Status
Available
Call number
Publication
Roadswell Editions (2012), 356 pages
Description
"Winner of the Bram Stoker Award and Locus Awards, finalist for the Philip K. Dick Award, and named one of io9.com's "Top 10 Debut Science Fiction Novels That Took the World By Storm." With a new afterword by Maryse Meijer, author of Heartbreaker and Rag. "Black. Pure black and the sense of pulsation, especially when you look at it too closely, the sense of something not living but alive." When a strange hole materializes in a storage room, would-be poet Nicholas and his feral lover Nakota allow their curiosity to lead them into the depths of terror. "Wouldn't it be wild to go down there?" says Nakota. Nicholas says, "We're not." But no one is in control, and their experiments lead to obsession, violence, and a very final transformation for everyone who gets too close to the Funhole."- Amazon.com.… (more)
User reviews
LibraryThing member Nickidemus
The Basics
Nicholas and Nakota have found a hole in the storage room of Nicholas’s apartment building. It’s far from normal, holds some mysterious power, and compels them to play with fire again and again. Unluckily for Nicholas, Nakota is just the sort of person that could become entirely
My Thoughts
Horror is rarely poetry. A lot of authors who try to be scary don’t see a need to do it beautifully, but Kathe Koja obviously does. Moreover they often don’t even reach scary, but Kathe Koja does that, too. This book is physical and metaphysical in its terror. It invites you in, sits you down, and proceeds to tear off layer after layer of safety until you feel as exposed as Nicholas does. And she keeps going until she determinedly finds something that will unnerve, and she will.
This book doesn’t have likeable characters really. Even the likeable ones are clearly flawed. The situation escalates in ways that reek of human nature, and even with this cosmic horror staring you in the face, it winds up feeling depressingly real, because it expresses a great deal about the worst in people. Everything from the mundane things thoughtless people do that are irritating and insulting, all the way up to mob mentality. None of this is a criticism, as these are some of the novel’s greatest strengths, shedding light on dark places and forcing you to look.
The poetry of Koja’s words is really astounding. I don’t think I’ve ever read prose quite like this. It’s half fever dream, half free verse poem. It reads like a nightmare, to the point that I struggled to write “The Basics”. That’s not to say it’s incomprehensible. It doesn’t suffer from that at all. Nor does it feel pretentious, like other works that aspire to such heights might. It is one of the best horror novels I’ve ever read, dancing hand-in-hand with Kafka and giving the finger to convention and banality. It’s making me use words that cost at least ten dollars, and shouldn’t that be recommendation enough?
Final Rating
5/5 Stars
Nicholas and Nakota have found a hole in the storage room of Nicholas’s apartment building. It’s far from normal, holds some mysterious power, and compels them to play with fire again and again. Unluckily for Nicholas, Nakota is just the sort of person that could become entirely
Show More
obsessed with the “Funhole”, as they’ve dubbed it. And he’s just the sort of guy who could become a pawn in a very complicated and existential game.My Thoughts
Horror is rarely poetry. A lot of authors who try to be scary don’t see a need to do it beautifully, but Kathe Koja obviously does. Moreover they often don’t even reach scary, but Kathe Koja does that, too. This book is physical and metaphysical in its terror. It invites you in, sits you down, and proceeds to tear off layer after layer of safety until you feel as exposed as Nicholas does. And she keeps going until she determinedly finds something that will unnerve, and she will.
This book doesn’t have likeable characters really. Even the likeable ones are clearly flawed. The situation escalates in ways that reek of human nature, and even with this cosmic horror staring you in the face, it winds up feeling depressingly real, because it expresses a great deal about the worst in people. Everything from the mundane things thoughtless people do that are irritating and insulting, all the way up to mob mentality. None of this is a criticism, as these are some of the novel’s greatest strengths, shedding light on dark places and forcing you to look.
The poetry of Koja’s words is really astounding. I don’t think I’ve ever read prose quite like this. It’s half fever dream, half free verse poem. It reads like a nightmare, to the point that I struggled to write “The Basics”. That’s not to say it’s incomprehensible. It doesn’t suffer from that at all. Nor does it feel pretentious, like other works that aspire to such heights might. It is one of the best horror novels I’ve ever read, dancing hand-in-hand with Kafka and giving the finger to convention and banality. It’s making me use words that cost at least ten dollars, and shouldn’t that be recommendation enough?
Final Rating
5/5 Stars
Show Less
LibraryThing member pinprick
The Cipher is a weird, weird book. It’s scary, gross, visceral, and sometimes sexy. It has characters you won’t like. It has a hole to nowhere (everywhere?) with no explanation. It has a lot of messy, uncomfortable emotions. It has beautiful descriptions of things that are kind of disgusting.
Show More
It’s dark. I loved it. It was gripping and powerful and while some of the recurring themes of filth and coldness and art turned my stomach, I couldn’t put it down. It made me want a hot shower and a fresh cup of coffee more than once. This book embodies all the things that the “bizarro” genre aims to be; mysterious, challenging, unconventional, and thought-provoking. Show Less
LibraryThing member sturlington
Nicholas and his sometime-girlfriend Nakota discover a hole to nowhere in the floor of the storage room in Nicholas's apartment building and become irresistibly drawn to it, with bizarre results.
