The Throne of Bones

Do not read this book. . I'm all for dark topics, but this book glorifies necrophilia, r*pe, cannibalism, etc with over-the-top, bloated descriptions that only serve to shock the reader. There is nothing of substance here, and I'm worse for reading the two chapters that I got through. How dare they compare this book to Lord of the Rings. The only thing this book is the lord over is edges; as only edge-lords will be able to rationalize these topics as something worth your time.

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.

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.

...I thought that I had already submitted a review for this book --something I don't usually do, except that it's SO awesome-- but I don't see it here, so here's another. Three words: this book ROCKS. Very (surprisingly) high literary quality, highly original stories-- this isn't your usual derivitive Lovecraftiana. My new goal in life is to force all my friends into reading this.

I bought THE THRONE OF BONES through a book club. I had never heard of it or Brian McNaughton before. I guess the cover art first attracted me. When I started reading, I couldn't put it down, and I found myself thinking about the book and the characters when I wasn't reading it. Brian McNaughton's writing is style is like nothing I have read before. His mix of fantasy, sex and humor is so very entertaining and unique. As I read, I realized the stories were self-referential, mentioning places and theologies that are expanded on in later stories, which makes the world, Seelura, seem deeper and more alive. After reading it I had to go back and read it again so I could see how the characters, cities and religions all fit together within his work. I was very excited when I read on the dust jacket that he has a whole chronology, history and map of his world. I hope these get published one day, along with more of his work, by a mass market publishing house so that everyone can go to their local bookstore and pick up his work. Until then, I will continue recommending this book to everyone I can.

Although I've come to realize that the work of many of today's finest authors is only available through small-press publishers, I must admit I was a bit put off by the price of this book, despite the glowing reviews I'd read. But I am decidedly *not* sorry that I purchased it.McNaughton's work displays many of the influences he credits (Lovecraft, Howard, and Smith), but he has succeeded in creating a truly unique world, and equally unique characters to populate it. I found myself drawn into each individual story, and was delighted to be allowed to discover the linkages between them on my own.The dust jacket states that McNaughton has created more of this world, and I should like to say that I very much hope that I will be allowed the opportunity to see it.