Paperback, 767 pages
English language
Published Nov. 7, 2009 by Thomas Dunne Books/St. Martin's Griffin.
THE PAST... Caught behind the lines of Hitler’s Final Solution, Saul Laski is one of the multitudes destined to die in the notorious Chelmno extermination camp. Until he rises to meet his fate and finds himself face to face with an evil far older, and far greater, than the Nazi’s themselves…
THE PRESENT... Compelled by the encounter to survive at all costs, so begins a journey that for Saul will span decades and cross continents, plunging into the darkest corners of 20th century history to reveal a secret society of beings who may often exist behind the world's most horrible and violent events. Killing from a distance, and by darkly manipulative proxy, they are people with the psychic ability to 'use' humans: read their minds, subjugate them to their wills, experience through their senses, feed off their emotions, force them to acts of unspeakable aggression. Each year, three of the …
THE PAST... Caught behind the lines of Hitler’s Final Solution, Saul Laski is one of the multitudes destined to die in the notorious Chelmno extermination camp. Until he rises to meet his fate and finds himself face to face with an evil far older, and far greater, than the Nazi’s themselves…
THE PRESENT... Compelled by the encounter to survive at all costs, so begins a journey that for Saul will span decades and cross continents, plunging into the darkest corners of 20th century history to reveal a secret society of beings who may often exist behind the world's most horrible and violent events. Killing from a distance, and by darkly manipulative proxy, they are people with the psychic ability to 'use' humans: read their minds, subjugate them to their wills, experience through their senses, feed off their emotions, force them to acts of unspeakable aggression. Each year, three of the most powerful of this hidden order meet to discuss their ongoing campaign of induced bloodshed and deliberate destruction. But this reunion, something will go terribly wrong. Saul’s quest is about to reach its elusive object, drawing hunter and hunted alike into a struggle that will plumb the depths of mankind’s attraction to violence, and determine the future of the world itself…
My first exposure to Dan Simmons. I have a half dozen more of his on my to-read list. Hope he found an editor for the other books. The racist characterizations and language are very much of the era it was written, but it was still uncomfortable reading at times.
Content warning Paragraphs 4 and 5 broadly mention things that happen in the book (but no specific details)
I was a latecomer to Dan Simmons fandom. While I liked Hyperion the very first time I read it, I couldn’t get into the sequels, I just didn’t care about his Olympos books, and his horror books that were recommended to me – The Terror and Carrion Comfort (both recommended by my younger brother) did not connect with me on my initial try of them. Each of them, I got through maybe 50-70 pages, and then never got any further. Apparently though, there is such a thing as “right time, right place,” and never have I experienced this as much as my recent readings of Simmons’ work (review of The Terror also coming soon).
Carrion Comfort was a book club read, much like The Dragon Waiting, and since I had already attempted this book years ago and not made it far, I was somewhat dreading it. Somehow, less than a week after I started it, I’m done with this doorstopper, basically never putting it down the entire week.
This was a great book. It was scary in all the right ways, and terrifying in ways that few other horror books ever accomplish for me. Despite the supernatural elements, there was something hideously real about the horror of the book. Something about the mind controllers completely overtaking the identity of the victims, and then discarding them as nothing more than trash (very similar to the way Jessica Jones’ Kilgrave or Robert Jordan’s Compulsion from The Wheel of Time work) rings true to me in a deeply bent, anti-Kantian/anti-Deontological sort of way.
The themes of the Holocaust and the Final Solution resonate through the entire book (and are major plot elements to boot) – the theme that there is a group (or are groups) of people who have both ultimate power over others, ultimate end-goals of use and abuse, and ultimate depravity to accomplish said goals. Every villain is heinous in a completely different way, and the protagonists and heroes have to reckon with this truth and in some ways, become villains themselves to eventually end the threats to themselves, their loved ones, and possibly the world.
There is a scene in the book where I did (despite my mention earlier about never putting the book down) actually have to step away for awhile. A home invasion scene only about one-fifth of the way through the book that was done so well and at the same time so terrifying and disturbing, I was was a little concerned about continuing the rest. If there’s an aspect in the horror/thriller/terror/suspense genres that gives me nightmares, it's these more mundane types – the kinds of things I can (and do) actually imagine happening to myself and my family.