The hole--which Nakota christens the Funhole--is never explained. It has the attraction of the unknown,
This is a very strange book, written in almost a stream-of-consciousness fashion. Koja doesn't bother to explain what's happening; as readers, we have to accept that it is happening or go find another book. That can be somewhat frustrating, but the writing is good, and Koja brings this claustrophobic world, with its smells and oozing liquids and wounds, to life. She rubs your face in it, in fact. My main complaint is that I don't think this is quite a novel. It goes on a bit too long, and I think it would have been more effective if it were shorter.
The hole--which Nakota christens the Funhole--is never explained. It has the attraction of the unknown,
Show More
of something completely outside the realm of mundane existence, which is why Nakota is fascinated by it, despite its obvious dangers. Nicholas's fascination stems at first from his obsession with Nakota, but then he too is ensnared by the Funhole. He becomes literally infected by it and thus belongs to it and is the owner of it in some weird way, which enrages Nakota. Things do not end well.This is a very strange book, written in almost a stream-of-consciousness fashion. Koja doesn't bother to explain what's happening; as readers, we have to accept that it is happening or go find another book. That can be somewhat frustrating, but the writing is good, and Koja brings this claustrophobic world, with its smells and oozing liquids and wounds, to life. She rubs your face in it, in fact. My main complaint is that I don't think this is quite a novel. It goes on a bit too long, and I think it would have been more effective if it were shorter.
Show Less
LibraryThing member Charrlygirl
THE CIPHER! I don't even know what to say.
I've only recently joined the church of Koja. It may not be as big as some, Stephen King's say, but there are joys to be found in smaller congregations.
This is the story of Nakota and Nicholas who one day found a black hole, named it the funhole, and
I absolutely adore Ms. Koja's prose, and Joshua Saxon the narrator brought it home with flare. This must not have been an easy performance due to the style of the aforementioned prose-especially in the second half of the book because it's a stream-of-consciousness narrative. His voicing was phenomenal.
I'm a bit irritated with myself because the few clips I made of the audio that highlighted the prose apparently did not save. There were short, staccato-like descriptions that...stabbed at my heart. Beautiful, honest and evocative words that my brain immediately transferred to a visual-like a direct injection. For instance "...the flat was full of drizzly day." 7 words that draw a perfect scene. Brief, staccato, BAM: there's the picture-full and complete.
I could go on and on about this prose but I'll leave it at what I've written. Kathe Koja's writing probably isn't for everyone; the reviews seem pretty split on Goodreads. For me, however, I feel like I have been missing out out an author that is perfect for my dark and black heart. I'm on a mission to read everything she's written. I'm a Koja missionary, baby!
My highest recommendation!
*I received the audio-book from Audiobook Boom! and the narrator, in exchange for my honest feedback. This is it!*
I've only recently joined the church of Koja. It may not be as big as some, Stephen King's say, but there are joys to be found in smaller congregations.
This is the story of Nakota and Nicholas who one day found a black hole, named it the funhole, and
Show More
changed their lives forever. They stuck different things into the hole, (getting uncomfortable yet?), including bugs, a mouse, and then a hand. What happened to these items when they were thrust inside? You'll have to read this to find out!I absolutely adore Ms. Koja's prose, and Joshua Saxon the narrator brought it home with flare. This must not have been an easy performance due to the style of the aforementioned prose-especially in the second half of the book because it's a stream-of-consciousness narrative. His voicing was phenomenal.
I'm a bit irritated with myself because the few clips I made of the audio that highlighted the prose apparently did not save. There were short, staccato-like descriptions that...stabbed at my heart. Beautiful, honest and evocative words that my brain immediately transferred to a visual-like a direct injection. For instance "...the flat was full of drizzly day." 7 words that draw a perfect scene. Brief, staccato, BAM: there's the picture-full and complete.
I could go on and on about this prose but I'll leave it at what I've written. Kathe Koja's writing probably isn't for everyone; the reviews seem pretty split on Goodreads. For me, however, I feel like I have been missing out out an author that is perfect for my dark and black heart. I'm on a mission to read everything she's written. I'm a Koja missionary, baby!
My highest recommendation!
*I received the audio-book from Audiobook Boom! and the narrator, in exchange for my honest feedback. This is it!*
Show Less
LibraryThing member modioperandi
Thanks to NetGalley for my ARC.
It is great that Kathe Koja's The Cipher is going to back in print after so long. The timing here is very cool as this follow up the story collection Velocities. So for those who are new to the 1990s The Cipher or are new to Koja the best way I can describe it is that
here goes:
What would you do if you discovered a black hole in your home warehouse? Well in 1991, Kathe Koja, explores this basic question in her debut novel "The Cipher". There are different types of abyss. You can call it the Marian Trench and other oceanic depths. In culture, in fiction, there are chasms that cannot be measured. However, however deep, however deep, there is only one abyss that cannot be filled with anything, ourselves. So the abyss exists in each of us, nihilistic, destructive and inch by inch it consumes us, although this does not reflect the heart of the process. We, as people, fall into it, we forget ourselves in its infinity.
