think of as unrelenting as this are the original French version of Martyrs or A Serbian Film. I don't always like happy endings and I don't need everyone to hold hands and walk away smiling at the conclusion of what I read but holy hell this one was excruciating. This is the way horror should be written and I'm seriously impressed with the way this author made me feel with mere words on a page, or Kindle screen in this instance. Damn, I won't forget this one any time soon.
April 17, 2016
I greatly enjoyed the atmospheric, haunting prodigal son tale of pending apocalyptic doom by Rich Hawkins, BLACK STAR BLACK SUN. A perfectly-shaped novella of horror that doesn't come right at you, but lets you sort of settle into things along with the protagonist, receiving small bits of information while also reliving the very human terror of coming back to your roots, and finding that while all things stay the same, the perspective one has of those things varies greatly after long periods of life experience and absence.
The horror of the story is not something that is jumping out of the closet at you, or reaching for your ankle from under the bed, it's a horror that stands in plain sight, watching you slowly squirm and fidget as you try to run away from it and realize that running is quite impossible. As the story progresses and the horror of it approaches, you find yourself looking for a means of escape or sanctuary and, like our hero, find the solution is not as reachable as you'd hoped.
Fans of cosmic horror will love this tale, but it's a broader spectrum than that, and my feeling is anyone who enjoys a richly tapestried yarn of terror will fall for this wonderful story. When you choose to drink the Black Sun potion Hawkins has concocted, you'll find it has hints of Ballingrud and Oliver and Barron, with a very light Lovecraftian finish.
The horror of the story is not something that is jumping out of the closet at you, or reaching for your ankle from under the bed, it's a horror that stands in plain sight, watching you slowly squirm and fidget as you try to run away from it and realize that running is quite impossible. As the story progresses and the horror of it approaches, you find yourself looking for a means of escape or sanctuary and, like our hero, find the solution is not as reachable as you'd hoped.
Fans of cosmic horror will love this tale, but it's a broader spectrum than that, and my feeling is anyone who enjoys a richly tapestried yarn of terror will fall for this wonderful story. When you choose to drink the Black Sun potion Hawkins has concocted, you'll find it has hints of Ballingrud and Oliver and Barron, with a very light Lovecraftian finish.
February 21, 2015
The authors fascination with H. P. Lovecraft shines through in this thoroughly entertaining novella. Fans of Lovecraftian horror will delight in the cold, dark, and claustrophic tale.
March 28, 2015
Five stars without hesitation. Yes, it is Lovecraftian but it is perhaps better described as Ramsey Campbell on crystal meth. It is The Bomb.
February 10, 2022
Cosmic horror is hard to do well, comparatively, as there are a handful of superb writers out there that cast a dark shadow over the remainder. This book has many of the elements of the genre, none of which I will bother listing since anyone familiar with it already knows them, and those new to the concept should be surprised, not told ahead what to expect. The atmosphere takes a good long while to build, and I never fell sufficiently under the spell of the dread that crept in, ever so slowly. What didn't work for me with this tale was combining the cosmic horror idea with . Hawkins does his mentors proud with his descriptions and imagery - the drawings were a cool touch, and he should have used more - but ultimately this falls onto the "quite good but not noteworthy" list. Needed less of the possibility that "maybe he's just suffering from delusions resulting from depression, drug use, and personal tragedy" and a lot more of the dreadfully nasty, soul-crushing awfulness with tentacles and looming despair. You can never get too much of that in cosmic horror.
May 28, 2025
This book is amazing!
April 8, 2019
At the risk of sounding OTT, this is one of best horror novels I've read in the last twenty years. Reminiscent of Ramsey Campbell, Gary McMahon and Lovecraft, Hawkins's writing when it comes to atmosphere and mood is first-rate stuff.
LOVED it.
LOVED it.
January 11, 2022
4 to 4.5 for this relentlessly, dread-inducing novella.
May 7, 2015
Reading Rich Hawkins’ novella, Black Star, Black Sun, is a bit like waking up and finding the world has already been consumed by fire, and the final embers are burning the ashen remains. It is a fearless journey into an abyss of despair.
Why would anyone want to read that? Because it’s hauntingly beautiful.
