Kathe Koja
Autor(a) de The Cipher
About the Author
Kathe Koja was born in Detroit, Michigan in 1960. Her first novel, The Cipher, won the Bram Stoker Award for Best First Novel in 1992 and the Locus Award. She also won a Deathrealm Award for Strange Angels. Her other adult novels include Bad Brains, Skin, Kink, and Under the Poppy. She also writes mostrar mais young adult novels including Straydog, Buddha Boy, The Blue Mirror, and Going Under. (Bowker Author Biography) mostrar menos
Image credit: Kathe Koja (left) with Walter Jon Williams, 2005 [credit: Cory Doctorow]
Séries
Obras por Kathe Koja
Six Stories 10 exemplares
There Is No Death, There Are No Dead: Tales of Spiritualism Horror (2021) — Contribuidor — 7 exemplares
By the Mirror of My Youth [short story] 4 exemplares
Awake 2 exemplares
Kit: Some Assembly Required [short story] 2 exemplares
Anna Lee 1 exemplar
Fireflies [short story] 1 exemplar
Lady Lazarus 1 exemplar
Professional Image (in SF EYE v.1, #3) 1 exemplar
Road Trip 1 exemplar
The Neglected Garden 1 exemplar
La Reine d’Enfer [short story] 1 exemplar
Bird Superior [short story] 1 exemplar
Baby [short story] 1 exemplar
Far and Wee [short story] 1 exemplar
Orleans Rheims Friction Fire 1 exemplar
True Colors 1 exemplar
Associated Works
Queen Victoria's Book of Spells: An Anthology of Gaslamp Fantasy (2013) — Contribuidor — 376 exemplares
The Year's Best Fantasy and Horror: Fifteenth Annual Collection (2002) — Contribuidor — 265 exemplares
The Year's Best Fantasy and Horror: Fourteenth Annual Collection (2001) — Contribuidor — 249 exemplares
The Year's Best Fantasy and Horror: Sixteenth Annual Collection (2003) — Contribuidor — 233 exemplares
The Very Best of the Best: 35 Years of The Year's Best Science Fiction (2019) — Contribuidor — 130 exemplares
The Year's Best Science Fiction: Thirty-Fourth Annual Collection (2017) — Contribuidor — 124 exemplares
Isaac Asimov's Science Fiction Magazine: Vol. 13, No. 7 [July 1989] (1989) — Contribuidor — 10 exemplares
Isaac Asimov's Science Fiction Magazine: Vol. 13, No. 13 [Mid-December 1989] (1989) — Contribuidor — 8 exemplares
Science Fiction Eye #07, August 1990 — Contribuidor — 1 exemplar
Sny Umarłych - Polski Rocznik Weird Fiction 2019 — Contribuidor — 1 exemplar
Etiquetado
Conhecimento Comum
- Data de nascimento
- 1960
- Sexo
- female
- Nacionalidade
- USA
- Locais de residência
- Detroit, Michigan, USA
- Ocupações
- writer
Membros
Críticas
The opening third is fantastic, it gets a bit weaker by length where it introduces a bunch of other stuff that distracts from the central relationship but it's still great. It's about the call of the void and destructive relationships and our desire for things that hurt us and how we want to save others when we can't even save ourselves. And so there's a literal destructive void in it. It's great, both as obvious metaphor and as a literal thing. Nakota is a very unpleasant character and you're constantly wanting the narrator to somehow leave but the pull of people like that is understandable to me - constantly wanting to somehow impress them and also think you have to be there to stop them being self destructive... but in the process we lose ourselves. The extra characters aren't as good but they do show a particular dynamic of hangers on and people desperate to witness *something*, whatever it is. The writing is so, so good and perfectly depicts a constant feeling of griminess, desperation, the dead end of life. And there's good dose of horniness mixed in too - where cumming really is a little death. Really clever, atmospheric and claustrophobic book - sort of on the edge of 5 stars. Also I listened with the quake 1 soundtrack - that kind of industrial ambient suits it well
Was the darkness always there? Was all it needed to infiltrate a lack of determination to keep it out? and had I really done all this to myself, by myself, by being the little I was? I was so tired of hating myself. But I was so good at it, it was such a comfortable way to be, goddamn fucking flotsam on the high seas, the low tide, a little wad of nothing shrugging and saying Hey, sorry, I didn't mean it, I didn't know it was loaded, I didn't think things would turn out this way. It's so easy to be nothing. It requires very little thought or afterthought, you can always find people to drink with you, hang out with you, everybody needs a little nothing in their life, right? Call the specialist when you do. You don't even have to call, chances are I'll already be there, you've just overlooked me because I'm in a corner, crouched like a dustball, a cobweb, my busy little spaced-out grin and oops it seems I've stumbled on some sort of exalted hellhole, Funhole, do excuse me while I let it out, while I let it into my body, while I let it run my life because somebody has to, right? somebody has to take the goddamned brunt even if it's a void.… (mais)
Even if it's chosen me.
Because how bad can it be, right, if it wants me, how dangerous? If it will settle for a tool this poor HOW BAD CAN IT BE.
1 
tombomp | 33 outras críticas | Oct 31, 2023 |
tombomp | 33 outras críticas | Oct 31, 2023 | Rating: 4* of five
The Publisher Says: "Black. Pure black and the sense of pulsation, especially when you look at it too closely, the sense of something not living but alive."
