Customer Reviews

The Cipher

5 star:		(8)
4 star:		(4)
3 star:		(0)
2 star:		(2)
1 star:		(4)

 

 

Kathe Koja is almost a phenomenon. Her dazzling prose is so good that she doesn't even need a plot. She can write a 400 page book about a guy walking around his house and it would be good enought for me. This story seemed absurd to me (which I liked). If you boil down to it, it is about some people that are obsessed with sticking things into a hole. But it wasn't an absurd novel. It was deeply psychological and supernatural. The plot is very simple. There aren't too many characters or setting changes or days passing. It is just simple. But this makes room for the her works. excellent language, because she can concentrate on details. Even a paper clip can be criptic or erotic in a Kathe Koja novel. After I read the first paragraph of this book 6 years ago I HAD to go out and buy all of her works. SKIN is another book of hers I recommend. If you haven't read SKIN or THE CIPHER, don't read any others. Start with one of these.

Anyway, you'll hate this book if you enjoy "cheap" horror novels about monsters killing people or any of that crap. You'll also hate it if you think Stephen King and Dean R Koontz novels should be put in the "Classics" section of your bookstore. This book is for the artistic-minded, the "Underground" followers, and the punk-poets. If you are looking for psychological/supernatural horror that is truly UNIQUE, that stands out of the slop, then Kathe Koja's THE CIPHER is a book for you.

An introspective, overwhelming, claustrophobically creepy horror novel in which you're not entirely sure anything has "really happened". A combination of the intricate "other world" detail of the best of 1920's sci-fi horror fiction, with the dark, compulsive nihilism of the best of punk. Along with a really realistic portray of personal relationships. Does all that sound overly pretentious? Well, it is, but the book ISN'T. I picked the book up one morning on the way to work, and didn't do a damn thing until I finished it after lunch.

Obsession: we all suffer from it, we all dabble into its temptation. But what do we do when we can't LET GO of it? We swim into its viscous waters, drown, and then rise again. Or do we?

This is the constant battle in THE CIPHER, written by the once QUEEN of Horror, the macabre, obsession and the wasted twenty somethings of the American landscape: Kathe Koja. Koja weaves a tale inspired by Alice in Wonderland and everything H.P. Lovecraft, with prose influenced by Burroughs, Poe and Burgess, which is uniquely Koja's own. I first read the book in 2008 and didn't get it. Not until I picked it up again a year later was I floored (I'd become a better reader). It's perhaps the best book to come off the Dell Abyss line (Koja's other titles were just as good, but didn't tap the same vein as this did, though Strange Angels comes closest), and it's also probably one of the most unique books written in the 90's when everything was about horror and blood and gore, Koja stood far away from that and made us realize what went on inside people's heads. Koja is a master at what she does, and even with her new book Under the Poppy, she hasn't lost her touch.

Truly, unrepentantly, brilliant!

Nicholas and his lover, Nakota, discover a black-hole-like thing, which they name "The Funhole," in his apartment building's storage closet. They are so fascinated by it that they perform experiments to see what the Funhole will do. First they put a jar of insects next to it, then they dangle a mouse over it and they eventually lower a video camera down. The video makes Nakota obsessive and she almost dives into the Funhole, being saved by Nicholas who inadvertently plunges his hand into the hole.

The plot is bizarre. Basically, it's 356 pages about a hole. But even stranger is how compelling it is despite the simple plot. I didn't expect it to hold my interest, but its fast pace had me flipping the pages. It gradually builds tension, beginning with a bit of an interest in the hole, eventually turning into a full-blown obsession. Koja has a way with words, writing poetic prose that makes you think.

Nicholas is a very likable narrator and I felt afraid for him. I identified with him and his messed up relationship with Nakota. But I hated Nakota. She was selfish, rude, crazy and basically just a bitch. I couldn't understand why Nicholas wanted to be with her.

The ending was inevitable, but it didn't explain what happened to Nicholas. I can guess, but I would rather have had Koja describe it because her words are better than my imagination. And there was never an explanation for what the Funhole really was, why it was there, etc.

The Cipher is a very unique horror novel, perfect for those of you who are sick and tired of reading the same monster plots over and over.

When Nicholas and Nakota discover an inexplicable, endless hole which they christen the Funhole, they're both drawn to it. Nakota experiments with the hole's otherworldy transformative properties, but it's Nicholas who finds himself transformed by the Funhole. The Cipher is, at its heart, a simple book--but it sells itself on boldness. The premise is straightforward, but so outlandish that it immediately intrigues; the plot is sparse, but its simplicity allows the book to focus on the bizarre Funhole itself. The Funhole is introduced on page one, and it's so strange a concept that it seems like it couldn't get any weirder--but it does. With each page, Koja pushes the premise to a new extreme, and the evolving parade of grotesqueries and impossibilities is simultaneously fascinating and terrifying. All of this is couched in a strong narrative style: Nicholas's first person narration is somewhere between stream of consciousness and spoken word, thoroughly exploring the psychological effects of the Funhole and bringing his gritty dirty world and the cast of characters--most of them otherwise unlikable--to vivid and compelling life.