We begin with Ben Ottway returning to his hometown, a small village in England, after the mysterious disappearance of his wife, but this is no thriller with plot twists you can see coming a mile away or that are surprising because they’re utter nonsense. Ben’s wife is gone, and the point is his world has ended, yet he fights it and remains hopeful.
The imagery and detail in Rich’s prose provide a weight to the storytelling that is akin to grief. It is masterful how a string of Rich’s words can convey such a sense of foreboding beneath their literal meaning. This is Black Star, Black Sun’s greatest strength. It is not a complex story, but Rich’s prose is solid and poetic, often dispensing with conventional structure to pack a punch.
At its bones, this is Lovecraftian/cosmic horror at its finest. It has all of the elements that make that kind of story great, but it doesn’t neglect the driving force of character. That is, while many of Black Star, Black Sun’s contemporaries focus on the inevitability of destructive gods we can’t possibly understand, Black Star, Black Sun is both humanizing and relatable, and that’s specifically what makes it extraordinary. When oblivion comes and all is lost, we do not feel alone.
There is just nothing in this novella that isn’t well done. Its only limitation is in what it is: a dark, horrific journey into death and understanding that your end is coming and there is nothing you can do to stop it. That isn’t exactly prime-time entertainment, but for those of us who appreciate this kind of thing, Black Star, Black Sun is an inspiring gem.
Why would anyone want to read that? Because it’s hauntingly beautiful.
We begin with Ben Ottway returning to his hometown, a small village in England, after the mysterious disappearance of his wife, but this is no thriller with plot twists you can see coming a mile away or that are surprising because they’re utter nonsense. Ben’s wife is gone, and the point is his world has ended, yet he fights it and remains hopeful.
The imagery and detail in Rich’s prose provide a weight to the storytelling that is akin to grief. It is masterful how a string of Rich’s words can convey such a sense of foreboding beneath their literal meaning. This is Black Star, Black Sun’s greatest strength. It is not a complex story, but Rich’s prose is solid and poetic, often dispensing with conventional structure to pack a punch.
At its bones, this is Lovecraftian/cosmic horror at its finest. It has all of the elements that make that kind of story great, but it doesn’t neglect the driving force of character. That is, while many of Black Star, Black Sun’s contemporaries focus on the inevitability of destructive gods we can’t possibly understand, Black Star, Black Sun is both humanizing and relatable, and that’s specifically what makes it extraordinary. When oblivion comes and all is lost, we do not feel alone.
There is just nothing in this novella that isn’t well done. Its only limitation is in what it is: a dark, horrific journey into death and understanding that your end is coming and there is nothing you can do to stop it. That isn’t exactly prime-time entertainment, but for those of us who appreciate this kind of thing, Black Star, Black Sun is an inspiring gem.
August 27, 2019
A very bleak story, but also hugely atmospheric.
July 18, 2022
One of the great joys of dipping your toes into reading small press books is that you can get a thrill out of discovering some hidden gem. Something that you can tell all your friends about, that you can feel good about getting other people excited about. And then what most likely happens is that you run across books like this. It's a novice personal project that desperately needed work, but never got it because there was no one there as a gatekeeper to ask questions, edit text, or recommend other solutions.
This whole piece feels like a first draft manuscript that should have been workshopped with other creatives with an open mind to make the work better. When you look at other successful indie horror writers, they have whole sections where they thank all the other authors that have helped them to hone their work. They have a supportive network of like-minded creatives and they leave themselves open to suggestions to improve their work.
While this might have been a pretty good short story, as a novella it's padded with clunky text. It is rife with awkward descriptions that overly describe details that just don't matter. They don't add to the mood, they don't reveal anything about characters, they don't move the story forward. We don't need to read about putting car keys in your pocket, if there is no reason to talk about the keys. We don't need to know about a pine stool if it says nothing helpful.
This is a cosmic horror story, so things are expected to be wild. But frequently, the author will even overly describe something that the details make imagining what he's saying more confusing, but sadly, it isn't done with intention to be disorienting. It's just unclear.
There isn't much plot to speak of. The main character just kind of stumbles around smoking and continually finding himself as an observer for other people. But even then they are all just kind of standing around waiting for him to talk to them. It feels like an old video game where you just wander around and press x to talk to someone and they tell you the text that you are supposed to hear now. Occasionally something dramatic happens after he goes into a space to activate the story, but then he just kind of leaves and goes to the next scene.
