The King in Yellow

Rating:
Summary: superbly bleak atmosphere and appropriately ambiguous horror
Review: many fans of the work of robert w. chambers insist that "the king in yellow" is an actual book, the existence of which can only be taken on faith. while i am naturally skeptical about this, as i am about the "necronomicon", i find the soul crushing ambiance of cosmic doom and impending insanity far superior to many of the famed tales of lovecraft. "the repairer of reputations" is to my mind ranked with m.r. james "casting of the runes" and "the shadow over innsmouth". whether he was writing about a real book or not, chambers obviously had something weighing on his mind. creepy as hell.

Rating:
Summary: A Pioneer Author of the Macabre
Review: Most of the other reviews here rightly criticize
the syrupy romance of Chambers and the thin
character development in this book. They also
entirely miss the point. This book was published
in 1895, and between Poe and Ambrose Bierce the
literature of fantasy and the macabre had not
developed greatly. This book should simply be
enjoyed for what it is -- a flawed book with
some rather sinister and chilling stories.

A better purchase would be "The King In Yellow And
Other Stories," which collect this and other works.

Rating:
Summary: no king
Review: well, chambers stories have a LOT of potential. he has quite an imagination. very original guy. and very different. he could have been truly weird. but he doesn't know when to stop. he can suddenly stretch the story too far in one direction, amazingly enogh: away from the horror. also he likes to include romance even when it doesn't fit. he has an anarchic style that destroys the stories.