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Review of The Yellow Sign
Unlike some other reviews, by its nature , this is spoiler heavy, and uses no spoiler tags.
Ah me. I love this story. Chambers builds a very believable world, with a bit of horror to it for the entire time, and then bends you right into the bizarre for just two pages and ends it. I respect that.
I hope you can see how Lovecraftian this story appears to be. If I were to tell you that it was written in 1945 by a Generation 2 author, you’d buy it. It was so ahead of its time in 1895. What elements do you see from it in the Mythos?
Consider – the mystic tome that has unhallowed information that taints the reader. Compare the King in Yellow to the Necronomicon. Another thing he did was to take things he liked from other writers and put them in his story. You’ll note that The King in Yellow is set in Carcosa, which has two suns and many moons. There is a character named Hastur, which they discuss, and the city is against Lake Hali, which was the name of the sage who was quoted in the Carcosa story.
Sure, Chambers creates a feeling of dark horror in the story, and it has many great horror elements. It also shows a writer borrowing elements from another writer and adding to it. This is very Lovecraft. In fact, he was so impressed that he adds Lake Hali to his stories, and August Derleth adds Hastur. In fact, we’ve already read a story where Hastur was mentioned as one of the ancient ones - The Lair of the Star-Spawn. Therefore, if you want to consider The Yellow Sign as a Gen 0 story that was absorbed into the Mythos, you would not be wrong.
With great writing, a knowledge of the genre belying his lack of experience writing in it, and great story, this is a classic of horror literature.
5 outta 5 stars
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