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brisbookreviews's review against another edition
4.0
i won this in a first reads giveaway. this was very demonic and creepy! it reminded me alot of the movies evil dead and in the mouth of madness.
avangron's review against another edition
adventurous
dark
mysterious
tense
medium-paced
- Plot- or character-driven? Plot
- Strong character development? No
- Loveable characters? N/A
- Diverse cast of characters? No
- Flaws of characters a main focus? No
4.0
mferrante83's review against another edition
3.0
Nominated for the 2011 Stoker Award for Superior Achievement in a First Novel Brett J. Talley’s The Thing Which Should Not Be is send up to the classic occult horror of the early 19th to mid-20th centuries. The novel contains several nested narratives and is couched as a found document. As I’ve said in the past the sort of found material is a tradition that extends back as far as 1764 with Horace Walpole’s The Castle of Otranto and later made most famous in Stoker’s Dracula. The Thing Which Should Not Be isn’t a complete epistolary but rather a single lengthy letter with several narrated sub-stories that inform the overarching, a somewhat tenuous narrative at the novel’s core.
I should point out that the format employed in The Thing Which Should Not Be while enjoyable was somewhat weakened by the different narratives that appear throughout. The novel has many strong elements and each individual story is certainly effective on its own but I found the interweaving of the story into a whole was less than the sum of its parts. The novel didn’t feel some much like a novel but rather like a series of intersecting short stories drawn loosely together. As such I’m going to try to address the various narratives separately at least to a degree.
The Thing Which Should Not Be is a prefaced by a letter from a lawyer discussing the provenance of the document which follows. From there the narrative begins as the story of a one Carter Weston. The earliest section of the novel introduces us to Charles and his friend Henry and the life as students of New England folklore at Miskatonic University. The novel really kicks into gear when Charles is tasked by his professor to go and retrieve and ancient grimoire from a nearby town. Trapped by a blizzard Charles meets four men: Jack, William, Daniel, and Captain Jonathan Gray who each relay a strange and horrific story. This is what forms the bulk of the novel as each man relays his brush with the supernatural.
Jack’s story is sort of a classic monster tale. Talley’s spare prose serves the hardy trackers and trappers of Jack’s tale well and for all of the author’s economic use of language he adeptly manages to conjure up a scene of cold isolation and creeping dread. With sparing language Talley crafts a sense of looming weather and coming terror “But there was a growing gloom above us as well, and as the moon waxed brighter, as a steel-grey curtain of clouds rose, and as an icy cold wind cut through our tents and our clothes, it was clear to all that the season’s worst was near.” Cleverly, as the terror of night defends, Talley uses “the brilliant, blinding light of the morning sun” to usher in the story’s true horror.
After a brief interlude Daniel begins his tale. Daniel’s story is one that again uses isolation and borrows elements from a haunted house (in this case haunted abbey story). Again Talley proves adept at setting the mood with a few spare sentences as Daniel’s guardian, Lawrence, warns the young man “In Europe…the sun rises in the west and sets in the east. There is darkness there, darkness that you have never seen. That land can be a wondrous place, no doubt of that. But promise you will take care not to stumble out of the light.” With a story like Daniel’s I often find it most difficult to divorce myself from my own past experiences in the horror genre. When travel’s suddenly find themselves forced to take shelter in an ancient castle in the Romanian country built during the war between the Wallachian princes and the Turks well a certain type of reader knows that some bad things are going to happen. The traditional elements here don’t lessen the impact of the story, and it is in Daniel’s tale that the inter-connected nature of the story begins to become more apparent. Expectations aside, Talley manages to provide some surprises.
It isn’t long before William’s story begins, which is perhaps my favorite of the book. William takes a job at an insane asylum and again Talley does a great job at informing the mood from the bright, antiseptic lights to the juxtaposition of the howls of the “wildly mad” against the weighted silence of men who “retrain [reason] while being thoroughly evil, those without remorse or compassion.” Talley earned major respect for a single chilling line spoken by an inmate of the asylum: “I see clearly…what you see darkly.” Something about that line felt absolutely chilling to me. It is also William’s story which continues to solidify the novel’s connection to Lovecraft’s mythos with recitation of that famous quote “That is not dead which can eternal lie. And with strange aeons, even death may die.”
