Customer Reviews

Dead Names: The Dark History of the Necronomicon

5 star:		(14)
4 star:		(4)
3 star:		(0)
2 star:		(4)
1 star:		(7)

 

 

First lets keep in mind Simon's comment from page 216:

"To survive the occult journey, one must be prepeared to abandon one's ego; unfortunately for most occultists their ego is the last thing they are prepared to give up."

The book goes on to describe his comparable appearance to Johnny Depp, how Roman Polanski made "The Ninth Gate" based on their story(As someone else already brought up, the movie is based on the book "The Club Dumas" by Arturo Reverte. Don't believe me just look up the book, we are on Amazon after all!) There is also a comment below it about how the movie Ghostbusters is based on it as well. No undeserved ego there I assure you!

The book goes on with praise for Aleister Crowley, condemnation for almost any scholar who does not agree with him, chapter 10 is summed up in a nutshell: A person makes a critical comment about the Necronomicon and Simon's response is more or less: "nuh uh you weren't there!"

The book is not especially well written, the events cannot be proven, the supposedly "stolen books" cannot be listed(except for the Necronomicon of course.) The book is simply a poor defense of a hoax, not even really a necessary defense of it, for as long as there are twelve and thirteen year olds who have no idea about the occult or simply wish to screw with their uptight Christian parents, the Necronomicon will continue to sell copies until The Old Ones come home.

Most of what's written here is plain fetid garbage. The text is weak, rife with error and reeks of pure sensationalist detritus for the sake of profit and profit alone. This should be avoided at all costs. Hopefully the money gained by this endeavor was spent well.

You don't need to shell out $7.99 in order to learn the "dark history" of the Necronomicon. I can tell you its history for free, in one paragraph.

In the 1920s and 30s there was a brilliant pulp fiction writer named H. P. Lovecraft. He created his own made up religion, which would come to be known as the "Cthulhu Mythos", providing a backdrop for a series of short stories which were published in a fantasy magazine called "Weird Tales". The best and most well known of these stories are "The Call of Cthulhu" and "The Dunwich Horror", and they center around "The Old Ones", alien gods/demons of unimaginable power who will one day return to our world and bring about the end of mankind. In the course of creating this entirely made up religion, he created an ancient grimoire which could be used to open the portals between the worlds and bring the Old Ones back. He called it the Necronomicon.

There it is. A concise history of the Necronomicon. Anything that claims to be an "authentic" Necronomicon is just as real as the planet Oz or flesh eating zombies. If you're inclined to believe in these things, either grow up or seek professional help.

By the way, Lovecraft is a great writer. I highly recommend the Arkham House editions of his works.

I just saved you $7.99. You're welcome.

You can't fault Simon's ability to milk a good thing. He's certainly made quite a bit with the Necronomicon and the various sequels (read: abriged versions) that have come out. This book provides a weirdly entertaining back-history. It comes off like something out of the Illuminatus trilogy, but using real names and events as players. But it's not very well written, with sections just bouncing all over the place in an almost stream-of-consciousness approach. And factually, well, let's just say I wouldn't spend a lot of money betting on this information. Just for starters, Simon claims to be the inspiration for the Johnny Depp character "Corso" in the film "The Ninth Gate". He claims this because Polanski, the director of the film, knows him from various connections in New York, etc. The reality, which Simon apparently doesn't know, is that this film is based on the book "The Club Dumas", by Spanish author Arturo Perez-Reverte. The character, and the entire plot of the movie, comes right out of this book. Which, come to think of it, is a MUCH better book than this one, and highly recommended as a fictional detective story about a valuable tome of occult lore.

Simon's typing and creativity are here, but little sense.

Let me go on my own mind journey about the NECRONOMICON. Back in 1973, I met a man named Robert W. Dills. He was a caligrapher.
A man named George Scithers hired him to do a faux Arabic Text and it was to pose as THE NECRONOMICON.L.Sprague deCamp wrote a lengthy introduction, claiming the book was written in "Duriac". At a gathering at Scither's house, after the book had been bound up in a limited edition of 300 + copies, he proudly showed who ever was there the one amusing item he wanted to do: get a copy in the British Museum. Just like it would be in a H.P.Lovecraft story.

