I should start this review with some honesty. In the spirit of full disclosure, Richard Gavin is a good friend of mine. Do our friendship and our discussions influence my opinion of his work? I suppose it's possible, but I don't believe it does so in a way that differs from how any of us treat our favourite authors. Should you enjoy the work of Thomas Ligotti, then you might come to a new collection of his with a pre-determined approval — an opinion that might change only
after you've read it. I don't believe that's unnatural, and certainly describes how I come to
THE DARKLY SPLENDID REALM. For, you see, I am a "Richard Gavin fan", and had been for some time before I met him. In fact — and this feels a bit embarrassing to admit — it's feasible the primary reason we became friends is because I launched a serious endeavour after meeting him a few years ago to make it happen. I chased him as a young school-boy might chase a beautiful girl, trying to tempt and woo her into being his. I assure you, though, it wasn't quite as creepy as it sounds, but the intent to win him over was there. Why? Because Richard's work, even from the beginning, seemed to be a dark mirror to my own, and subsequent discussions have only further cemented that belief. We are two different writers, of course, and use language in our way, but fundamentally, underneath it all, we share a view of the world based on liminal places, of nightmarish existence, and of things that live beyond the veil. I like to think this puts me in a unique position when it comes to reviewing Richard's work, one that might not be possible from other sources. True, my biases are set, and the fact that this review is posted means I enjoyed the work tremendously (as publishing a bad review of a friend's work can strain that friendship), but I believe, beneath it all, I can objectively express my thoughts in no more a compromised way than any other review you might read.
But enough justification as to why my opinion on the work can or cannot be trusted. What about the book itself? I'll be honest here: though it's only been two or three years since
OMENS, in that time I've read virtually no work from Richard's pen, so in many way receiving
THE DARKLY SPLENDID REALM was like discovering a friend of mine was a writer. Here was a fellow I'd spent a good amount of time talking to about nightmares and the way horror fiction works who had
actually produced a volume of fiction. The Richard Gavin who wrote
OMENS, after all, was a completely different fellow than the one who wrote this new book, one I'd met only once during a World Horror convention, but of whose work at that time I was already a large fan. How strange, I thought, it was going to be to read this new volume by an author I knew infinitely better than I was used to. It did not take long for that strangeness to wear away, replaced with that familiar sense of waking nightmare Richard so deftly delivers.
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