The Kiwifarms Unofficial Sci-Fi/Fantasy Book Club

[VeteranOfTheRetardWars]

In the first story, the utopian future of 1920’s America was achieved by kicking out the Jews, putting Blacks in their own state, zero immigration, and solving “the Indian problem” with Cossacks. And then there’s suicide booths for anyone who wants to end it.
It’s not even like that stuff couldn’t be written today, it could but we would call it too on the nose given the current climate lmao.

 

[Neverender]

In the first story, the utopian future of 1920’s America was achieved by kicking out the Jews, putting Blacks in their own state, zero immigration, and solving “the Indian problem” with Cossacks. And then there’s suicide booths for anyone who wants to end it.
It’s not even like that stuff couldn’t be written today, it could but we would call it too on the nose given the current climate lmao.

What gets me about it is that I don't know whether Chambers considers this a based alternative future of all his ideal outcomes or if it's meant to reinforce the inherent wrongness of The King's influence over reality. I think it might be the former, and only modern readers see it as some kind of dystopic anti-progressive nightmare.

 

[convulsion swell]

What gets me about it is that I don't know whether Chambers considers this a based alternative future of all his ideal outcomes or if it's meant to reinforce the inherent wrongness of The King's influence over reality. I think it might be the former, and only modern readers see it as some kind of dystopic anti-progressive nightmare.

I read it as The King's influence. It seems that the play corrupts reality. It mixes hallucination and fact into one slurry. I think of Mr. Wilde being a demented retard while also knowing the location of the missing piece of the "Prince's Emblazoned". Or of the organist of "In The Court of the Dragon" passing impossibly by the narrator twice. Or of the decomposing man found near the end of "The Yellow Sign".

 

[Nick Obre]

Since King In Yellow won, here's something I ran into recently:

I've been recommended some videos on Youtube about King In Yellow, probably because I really like Season 1 of True Detective (which for those who don't know, part of the show's murder mystery touches upon the King In Yellow and Carcosa), by a guy going by PHD&D

Here's the playlist: https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PLE6C7c-UgJSUDo3vQAwcZplJkMWCjywKq

The videos in it talk about the book, other books and works that influenced it, Chambers' life, and the cultural movements it was formed around and in response to. It also offers interpretations of the mythology.

I haven't read the book yet, so I can say the videos clearly deal in spoilers so maybe read it first before watching them, but I find the background information they give is more interesting and prominent than what he says about the contents of the book itself.

 

[Boy_Blunder]

part of the show's murder mystery touches upon the King In Yellow and Carcosa

Not really, I feel like the only reason they namedropped King in Yellow is because if they referenced something Lovecraft the average viewer would be more likely to have heard of it and think it was cartoony and stupid.

 

[Nick Obre]

Not really, I feel like the only reason they namedropped King in Yellow is because if they referenced something Lovecraft the average viewer would be more likely to have heard of it and think it was cartoony and stupid.

I mean, the whole idea is that the pedo murder cult believes in it, or at least uses it to spice up their perversion with some vague mysticist aesthetic. The psychopaths produced by the abuse by the cult, like Errol and Reggie, do seem to be sincere in their belief tho.

 

[Neverender]

I mean, the whole idea is that the pedo murder cult believes in it, or at least uses it to spice up their perversion with some vague mysticist aesthetic. The psychopaths produced by the abuse by the cult, like Errol and Reggie, do seem to be sincere in their belief tho.

The contagious element of The King works in the show's favor in this case. You can reasonably assume that the pedo murder cult of preachers and government officials have been influenced by The King without ever seeing a copy of the play on screen.

 

[AnOminous]

Not really, I feel like the only reason they namedropped King in Yellow is because if they referenced something Lovecraft the average viewer would be more likely to have heard of it and think it was cartoony and stupid.

Ambrose Bierce invented it first (although the Chambers variant is better known).

 

[Neverender]

Ambrose Bierce invented it first (although the Chambers variant is better known).

Bierce invented the names Hastur, Hali and Carcosa, which Chambers "borrowed," along with some superficial resemblances in themeing to Bierce's "An Inhabitant of Carcosa." The rest of The King In Yellow and the titular entity are Chambers' original creation.

 

[AnOminous]

Bierce invented the names Hastur, Hali and Carcosa, which Chambers "borrowed," along with some superficial resemblances in themeing to Bierce's "An Inhabitant of Carcosa." The rest of The King In Yellow and the titular entity are Chambers' original creation.

HPL's is closer to the Chambers short story than Bierce's, but he was definitely aware of both (he discussed Bierce in Supernatural Horror in Literature).

 

[Boy_Blunder]

Found this buried in my /tv/ folder. Fuck man, True Detective S1 was so good. I want to go back.

 

[Skelboen]

There goes probably the best of the currently living modern fiction writers. Rest in peace.

Dan Simmons has passed away from complications of a stroke. We talked about his Hyperion series not too long ago.