The Cipher is a story with two heroes and a cast that increases significantly over the course of the novel. In the beginning there were two of them. He - an unfulfilled artist, a broken poet, a coward imprisoned in a pop culture prison forced to work in a video rental shop. She - a selfish, selfish bartender striving to destroy everything around her. Together, during one of the events, heavily sprinkled with alcohol, they discover in one of the rooms of a residential building the Funhole - an endless hole filled with black. Not the absence of light, not its negation, but just black. Black. Blackness. What an invention! Like a miniature black hole, the pseudo-hole absorbs or transforms everything that is in or near it.
Kathe Koja decided on a very suggestive language. The Cipher is lively and effective. Reading it is not pleasant at all. This is horror. This is true horror-writing. This is shockingly horrific horror. It is good horror. Great horror. You will feel states of deep existential anxiety, anxiety, and disgust some scenes are just so jarring and rough. Despite this, we come back fascinated, we want to know its secrets - the abyss, its goals, nature, and being. We sense that this will never happen, but we are still immersed in the next theories of the heroes, ourselves thinking about meanings and metaphors and it is not easy to find them.
Koja does not offer easy readings, it is easier to see processes here, tapes torn apart parallel to each other.
The Cipher speaks strongly to our emotions, to our depth. Reading it, I felt a hole in my heart, which, like the heroes, was constantly expanding, eventually filling the entire chest. At the very end I just wanted to lie on the ground, cover with a blanket and melt into insignificance, deprived of identity, melt into non-existence.
Reading The Cipher is like riding a bike without the handlebars,
It is great that Kathe Koja's The Cipher is going to back in print after so long. The timing here is very cool as this follow up the story collection Velocities. So for those who are new to the 1990s The Cipher or are new to Koja the best way I can describe it is that
Show More
its like a crazy blend of Franz Kafka and Stephen King but orients more and more toward Kafka. The novel and Koja's body of work provides the reader with an extraordinary experience of sinking into existential fear while providing a suspenseful story.here goes:
What would you do if you discovered a black hole in your home warehouse? Well in 1991, Kathe Koja, explores this basic question in her debut novel "The Cipher". There are different types of abyss. You can call it the Marian Trench and other oceanic depths. In culture, in fiction, there are chasms that cannot be measured. However, however deep, however deep, there is only one abyss that cannot be filled with anything, ourselves. So the abyss exists in each of us, nihilistic, destructive and inch by inch it consumes us, although this does not reflect the heart of the process. We, as people, fall into it, we forget ourselves in its infinity.
The Cipher is a story with two heroes and a cast that increases significantly over the course of the novel. In the beginning there were two of them. He - an unfulfilled artist, a broken poet, a coward imprisoned in a pop culture prison forced to work in a video rental shop. She - a selfish, selfish bartender striving to destroy everything around her. Together, during one of the events, heavily sprinkled with alcohol, they discover in one of the rooms of a residential building the Funhole - an endless hole filled with black. Not the absence of light, not its negation, but just black. Black. Blackness. What an invention! Like a miniature black hole, the pseudo-hole absorbs or transforms everything that is in or near it.
Kathe Koja decided on a very suggestive language. The Cipher is lively and effective. Reading it is not pleasant at all. This is horror. This is true horror-writing. This is shockingly horrific horror. It is good horror. Great horror. You will feel states of deep existential anxiety, anxiety, and disgust some scenes are just so jarring and rough. Despite this, we come back fascinated, we want to know its secrets - the abyss, its goals, nature, and being. We sense that this will never happen, but we are still immersed in the next theories of the heroes, ourselves thinking about meanings and metaphors and it is not easy to find them.
Koja does not offer easy readings, it is easier to see processes here, tapes torn apart parallel to each other.
The Cipher speaks strongly to our emotions, to our depth. Reading it, I felt a hole in my heart, which, like the heroes, was constantly expanding, eventually filling the entire chest. At the very end I just wanted to lie on the ground, cover with a blanket and melt into insignificance, deprived of identity, melt into non-existence.
Reading The Cipher is like riding a bike without the handlebars,
Show Less
LibraryThing member LilyRoseShadowlyn
The Cipher will make your skin crawl. Not horror like, don't read at night, but horror like, don't turn out the light and maybe don't open that closet door right now. I'm a BIG Stephen King fan, and that might be my gold standard for creepy horror stories - and this is absolutely on that level. You
Show More
might leave with a question or two, but you'll definitely enjoy the creepy ride. Show Less
LibraryThing member CarlosMcRey
A bizarre and haunting story of a failed poet who discovers an eerie hole in the storage room of the sleazy apartment building in which he lives. Not scary so much as creepy and sometimes morbidly funny.
LibraryThing member ToddSherman
“I’m not the one who wants to know the future: at the best it spoils the present, with longing or dismay, and at the worst, well. Who really wants to find out how tight the sling is, for your own very personal ass, who wants to know how deep the shit will really be? Not you. Not me either.
Wow. One of the most disgusting books I’ve ever read. Yow. Some of the most squeamish reactions python-balling in the guts. Ow. Epic moments of pain strung together with rotten tendon and greasy suture, threatening to re-split the wound. Pow. Right in the medulla oblongata. Zowie. What a stunning, staining, goopy, trippy, ginormously tidy book. And I’m not entirely sure what it all means, but I sure as hell enjoyed the twisted ride down the Funhole.