And there was a title given to it as "Al Azif". Duriac does not exist, as a language. It is a name of a variety of wheat.
The book did well for what it was--just a conversation piece. Dills admited there was a translation of sorts, and it would reveal a laundry list.

Go to January 1974. A woman I was dating dragged me off to a science fiction convention, and before the convention was to begin, dragged me off to The Warlock Shop, which involved going to Brooklyn.

There in the shop, was the NECRONOMICON, perched on a shelf, surrounded by advertising that subscriptions were being taken for the translation of the book.

I asked Herman Slater, "Don't you know that's a joke?" Herman Slater said, "It's not a joke. It's real. And we have lined up someone to do a translation."

Thoughout the whole book Simon has written, he never mentions this tome, and this is signifigant, since Herman Slater said "It was real", and didn't see the joke after it was explained to him.

Of course, Simon claims he was a charming interesting man, a claim that goes against all other descriptions of Herman Slater I've ever encountered.

Anyway, the book's history in Simon's hands seems to be throwing as many names and issues together and hope they might make some sort of collage impression that something important had been discussed. Tossing Charles Manson and David Berkowitz and other names together that don't tie into the book's history isn't signifigant. And Berkowitz was a Postal Worker, not a cab driver when he was arrested. Get the facts correct if you're going to mention them.

I can't believe this book was even written. Considering that Lovecraft INVENTED the Necronomicon for his writings makes EVERYTHING written about this so-called real grimoire completely moot. It's like writing about finding the Emerald City of Oz in the Utah desert. And for those who still believe that the book really existed... you have got to stop deluding yourself and finding laughable ways and theories to prove that it really existed! I have been a Lovecraft fan for over 18 years and own everything he has produced, so of course I picked up the "original" Simon Necronomicon when it came out. In trade paperback, of course. I mean, how dangerous could it be? It has an ISBN number! And we all know what a joke that book was. So please, if you want entertainment and a damn good read, then read something by Lovecraft. If you want to continue to delude yourself, by all means, read this book and have fun.

I just read this book out of curiosity. I had hoped to learn about the necronomicon. All "Simon" talks about is his own life, or should I say fantasy life. He ends up sounding like an angry child with an "I'll show THEM" attitude. And there really isn't much history to it. He borrows a lot from books by Robert Anton Wilson and others, calling it his owns life. Very sad. But I'm sure he has already made a pretty penny just based on the shock value of the title. I advise you to save your money for something valid.

The first part of this book is an interesting sidebar to Peter Levenda's Sinister Forces trilogy, particularly the discussion on the "Wandering Bishops" phenomenon. I would have preferred more material in the second part, where the author addresses the specific Sumerian (and other) sources of his grimoire. Whether or not I believe in the authenticity, or the efficacy, of the Simon Necronomicon, I still found this to be a brisk and entertaining read.

First off, nowhere in the book does Simon link the events of the assassination of any Kennedy, the Son of Sam murders, the Jonestown Massacre, the murder of John Lennon, the Gulf War, or the 9/11/2001 attacks to the Necronomicon. Anyone who says so made that assumption just from looking at the timeline of personal and historical events, from 1950 to 2006, in the front of the book.

I'm glad to see that Dan Harms, if it really is him, has shown in the title of his review that it is clearly biased and therfore, in my opinion, unreliable as an objective viewpoint.

This book is nothing more than a history of of the people and the book with references to events that happend around them, not as an inference to some mystical connection, but to give reference to the atmosphere of the times that events took place. Any coincidence is simply that, coincidence.

I picked this up after getting "The Necronomicon" and finding out the book wasn't what I expected. This book expounds upon the events surrounding the history of "The Necronomicon", from before the manuscripts surfaced to after the book went into print.

Not everyone is going to get the same thing out of it that I did, and not everyone is going to agree that it's worth reading. If you thought "The Necronomicon" was a hoax, then don't bother picking this book up to trash it too. I'm not going to debate whether it was or wasn't - I'm just going to say that I found both books extremely interesting to me as well as informative, and leave it at that.