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Title:
Brian Barr’s King in Yellow
Series: The
King in Yellow Anthology #14
Author: Brian
Barr
Rating: 4 of 5 Stars
Genre:
Cosmic Horror
Pages: 61
Words:
26K
Publish: 2019
It
has been almost two years since I last read some King in Yellow
stories (Under
Twin Suns in 2024)
and this collection by Brian Barr showcasing his own KiY stories was
a nice way to ease back into things.
It was confusing and gory and fatalistic and in the end, nobody wins or is in any way happy. It was distilled misery of the soul and that is how a KiY set of stories should feel like.
All four stories take place in the same world and use the same time frame. While some stories take place in the past, they all end up in our present day’ish.
What I did find interesting, and different, was the space age approach to the King in Yellow. Astronauts, in the space program successor to NASA, find spaceships with the yellow sign on them. Much is made of the physical side of Carcosa being in the Pleiades and how far it is from Earth. It was just a very different take on things and one that I appreciated. Barr’s writing fit right into the KiY mythos and I feel that he understood just what the KiY is all about.
I read the ebook version and some of the formatting was a bit wonky. I’m not sure if it was supposed to be like that, or if it was a conversion issue when I removed the drm from it and converted it to the format of my choice.
I
do like the cover immensely though. It has that fusion of yellow, red
and black that I think fits the mythos just right. It also some real
weirdness in the pictures themselves, which once again I find very
fitting. A cover like this fits The King in Yellow to a T.
★★★★☆
From Fandom.com
A Visage of Great Truths
A short prologue describes a group of astronauts salvaging a derelict shipyard who bear witness to the manifestation of a group of pallid yellow beings before being utterly destroyed by the newcomers.
The main story tells of a magician who has devoted years to serving the King in Yellow. When the truth of the entity is finally revealed to him, his mind is shattered and his body annihilated.
The Sacred House
A drug-addicted criminal steals a copy of The King in Yellow while committing a home invasion which results in the death of the targeted family. After reading the play he is visited by the spirits of the family, devoted to the King, who tear his body apart before his soul is brought into the service of their master.
Venusian Hell
When her former crewmates begin to mysteriously die, grounded astronaut Alicia Meadows begins to look into the government coverup of derelict alien spacecraft which they had discovered on their last mission. Discovering a link between the strange symbol etched into the craft and an ancient play called The King in Yellow, she manages to track down a copy. After reading it, Alicia embarks on a murder spree across America, slowly paving the way for her new master to establish a hold on Earth.
In 400BC Anatolia, a young Greek woman is inducted into a cult of the Yellow King known as the Cult of the Carians, receiving the mark of her new master.
In the modern day Robbie, a man completing his PhD on the cult, is is slowly consumed by his thirst for knowledge on the subject while simultaneously coming to realise that he may have unwittingly drawn the King's attention to him. Following the lead of a beautiful Greek woman who appears in his dreams, he begins to experiment with magical rituals. Unfortunately for the inhabitants of planet Earth, his work results in the opening of a breach in reality, allowing the armies of Hastur to pour through and begin their conquest.
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