Customer Reviews

The Darkness Within

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

 

 

I bought this for just one story, called "Connexion", which is the bridge between Pandora's Game, and Of Wolf and Man in the Triumvirate series. I had a feeling that one would have to do with Trey, since the end PG mentions finding him. (And yes, it does have finding Trey in the short.)

But, wow, was I surprised. The rest of the shorts are visceral gore, and I say that in a yes! Gore, more gore, please way. There's a warning at the beginning, but I was still shocked at how different they are from the novels. They're all very short, very fun, and very violent, but I like the last in fantasyland. (I can't read true crime because it sickens me; throw some early Christopher Andrews, John Skipp or Clive Barker in front of me, and I want more violence and gore.)

Of course, I had made the purchase figuring that Christopher had said he wasn't really crazy about the stories, and that he'd published them because people wanted to get them, and that he was sort of hesitant about publishing them. So I was thinking 'well, that isn't a great sign, especially with no reviews, but he's hooked me on Trey so I have no choice'. For five bucks, I could get another fix of my favorite of his characters. I ended up enjoying every single story, surprising myself with how quickly I read them. I immediately bought Of Wolf and Man when I was finished (past my bedtime), saving that for the next day which was one of my days off.

"Connexion" was by far the most subdued of the stories, as is fitting the Triumvirate world; I would have been disappointed otherwise. It was also completely worth the five bucks on it's own, and the fact that his other stories were so lovely was only a bonus for me. Very highly recommended, although I'm not sure Connexion will make all that much sense if you haven't read Pandora's Game first. As I suspected, Connexion was the last story in the collection, so you can buy this, read the stories up to Connexion, then go back to Pandora's game if you want to try out Andrews' writing before committing to one of the novels.