Today I'm going to be looking at the novella portion of the Kickstarter 'The Devil's City' co-written by Matt Corley and Sara Tantlinger.
Although I had heard the story of HH Holmes before, knowing that this would be a fictionalized version of the story really left me not knowing what to expect. The format of the novella really worked well for me with the early chapters basically being framed as loosely connected short stories with their own beginnings and endings. When the story moves into its later half it comes together as in fact being one coherent story not by the any of the protagonists, but by being the story of the antagonist, HH Holmes. The story starts off feeling firmly rooted as a period horror/crime story before moving off into the realm of the fantastic.
Stories like this can be extremely difficult to discuss without spoiling things so I'll leave the issue of the story to one side and instead address the structure and style of the story. This is in my opinion horror fiction at it's best. Horror stories when well told know when to give detail, when to be explicit, and when to leave space for the reader's imagination. The Devil's City gets this balance perfect, it puts me in mind of the best balances of HP Lovecraft's writing minus the dated and overly verbose prose style. The victims of the murder castle are all sympathetic in their own ways with more time being spent building the sense that they are real people than being given over to the details of their various tragic and gory demises. Having said that their deaths are presented as being cruel, disturbing, and horrific to a degree that increases the reader's empathy for their plight, while also painting Holmes as a true monster. Once we journey deeper into the narrative is when tinges of the supernatural begin to make themselves felt thus moving the story further from mystery and deeper into horror.
Overall I would say even if you're not interested in the gaming side of this project, this novella stands well on it's own merits as a fantastic piece of fiction. It's objectively well written and and tells a genuinely interesting story in a compelling style. Every fan of HP Lovecraft, Steven King, or Brian Lumley will definitely want to read The Devil's City and should check out the Kickstarter while there is still time at https://www.kickstarter.com/projects/37222410/the-devils-city-for-5e
Please check back in later this week for my review of the game portion of this Kickstarter.
-Jay
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