There don't seem to be any motivations to any of the characters. They all just kind of wander around aimlessly until they are required. Even the narrator doesn't bother with the interests of the side characters. It even calls the main character's father "Dad" the whole time. I guess it's a byproduct of a third person limited POV, but it feels amateur, like no one bothered to point it out to the author.
The scenes each feel so extreme, where he's freaking out about all the wrong things. Like, I'd be freaking out if I woke up in a strange person's home, but I wouldn't want to suddenly claw my eyes out if I saw some surreal fantasy paintings (like Hieronymus Bosch or your average metal album cover).
The book is really fatalistic, and because no one takes any action in it, then it's hard to care what the results are. The consequences are so extreme, but bizarrely there are no stakes in anything. No one is bothering to do anything because no one is motivated to do anything. Except for a really bizarrely shoehorned school shooting scene, that technically fits in the story, but completely feels removed from the A-line plot and throws the pace of the third act off entirely. Stuff just happens.
Literally, the only thing I cared about in the whole book what the mystery of his wife established in the beginning, and it just never gets addressed.
I really wanted to like this, but the only reason why I finished it was because after giving it a shot for 100 pages, there were only 80 more to go, and I was hoping it would do something fun. But I just found it to be contrived and unskilled, especially in light of so many other amazing contemporary indie horror writers out there.
This whole piece feels like a first draft manuscript that should have been workshopped with other creatives with an open mind to make the work better. When you look at other successful indie horror writers, they have whole sections where they thank all the other authors that have helped them to hone their work. They have a supportive network of like-minded creatives and they leave themselves open to suggestions to improve their work.
While this might have been a pretty good short story, as a novella it's padded with clunky text. It is rife with awkward descriptions that overly describe details that just don't matter. They don't add to the mood, they don't reveal anything about characters, they don't move the story forward. We don't need to read about putting car keys in your pocket, if there is no reason to talk about the keys. We don't need to know about a pine stool if it says nothing helpful.
This is a cosmic horror story, so things are expected to be wild. But frequently, the author will even overly describe something that the details make imagining what he's saying more confusing, but sadly, it isn't done with intention to be disorienting. It's just unclear.
There isn't much plot to speak of. The main character just kind of stumbles around smoking and continually finding himself as an observer for other people. But even then they are all just kind of standing around waiting for him to talk to them. It feels like an old video game where you just wander around and press x to talk to someone and they tell you the text that you are supposed to hear now. Occasionally something dramatic happens after he goes into a space to activate the story, but then he just kind of leaves and goes to the next scene.
There don't seem to be any motivations to any of the characters. They all just kind of wander around aimlessly until they are required. Even the narrator doesn't bother with the interests of the side characters. It even calls the main character's father "Dad" the whole time. I guess it's a byproduct of a third person limited POV, but it feels amateur, like no one bothered to point it out to the author.
The scenes each feel so extreme, where he's freaking out about all the wrong things. Like, I'd be freaking out if I woke up in a strange person's home, but I wouldn't want to suddenly claw my eyes out if I saw some surreal fantasy paintings (like Hieronymus Bosch or your average metal album cover).
The book is really fatalistic, and because no one takes any action in it, then it's hard to care what the results are. The consequences are so extreme, but bizarrely there are no stakes in anything. No one is bothering to do anything because no one is motivated to do anything. Except for a really bizarrely shoehorned school shooting scene, that technically fits in the story, but completely feels removed from the A-line plot and throws the pace of the third act off entirely. Stuff just happens.
Literally, the only thing I cared about in the whole book what the mystery of his wife established in the beginning, and it just never gets addressed.
I really wanted to like this, but the only reason why I finished it was because after giving it a shot for 100 pages, there were only 80 more to go, and I was hoping it would do something fun. But I just found it to be contrived and unskilled, especially in light of so many other amazing contemporary indie horror writers out there.
April 26, 2020
Lovecraftian horror novella set in a quiet Somerset village. Attempts to raise the tension through strange dreams and disturbing implications, but it seemed too short for this to work for me. Perhaps it would have worked better if there was something for us to get invested in the survival of (maybe Dad?), or if the thing prophesied was on a more approachable scale (world-ending apocalypses aren't inherently scary, they're too big and abstract). The lack of appreciable twists and turns (or even just nonlinear developments) prevents you wanting anything in particular to happen, so you don't really mind what does happen.
