The Imago Sequence cover art

The Imago Sequence

And Other Stories

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The Imago Sequence

By: Laird Barron
Narrated by: Ray Porter
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About this listen

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.

©2007 Laird Barron (P)2017 Audible, Inc. Anthologies Anthologies & Short Stories Fantasy Fiction Horror Short Stories Scary Witty

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All stars
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Wide ranging stories but united by a strong thematic throughline. Hints at a "mythos" without feeling like it needs to ruin the uncertainty and ambiguity required by horror. There's always something beyond the peepholes we're granted, the cultural and personal lenses of characters we see the horror's edges through. I also think his prose and sense of play with it is sharpest in this collection: Bulldozer in particular is SO deft. And always Ray Porter's narration and sense for that prose - its oscillating from arcane to ornate to vernacular - makes it sing.

His best. Or at least my favourite.

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I tried this after liking 'The Beautiful Thing That Awaits Us All' by the same author. This collection was written before that. Sometimes it shows, yet the fierce prose with which Laird Barron writes is present. Probably better to start with that collection if you are new here, otherwise enjoy some really good stories.
Ray Porter is excellent.

Good

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This is an excellent audio book, Laird Barron's tales are gritty, dark, horrifying and really, really well written. Ray Parker is perfectly suited to narrating these wonderfully dark and thought provoking stories. His vocal/character range is amazing. Top Notch! 10/10 all round.

One of the best...

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Rambling, verbose, chaotic and lacking in organization or CONCLUSION. A "story" has a beginning, development and a conclusion. This collection of ... well they aren't essays either, lack any such.

The reader was outstanding. The writing was bloviation run amok. Most, not all, of the stories had no real conclusions that resolved...anything.

I forced myself to ALMOST listen to everything. It was painful. Big words when small would do, CLEARLY for the pleasure of big words. Paragraph after paragraph of escaping gas, leading up to no point at all.

This was painful

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This is the third Barron book I've read. Two novels and this collection of short stories. He writes well but he's a one trick pony. Every story - and I mean literally every one - is the same as the previous one except with new characters in a different location. Ancient evil in the jungle, ancient evil in the desert, ancient evil in China, ancient evil in a cave, and so it goes on. And on top of that the stories are inconclusive and unsatisfying. Someone encounters an ancient evil in *insert location here* and ends up in a bad way, probably.

The narration by Ray Porter is exceptional.

Let me guess... ancient evil.

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