Not quite stream-of-consciousness. Surely stuffed with run-on sentences in fragments that interrupt the flow, change the tense, change the POV, even—which would’ve been completely distracting if not for Koja’s deft hand. What a strong voice. What a clear vision. What grand endeavor with such a sparse storyline. I could’ve written this as a short story, maybe, where it would’ve been buried in a themed collection. Someone else would’ve fleshed out the background characters, added locations, pumped up the action, thereby losing any distinction or style or glorious disorientation. At times the plot is as mercurial as the mysterious goop running out of the protagonist’s hand. Getting lost in a narrative so contracted is not an easy feat. Unless, maybe, you’re used to paddling through the quantum realm. Strange quarks, indeed.
Where was I? Where were we? How many times can you reinvent the wheel only to find it’s still employing the same technology, just with a higher-grade plastic? Why does 𝘚𝘵𝘳𝘢𝘯𝘨𝘦𝘳 𝘛𝘩𝘪𝘯𝘨𝘴 need a third season? Why even a second? Why are there sooooo many GoT books? How can Katy Perry have more number one hits than Elvis? Because they’re easy. They’re familiar. They warm the cockles even though most are completely unaware that cockles are actually mollusks. Yum. Wait, what’s Latin for “yum”? ‘Cause it’s most definitely not 𝘤𝘰𝘤𝘩𝘭𝘦𝘢𝘦 𝘤𝘰𝘳𝘥𝘪𝘴.
This book isn’t easy. This book isn’t safe. It’s as unfamiliar as anything I’ve read because, though its landscape is haunted by the echoes of past creatures from elder civilizations, the ground feels more like alien skin grown hydroponically than anything solid and reassuring. Yeah, there’s a bit of Lovecraft. It’s comfortably mid-80s King or Shea or even early McDowell. There’s plenty of splatter, but it’s all glimpsed through a Vaseline-coated lens. What you think will be gotchas turn out to be what-the-fucks. For every idea that seems bordering on the derivative (and what in literature isn’t—or in all of art, for that matter?), there is a cluster of originality that bursts and glues the reader’s eyes and brain to the page. At first you’d swallowed the tainted food and didn’t know it until later. But then you returned to that fetid repast and wolfed it down again. It’s your fault, it’s my fault, it’s everyone’s fault that we try to make the unfamiliar familiar by inoculating ourselves with more and more doses of the poison.
But I doubt ten readings of this thing would make it any more familiar except unto itself.
That is an enviable trait to have in a book. That is an enviable trait to be found in anything. If anything I write becomes comfortably familiar—if anything I publish doesn’t make you question what the fuck is going to happen or why it’s going to happen or why I’d bother to obsess over the oddity in the first place—well, then . . . I’d rather not write another godforsaken world in an all-too-familiar world for humans who only want entertainment and entertainment alone.
Fuck the familiar. Let’s get fucking weird!
Show More
Because it’s rarely bliss saved up, is it, when you finally get there. I’ll take my now, waking with a lover’s scent on me, around me, take my hopes before they’re maybe tragedy; a good morning is still a good morning, even if it leads to apocalypse at night.”Wow. One of the most disgusting books I’ve ever read. Yow. Some of the most squeamish reactions python-balling in the guts. Ow. Epic moments of pain strung together with rotten tendon and greasy suture, threatening to re-split the wound. Pow. Right in the medulla oblongata. Zowie. What a stunning, staining, goopy, trippy, ginormously tidy book. And I’m not entirely sure what it all means, but I sure as hell enjoyed the twisted ride down the Funhole.
Not quite stream-of-consciousness. Surely stuffed with run-on sentences in fragments that interrupt the flow, change the tense, change the POV, even—which would’ve been completely distracting if not for Koja’s deft hand. What a strong voice. What a clear vision. What grand endeavor with such a sparse storyline. I could’ve written this as a short story, maybe, where it would’ve been buried in a themed collection. Someone else would’ve fleshed out the background characters, added locations, pumped up the action, thereby losing any distinction or style or glorious disorientation. At times the plot is as mercurial as the mysterious goop running out of the protagonist’s hand. Getting lost in a narrative so contracted is not an easy feat. Unless, maybe, you’re used to paddling through the quantum realm. Strange quarks, indeed.
Where was I? Where were we? How many times can you reinvent the wheel only to find it’s still employing the same technology, just with a higher-grade plastic? Why does 𝘚𝘵𝘳𝘢𝘯𝘨𝘦𝘳 𝘛𝘩𝘪𝘯𝘨𝘴 need a third season? Why even a second? Why are there sooooo many GoT books? How can Katy Perry have more number one hits than Elvis? Because they’re easy. They’re familiar. They warm the cockles even though most are completely unaware that cockles are actually mollusks. Yum. Wait, what’s Latin for “yum”? ‘Cause it’s most definitely not 𝘤𝘰𝘤𝘩𝘭𝘦𝘢𝘦 𝘤𝘰𝘳𝘥𝘪𝘴.