The setting was a mix of good details -- the mixed-build, part-retirement nature of the village, the aged church congregation -- and things that seemed weirdly off and imported to me as a long-time village resident. Why does the character drive to the village shop? Why would a taxi stopping outside the village be more than a trivial inconvenience (or save any money)? How big is this village? The novel's fixation on school shootings also seems imported from overseas, and the locale strangely rife with observable wildlife.
The setting was a mix of good details -- the mixed-build, part-retirement nature of the village, the aged church congregation -- and things that seemed weirdly off and imported to me as a long-time village resident. Why does the character drive to the village shop? Why would a taxi stopping outside the village be more than a trivial inconvenience (or save any money)? How big is this village? The novel's fixation on school shootings also seems imported from overseas, and the locale strangely rife with observable wildlife.
March 31, 2024
I really wanted to like this as it encompasses genres I love but neither the mundane, sad horror nor the cosmic horror at play really stand out as particularly effective with even the former feeling like it was abandoned entirely as the story progressed. Unfortunately for both, there's a feeling of the pacing being wildly off. I will say though that I love the premise and that I appreciate it as a homage but I wish that it paid off more.
It's strange in the sense that the book feels short in terms of page count and the story feeling crammed when something does happen and then feeling much longer when nothing happens in the downtime between the main character passively observing plot points.
It's strange in the sense that the book feels short in terms of page count and the story feeling crammed when something does happen and then feeling much longer when nothing happens in the downtime between the main character passively observing plot points.
May 18, 2022
150 pages that felt like 500. This book has approximately 2 good pages out of every 10, and the others are just filled with... something, where absolutely nothing happens and the prose is just unimaginative. Yo can tell it could've worked better as a short story and that it was purposefully turned into a novella, when a reveal is coming several times and the MC is just driven away from listening to it by the most absurd of plot devices.
July 19, 2016
This novella was utterly draining in the best of ways. After reading the final words, I felt like a piece of my heart had died. My insides vacant. This is what you should feel like after reading horror done correctly. Cosmic, nihilistic dread. Well done, Rich, you've earned a new reader and I'm excited to dig into your other works!
May 31, 2022
Bleak AF. Highly recommended if you like cosmic horror.
January 15, 2025
“Black Star Black Sun is my tribute to Lovecraft, Ramsey Campbell, and the haunted fields of Somerset, where I seemed to spend much of my childhood. It’s a story about going home and finding horror there when something beyond human understanding begins to invade our reality. It encompasses broken dreams, old memories, lost loved ones and a fundamentally hostile universe. It’s the last song of a dying world before it falls to the Black Star.” – Rich Hawkins
Review
"Black Star, Black Sun possesses a horror energy of sufficient intensity to make readers sit up straight. A descriptive force that shifts from the raw to the nuanced. A ferocious work of macabre imagination and one for readers of Conrad Williams and Gary McMahon." - Adam Nevill, author of The Ritual
"Reading Hawkins' novella is like sitting in front of a guttering open fire. Its glimmerings captivate, hissing with irrepressible life, and then, just when you're most seduced by its warmth, it spits stinging embers your way. This is incendiary fiction. Read at arms' length." - Gary Fry, author of Conjure House
"Grim, gritty, modern cosmic horror that hits you like a star-splattered gut-punch." - Gary McMahon, author of The Grieving Stones
June 8, 2017
Iba a darle 3 estrellas porque la la prosa no es tan buena como podría ser y la historia se vuelve un poco tediosa en algunas escenas (nada grave ni que te provoque ganas de abandonar la lectura), pero le doy 4 porque, además de que la trama general es interesante y los personajes están bien construidos, ¡qué final tan cabrón!
Horror cósmico, sí, pero no en la vena lovecraftiana (aunque salgan criaturas absolutamente lovecraftianas) sino que se trata de un horror sombrío, desalentador, atmosférico, por momentos frenético en su violencia.
Horror cósmico, sí, pero no en la vena lovecraftiana (aunque salgan criaturas absolutamente lovecraftianas) sino que se trata de un horror sombrío, desalentador, atmosférico, por momentos frenético en su violencia.