The final story, that of Captain Gray, is second only to Daniel’s and I won’t discuss it in detail lest I spoil things further. The Captain’s tale is one that finally brings things full circle and sets of Charles Weston’s part in this web of the supernatural. It was this section that felt the weakest to me. Each of the individual stories above manage to spend at least some time letting us get into the heads of the protagonists but as a result over the course of the novel Charles sort of falls by the wayside. Thus as the climax of the novel features him prominently I felt less of a connection to the proceedings since I knew him the least. Furthermore, as much as I love the Cthulhu Mythos I felt like the novel leaned a bit too heavily on that aspect and, truth be told, was actually stronger when it wasn’t leaning quite so heavily on Lovecraft’s legacy. This is the author’s first novel and it definitely proves he has the chops to craft a chilling and engaging story. Fans of Lovecraft and the Cthulhu Mythos looking for a fitting homage need look no further that The Thing Which Should Not Be. Brett J. Talley is a horror author to watch and I for one plan on checking out his new novel The Void, as soon as possible.
I should point out that the format employed in The Thing Which Should Not Be while enjoyable was somewhat weakened by the different narratives that appear throughout. The novel has many strong elements and each individual story is certainly effective on its own but I found the interweaving of the story into a whole was less than the sum of its parts. The novel didn’t feel some much like a novel but rather like a series of intersecting short stories drawn loosely together. As such I’m going to try to address the various narratives separately at least to a degree.
The Thing Which Should Not Be is a prefaced by a letter from a lawyer discussing the provenance of the document which follows. From there the narrative begins as the story of a one Carter Weston. The earliest section of the novel introduces us to Charles and his friend Henry and the life as students of New England folklore at Miskatonic University. The novel really kicks into gear when Charles is tasked by his professor to go and retrieve and ancient grimoire from a nearby town. Trapped by a blizzard Charles meets four men: Jack, William, Daniel, and Captain Jonathan Gray who each relay a strange and horrific story. This is what forms the bulk of the novel as each man relays his brush with the supernatural.
Jack’s story is sort of a classic monster tale. Talley’s spare prose serves the hardy trackers and trappers of Jack’s tale well and for all of the author’s economic use of language he adeptly manages to conjure up a scene of cold isolation and creeping dread. With sparing language Talley crafts a sense of looming weather and coming terror “But there was a growing gloom above us as well, and as the moon waxed brighter, as a steel-grey curtain of clouds rose, and as an icy cold wind cut through our tents and our clothes, it was clear to all that the season’s worst was near.” Cleverly, as the terror of night defends, Talley uses “the brilliant, blinding light of the morning sun” to usher in the story’s true horror.
After a brief interlude Daniel begins his tale. Daniel’s story is one that again uses isolation and borrows elements from a haunted house (in this case haunted abbey story). Again Talley proves adept at setting the mood with a few spare sentences as Daniel’s guardian, Lawrence, warns the young man “In Europe…the sun rises in the west and sets in the east. There is darkness there, darkness that you have never seen. That land can be a wondrous place, no doubt of that. But promise you will take care not to stumble out of the light.” With a story like Daniel’s I often find it most difficult to divorce myself from my own past experiences in the horror genre. When travel’s suddenly find themselves forced to take shelter in an ancient castle in the Romanian country built during the war between the Wallachian princes and the Turks well a certain type of reader knows that some bad things are going to happen. The traditional elements here don’t lessen the impact of the story, and it is in Daniel’s tale that the inter-connected nature of the story begins to become more apparent. Expectations aside, Talley manages to provide some surprises.
It isn’t long before William’s story begins, which is perhaps my favorite of the book. William takes a job at an insane asylum and again Talley does a great job at informing the mood from the bright, antiseptic lights to the juxtaposition of the howls of the “wildly mad” against the weighted silence of men who “retrain [reason] while being thoroughly evil, those without remorse or compassion.” Talley earned major respect for a single chilling line spoken by an inmate of the asylum: “I see clearly…what you see darkly.” Something about that line felt absolutely chilling to me. It is also William’s story which continues to solidify the novel’s connection to Lovecraft’s mythos with recitation of that famous quote “That is not dead which can eternal lie. And with strange aeons, even death may die.”