Damn, I was too late for the conversation. What was the consensus about the Endymion books 3 and 4? I've got a high tolerance for bullshit but just couldn't finish the last book

 

[LordOfZhbagva]

Damn, I was too late for the conversation. What was the consensus about the Endymion books 3 and 4? I've got a high tolerance for bullshit but just couldn't finish the last book

I don't really know. I disliked the way religion was brought into it, but I still found the books really great and I really enjoyed the writing. They're a departure from the format and in part, from the theme of the Hyperion books, which is probably where a lot of the dislike of them comes from, but I really enjoyed them. The kayaking through a gas giant was really the highlight of Dan's writing for me, it was so good.

 

[Skelboen]

The kayaking through a gas giant was really the highlight of Dan's writing for me

Sorry if the quote wrecks your spoiler tags, but that's exactly what kept me hooked as well: The epic journey between wildly different places. One minute they're in a jungle, the next they're trapped deep underground on a high gravity planet, then booped out into the open ocean. It's fun and it's exciting and keeps you hooked

Book #4 though? It's an absolute slog where the protagonist is following a minor character from an earlier book (who somehow becomes god) through touchy-feely meeting after meeting after meeting with Literal Who religious leaders. About 3/4 of the way through I stopped caring about how many stairs this or that temple has, or the mood of the fucking Thunderhog Sow or whatever other bizarre irrelevant characters he kept dumping into the story

Sorry. That's my rant. It's like 98.5% of the series was great before I felt trolled

 

[The Silent Perjority]

Yeah, books 3 and 4 felt like he'd been given a big advance to write them a certain length so there was way too much padding.
Also the menace and terror of the Shrike was completely watered down and ruined, that was really deflating.

I'd say stick to the first two then jump to one of his other novels.

 

[Old King Koaleamos]

Yeah, books 3 and 4 felt like he'd been given a big advance to write them a certain length so there was way too much padding.
Also the menace and terror of the Shrike was completely watered down and ruined, that was really deflating.

I'd say stick to the first two then jump to one of his other novels.

Song of Kali is a fun read, especially nowadays.



"The Song of Kali is with us. It has been with us for a very long time. Its chorus grows and grows and grows. But there are other voices to be heard. There are other songs to be sung."

I liked quite a bit of the prose in this book.

 

[VeteranOfTheRetardWars]

I’m still really liking King In Yellow, I’m about halfway through because I went down the rabbithole about the whole Lovecraft Mythos and it’s a very interesting world I was not exposed to beforehand.
In particular I think the first story was a fantastic example of how to do an unreliable narrator right, we can tell what’s really happening based on what the other characters do but there is still enough ambiguity around the details that you still aren’t sure what the narrator may be correct about. The subplot about the armorer was really interesting for that reason.
Also, I enjoy the vocabulary in this book. There’s a lot of words and uses of words we just don’t really use anymore but I really like, like “treble” instead of “triple”. Crazy how much language can change in around a hundred years.

 

[Safir]

I read The Jewel of Seven Stars, both versions. I knew the "good ending" was going to suck, but I wasn't prepared for the normal version sucking, too. The whole thing reads like one of the less memorable Clark Ashton Smith stories with the intro goatseated to novel length. Lichrally nothing of note happens, and the initial mysteries are nothing more than dry farts. Why did Trelawny demand to be kept in the poisonous room, to be watched by persons of both sexes at any moment? Why do they descend into and discuss the importance of a cavern, then conduct the ritual in the living room? Why do they murder Tera's cat if they want her cooperation? Disappointed.

Started on the King in Yellow and read the first story. Notes:

• except the suicide booth, some international affairs, and obvious anachronisms with respect to the real year 1920, I don't know what is/was true, what if anything is worldbuilding, and what is supposed to be satire
• poor kitty, I hope it lives
• if the story is a real document (it has an editor's note), how did it come to be? did orderlies allow Hillary Hitler Whatshisname to write it? if yes, it should be crazy and muddled from the beginning, and the place where it ends is too artificially convenient
• I normally hate when narrators editorialize their own feelings in normal stories ("I ejaculated, trembling with fury" and shit like that), it's retarded and unsympathetic, but the Farms taught me IRL crazies (e.g. Chris) do write in exactly this manner.

 

[crowabunga]

I took a while getting to this, fearing I'd have the same reaction as I did returning to 20,000 Leagues Under the Sea, but Chambers is more readable than I remember, not less.

Spoiler: Repairer of Reputations

The abrupt declaration of protagonist death as an ending footnote had me giggling to myself thinking of this:

 

[VeteranOfTheRetardWars]

Overall I understand why this book was so influential. Each story is great, the characters feel real, and as far as horror goes it’s miles away from the things it inspired or had its inspirations inspire. What’s really fascinating to me is how much the idea of Hastur, The King In Yellow, has changed from just a name that could be a place, a person, a god, whatever it’s not clear, to something in a play that’s still ambiguous, to something that has some relation to the gods, to an Elder God that’s a big deal.
I’m not a Lovecraft Mythos expert, but it’s a really neat world to be exposed to and look at because my goodness there is a lot of history behind all that.