X's for Eyes
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X's for Eyes
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Narrated by:
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David Stifel
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By:
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Laird Barron
About this listen
Brothers Macbeth and Drederick Tooms should have it made as fair-haired scions of an impossibly rich and powerful family of industrialists. Alas, life is complicated in mid-1950s USA when you're child heirs to the throne of Sword Enterprises, a corporation that has enshrined Machiavelli's The Prince as its operating manual and whose patriarch believes, "Now I am become Death, the destroyer of worlds", would be a swell company logo. Consider also those long, cruel winters at the Mountain Leopard Boarding School for Assassins in the Himalayas, or that Dad may be a supervillain, while an uncle occasionally slaughters his nephews and nieces for sport; and the space flight research division of Sword Enterprises "accidentally" sent a probe through a wormhole into outer darkness and contacted an alien god. Now a bloodthirsty cult and an equally vicious rival firm suspect the Tooms boys know something and will spare no expense, nor innocent life, to get their claws on them. Between the machinations of the disciples of black gods and good old corporate skullduggery, it's winding up to be a hell of a summer vacation for the lads.
©2015 Journalstone Publishing (P)2016 Journalstone PublishingListeners also enjoyed...
What listeners say about X's for Eyes
Average customer ratingsReviews - Please select the tabs below to change the source of reviews.
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Overall5 out of 5 stars
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Performance5 out of 5 stars
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Story5 out of 5 stars
- Nigel Quinlan
- 11-06-24
Spoiled horrors
Pleasingly demented tale as thick as cosmic soup with pulp trappings, from the privileged young scions of an elite aristocorporate family in the 1950s and their terrifying family - their mother an Egyptian goddess, their father a supervillain, their grandfather an unspeakable patriarchal monster, at least one uncle prone to hunting killing and eating his nephews and nieces. When they witness their grandfather's deep space probe crash a week before it is due to launch, they find themselves in a horrifying yet hilarious nightmare of vast sleeping gods impinging on anthill Earth. Can they survive corporate rivals, cults, the attention of a being beyond comprehension and their own family? It's a rollicking adventure of blood and violence and the crushing insignificance of humanity in the gaping void of screaming nothingness. A mad blast from beginning to end.
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Overall4 out of 5 stars
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Performance5 out of 5 stars
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Story3 out of 5 stars
- Mr. A. J. Quaeck
- 28-04-19
b-movie / Pulp / Grindhouse / Cosmic horror
Here's the thing... I'm a big Laird Barron fan. I find his collections of short-form work (which I read before 'The Croning' - best in that order) to be at once chilling, humorous, breath taking and "gorge rising" (not sure whether that works). Bottom line, they're splendid.
X's for eyes isn't. It's not bad. 'Fun' is the word that springs to mind when I think of it.
There are some memorable moments and characters here but it still feels as if Laird wrote a tribute novella whilst under the influence. One scene involving a supposedly reformed Nazi SS Commando and a Doc Savage lookalike sees a man having his eyeballs pushed to the back of his head aller blade runner. There are cameo appearances by boar-spear wielding Spetznatz and a under age lads indulging in the comforts of ladies of the night.
There are big nods to Lovecraft (as expected), John Carpenter, Algernon Blackwood and even the Batman, Hardy boys, Venture Brothers and X-files franchises. Indeed the title of the book is a reference to death in cartoons and the sewing of eyelids shut in ancient times to avoid unfortunate corpse-viewing occurrences.
There are some hilariously named characters; Macbeth Tooms, Cassius Labrador, Dr. Bravery, Telemachus Crabbe.
The story is in turn horrific, disturbing, ridiculous and comical... with a sprinkling of cosmic horror. What I did not get from this novella, at all, was the creeping sense of foreboding and surmounting terror that Barron has done so well elsewhere. What I do get is the feeling one experiences when watching a decent action movie; that of being hurtled along at locomotive pace knowing the ending may be familiar yet all the while not knowing quite what to expect. The novella also works as a nice addition to Barron's previous world building and lore.
David Stifel puts in a shift as narrator. His unique, "quirky" (curse that word!) delivery lends itself all to well to the b-movie, "so bad it's good" feel of the story. Excellent work by him.
Full marks for performance, 3/5 for story.
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