Obsessed

Of the hundreds I've listened to, here are a handful of audio books that I will return to over and over again for their perfection - not just the story but the narration. This is one of them.

Stefan Rudnicki's voice and style is always well matched to dark fiction and I don't know if he has a particular love of this book but I suspect he must, since this has got to be one of his very best readings. You can hear his investment in every sentence.

The King in Yellow. The prose is brilliant and beautiful, the composition is unique and esoteric. Like Lovecraft, Ambrose Bierce and even David Lynch, the revealed is only there to describe an underlying and omitted form of dimension. And in my opinion, horror is best told when there's only an outline in the shadows, so that the imagination has to feel out the unseen terror.

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Great Voice, Confusing Stories.

The first story was really good, the second one was interesting, but they gradually got more and more confusing, and pointless. I probably missed something, but other than the locations and some names, the stories weren't really connected.

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just OK

not for me I liked maybe 1 or 2 of the stories but I found the rest had no purpose quite possible I just missed something however I enjoyed the style of writing and the performance. powerful voice

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10/10

Must have this version of the audiobook. The voice truly fits the source material and is read wonderfully and always entertaining. A must have if you’re a fan of Lovecraftian stuff

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Fizzles out early on

If this book wasn’t for you, who do you think might enjoy it more?

Somebody who was around at the time it came out.
I once read that a classic is a work that has stood the test of time. Based on that, The King in Yellow is not a classic.

What could Robert W. Chambers have done to make this a more enjoyable book for you?

To be fair it wasn't really his fault. He wrote a series of short stories that presumably worked at the time, and which influenced the likes of Lovecraft.
Then again, the fact that he completely dropped the King in Yellow thread less than halfway through the book of that title meant we were left with a handful of vaguely similar stories about American artists slumming it in Paris.

Did Stefan Rudnicki and Gabrielle de Cuir do a good job differentiating each of the characters? How?

That was not their purpose. He read the stories; she read the poems that preceded each story. They were okay but nothing special.

What reaction did this book spark in you? Anger, sadness, disappointment?

Initially I was intrigued by the hints about the titular king, but of course it never went anywhere, and so I got bored. A shame, as I'd read the relevant Ambrose Bierce fiction to enable me to immerse myself in the whole thing.
The American bohemians in the last half spend their time having squabbles and falling in love with young women in a way that I think is supposed to elicit our disapproval, but which is in fact incredibly tame in comparison with the social and sexual mores of today. The stories are unfocused - it is often unclear whom we are supposed to care about - so that they are not even interesting in a "so that's how things were in 1895" sort of way.
Now, I'm relieved I've got it out the way. I can probably buy and enjoy True Detective, feeling I'm "in the know".

Any additional comments?

The Repairer of Reputations seems to get a lot of praise. I found it a very dull opener, and I had to listen twice because I thought I'd missed something. I don't think I did. I was amused that this future America (1920!) had something similar to the suicide booths in Futurama.
The Mask is my favourite - a straight SF/fantasy story based on a neat idea.
In The Court of the Dragon. A nebulous supernatural story, the second in the collection that I had to relisten to.
The Yellow Sign. Quite effectively creepy.
The Demoiselle d'Ys. A pleasant enough time travel story, but I've already mostly forgotten it.
The Prophets' Paradise. If you went to art college and spent a few days writing pretentious poems, you'll be familiar with this.
The Street of the Four Winds. Well written, but the sort of thing you might find in a small press magazine.
The Street of the First Shell. Again, this one gets a lot of praise, but I found it hard to keep track of who was who and why I should care. This is another I listened to twice.
The Street of Our Lady of the Fields. Inconsequential flirtations, I think. I can't remember now - it's been nearly a week. Some of the same characters appear in the equally forgettable Rue Barree.

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7 people found this helpful

Nothing much

It matters for its place in story telling but it isn't a good story. Only the opening tale has drama or suspense. What else we have is bad gothic with terribly painted female characters that the word sexist just doesn't come close to describing.

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1 person found this helpful

Not exactly a supposed horror masterpiece...

Decided to check this out after reading about how it was a masterpiece of horror that influenced Lovecraft. Went in with high hopes, but ended up being bored toward the end and being unable to finish the last half hour of the book.

It starts off well, a tale of madness that involves the King of Yellow. The first half of the book is relatively intriguing, with the different tales being tied together by the eponymous King and the play in which he features, but this conceit is dropped before the halfway mark, never mentioned again and fails to have any meaningful impact on the collection as a whole. Horror- and sci-fi-tinged stories give way to boring, mundane love tales involving bland, forgettable characters. There is little to tie the unengaging and disparate stories together.

The narrator in this collection, his rumbling bass giving gravitas to the performance and differentiation between characters. However, this does not change the fact that the majority of tales are bland, mediocre love stories.

If you read this collection and know what to expect, it may be more enjoyable. However, its description as a masterpiece of horror literature is unfounded and majorly disappointing if you're expecting a weird and spooky listen.

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Boring, Dated and cosmic horror just isn't for me

I tried, I really did. I just do not like cosmic horror in the slightest and from all the contents in this collection of stories that seems to be the only thing that might be interesting.

I wouldn't put this book at fault for my not liking cosmic horror, its just vague, bland and lazy horror to me.

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