5 ms·
The King in Yellow
- zanellato19 2y agoSuch a fascinating book. I remember first reading it because of True Detective season 1. I was pretty into Lovecraft at the time. The first short story is still great
- 2099miles 2y agoHow is it related to TD1 was it the inspiration for the yellow king and carcosa?
- weatherlight 2y ago"The Repairer of Reputations", is such a weird story. I love that fact that it takes place in 1920's NYC, 30 years in the future from when it was written (1985). It's not quite science fiction, though. The descriptions of New York aren't dark or dreary, like one would expect from a short story that usually firmly placed in the horror/weird fiction category. There's these hints that something is not quite right, though. like the presence of these "Government Lethal Chambers" in Washington Square Park where, I guess one could kill them selves publicly. It's hinted at, but not really addressed further. it's these little details that color the story and make it uncomfortable. It seems tht United States that has embraced authoritarianism, and society social structure is heavily enforced by a militarized government. EDIT: Written in 1895 not 1985!
- darkwater 2y ago> it takes place in 1920's NYC, 30 years in the future from when it was written (1985). Is it you, Marty? (sorry, could not resist)
- weatherlight 2y agoI meant to type 1895! *ugh.
- dghf 2y agoI couldn't work out from the story whether it was really set in the 1920s, or whether that was a delusion on the part of the main character.
- 7thaccount 2y agoI read it not that long ago. I agree with the comments that the setting is deeply unsettling.
- linksnapzz 2y agoIt's also one of the best examples I know of for "unreliable narrator".
- stevenAthompson 2y ago"Book of the New Sun" will always be my favorite unreliable narrator story.
- UltraSane 2y agoThe Book of the Short Sun takes unreliable narrators to 11
- stevenAthompson 2y agoI never got that far in the series, despite New Sun being one of my all time favorites. I'll give it a go. Thanks.
- api 2y agoLovecraft remains an underrated sci-fi pioneer as well as a horror writer. His depictions of the alien are notable for being truly alien. A lot of his "eldritch horrors" weren't necessarily evil so much as so alien that their value systems, motives, and conception of morality are incomprehensible to human beings. This might well be the case if we meet real aliens. We'd be able to converse about objective things like math and physics but beyond that we might find our worldviews to be different to the point of near mutual incomprehensibility. A lot of later sci-fi actually retreated to more human-like familiar notions of the alien. Very few sci-fi works have explored Lovecraftian aliens -- maybe Arrival (notable for the aliens being benevolent but Lovecraftian), The Expanse (though the alien machines use simulated human minds to talk to us, making them seem familiar), Alien (the Xenomorph), and a few others. Edit: the Blindsight series by Peter Watts is another. The Alien franchise is a huge missed opportunity for failing to develop the Xenomorph as an alien race. I always thought it'd be neat if they turned out to be intelligent insect-like hive-mind aliens that just don't realize they're doing anything "bad" because they don't understand our concept of individuality. In their environment using some of the drones of another hive to reproduce would be fine, even a kind of social interaction, so when they do it to us think they're saying hello. Their apparent violence is just the ultra-utilitarian behavior of drones. Ripley's comment in Aliens about "I don't know which one is worse" might have been a hook for that. We might have eventually learned that our sociopaths were, in fact, quite a bit more "evil" than the xenomorphs, who are just very unlike us biologically. I'm aware of some of Lovecraft's personal shitty views, but I think it's unfair to judge people from another time by the standards of this age. His views would not have been unusual for his place and time, and they only really show up at the edges of his works anyway. I read all his works and never really picked up on those subtexts until it was pointed out to me later.
- Cthulhu_ 2y agoLovecraft is not underrated though, I wonder why people keep calling well regarded famous authors or artists underrated.
- jaapz 2y agoRight? If you have an entire genre named after you[1], you're not underrated [1]: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lovecraftian_horror https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lovecraftian_horror
- bilekas 2y agoI really like this book actually, not sure why but I do keep going back to it too. Also there are strong references to it and the sentiments of it in a video game called Signalis actually. It can be a bit of a hard read though sometimes too I find.
