English language
Published Feb. 20, 2022 by Hodder & Stoughton.
When horror writer Nick Steen gets sucked into a cursed typewriter by the terrifying Type-Face, Dark Lord of the Prolix, the hellish visions inside his head are unleashed for real. Forced to fight his escaping imagination—now leaking out of his own brain—Nick must defend the town of Stalkford from his own fictional horrors, including avascular-necrosis-obsessed serial killer Nelson Strain and Nick’s dreaded throppleganger, the Dark Third.
So many brilliantly crafted sections of properly fun stuff. This is as perfect a follow up to the show as you can get in the absence of another season. Although the jokes and concepts are excellent, even the faux OTT writing style can actually be a bit repetitive.
If you enjoyed Garth Margenghi's Darkplace, the odds are that you'll like this as well. There are times the joke grows thin, but there are also some really well written and truly clever parts in this horror parody. Matthew Holness knows how to write, and somehow he makes Garth Marenghi - the fictional horror writer writing a poorly camouflaged self-insert in a series of horror novellas riffing on horror writing - an almost believable character. Marenghi comes across as a at times brilliant idiot savant (granted, less the savant, more the idiot most of the time), his writing a sort of outsider art, mainly dross, but occasionally high prose. Especially some of the parts where he weaves into Lovecraftian prose shines, but other parts are flat out bad (the end of the Third Half). But it is hard to judge such meta-literature - because I have no problems believing this …
If you enjoyed Garth Margenghi's Darkplace, the odds are that you'll like this as well. There are times the joke grows thin, but there are also some really well written and truly clever parts in this horror parody. Matthew Holness knows how to write, and somehow he makes Garth Marenghi - the fictional horror writer writing a poorly camouflaged self-insert in a series of horror novellas riffing on horror writing - an almost believable character. Marenghi comes across as a at times brilliant idiot savant (granted, less the savant, more the idiot most of the time), his writing a sort of outsider art, mainly dross, but occasionally high prose. Especially some of the parts where he weaves into Lovecraftian prose shines, but other parts are flat out bad (the end of the Third Half). But it is hard to judge such meta-literature - because I have no problems believing this is how Marenghi would write.
In sum; some good parts, some bad, some laugh out loud. It was entertaining, but the Terrortome could have - some what ironically - profited from some tighter editing. But that is also a part of the meta joke.
Loved the Garth Marenghi show, but it didn’t translate to book form effectively for me. I found myself bored and skimming a lot. I bet listening to the audiobook would have improved things, but my library didn’t have it!
I will say the frequency of “Hell, …” and “…, dammit.” did entertain me.