For all of this, The Cipher was not, for me, a perfect book. The ending lags, perhaps because I had adjusted to the style and premise, and so neither remained so compelling; perhaps because the ending is too intangable--and while intangibility compliments the book's themes, it's a weak conclusion to such a brutal and straightforward plot. These complaints are mere nitpicks, however, and The Cipher is as dark, compelling, and disturbing as the Funhole at its center. I recommend it with enthusiasm: if the premise of the Funhole intrigues, then Nicholas's long journey into it will satisfy.

Kathe Koja, at least in the past, has a reputation for furthering the genre known as the New Weird. Some say her work helped pioneer the field. This book is her first novel, published to much acclaim, including winning the Horror Writers of America Bram Stoker award and the Locus Award for First Novel, and receiving the first nomination by a horror novel for the Phillip K. Dick award for Best Paperback Original. This all occurred several years ago; as of 2009, I needed to order a used copy online to get a hold of a copy. Having read The Cipher, I appreciate these turn of events.

Koja's first novel contains a dusky, smoke-laden, sour-tasting narrative of chipped nail-polish and second-hand-store bought cheap clothes, where jaded, artistically-inclined, barely surviving young slacker/hipsters wander in from their low paying jobs to curl up within their barely livable urban dwellings, engaging in spiteful, malign relationships with each other, buoyed by intoxicants and mean intentions. In this midst of this mix, a gateway of unknown direction and anomalous effect erupts into their lives like an unforeseen pustule found poking out of from your cheek in the bathroom mirror one morning. The gateway's transmutative effect on the objects thrust around and within it, and subsequently the characters' own bodies and lives form the abnormal body of this very unconventional novel.

The narrator's off-kilter, at times almost stream-of-consciousness speech and Koja's striking vocabulary turn this book into an irregular, corrugated ride. It's like driving by a car wreck between a school-bus full of orphans and nuns and an hundred-foot long cow filled with gangrene and pus; either you can't look away or you'd never attempt to approach it in the first place, once you learned of its nature.

And that's ultimately why The Cipher occupies its place in the publishing world: people who crave this type of fiction will revere it especially for its style and resulting status; others of a more mainstream, conservative bent will walk past with a slight shiver and a furrowed brow. I'm not sure if this kind of reaction does justice to its genre. Other New Weird books, like China Mieville's Perdido Street Station brought readers into this type of speculative fiction, making it better known, creating an increased audience. I appreciated the mood and place The Cipher brought me to, being a reader not easily scared away from unpleasant and alarming writing, but the novel's current near out-of-print status begs the question: if the author's portrayal of his or her unique vision drives most people away, is it truly successful?

The Cipher is the first book I've read by Kathe Koja. I have to say, I am ready to try some more of her books! The Cipher was wickedly eery and I really got into the characters. I hated Nakota, felt angry pity for the lead character's way of not standing up for himself. But it was a very good book and worth my time.

The person who wrote such an unhappy review is way off! If the book wasn't for them, I can understand, but notice that she(?) read the WHOLE book to decide that it was a waste of time!... makes you wonder... I, myself, fell in love with this, the third Kathe Koja book I read. I even contemplated "losing" the library's copy because it has been so long out of print. But, after announcing it as unavailable for a short time, amazon.com eventually found a beautiful used copy for me that is in VERY good shape!!!! - although I would have accepted anything. They also found Skin, and Bad Brains!! I am so incredibly happy, especially to now have the gorgeous paperback cover artwork of The Cipher in my possession!!! I love it. If you can accept her style of writing, where there is no *traditional*, concrete plot that cleanly ties it all off at the end, you will really enjoy her writing for what it is: a tunnel to a beautiful imagination, the quirkiest and most fascinati! ng characters, psychological horror that connects to your own innermost thoughts and struggles, enchanting words, and sheer heavenly prose. I love her! I'm so glad to have the words of her early out-of-print obscure books for my very own! I can't say enough... Discover this world for yourself! You might just be as hypnotized as I was...

A young man is a poet living in squalor. He's in love with a woman who doesn't love him, or anything. They discover a hole in the floor which can do horrible things. The prose style is remarkable. The story is strong from start to finish. It never falls apart or lets you down. You have to think about it to understand what happens, but the author gives you enough information. Recommended.

Kathe Koja is a brilliant writer; reading her stories is a
true experience not only of the mind,but of all the senses.
THE CIPHER is a truly horrific novel,relying not on cheap
shocks,but going for your brain instead,affecting the reader on both visceral and intellectual levels. At a time when I was
looking for unique literary experiences,THE CIPHER was my wake-up
call. Reading Koja's stories makes me want to write. THE CIPHER
is Koja's first novel; the rest of her work(especially
her short stories) is absolutely wondrous and should be sought
out and devoured by bibliophiles.