This book isn’t easy. This book isn’t safe. It’s as unfamiliar as anything I’ve read because, though its landscape is haunted by the echoes of past creatures from elder civilizations, the ground feels more like alien skin grown hydroponically than anything solid and reassuring. Yeah, there’s a bit of Lovecraft. It’s comfortably mid-80s King or Shea or even early McDowell. There’s plenty of splatter, but it’s all glimpsed through a Vaseline-coated lens. What you think will be gotchas turn out to be what-the-fucks. For every idea that seems bordering on the derivative (and what in literature isn’t—or in all of art, for that matter?), there is a cluster of originality that bursts and glues the reader’s eyes and brain to the page. At first you’d swallowed the tainted food and didn’t know it until later. But then you returned to that fetid repast and wolfed it down again. It’s your fault, it’s my fault, it’s everyone’s fault that we try to make the unfamiliar familiar by inoculating ourselves with more and more doses of the poison.
But I doubt ten readings of this thing would make it any more familiar except unto itself.
That is an enviable trait to have in a book. That is an enviable trait to be found in anything. If anything I write becomes comfortably familiar—if anything I publish doesn’t make you question what the fuck is going to happen or why it’s going to happen or why I’d bother to obsess over the oddity in the first place—well, then . . . I’d rather not write another godforsaken world in an all-too-familiar world for humans who only want entertainment and entertainment alone.
Fuck the familiar. Let’s get fucking weird!
Show Less
LibraryThing member carlahaunted
Body horror at its best
Are we just the sum of our physicality? Are we more? And is that physical barrier between what is me and the rest of the world breachable? Should it be?
Are we just the sum of our physicality? Are we more? And is that physical barrier between what is me and the rest of the world breachable? Should it be?
LibraryThing member shadow_
A very powerful, strange, and intense novel. I've never read anything quite like it. Extremely bleak throughout, though too vile, gritty, and wretched to be called "Gothic." A sort of mutated species of triumph in the end -- but whose, and how? You'll have to read it to find out. Worthwhile. Highly
Show More
recommended. Show Less
LibraryThing member Nooiniin
What a ride, what a ride…
Hard to tell, what this is exactly – body horror, cosmic horror, gore, psychological drama, all of this, and then some. Koja’s flowing prose, a stream-of-consciousness narrative, grittily humorous and beautiful in its descripions of squalidness and fear had me drawn
Nakota, the narrator’s sort-of girlfriend (when and as it suits her) is as heartless, selfish and bullying a bitch (think Lucy from the “Peanuts” show) as you’ll hope to never meet, is the first to discover the black hole in the closet, dubbing it the “funhole”. Her ideas of fun are certainly more than twisted, I for one had a hard time fathoming what exactly is supposed to be so funny about a black hole of nothingness that kills, twists and horribly mutilates whatever gets too close. It’s Nicholas, the Linus to Nakota’s Lucy of all people, who seems to be triggering these events by his nihilis attitude. As we wach him drifts along and Nakota recruiting more and more devotees to her newly-founded cult, we may be sure that it won’t end well.
Or is any of this even happening? After all, narrator is evincing from the first all the symptoms of clinical depression and may well be sliding into full-on psychosis as the story devolves.
A read that will stay with my, hard as I may try to forget it.
Hard to tell, what this is exactly – body horror, cosmic horror, gore, psychological drama, all of this, and then some. Koja’s flowing prose, a stream-of-consciousness narrative, grittily humorous and beautiful in its descripions of squalidness and fear had me drawn
Show More
in from the first. Nakota, the narrator’s sort-of girlfriend (when and as it suits her) is as heartless, selfish and bullying a bitch (think Lucy from the “Peanuts” show) as you’ll hope to never meet, is the first to discover the black hole in the closet, dubbing it the “funhole”. Her ideas of fun are certainly more than twisted, I for one had a hard time fathoming what exactly is supposed to be so funny about a black hole of nothingness that kills, twists and horribly mutilates whatever gets too close. It’s Nicholas, the Linus to Nakota’s Lucy of all people, who seems to be triggering these events by his nihilis attitude. As we wach him drifts along and Nakota recruiting more and more devotees to her newly-founded cult, we may be sure that it won’t end well.
Or is any of this even happening? After all, narrator is evincing from the first all the symptoms of clinical depression and may well be sliding into full-on psychosis as the story devolves.
A read that will stay with my, hard as I may try to forget it.
Show Less
LibraryThing member roses7184
This is a tough book to review, for a myriad of reasons, but I promise to do my best. See, The Cipher is something completely different from most of the horror novels that I have read in the past few years. There’s something raw, dangerous and downright uncomfortable about this story. Kathe Koja
Let’s start with what I liked about this story. First off, I actually appreciated the fact that Nicholas and Nakota feel so realistic. I had a few friends tell me before I started this story that they didn’t like how unlikable these two are. For me, it was kind of a breath of fresh air. Koja doesn’t care whether you like Nicholas and Nakota. What matters is that they are people. Real, gritty, possibly unlovable, people. As the story twisted and turned, I found myself caring less about how much I liked them and more about the fact that their decisions were leading them closer and closer to certain doom. The feeling of their descent is visceral. It claws at you and, whether you like them or not, you’ll end up following them down.
Another aspect of this book that I appreciated was the way that Koja never really gives away the ending. I won’t spoil it for any other readers either. Still, I can guarantee that you might think you know what you’re headed into but you’re probably wrong. The story takes moments that seem cut from any other horror novel, and manipulates them into something even darker. There were portions of this that I had to read twice over, just to even understand what was unfolding. Poor Nicholas.
