If God came from the grave. . .In 1993, the year of the Great Missouri Flood, a small town called Hardin was completely submerged. Buildings, cars, people. . .entire lives and family histories erased in a matter of days. However, it wasn't just the living that suffered, but also the dead, as the cemetery's occupants were washed free from their graves as well. . .along with something else, long forgotten, from an older cemetery underneath the newer one. Victor Heck's novel A Darkness Inbred appeared in 2001, entering an otherwise quiet horror scene like a hurricane. Praised heavily by readers and critics alike as an incredibly strong debut appearance, it was reviewed everywhere from Dark Realms to Fangoria with words such as 'brilliant', 'sinister', 'twisted', and 'ghoulish'. A bizarre 'what-if' story where one of H.P. Lovecraft's immortal creations is updated to present day and finds itself worshipped as Christ's second-coming by a deformed family of ignorant hill people.
--This text refers to an alternate
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Book Description
Editorial Reviews
From the Publisher
"Heck brazenly plunges Lovecraft's immortal mythos into contemporary redneck America...non-stop hardcore horror. ...truly one of the most disturbing books I've ever read." Edward Lee, author of Ghouls, Incubi and The Bighead
"...This is a really squirm-worthy book, the kind of thing that makes you say, 'I don't believe he wrote that!' in the most admiring terms. A sort of 'Lovecraft-does-Deliverance--in-Peter-Jackson's-back-yard'..." Thomas Deja, Fangoria Magazine --This text refers to an alternate Paperback edition.
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Most Helpful Customer Reviews
4 of 6 people found the following review helpful:
1.0 out of 5 stars
A disappointment inbred,
By
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This review is from: A Darkness Inbred (Paperback)
When I was on a recent business trip I started the short novel A
Darkness Inbred by Victor Heck. I found it as big a let down as Nightmare's Disciple. So far I have only managed to get about half way through and may just let it lapse into permanently unread status. For those who haven't read it some spoilers follow, but only mild ones as I don't have the gumption for a complete review of a book I disliked, and also because, well, I still don't know how it ends. My first complaint is that the novel is puported to be a Cthulhu mythos novel and, well, dammit, it isn't! Nyarlathotep is invoked as the source of an evil breeding program but there is nothing Lovecraftian about it! Similar to Nightmare's Disciple the name of an entity does not the mythos make. For me the mythos is all about atmosphere, a sense of otherness, dawning of terror beyond imagining lurking at the fringes of the world, comprehension that the understood natural order of the universe isn't the reality, a sudden sense of the trivial status of humanity in the universe. The inbred clan is inbred and deformed before they ever discover the floating coffin, they are evil before corrupted by contact with an alien entity. Frankly there is nothing about the story that required using a mythos name except maybe marketing. Some other beefs: the characters are completely disinteresting. There is nothing about them that makes you care one way or another, or even makes you bother trying to keep their names straight. I would say this is a schlocky gorefest kind of novel, but one without a captivating plot, characters with depth, particularly catchy prose or Lovecraftian atmophere. Now please, I don't mind gore if it has a point. And well done prose that makes me shiver with disgust is always appreciated. For example, Throne of Bones, the novella that gives this story collection its name, had pages of grotesque imagery of ghoulish feasting and sex. It wasn't horrific, but a well thought out unpredictable plot, inventive prose and fun characters made it a fine read. And it is not a Lovecraftish story. Alas, for me, A Darkness Inbred did not deliver the goods. Not a mythos novel by a longshot. What do you think makes a story Lovecraftian?
5.0 out of 5 stars
interesting,
Amazon Verified Purchase(What's this?)
This review is from: A Darkness Inbred (Paperback)
This was a terrific book very interesting and hope to find more like this. This book was not boring had a hard time putting it down.
2 of 4 people found the following review helpful:
5.0 out of 5 stars
Extreme Gore! Interesting Monster!,
By Sal Paradise "ethanallen95" (Washington, DC) - See all my reviews
Amazon Verified Purchase(What's this?)
This review is from: A Darkness Inbred (Paperback)
Basically this story is about a bunch of inbred hicks stumbling across Nyarlethotep,"The Crawling Darkness" and then worshipping him as a god and kidnapping hapless tourists who pass through or by their ramshackle village somewhere in back woods of Missouri. I won't give away the particulars of the plot to ruin the experience for you but I must say that this short novel was extremely gory. It was like watching one of the Texas Chainsaw Massacre movies. This and a major figure within the Cthulhu Mythos is used. A definite must read for fans of the Cthulhu Mythos!
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