- phqb 2y agoI also knew this book from Signalis which is now one of my favorite. I even made a copy of this book[0] based on the in-game one. [0]: https://x.com/phqb1/status/1840023494060585237 https://x.com/phqb1/status/1840023494060585237
- jordanpg 2y agoThere is something about this story, isn't there? Even among Lovecraftian lit, it stands apart. Not exactly a god-like monster, just a presence. Something malignant, whatever it is, wherever it is, that just gets mentioned from time to time. And it's yellow of all colors.
- Cthulhu_ 2y agoI'm confident that the Frenzied Flame / Chaos [0] in the game Elden Ring is loosely based on it, yellow themed, Eye of Yelough, etc. May chaos take the world! [0] https://eldenring.fandom.com/wiki/Frenzied_Flame https://eldenring.fandom.com/wiki/Frenzied_Flame
- Cthulhu_ 2y ago> not sure why but I do keep going back to it too. Well. > "If I had not caught a glimpse of the opening words in the second act I should never have finished it, but as I stooped to pick it up, my eyes became riveted to the open page, and with a cry of terror, or perhaps it was of joy so poignant that I suffered in every nerve, I snatched the thing out of the coals and crept shaking to my bedroom, where I read it and reread it, and wept and laughed and trembled with a horror which at times assails me yet. This is the thing that troubles me, for I cannot forget Carcosa where black stars hang in the heavens; where the shadows of men's thoughts lengthen in the afternoon, when the twin suns sink into the lake of Hali; and my mind will bear for ever the memory of the Pallid Mask. I pray God will curse the writer, as the writer has cursed the world with this beautiful, stupendous creation, terrible in its simplicity, irresistible in its truth—a world which now trembles before the King in Yellow."
- Zizizizz 2y agoFor anyone who wants to read it, (the first three stories are quite good). https://standardebooks.org/ebooks/robert-w-chambers/the-king-in-yellow https://standardebooks.org/ebooks/robert-w-chambers/the-king...
- Cthulhu_ 2y agoAlso on Project Gutenberg: https://gutenberg.org/ebooks/8492 https://gutenberg.org/ebooks/8492
- weatherlight 2y agoI love this book. I have a a music project thats based on the themes around this particular book, and the metafiction inside the stories in this book. (90's Warp Records influence Braindance/IDM) https://open.spotify.com/artist/45ZZhnjk2a243ivXUijsIX https://open.spotify.com/artist/45ZZhnjk2a243ivXUijsIX
- stevenAthompson 2y agoI get an error when clicking your link. "No healthy upstream"
- weatherlight 2y agohttps://open.spotify.com/track/5gAKMlDrJZaDBrFlwVpWk7?si=e9364d75cdcb4b32 https://open.spotify.com/track/5gAKMlDrJZaDBrFlwVpWk7?si=e93... ^ That "should" work. links to a track though, not the artist.
- stevenAthompson 2y agoThat did it. Thanks.
- arin-s 2y agoHeard about this from signalis, cool game inspired by a cool book.
- StefanBatory 2y agoRemember your promise...
- axpy906 2y agoI learned about this through “ The Call of Cthulhu” table top rpg. Great book.
- 7thaccount 2y agoI've only been able to play the solo (single player) RPGs of that publisher. There is a sample one as well that is pretty awesome. I wish I had a group to play the full RPG with.
- stevenAthompson 2y agoIts always reminded me of Arthur Machen's "The White People". If you enjoyed "The King in Yellow", Machen might be worth a read.