February 13, 2017
Life is already bleak for Ben Ottway when he returns to live with his elderly father in the village where he grew up, but when the nightmares and visions begin things rapidly get worse.
Rich Hawkins has crafted a great piece of terrifying, dark cosmic horror in Black Star, Black Sun which is well worth your time and attention.
Rich Hawkins has crafted a great piece of terrifying, dark cosmic horror in Black Star, Black Sun which is well worth your time and attention.
July 27, 2020
I was in the mood for cosmic horror today, and this quick read delivered all the existential dread i was looking for.
May 17, 2023
A cosmic horror novella about family and inevitable, crushing loss. Bleak throughout, kept me enthralled until the end.
October 17, 2025
Did not finish. 3 pages of sentence fragments was enough for me.
December 2, 2019
Short book about this absolute darkness coming over this already-dark British town. I'm not sure if I really enjoyed the plot, which was pretty minimal, but the atmosphere was just incredible. I came out of this book feeling super dreary and dirty haha. Great, powerful use of language.
January 22, 2017
This was an exceptionally odd, but equally original, dark tale of fantasy horror which really keeps you guessing which direction it is going to head into. A young man returns to stay with his father after the disappearance of his wife, in which he was a suspect. This has led to a raft of emotional problems and after returning to the tiny village of his youth realises things will be tough staying with his father who drinks too much and is recovering from the death of his wife. This snap shot of rural village life is very atmospheric and begins to brood as supernatural elements are slowly filtered into the story via dreams, and an edginess amongst the villagers who just don't seem quite right. As with 'King Carrion' by the same author the second half of he book headed of into an unexpected direction, but it was very enjoyable and I would guess Hawkins is a fan of Lovecraft, which gives you a little hint of where the plot goes. Odd, quirky and an original read from an impressive (newish) voice in modern British horror.
May 17, 2016
Beautiful. Atmospheric. Dark. Grim. Bleak. Inventive. Gripping.
Take your pick. Whatever descriptor works best for you, likely it will still apply to Black Star, Black Sun. I think this is a perfect example of a well executed novella in the a sense that you finish it and despite its short length, emotionally you feel like you've just taken down a full length novel.
It's a shame there's no such thing as a time machine because I think this book would have been beautifully suited for adaptation to the big screen during the golden age of the eighties, when practical special effects still ruled the land.
This book is paced incredibly well and is placed in a setting that, while it is bleak and dark, is also written beautifully. I thought it was an amazing look at someone trying to come to grips with personal loss while at the same time coming to realization of a larger scale, inevitable loss. I thought the imagery was clear and powerful.
Very happy I read this one. Check it out.
Take your pick. Whatever descriptor works best for you, likely it will still apply to Black Star, Black Sun. I think this is a perfect example of a well executed novella in the a sense that you finish it and despite its short length, emotionally you feel like you've just taken down a full length novel.
It's a shame there's no such thing as a time machine because I think this book would have been beautifully suited for adaptation to the big screen during the golden age of the eighties, when practical special effects still ruled the land.
This book is paced incredibly well and is placed in a setting that, while it is bleak and dark, is also written beautifully. I thought it was an amazing look at someone trying to come to grips with personal loss while at the same time coming to realization of a larger scale, inevitable loss. I thought the imagery was clear and powerful.
Very happy I read this one. Check it out.
May 23, 2016
Mr Hawkins turns in a perfectly pitched piece of relentlessly bleak fiction in this larger than average novella. The atmosphere is grey and oppressive, awash with doom and gloom, but so viscerally depicted that you can't help but want to read on, to remain in this richly depicted world of restrained cosmic horror. Long story short... I loved it. The writing is rich with grim description and the author has a talent for coating everything with a layer of background dirt. It's not uplifting, the characters are pained and beyond redemption, but you can't help but keep reading as you become immersed in this monochrome slice of English country life as nightmare. Depressing... wonderfully so.
March 26, 2016
Great read. Atmospheric and grim. Sets up a bleak, desperate feel and commits to it.
pml
pml
April 16, 2015
Engaging, dark, bleak, and bold. Well done.
Displaying 1 - 30 of 31 reviews