Y (The King in Yellow Anthology #12) 2.5Stars

 

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Title: Y
Series: The King in Yellow Anthology #12
Author: Simon Brake (ed)
Rating: 2.5 of 5 Stars
Genre: Cosmic Horror Anthology
Pages: 120
Words: 41K

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This was the last King in Yellow collection I could track down. While I know there are more individual short stories, the effort needed to find them and then track down where they reside is more work than I am interested. So I was hoping to go out with a bit of a bang with this collection. Sadly, I didn’t get that.

Nothing was really bad in this collection. But nothing stood out, nothing popped, nothing made me shiver. Reading a King in Yellow story should be like watching a train carrying hundreds of people derail, in real time. Horrifying, terrible but so compelling that you can’t look away even though you want to, even though you know you should.

Of course, things got off to a rough start because the editor, one Simon Brake, talked about how the King in Yellow wouldn’t have survived without being folded into the Cthulhu Mythos. That’s a lot of bunk, total bs and the kind of statement I wouldn’t even be bothered to wipe my bottom with. Even if there is a kernel of truth in it, sigh.

Then the stories sailed along. Nice and smooth. Predictable, with a small amount of tension, but nothing to make the hair on my arms stand up. I was expecting John Wick and I got He-Man the cartoon instead.

This concludes my KiY readings. Anything else will be accidental and I suspect will simply be part of Cthulhu anthologies.

★★✬☆☆

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Table of Contents

Prologue –

In Service to a Distant Throne – John Linwood Grant 

Vignette I – April 1919

The Blind King of Bythesea Manor - Glynn Owen

Vignette II – November 1932 

The Cult and the Canary – Orrin Grey

Vignette III – August 1971 

Have You Found The Yellow Sign?  - Alison Cybe

Vignette IV – June 1983 

The Painter – Helen Gould

Vignette V – September 1996 

The Fairy King of Yellow – Tom Pleasant

Vignette VI – April 2017

Haxan - Adam Gauntlett

Epilogue

• The King in Yellow & Other Stories (Book 1)

• In the Court of the Yellow King (Book 2)

• The King in Yellow Tales (Book 3)

• A Season in Carcosa (Book 4)

• New Tales of the Yellow Sign (Book 5)

• The Hastur Cycle (Book 6)

• Cassilda’s Song (Book 7)

• The Yellow Sign (Book 8)

• Rehearsals for Oblivion: Act One (Book 9)

• Dedication of the High Priestess (Short Story 10)

• The Chromatic Court (Book 11)