So what made me ultimately give this book a three star rating? Quite honestly, it was was the writing style from the middle onwards. As Nicholas becomes consumed with the Funhole, the book becomes almost a rambling stream of consciousness. While I understood the intent, he repeats himself constantly and it grated on my nerves after a while. This book already had an odd punctuation style, which I took at face value since it benefitted the feel of the story inside. However at Nicholas’ worst points it became something that was almost unreadable. I was a little frustrated at how slowly I had to read, to fully understand what was happening.
Do I think that The Cipher is a story that others should read? Absolutely. Provided that you are okay with some gore, a lot of darkness, and the kind of uncomfortable dread that follows you for days after you flip the last page. This is a horror story on a whole new level. I’m still not sure if I’ll ever forget it.
Show More
doesn’t write about Nicholas and Nakota’s experience with the Funhole, she drags the reader into that terrifying space with them. I still have goosebumps, and my thoughts are all over the place.Let’s start with what I liked about this story. First off, I actually appreciated the fact that Nicholas and Nakota feel so realistic. I had a few friends tell me before I started this story that they didn’t like how unlikable these two are. For me, it was kind of a breath of fresh air. Koja doesn’t care whether you like Nicholas and Nakota. What matters is that they are people. Real, gritty, possibly unlovable, people. As the story twisted and turned, I found myself caring less about how much I liked them and more about the fact that their decisions were leading them closer and closer to certain doom. The feeling of their descent is visceral. It claws at you and, whether you like them or not, you’ll end up following them down.
Another aspect of this book that I appreciated was the way that Koja never really gives away the ending. I won’t spoil it for any other readers either. Still, I can guarantee that you might think you know what you’re headed into but you’re probably wrong. The story takes moments that seem cut from any other horror novel, and manipulates them into something even darker. There were portions of this that I had to read twice over, just to even understand what was unfolding. Poor Nicholas.
So what made me ultimately give this book a three star rating? Quite honestly, it was was the writing style from the middle onwards. As Nicholas becomes consumed with the Funhole, the book becomes almost a rambling stream of consciousness. While I understood the intent, he repeats himself constantly and it grated on my nerves after a while. This book already had an odd punctuation style, which I took at face value since it benefitted the feel of the story inside. However at Nicholas’ worst points it became something that was almost unreadable. I was a little frustrated at how slowly I had to read, to fully understand what was happening.
Do I think that The Cipher is a story that others should read? Absolutely. Provided that you are okay with some gore, a lot of darkness, and the kind of uncomfortable dread that follows you for days after you flip the last page. This is a horror story on a whole new level. I’m still not sure if I’ll ever forget it.
Show Less
LibraryThing member linda.a.
Horror as a genre has never held much appeal for me, mainly because I’ve seldom felt even vaguely disturbed by conventional horror stories, more often than not finding them ludicrously implausible rather than scary. However, earlier this year I was introduced to Kathe Koja’s writing when I read
Apprehension and fear are present from the start but are soon intensified, in a truly terrifying, nightmarish way, as first Nicholas and Nakota, and then the numerous other characters who join them, become increasingly obsessed with the Funhole, determined, whatever the consequences, to explore its secrets, its power to transform and the extent of its unrelenting blackness. It soon became apparent that each of the characters is deeply-flawed, with each having different motives for wanting to expose themselves to unpredictable dangers and each of them giving little or no thought to the consequences of their actions, either on themselves or on others around them. Although I found it difficult to feel any empathy with any of them (apart, at times, from Nicholas), without exception each of them was convincingly drawn and, rather disturbingly, felt all too recognisable, not just as individuals but also through their behaviour and interactions as a group.
A major strength of the storytelling lies in the fact that so much of its power to shock and disturb comes from the author’s acute observations and explorations of human behaviour, of toxic, dysfunctional relationships and of a nihilistic darkness which can lurk deep in the human psyche. I soon started to feel very scared of the Funhole and the compulsive pull it exerted: it seemed to dig deep into primal fears, into the unknown darkness we don’t understand, which we’re repelled by and yet, like moths to a flame, can be tempted to respond to the almost hypnotic pull it exerts. As the characters started to take more and more risks around the Funhole, I found myself wanting to find a way to persuade them to stop being so selfish, narcissistic and self-destructive, to pull them back from exploring this darkness … although I must admit that there were moments when I could quite cheerfully have pushed the hateful Nakota into the very depths of that bottomless hole!
The contrast between the author’s poetic, at times almost hypnotic, narrative and the horrors she was portraying on almost every page, could have felt disconcerting but it never did, if anything, it added an extra dimension to the unfolding dramatic tension and escalating horror. Although it took me few pages to “hear” the cadence of Nicholas’s voice, it wasn’t long before it became so gripping and compelling that I felt as though I was sitting alongside him by the Funhole, being inexorably sucked into his descent into madness and despair. His powerfully affecting stream-of-consciousness narrative certainly contributed to this visceral immediacy of my growing tension and fear. There were moments when I felt almost too scared to carry on reading, fearful of what new horrors I’d be forced to face. However, feeling so inextricably caught up in his, and the other characters’, obsession with that irresistible black hole, and needing to find out “what comes next”, I always felt compelled to do so. In so many ways it was a relief to turn the final page, to escape the darkness, but I know that with all its disturbing, thought-provoking themes, all the questions it poses but never answers, this is a story which will continue to make its presence felt for a long time to come.
