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A review by keaganbailey
The King in Yellow by Robert W. Chambers
2.0
Whoever put this collection together really put sawdust in with the oats. The collection is named after the first 4 stories and the other 6 romances have nothing to do with the horror stories before them, they're also much weaker stories.
The romances quickly turn into half-french slogs and I could see the longest story, The Street of Our Lady of the Fields, being nearly incomprehensible if you don't understand at least a little French and/or some art terminology.
All of the stories have the same issue of the reader needing to reorient themselves every 15-30 pages with dry settings and okay-enough characters. The endings are nearly all VERY good but you find yourself not being able to invest yourself in the characters since you know there's only the setup and ending. There's no meat to the stories.
2 stars for the lack of theme and the wild amount of French, but I would probably rate 4 stars if it was just the first 4-5 stories in this collection.
The romances quickly turn into half-french slogs and I could see the longest story, The Street of Our Lady of the Fields, being nearly incomprehensible if you don't understand at least a little French and/or some art terminology.
All of the stories have the same issue of the reader needing to reorient themselves every 15-30 pages with dry settings and okay-enough characters. The endings are nearly all VERY good but you find yourself not being able to invest yourself in the characters since you know there's only the setup and ending. There's no meat to the stories.
2 stars for the lack of theme and the wild amount of French, but I would probably rate 4 stars if it was just the first 4-5 stories in this collection.