A Blast From The Past

I first became aware of Kathe Koja in the summers months of 1991. I was reading an article, I think it may have been in an issue of Fangoria, about a new wave of horror authors and in it I discovered the names Poppy Z. Brite and Kathe Koja; names that stayed in my head and followed me around until I went on my weekly excursion through the book shops of my home-town

I found nothing from Poppy Brite, which wasn't surprising as she wouldn't have a book out for another year even though Lost Souls had already been touted as a big thing by reviewers; but I did find something from Kathe Koja.

The Cipher had a weird step-back cover, a hand cut-out, a face or something like it and an inner cover that spoke of exceptionally dark things. I was twenty years old and fresh from the books of Clive Barker, who had successfully redefined horror a few years before, and I was looking for something new; and with the story of Nicholas and Nakota, with the story of the hole and the madness that came with it, I got my wish.

The Cipher is a cipher, both as a book and as a phenomena within the book. There are no explanations, no ready ones at least, but there are many interpretations and each of these interpretations may in itself be a cipher.

The book is not for the faint of heart, neither creative weaklings or the easily repulsed should apply, but if you are in the necessary place in life,you are not easily repelled and have the creative fortitude to travel a route that offers little explanation, then The Cipher is certainly a route to take.

Originally I read the book in one feverish sitting, not noticing the sun had set and I had obtained my night-eyes until the orange street-lamps outside turned the page to a watered down blood red. I turned on a light then and kept reading; and it was dawn before I finally completed it; though I'm not sure I ever really closed the book.

Some books stay with you, they infect you like a virus.

So some years later, almost thirty (unbelievably) I saw an audiobook version pop up on Audiobook Boom that seemed to have my name on it. I mean, a free audiobook for nothing more than an honest review I'd write anyway?

If you hadn't realised already The Cipher is a book I hold in very high regard. Its one of those books that I hear people talking movie rights to and I shudder, as a part of me shuddered when I thought of an audiobook; that was until I saw who had done it.

Seriously if I ever get my novel finished (are we all writing novels?) than I'm going to get Joshua Saxon to do it for me. Anyone who can capture the obscene poetry of Kathe Koja and in the process transform an audiobook into something closer to a nine-hour one-man audio play can handle anything I could throw at him.

If you got this far in my little review then you probably should get this audiobook,just be warned its not an easy experience and you won't have an awful lot of fun with it; but it is captivating, compelling and more than a little rewarding.

As long as you don't expect to fully understanding any of it that is.

1 person found this helpful

Bleak & Disturbing Early '90s Horror Masterpiece

Equal parts body horror and nihilistic drama, Kathe Koja's superbly written The Cipher is a bleak and disturbing story about two people that find a strange black hole in their apartment building. Soon after they start experimenting with the 'funhole' and things start to get seriously out of hand. The prose is hard, edgy and reminiscent of generation X writers like Bret Easton Ellis. Kathe Koja is a fantastic writer and she's in complete command of the material.
Joshua Saxon's performance is truly magnificent. He delivers the perfect tone for this type of story. You believe every line he reads. It's yet another pitch perfect narration from my favourite audiobook narrator.
It might not be for everyone, but it's well worth a listen if you want something extremely dark to try.
A modern classic.

not a bad story

narration was amazing shame the story wasnt as much. worthy of a listen but id stick to clive barker.

A love story with a gaping hole in the middle.

Totally worthy of its cult following. Experience and perhaps discover what's down your fun hole? Weird and inventive body horror with a very messy love story at its centre. Here performed very well by Joshua Saxon.

Disturbing

This was pretty bleak and depressing. It was a fascinating premise but I'd have preferred to learn more about the funhole and cut out a lot of the daily drudgery. I had to stop listening for a while and jump to something more lighthearted as it was getting me down. I suppose that's a sign that it was very effective!

The narrator, Joshua Saxon, is just brilliant as ever. I pick books to listen to simply because he narrated them and I'm never disappointed in that respect.

"Love Is A Hole In The Heart"

Nicholas is a directionless twenty-something video store (LOL the 90s) worker living a quasi-hermit life of drinking, smoking and, in the company (and at the instagation) of his on-again off-again never-again always-again lover Nakota, performing weird experiments with the portal to hell in his basement. It is a completely impossible black hole in the floor, which seems to have no end, and which exerts a terrible fascination over anyone who sees it. Nakota's obsession grows as she begins to experiment with introducing live insects, a mouse and a shadily-sourced human hand to the Funhole, as she dubs it, and begins to discern messages and meanings in the unpleasant results. She persuades Nicholas to 'borrow' a camcorder (LOL the 90s again) from his work in an attempt to discover more about whatever lies below, and everything, of course, goes to hell.

This flippant plot summary illustrates how amazing Kathe Koja's work here is. This is a book which by rights should be a splattery romp with monsters, body horror and copious amounts of blood - and on one level, it is, with no judgement if that's what you want from your horror fiction! Koja, however, treats this goofy premise with absolute seriousness, and meticulously illustrates the effect that a fundamentally inexplicable event can have upon people, and most importantly on the relationships between those people. The heart (a word with a great deal of thematic weight here) of this book is love, communication, interaction - and how the absence of these destroys people. I will not go into any details which could spoil plot elements, but Koja sharply sketches and catalogues a series of profoundly dysfunctional relationships that run the gamut from distant and uncaring to manipulative and abusive, and how all of them are made worse by the Funhole. Cruelties are magnified, obsessions are sharpened, betrayals are encouraged.

Nakota is the centre of this, and at the centre of the entire book. She is an extraordinary character, one of the best I can remember in any horror book, and worth the price of admission alone. She has true interiority - her own motivations, unique reactions, her own agency - and all of this is achieved at a remove, with Nicholas being the narrator, and thus attempting to filter our perception of Nakota through his eyes and experiences. She is not having that! Nakota grabs hold of the narrative at various unpredictable points, and relinquishes it equally unpredictably, leaving Nicholas (and us) in a perpetual state of bamboozlement over her motivations. She is brilliant, and in many ways the most profound monster in the entire book.

Koja's prose is hypnotic, with sentences running on and joining into each other, eliding perceptions and events into complex shapes. Joshua Dixon deals with this skillfully, acting as a guide into the madness, but maybe leans slightly too far into Jonathan's passivity as a narrator.

This is a true horror classic that's great to have on audiobook. Highly recommended.


I was given this free review copy audiobook at my request and have voluntarily left this review.