Ouroboros
Ouroboros
Written by: Michael Kelly and Carol Weekes
Cover Art: Vincent Chong
Published by: Arcane Wisdom an imprint of Bloodletting Press, 2009
Page Count: 254
Where to buy:
Horror Mall
Hello Ghouls and Boils,
This evening we have an interesting tale titled Ouroboros. I met Carol Weekes, one of the authors, on the interwebs a few weeks back. I was intrigued by her posts and when she mentioned she had a book coming out I asked if SNS could give it a read. I assigned this book to our assistant editor, J.R. Wright – from the descriptions it seemed like it might be up her alley. I won’t make you wait any longer, here are her thoughts on Ouroboros. Enjoy my fiends!
Abstrusely,
Sarah L. Gerhardt
Circle Broken by J.R. Wright
When I first dived into this book I had no expectations other than I hoped it was good. The opening grabbed me right off the bat being steeped in Egyptian mythos, as it began to tell a tale for the relentless pursuit of the divine and the circle of life. Ready for a spellbinding journey, I was abruptly thrust into a small town that for the three times I reread the manuscript could not find the correlation. A recently widowed older gentleman in his attempt to retain the memory of his wife loses all sense of reality, and the supernatural occurrences that surround him garner the curiosity and concern of his neighbors and closest friends. There are appearances of other ghastly entities but their relevance to this story is all but lost. The concurrent character of the serpent/snake was consistent if ancillary at times. Throughout the old man is tormented by a mysterious little girl and various fauna. I never quite understood the continuous barrage of animals that pervaded the story, and when the time in the story came to explain this, the explanation was a tad bit benevolent to explain the attacks.
While the writing was abundant with tactile imagery and emotional revelation, it lacked any ability to really garner a response that would even be considered shock or scare. It didn’t quite go into enough gory detail, or even generate a sense of terror or panic that the characters were feeling. I was reminded of Something Wicked This Way Comes many times as the story telling wobbled between sinister paranoia, and mystical revelation. The ending however fails to cohesively wrap up where we started at the Prologue and fails to show the connection between the ancient event and the core of the story. While it attempts to link its theme, I felt let down at the lack luster almost lethargic ending.
Final Thoughts:
I assume the idea must have been to celebrate love and life after death, and had you removed the Prologue I would have thought this a delightfully haunting tale to that effect. However, as I read I kept waiting for more. I give this book a 3 out of 5.