The final story, that of Captain Gray, is second only to Daniel’s and I won’t discuss it in detail lest I spoil things further. The Captain’s tale is one that finally brings things full circle and sets of Charles Weston’s part in this web of the supernatural. It was this section that felt the weakest to me. Each of the individual stories above manage to spend at least some time letting us get into the heads of the protagonists but as a result over the course of the novel Charles sort of falls by the wayside. Thus as the climax of the novel features him prominently I felt less of a connection to the proceedings since I knew him the least. Furthermore, as much as I love the Cthulhu Mythos I felt like the novel leaned a bit too heavily on that aspect and, truth be told, was actually stronger when it wasn’t leaning quite so heavily on Lovecraft’s legacy. This is the author’s first novel and it definitely proves he has the chops to craft a chilling and engaging story. Fans of Lovecraft and the Cthulhu Mythos looking for a fitting homage need look no further that The Thing Which Should Not Be. Brett J. Talley is a horror author to watch and I for one plan on checking out his new novel The Void, as soon as possible.
litwrite's review against another edition
4.0
After being really disappointed by The Void I was pleasantly surpised by this one, and thinking back on the order in which I read Talley's books, I'm actually happy I read the second before the first because the second would have been an even larger disappointment.
Though the subject matter of That Which Should Not Be is not exactly new, Talley handles the subject material very well and injects a great verve into the old Lovecraftian tales. This is a very traditional book, but this loving Ode to the Lovecraft mythos was obviously thoughfully crafted by someone who has a great affinity for these stories.
Talley's talent doesn't really seem to come from originality or great creativity, but with working with old stories and breathing new life into them, which is why I think that The Void felt so flat for me while this one largely succeeded. I really felt that he was a bit 'lost in space' (so to speak) with The Void, whereas with this novel he was very much in his element.
Talley's descriptions of the deep, dark old Gods that lurk in the dark recesses of our subconscious minds worked a lot better here, in the borrowed Lovecraftian style, than I felt they did in the much more modern The Void. I found myself reading this very quickly and not wanting to put it down, which is really the biggest compliment you can pay for a good novel. Would strongly recommend for horror fans.
Though the subject matter of That Which Should Not Be is not exactly new, Talley handles the subject material very well and injects a great verve into the old Lovecraftian tales. This is a very traditional book, but this loving Ode to the Lovecraft mythos was obviously thoughfully crafted by someone who has a great affinity for these stories.
Talley's talent doesn't really seem to come from originality or great creativity, but with working with old stories and breathing new life into them, which is why I think that The Void felt so flat for me while this one largely succeeded. I really felt that he was a bit 'lost in space' (so to speak) with The Void, whereas with this novel he was very much in his element.
Talley's descriptions of the deep, dark old Gods that lurk in the dark recesses of our subconscious minds worked a lot better here, in the borrowed Lovecraftian style, than I felt they did in the much more modern The Void. I found myself reading this very quickly and not wanting to put it down, which is really the biggest compliment you can pay for a good novel. Would strongly recommend for horror fans.
newdealwithit's review against another edition
4.0
I have attempted to read Lovecraft before and always found it to be Not My Thing- a combo of distaste for HP himself and the fact that I don't find the Cthulu mythos or any "evil that is too great to be described" story that compelling. However this was a fun read. Talley does a good job of weaving in several stories that are connected just enough to keep it interesting but not so much that you feel beaten over the head with the similarities. Worth a read if you're in the mood for some spooky atmosphere (which I almost always am).
rainydayeuphoria's review against another edition
3.0
Only read this at night until I finished. It definitely scared the funk out of me. Unsettling, let me tell you. I really really enjoyed it but I just wasn't feeling it nearing the conclusion. Felt a bit rushed to me.
jasonsweirdreads's review against another edition
5.0
I've been reviewing a few indie books lately. So far, they've all gotten four to five stars from me. Am I being easy on these writers, sympathizing with their independent ventures? Hell no. Of all the indie books I've read thus far, none have let me down. I'm sure that there is crap out there, crap meaning unedited writing that should is not, and perhaps never was ready for publishing, of which was the fear for small and/or self-published press before eBooks exploded onto the scene.
