The Throne of Bones (Paperback)

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Editorial Reviews

Amazon.com Review

Imagine earthy Tolkienesque characters in a setting full of cemeteries, graverobbers, necromancers, corpse-eaters--even a huge labyrinthine necropolis. Imagine mephitic gardens where the sarcophage, selenotrope, and necrophilium bloom. Then throw in star-crossed lovers, crazed zealots, stalwart heroes, bloodthirsty renegade armies, hideous monsters, and likeable misfits. You've got just a hint of the wondrous and original visions in the dark fantasy world of Brian McNaughton.

Horror scholar S. T. Joshi, in the afterword to this collection of stories, notes the strong influence of Clark Ashton Smith, Lord Dunsany, H. P. Lovecraft, Robert E. Howard, and Greco-Roman decadent works such as Petronius's Satyricon. "McNaughton seems to have mastered one of the most difficult of literary arts: to draw upon the classics of the field without losing his own voice.... The world that McNaughton has created in this book is the world of the ghoul; and who knows but that The Throne of Bones will become the standard textbook for the care and feeding of ghouls just as Dracula has become that for vampires?" --This text refers to an out of print or unavailable edition of this title.

Product Description

Winner of the World Fantasy Award. “You hold in your hands a book of stories that forced Brian McNaughton to write. Make no mistake: I don’t exaggerate. There’s a reason this book won the World Fantasy Award. The stories inside it are rich, fascinating stuff—creepy and unsettling and phantasmic. Imagine what Tolkien’s Lord of the Rings would have been like if Tolkien had tried to tell that story sympathetically from the point of view of the human denizens of Mordor and you’ll have the slightest sense of what you’re about to wade into—but only just a sense. These stories will make the same demands on you that they made on Brian: they will command and compel you, and fill you full of terrible wonder. And when you’ve finished them you’ll find yourself wanting more.” —Alan Rodgers

Product Details

• Paperback: 286 pages
• Publisher: Borgo Press (August 1, 2000)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 1587151987
• ISBN-13: 978-1587151989
• Product Dimensions: 9 x 6.1 x 0.8 inches
• Shipping Weight: 1.2 pounds (View shipping rates and policies)
• Average Customer Review: 4.6 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (13 customer reviews)
• Amazon.com Sales Rank: #830,592 in Books (See Bestsellers in Books)

Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

10 of 10 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Osteocarpentry, October 15, 2000

By	Duane T. Pesice "moderan" (Rottenchester) - See all my reviews (REAL NAME)

This review is from: The throne of bones (Hardcover)

Mr McNaughton in this book has managed to suffuse the worlds of his influences with enough of his own vision that it stands apart, alone, atop the hill built of the skeletons of works that came before him. It is not easy to take the characters and situations of his forebears, especially one Old Gent from providence, and give them your own voice. The tales in this book more than accomplish that goal. I read the book once, and couldn't believe that it was that good, so I had to go through it again. The second reading was done in ONE SITTING. Brian McNaughton has an excellent command of both literary idiom and character. His beasties always talk and act like one thinks they should. He has a way with an image that has to be experienced to be believed. I was told by reputable sources that this was a book I should own, as both a reader and a writer of Lovecraftian dark fantasy, and again those sources have been on the mark. This volume has replaced Masterton's PREY and Browning's RESUME WITH MONSTERS as the best recent volume of Cthulhu Mythos-related fiction I have found. To make a long story short, I bought the expensive hardcover edition, and am happy to have spent the money. A review earlier mentioned that Brian has more of these tales. I want them. Seek out and obtain Mr. McNaughton's fiction if you like horror, dark fantasy, or good writing in general. Thanks, Brian.

9 of 9 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars Wonderfully Rude, May 30, 2002

By	Gwangi - See all my reviews

Forget any comparisons to Tolkien by reviewers or the writer of the introduction; they're absurd and probably insulting to both. Lovecraft would be a better parallel, but McNaughton's stories are clearly set in a fantasy universe (as opposed to Lovecraft's extensions of reality). Also, I want to issue a warning that this book is explicitly sexual, and definitely unorthodox in its encounters. If necrophilia is a topic that you can't even think about in a fantasy novel, then avoid this book. Having said all that, here's my review.

This collection of short tales, many of which are linked together in complex serials, are incredibly gripping and "wonderfully rude." McNaughton's prose is masterful without becoming a showcase for his talent and thorough without becoming mired in unneccessary detail. The characters are fascinating to watch, but thankfully not the kind with whom the reader automatically empathizes. I say this because the shocking turns of plot and inescapable poisons of McNaughton's pitch-black fantasy world quickly move characters from one state to another. The overarching themes are: ghouls, necrophilia, grave-robbing, and metamorphisis. These "low" subjects are treated irreverently, without pity to a reader's sensibilities, and the collection thoughtfully mucks up the spotless armor in which high fantasy often likes to dress itself. McNaughton's world is rude without becoming crude and grotesque rather than simply gross. On one level the tales are a fantastic exercise in how nauseated one can become and yet remain locked into the reading experience. However, they are also simply great reads with intricate plots, deeply motivated characters, and rich "smoky" environments. I can honestly say that I have never read anything quite like this, and the thought of finding another work by McNaughton frankly scares me. Why? Because I know I will have to/want to read it, and I know it will completely creep me out.

6 of 6 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Graveyard feasts, April 28, 2002

By	Philip Challinor (London England) - See all my reviews

The fact that an earlier edition of this book got the World Fantasy Award for best collection of 1998 is one of the horror/fantasy genre's too-few hopeful signs. Brian McNaughton should have come to prominence a quarter of a century ago, when he published horror novels with sonorous, evocative titles like Downward to Darkness, Worse Things Waiting and The House Across The Way. These books were adroit, literate, and populated with unusual but thoroughly believable characters; McNaughton's publishers decided to overcome these handicaps by releasing them with titles like Satan's Mistress, Satan's Seductress, Satan's Secretary etc., and naturally they disappeared without trace. It's a dreary and all too familiar tale, but I mention it here as an optimistic example of the way in which good horror can sometimes rise from the dead. The resurrectionists in this case are Alan Rodgers and Wildside Press, who have brought to light the aforementioned novels as well as three collections, of which The Throne of Bones is the newest-written, the largest and the weirdest. It's also the most unified in place and theme: the place is a luridly macabre fantasy realm, a decadent civilisation of wondrous perversity which clearly borders on the lands of Clark Ashton Smith; and the theme is ghouls. However, although McNaughton shares (and somewhat surpasses) Smith's sense of black humour and has a similar, though less deliberately archaic, richness of style, he also has more interest in plot and none of Smith's occasional lapses into cuteness and obscurity. McNaughton is also admirably rigorous in setting out the details of life as a ghoul - evidently a much less simple business than the mere eating of corpses and the cultivation of malodorous personal habits. For one thing, a ghoul can assume the appearance and some of the personality of the owner of the flesh it eats, which can lead to considerable complexities. For another, McNaughton's ghouls are not only monsters, but characters (it is also fair to say that many of the human beings in his work are not only characters, but monsters), and as such they demand and eminently justify the reader's attention, interest and occasionally - dare I say it? - sympathy. That's one more reason why this is not a book for the faint of heart, the rigid of morals, or the overly scrupulous of stomach.