- Boogie_Man 2y ago"He is here, he is here!" The lunatics rave. "In the wind! In the walls! In the young bride's grave!" "In the seams of the scenes on the television screen. In the silence in the air after a church bell's ring, Hangs a shudder of a whisper of a presence unseen. The echo of the terror of The Yellow King!" He travels in dreams - In poisonous screams A plague on mankind. A plague on mankind The fall of man. Death in the Fall The man in the mirror is no man at all See Hali's clear scrying face round which acolytes assemble Tremble when as one they bellow: "Behold, the King in Yellow"
- 7thaccount 2y agoI see one who has visited Carcosa! For those who haven't read the King in Yellow: https://lovecraft.fandom.com/wiki/Carcosa https://lovecraft.fandom.com/wiki/Carcosa
- deleted 2y ago[deleted]
- Cthulhu_ 2y agoAlong the shore the cloud waves break, The twin suns sink behind the lake, The shadows lengthen In Carcosa. Strange is the night where black stars rise, And strange moons circle through the skies But stranger still is Lost Carcosa. Songs that the Hyades shall sing, Where flap the tatters of the King, Must die unheard in Dim Carcosa. Song of my soul, my voice is dead; Die thou, unsung, as tears unshed Shall dry and die in Lost Carcosa.
- camtarn 2y agoWhat is this from? It appears to be un-Google-able.
- Boogie_Man 2y agoI wrote it
- 2y ago
- spapas82 2y agoNot related to the actual book, but from the Wipedia article I see: > has been described by critics such as E. F. Bleiler, S. T. Joshi, and T. E. D. Klein as a classic in the field of the supernatural Why all three critics have initials in their names? I don't think this is common in the average population. Is this a trend or something?
- lupire 2y agoWomen writers started doing it to hide from sexism when judging books by their covers, and then men started doing it to imitate great women writers. Now it's traditional in literature. TED Klein's first name is Theodore (Ted)!
- dyauspitr 2y agoThat sounds revisionist.
- bloak 2y agoIt was normal in Britain and the USA in the early 20th century, and perhaps it still is normal for academics. For example, J. R. R. Tolkien.
- mcphage 2y agoWhich stands for Jolkien Rolkien Rolkien Tolkien.
- rays 2y agoPelgrane Press has a wonderful Yellow King role-playing game (tabletop) that would be worth checking out if you're a fan of TTRPGs, stories and other related media.
- StefanBatory 2y agoI'm afraid I need someone to explain to me why it's a good book. :( Genuinely, I remember reading first four stories after playing Signalis and I was very unimpressed. Especially with the first story, where I felt it was rambling for the sake of rambling. I'm genuinely asking, really. If it matters I've been reading it in translation.
- torginus 2y agoThis was the biggest scam I read in recent memory. It was introduced to me as some kind of proto-lovecraftian fever dream exploring the strange faraway lands of the titular King in Yellow, and it started out like Lovecraftian stories often do - upper society gentlemen of impeccable pedigree getting tangled up in the strange and occult. But after a few stories, of having hinted of the strangeness to come, the whole occult business was dropped, and the rest of the book was bog-standard Victorian romantic short stories. I'd say you can get as much from the Wikipedia article and the poem, as you'd from getting the book.' If you want the experience of exploring a weird and strange realm, I'd recommend 'The Dream-Quest of Unknown Kadath' from the man himself.
- jhbadger 2y agoI think the stories inspired by KiY, like James Blish's "More Light" are better than the ones in Chambers' book. Chambers' genius was in the creation of a work (the eponymous King In Yellow play) that induced insanity. This influenced a lot of later authors such as HPL with his fictitious Necronomicon.
- torginus 2y agoThanks for the recommendation, I'll definitely add it to my reading list.
- StefanBatory 2y agoI feel the same. Feels like the concept is way better than execution. Maybe it's because at the time it released it was novel, but now it's cliche?
- nuc1e0n 2y agoThis book doing the rounds again reminds me of the ever relevant XKCD: https://xkcd.com/610/ https://xkcd.com/610/ Everyone likes to think of themselves as special somehow, so authors of fiction write stories to play up to that.