The latest one I've read is That Which Should Not Be, by Brett J. Talley. Let me tell you, this book is a brilliant mix of not just the Cthulhu Mythos, but many other myths and legends, religions and cults. While reading, I thought of Talley's book as an onion. You keep peeling back layers and layers of detailed, rich stories that's both fascinating and frightening. Yet the onion is one whole story. Talley obviously has a strong grasp upon the things he writes about, with the Cthulhu Mythos taking center stage, and it was a lot of fun to pick out all the Lovecraftian references, such as a boat named "Kadath".
We start the story with Carter (another reference), who is studying at Miskatonic University, of course. One of his professors has an important job for him. He must travel to an old port town called Anchorhead to retrieve a book called The Witch's Fire. This book, like the Necronomicon, is a dangerous tome, to be handled only by the most experienced of sorcerer. This leads Carter into an adventure where he is told tales of wonder and violent death at the hands of the Wengido, a cult, and an alternate universe on the sea. Each story brings us closer to the main story, and when it all comes together, it's like an explosion of tentacles and black, leathery wings.
If you enjoy the old classics by authors like Lovecraft and Blackwood, you will have no problem sinking into this one. It is, in the end, a terribly fun ride.
The latest one I've read is That Which Should Not Be, by Brett J. Talley. Let me tell you, this book is a brilliant mix of not just the Cthulhu Mythos, but many other myths and legends, religions and cults. While reading, I thought of Talley's book as an onion. You keep peeling back layers and layers of detailed, rich stories that's both fascinating and frightening. Yet the onion is one whole story. Talley obviously has a strong grasp upon the things he writes about, with the Cthulhu Mythos taking center stage, and it was a lot of fun to pick out all the Lovecraftian references, such as a boat named "Kadath".
We start the story with Carter (another reference), who is studying at Miskatonic University, of course. One of his professors has an important job for him. He must travel to an old port town called Anchorhead to retrieve a book called The Witch's Fire. This book, like the Necronomicon, is a dangerous tome, to be handled only by the most experienced of sorcerer. This leads Carter into an adventure where he is told tales of wonder and violent death at the hands of the Wengido, a cult, and an alternate universe on the sea. Each story brings us closer to the main story, and when it all comes together, it's like an explosion of tentacles and black, leathery wings.
If you enjoy the old classics by authors like Lovecraft and Blackwood, you will have no problem sinking into this one. It is, in the end, a terribly fun ride.
david_agranoff's review against another edition
1.0
There must be something wrong with me because I really did not like this book. Apparently a lot of other people disagree with me. so keep this in mind when you read my review. This book has forty-eight almost perfect reviews on Goodreads.com and over two dozen on amazon. I hate to say this because I love to support new authors and certainly I can imagine the hard work Talley put into this book. I have to be honest...I really didn't like this book. Worse I struggled, I mean struggled to follow it or get to the last pages.
It is the story set at Lovecraft's fictional university Misatonic and is told by four revolving characters. So one of the main characters is Carter Weston, he is asked to search a nearby village for a book called the Earth, Incendium Maleficarum, (The Inferno of the Witch). Along the journey he is exposed to several myths and legends that relate to the book.
I should point out that I am not ethically opposed to the use of Lovecraft's mythos by modern authors, and I also have read and enjoyed plenty of period horror by Lovecraft, Smith and Blackwood. So it's not that I don't get it. Talley has been praised for perfectly grasping and using the period voice and and writing in that style. That is the root of the problem for me, and I admit when it's a first time author it will cause my eyes to roll more than ever. People complain about vampires and werewolves becoming derivative and they are, but come on it's the 21st century and writing like you are Howard Phillips Lovecraft at his typewriter and using his characters to me is every bit if not more derivative.
