The Tyrant

Rating:
Summary: A Master of Nightmare
Review: Michael Cisco is often compared to the brilliant Thomas Ligotti, but to me he clearly has a vision all his own, as demonstrated in his first novel THE DIVINITY STUDENT, in his story "The Genius of Assassins" in the anthology LEVIATHAN 3, and now in his novel THE TYRANT. Indeed, THE TYRANT can not be compared to anything I've read except, perhaps - remotely - to fellow surrealist Alfred Kubin's THE OTHER SIDE, since in both novels a powerful and frightening figure remains tantalizingly but resolutely "off-screen" for much of the book, while still exerting his malignant influence over the proceedings. Cisco's book is a quest story, a road trip, a love story, a keyhole look into heaven and hell, and most of all an eerie, slow-motion train of connected nightmares, conveying bizarre characters through unsettling places. He is a master of strange settings, odd details, uncanny images. His prose style seems almost like automatic writing at times, quirky and poetic. The atmosphere is laid on thick, but this is no misclaculation; the environments and the action and the characters are as one. There are few authors who can rival him for conveying the feeling of dream. His cinematic counterpart might be David Lynch, or the Brothers Quay. Cisco's work isn't for the average reader; it's for the discriminating, the jaded, the daring reader. He is absinthe in a world of Pepsi. So drink deep, and enjoy the hallucinations.