When a strange hole materializes in a storage room, would-be poet Nicholas and his feral lover Nakota allow their curiosity to lead them into the depths of terror. "Wouldn't it be wild to go down there?" says Nakota. Nicholas says, "We're not." But no one is in control, and their experiments lead to obsession, violence, and a very final transformation for everyone who gets too close to the Funhole.
I RECEIVED A DRC FROM THE PUBLISHER VIA NETGALLEY. THANK YOU.
My Review: Republished thirty years on, this debut horror novel far exceeds my memory of it; when it came out, I wasn't interested in its eldritch overtones and dismissed its literary charms far too readily for that reason. Still not that interested in cosmic horror, as horror anyway, since the crap people do to each other every day scares me a lot more than some Evil Force somehow making people do awful stuff or, sillier still, does awful stuff to them despite being disembodied...possession and so forth come under the heading of mental illness untreated or undiagnosed in my materialist worldview.
But honestly, so what. This is a story, fiction with all that implies. Author Koja's been at this gig for decades now, and it's clear she started strong with this debut. Like all well-made fiction, this novel tells us truths about ourselves and our world. Self-harm, suicidal ideation, depression, all come into the story and are treated with due respect. This being thirty years ago, maybe not the way we'd talk about them now, but they aren't presented as reasons to become a victim.
The power dynamics of this book are very intricate. Upper hands slip. Control falters. People don't behave in reasonable ways, ever! The story unspools at a fairly brisk clip and rewards your attention to its details. Since this is a body horror novel, you know violent changes will be wrought on humans. It's part of our culture to revel in this strange obsession with involuntary body modification and/or death. Not always to my personal taste. This story's main appeal isn't its physical violence but its quieter, less obtrusive dealings with the power within a relationship, how it's used, what it does to the parties involved...and, on that level, this story *rocks*! Can't recommend it unreservedly, see the CWs, but recommend it I do to my fellow #Deathtober fans.… (mais)
The Publisher Says: "Black. Pure black and the sense of pulsation, especially when you look at it too closely, the sense of something not living but alive."
When a strange hole materializes in a storage room, would-be poet Nicholas and his feral lover Nakota allow their curiosity to lead them into the depths of terror. "Wouldn't it be wild to go down there?" says Nakota. Nicholas says, "We're not." But no one is in control, and their experiments lead to obsession, violence, and a very final transformation for everyone who gets too close to the Funhole.
I RECEIVED A DRC FROM THE PUBLISHER VIA NETGALLEY. THANK YOU.
My Review: Republished thirty years on, this debut horror novel far exceeds my memory of it; when it came out, I wasn't interested in its eldritch overtones and dismissed its literary charms far too readily for that reason. Still not that interested in cosmic horror, as horror anyway, since the crap people do to each other every day scares me a lot more than some Evil Force somehow making people do awful stuff or, sillier still, does awful stuff to them despite being disembodied...possession and so forth come under the heading of mental illness untreated or undiagnosed in my materialist worldview.
But honestly, so what. This is a story, fiction with all that implies. Author Koja's been at this gig for decades now, and it's clear she started strong with this debut. Like all well-made fiction, this novel tells us truths about ourselves and our world. Self-harm, suicidal ideation, depression, all come into the story and are treated with due respect. This being thirty years ago, maybe not the way we'd talk about them now, but they aren't presented as reasons to become a victim.
The power dynamics of this book are very intricate. Upper hands slip. Control falters. People don't behave in reasonable ways, ever! The story unspools at a fairly brisk clip and rewards your attention to its details. Since this is a body horror novel, you know violent changes will be wrought on humans. It's part of our culture to revel in this strange obsession with involuntary body modification and/or death. Not always to my personal taste. This story's main appeal isn't its physical violence but its quieter, less obtrusive dealings with the power within a relationship, how it's used, what it does to the parties involved...and, on that level, this story *rocks*! Can't recommend it unreservedly, see the CWs, but recommend it I do to my fellow #Deathtober fans.… (mais)
Honestly wanted to like this. Wanted to like it so much that I even got it via inter-library loan at the library, something which I am usually loathe to do; nothing against the library, but I am truly terrible at returning books.
Sadly, I didn't. I couldn't get into the setting, the writing style, or the characters. Gave up around page 100.
People would probably enjoy it if they were into the era and a bit of the absurd; as it was, it was just hard for me to take seriously.
Sadly, I didn't. I couldn't get into the setting, the writing style, or the characters. Gave up around page 100.
People would probably enjoy it if they were into the era and a bit of the absurd; as it was, it was just hard for me to take seriously.
Listas
Gaslamp Fantasy (1)
Prémios
You May Also Like
Associated Authors
Estatísticas
- Obras
- 54
- Also by
- 77
- Membros
- 2,770
- Popularidade
- #9,266
- Avaliação
- 3.7
- Críticas
- 133
- ISBN
- 98
- Línguas
- 6
- Marcado como favorito
- 6
And now I realize this is actually a sequel, and I haven't read the first book yet. I'm going to strongly recommend AGAINST doing that. I'm hoping that once I read the first book, I'll retroactively enjoy this one. If so, I'll change my rating. Otherwise...… (mais)