With my thanks to Meerkat Press for a copy of this book in exchange for an honest review – and to Kathe Koja for convincing me that a horror story doesn’t have to be “ludicrously implausible” but can indeed be truly scary!
Show More
Velocities, her short-story collection. In my review I reflected on how much I appreciated that she was “prepared to explore some very dark themes and to unnerve her readers by taking her stories in totally unexpected, sometimes bizarre, directions whilst at the same time managing to make each one psychologically credible.” So, with this memory in mind, I started this story with rather less scepticism than I might otherwise have done, wondering whether her debut novel (it was first published in 1991) could possibly succeed in making me feel truly scared whilst reading it? Having now finished The Cipher, and as I start writing this review, the old adage “be careful what you wish for” has never felt more apposite because I found this a dark, deeply disturbing, weird beyond imagining and, above all, genuinely terrifying story. For me its real power lies more in its all too convincing psychological integrity than in any of its specific depictions of gory horror – although there are plenty of those along the way.Apprehension and fear are present from the start but are soon intensified, in a truly terrifying, nightmarish way, as first Nicholas and Nakota, and then the numerous other characters who join them, become increasingly obsessed with the Funhole, determined, whatever the consequences, to explore its secrets, its power to transform and the extent of its unrelenting blackness. It soon became apparent that each of the characters is deeply-flawed, with each having different motives for wanting to expose themselves to unpredictable dangers and each of them giving little or no thought to the consequences of their actions, either on themselves or on others around them. Although I found it difficult to feel any empathy with any of them (apart, at times, from Nicholas), without exception each of them was convincingly drawn and, rather disturbingly, felt all too recognisable, not just as individuals but also through their behaviour and interactions as a group.
A major strength of the storytelling lies in the fact that so much of its power to shock and disturb comes from the author’s acute observations and explorations of human behaviour, of toxic, dysfunctional relationships and of a nihilistic darkness which can lurk deep in the human psyche. I soon started to feel very scared of the Funhole and the compulsive pull it exerted: it seemed to dig deep into primal fears, into the unknown darkness we don’t understand, which we’re repelled by and yet, like moths to a flame, can be tempted to respond to the almost hypnotic pull it exerts. As the characters started to take more and more risks around the Funhole, I found myself wanting to find a way to persuade them to stop being so selfish, narcissistic and self-destructive, to pull them back from exploring this darkness … although I must admit that there were moments when I could quite cheerfully have pushed the hateful Nakota into the very depths of that bottomless hole!
The contrast between the author’s poetic, at times almost hypnotic, narrative and the horrors she was portraying on almost every page, could have felt disconcerting but it never did, if anything, it added an extra dimension to the unfolding dramatic tension and escalating horror. Although it took me few pages to “hear” the cadence of Nicholas’s voice, it wasn’t long before it became so gripping and compelling that I felt as though I was sitting alongside him by the Funhole, being inexorably sucked into his descent into madness and despair. His powerfully affecting stream-of-consciousness narrative certainly contributed to this visceral immediacy of my growing tension and fear. There were moments when I felt almost too scared to carry on reading, fearful of what new horrors I’d be forced to face. However, feeling so inextricably caught up in his, and the other characters’, obsession with that irresistible black hole, and needing to find out “what comes next”, I always felt compelled to do so. In so many ways it was a relief to turn the final page, to escape the darkness, but I know that with all its disturbing, thought-provoking themes, all the questions it poses but never answers, this is a story which will continue to make its presence felt for a long time to come.
With my thanks to Meerkat Press for a copy of this book in exchange for an honest review – and to Kathe Koja for convincing me that a horror story doesn’t have to be “ludicrously implausible” but can indeed be truly scary!
Show Less
LibraryThing member mamajoan
I received this book through the Early Reviewers program. I'll say right up front that I don't normally read horror, so the fact that I didn't like this book very much probably says more about my personal taste than the quality of the book. Honestly, I got about halfway through and then skimmed
I enjoyed the beginning, the way the author slowly brings the supernatural/horror elements into the very boring and ordinary life of the protagonist. The author does a really good job of establishing the characters as the kind of 20somethings who drift through life without much ambition, working crappy jobs, living in crappy apartments, having crappy sex, basically being jerks to each other. But then suddenly there's this weird black hole thing and the protagonist and his sort-of-girlfriend become obsessed with it in different ways as befitting their different personalities.
But I lost interest as it dragged on and brought in a bunch of new, unlikeable characters who all have their own agendas and obsessions. Like I said, I skipped ahead to the end, and found the ending actually reasonably interesting (also a little gory but not more than I could handle). I like how the author ended things on an ambiguous note, so you have to imagine the rest for yourself. I felt that was appropriately creepy. And the story overall does raise some interesting questions about human nature, fear, obsession, etc. -- but overall it is just not really my cup of tea.
Show More
through to the end.I enjoyed the beginning, the way the author slowly brings the supernatural/horror elements into the very boring and ordinary life of the protagonist. The author does a really good job of establishing the characters as the kind of 20somethings who drift through life without much ambition, working crappy jobs, living in crappy apartments, having crappy sex, basically being jerks to each other. But then suddenly there's this weird black hole thing and the protagonist and his sort-of-girlfriend become obsessed with it in different ways as befitting their different personalities.
