The Cipher is an original, exciting and disturbing horror novel, truly deserving of its reputation, but it has been out of print for a long time. There were talks of a movie version, but I don’t think it ever happened.) (I can’t imagine a movie version of The Cipher that doesn’t end with Head Like a Hole playing over the credits. If you like Nine Inch Nails’ early records, you’ll love this. It’s very 90s, very dark and a little bit arty. It’s fairly long too, and while I enjoyed it immensely, it won’t be to everyone’s tastes. Nobody is happy in this book, and everything that happens is uncomfortable. I don’t know why they went with ‘The Cipher’ though. It’s original title was ‘The Funhole’, and while that title definitely makes more sense than ‘The Cipher’, it might have made the book sound far less dark than it is. The plot here is quite simple, and atmosphere is what drives this novel. No sensible explanation of the hole is ever given, and the narrative is enhanced by this omission. When a video camera is lowered into the hole, the resultant video footage is so disturbing that it radically and permanently affects its viewers’ lives. Human body parts that are inserted come out grossly disgfigured. The hole is weird because stuff that goes into it comes out quite different.

This is the story of a couple who find a weird hole in the corner of an unused maintenance room in their apartment building. It took me quite a while to find copies, but they’re so deadly that it only took me a few days to read them. These immediately went on my to-read list after I saw them in Paperbacks From Hell. My offering this week is a couple of books by Kathe Koja.

The cipher kathe koja looo