Anyway, I finished it, and it now ranks with me as one of the best horror novels I’ve read. I place it next to Duma Key by Stephen King (easily his best work of the last 20+ years, and in my opinion better than most of his classics), The Case of Charles Dexter Ward by H.P. Lovecraft (which has similar themes as Carrion Comfort for mental domination and discarding of people after they’ve been used up), and The Ritual, by Adam Nevill, a supernatural tale about an old-world cult that also made a great movie.
Read Carrion Comfort.
L’Échiquier du mal, un livre sur ma PAL depuis au moins…très longtemps ! Après Hypérion, je me devais de poursuivre ma découverte de l’œuvre polymorphe de Simmons. Avec ce roman, le lecteur en a pour son argent : thriller, espionnage, histoire, horreur, vampire, guerre, psychologie, tout y est.
Le vampirisme revisité par Simmons, ce n’est pas de la rigolade. L’auteur a opté pour le vampirisme psychique, plus sournois, plus vicieux, et paradoxalement plus propice aux scènes d’horreur. Le vampire de Simmons ne se salit pas les mains, il exerce son Talent avec distinction, et propage abominations, tragédies et autres affreusetés. Son manque absolu de compassion, d’empathie et d’humanité le rend aussi effrayant que fascinant. Il explore le psychisme de ses victimes avec une curiosité scientifique, et les transforme du même coup en êtres zombifiés dépourvus de volonté. N’ayant pas de limite morale, les méfaits de cette sale engeance sont retors, …
L’Échiquier du mal, un livre sur ma PAL depuis au moins…très longtemps ! Après Hypérion, je me devais de poursuivre ma découverte de l’œuvre polymorphe de Simmons. Avec ce roman, le lecteur en a pour son argent : thriller, espionnage, histoire, horreur, vampire, guerre, psychologie, tout y est.
Le vampirisme revisité par Simmons, ce n’est pas de la rigolade. L’auteur a opté pour le vampirisme psychique, plus sournois, plus vicieux, et paradoxalement plus propice aux scènes d’horreur. Le vampire de Simmons ne se salit pas les mains, il exerce son Talent avec distinction, et propage abominations, tragédies et autres affreusetés. Son manque absolu de compassion, d’empathie et d’humanité le rend aussi effrayant que fascinant. Il explore le psychisme de ses victimes avec une curiosité scientifique, et les transforme du même coup en êtres zombifiés dépourvus de volonté. N’ayant pas de limite morale, les méfaits de cette sale engeance sont retors, inattendus. Impliqués dans des événements ayant marqué l’Histoire, et en ayant d’ailleurs provoqué quelques uns, ces vampires-là sont parfois haut-placés, ce qui donne des airs de théorie complotiste au roman.
[La suite sur mon blog, merci :)]
A book that garners high praise from Stephen King (he calls it one of the three best horror novels of the 20th century) and Guillermo del Toro (calls it a true classic that will shatter your worldview) and the praise is well-deserved. Carrion Comfort twists the convention of vampire fiction, creating mind vampires that feast upon the thoughts and deaths of the their victims. The novel gets its title and epigraphs from Gerald Manley Hopkins' poem 'Carrion Comfort' and the main characters in the novel are, like the speaker in Hopkins' poem, trying avoid giving in to the carrion comfort of despair. Instead of giving in to the despair, violence, and horror around them, the heroes of the novel risk everything to seek out revenge in spectacular fashion. There's even an awesome Hitchcock moment halfway through the novel that prevents things from getting stale, which is always a risk in …
A book that garners high praise from Stephen King (he calls it one of the three best horror novels of the 20th century) and Guillermo del Toro (calls it a true classic that will shatter your worldview) and the praise is well-deserved. Carrion Comfort twists the convention of vampire fiction, creating mind vampires that feast upon the thoughts and deaths of the their victims. The novel gets its title and epigraphs from Gerald Manley Hopkins' poem 'Carrion Comfort' and the main characters in the novel are, like the speaker in Hopkins' poem, trying avoid giving in to the carrion comfort of despair. Instead of giving in to the despair, violence, and horror around them, the heroes of the novel risk everything to seek out revenge in spectacular fashion. There's even an awesome Hitchcock moment halfway through the novel that prevents things from getting stale, which is always a risk in such a long novel.