But I lost interest as it dragged on and brought in a bunch of new, unlikeable characters who all have their own agendas and obsessions. Like I said, I skipped ahead to the end, and found the ending actually reasonably interesting (also a little gory but not more than I could handle). I like how the author ended things on an ambiguous note, so you have to imagine the rest for yourself. I felt that was appropriately creepy. And the story overall does raise some interesting questions about human nature, fear, obsession, etc. -- but overall it is just not really my cup of tea.
Show Less
LibraryThing member bdgamer
I never liked the whole stream of consciousness thing in literature, especially when it's used to obfuscate and make everything difficult. It's used quite a lot here, and the characters are severely unlikeable.
LibraryThing member JessicaReadsThings
What in the world did I just read? I have no clue. Completely baffled.
LibraryThing member xaverie
I genuinely don't know if I liked this book or not. It's compelling for sure, but that early 90s dirtbag aesthetic left me feeling grimy and filthy as I read it.
LibraryThing member ragwaine
1992 Bram Stoker Award. Scary, a lot like -Skin- but not as interesting. Cool subculture characters.
LibraryThing member richardderus
Rating: 4* of five
The Publisher Says: "Black. Pure black and the sense of pulsation, especially when you look at it too closely, the sense of something not living but alive."
When a strange hole materializes in a storage room, would-be poet Nicholas and his feral lover Nakota allow their curiosity
I RECEIVED A DRC FROM THE PUBLISHER VIA NETGALLEY. THANK YOU.
My Review: Republished thirty years on, this debut horror novel far exceeds my memory of it; when it came out, I wasn't interested in its eldritch overtones and dismissed its literary charms far too readily for that reason. Still not that interested in cosmic horror, as horror anyway, since the crap people do to each other every day scares me a lot more than some Evil Force somehow making people do awful stuff or, sillier still, does awful stuff to them despite being disembodied...possession and so forth come under the heading of mental illness untreated or undiagnosed in my materialist worldview.
But honestly, so what. This is a story, fiction with all that implies. Author Koja's been at this gig for decades now, and it's clear she started strong with this debut. Like all well-made fiction, this novel tells us truths about ourselves and our world. Self-harm, suicidal ideation, depression, all come into the story and are treated with due respect. This being thirty years ago, maybe not the way we'd talk about them now, but they aren't presented as reasons to become a victim.
The power dynamics of this book are very intricate. Upper hands slip. Control falters. People don't behave in reasonable ways, ever! The story unspools at a fairly brisk clip and rewards your attention to its details. Since this is a body horror novel, you know violent changes will be wrought on humans. It's part of our culture to revel in this strange obsession with involuntary body modification and/or death. Not always to my personal taste. This story's main appeal isn't its physical violence but its quieter, less obtrusive dealings with the power within a relationship, how it's used, what it does to the parties involved...and, on that level, this story *rocks*! Can't recommend it unreservedly, see the CWs, but recommend it I do to my fellow #Deathtober fans.
The Publisher Says: "Black. Pure black and the sense of pulsation, especially when you look at it too closely, the sense of something not living but alive."
When a strange hole materializes in a storage room, would-be poet Nicholas and his feral lover Nakota allow their curiosity
Show More
to lead them into the depths of terror. "Wouldn't it be wild to go down there?" says Nakota. Nicholas says, "We're not." But no one is in control, and their experiments lead to obsession, violence, and a very final transformation for everyone who gets too close to the Funhole.I RECEIVED A DRC FROM THE PUBLISHER VIA NETGALLEY. THANK YOU.
My Review: Republished thirty years on, this debut horror novel far exceeds my memory of it; when it came out, I wasn't interested in its eldritch overtones and dismissed its literary charms far too readily for that reason. Still not that interested in cosmic horror, as horror anyway, since the crap people do to each other every day scares me a lot more than some Evil Force somehow making people do awful stuff or, sillier still, does awful stuff to them despite being disembodied...possession and so forth come under the heading of mental illness untreated or undiagnosed in my materialist worldview.
But honestly, so what. This is a story, fiction with all that implies. Author Koja's been at this gig for decades now, and it's clear she started strong with this debut. Like all well-made fiction, this novel tells us truths about ourselves and our world. Self-harm, suicidal ideation, depression, all come into the story and are treated with due respect. This being thirty years ago, maybe not the way we'd talk about them now, but they aren't presented as reasons to become a victim.
The power dynamics of this book are very intricate. Upper hands slip. Control falters. People don't behave in reasonable ways, ever! The story unspools at a fairly brisk clip and rewards your attention to its details. Since this is a body horror novel, you know violent changes will be wrought on humans. It's part of our culture to revel in this strange obsession with involuntary body modification and/or death. Not always to my personal taste. This story's main appeal isn't its physical violence but its quieter, less obtrusive dealings with the power within a relationship, how it's used, what it does to the parties involved...and, on that level, this story *rocks*! Can't recommend it unreservedly, see the CWs, but recommend it I do to my fellow #Deathtober fans.
Show Less
Awards
Locus Award (Finalist — First Novel — 1992)
Bram Stoker Award (Nominee — First Novel — 1991)
Philip K. Dick Award (Nominee — 1991)
Language
Original publication date
1991
ISBN
9781938263002