The Imago Sequence
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5.0 • 3 Ratings
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- $9.99
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- $9.99
Publisher Description
The title story of this collection — a devilishly ironic riff on H. P. Lovecraft’s “Pickman’s model” — was nominated for a World Fantasy Award, while “Probiscus” was nominated for an International Horror Guild award and reprinted in The Year’s Best Fantasy and Horror 19. In addition to his previously published work, this collection contains an original story.
PUBLISHERS WEEKLY
Horrors that defy description and challenge reader expectations charge the electrifying stories in this powerful debut collection. Barron synthesizes influences ranging from H.P. Lovecraft to hard-boiled crime fiction in nine ingeniously plotted tales whose many layers peel away to reveal highly original and viscerally unsettling premises. "Old Virginia" is narrated by a Cold War era CIA agent, unaware that the chaos around him is due not to Communists but to occult forces escaping the control of the scientists he's guarding. In the period western "Bulldozer," a Pinkerton agent discovers that serial killings are part of an elaborate occult ritual for placating a supernatural entity. The title story concerns a triptych of photographs used by a malign cult to snare acquisitive art collectors. Barron intensifies the emotional impact of his fiction by providing protagonists who ultimately realize that their doom is inevitable and drag the reader down with them. These vividly imagined and eerily credible stories herald a potent new voice in horror fiction.
Customer Reviews
An Amazing and Dread Filled Experience
I found myself feeling much like Cortez in "The Imago Sequence" by the end of the book: dread filled, unnerved, mentally hysterical and unable to divert my path.
I chose to read the book out of order, purposely leaving what I thought were the menacing heavy hitters for last. "The Imago Sequence" came last and by that time I was on a creepy and transcendent high. I was creeped out, genuinely thrown off my axis and I could not put the book down. I had nearly devoured the book in 2 days even in the face of my dread and fear of the stories.
What is most remarkable is how Barron pulls you in with incredible Noir writing, all while simultaneously building an atmosphere of slow and creeping dread, and taking the Cosmicism of Lovecraft to its scary and logical zenith.
This is a must read.