The best mythos stories I have read in the last few years comes from authors like Cody Goodfellow and Michael Shea who explore the themes and ideas of Lovecraft in their own unique voice. Not to say that writing in Lovecraft's voice never works - I enjoyed Edward Lee's mythos novel "The Innswich Horror" and he was clearly doing the same thing as this novel. Talley a talented guy Probably even captured the period voice more effectively than the long time pro Ed Lee, the difference is when Ed Lee doesn't I know he can write a novel without cloning the voice of a long dead master.
Doesn't matter in the end I just didn't think it was a well done narrative. The novel really is a series of stories that breaks one of the writers most often repeated mantras "show, don't tell." Well this novel is all told, and a first person narrative told by several different people telling stories with in stories gets confusing to me. A great first person narrative is told in a voice so strong it can carry you through the whole thing. I was constantly lost on who was telling the story at any given time.
For me this experiment might have worked better in third-person. If you didn't want to lose the story telling aspect of the piece, it could have still been done in dialogue.
Maybe I'm totally wrong about this book, others seem to like it. for that reason it should be considered for library collections. If you can't get enough of stories from that period, then this is the book for you. If your ready to see the mythos evolve into the 21st century this is not the book to do it. Talley is talented and did enough in this book if he ever releases a book written in his own voice I will pick it up.
It is the story set at Lovecraft's fictional university Misatonic and is told by four revolving characters. So one of the main characters is Carter Weston, he is asked to search a nearby village for a book called the Earth, Incendium Maleficarum, (The Inferno of the Witch). Along the journey he is exposed to several myths and legends that relate to the book.
I should point out that I am not ethically opposed to the use of Lovecraft's mythos by modern authors, and I also have read and enjoyed plenty of period horror by Lovecraft, Smith and Blackwood. So it's not that I don't get it. Talley has been praised for perfectly grasping and using the period voice and and writing in that style. That is the root of the problem for me, and I admit when it's a first time author it will cause my eyes to roll more than ever. People complain about vampires and werewolves becoming derivative and they are, but come on it's the 21st century and writing like you are Howard Phillips Lovecraft at his typewriter and using his characters to me is every bit if not more derivative.
The best mythos stories I have read in the last few years comes from authors like Cody Goodfellow and Michael Shea who explore the themes and ideas of Lovecraft in their own unique voice. Not to say that writing in Lovecraft's voice never works - I enjoyed Edward Lee's mythos novel "The Innswich Horror" and he was clearly doing the same thing as this novel. Talley a talented guy Probably even captured the period voice more effectively than the long time pro Ed Lee, the difference is when Ed Lee doesn't I know he can write a novel without cloning the voice of a long dead master.
Doesn't matter in the end I just didn't think it was a well done narrative. The novel really is a series of stories that breaks one of the writers most often repeated mantras "show, don't tell." Well this novel is all told, and a first person narrative told by several different people telling stories with in stories gets confusing to me. A great first person narrative is told in a voice so strong it can carry you through the whole thing. I was constantly lost on who was telling the story at any given time.
For me this experiment might have worked better in third-person. If you didn't want to lose the story telling aspect of the piece, it could have still been done in dialogue.
Maybe I'm totally wrong about this book, others seem to like it. for that reason it should be considered for library collections. If you can't get enough of stories from that period, then this is the book for you. If your ready to see the mythos evolve into the 21st century this is not the book to do it. Talley is talented and did enough in this book if he ever releases a book written in his own voice I will pick it up.
bosicbyi's review against another edition
4.0
i won this in a first reads giveaway. this was very demonic and creepy! it reminded me alot of the movies evil dead and in the mouth of madness.
additionaddiction's review against another edition
5.0
Yes! This is 100% a Jim book. It’s got everything I love about the Call of Cthulhu, plus lots of stuff that I feel is lacking from a lot of Lovecraft (mainly depth and length).
My only complaint is that the ending felt a little rushed. I wished the final “journey” would’ve been expanded into a second book. Still, I loved basically every moment of this book.
My only complaint is that the ending felt a little rushed. I wished the final “journey” would’ve been expanded into a second book. Still, I loved basically every moment of this book.