There were portions of this that I had to read twice over, just to even understand what was unfolding. The story takes moments that seem cut from any other horror novel, and manipulates them into something even darker. Still, I can guarantee that you might think you know what you’re headed into but you’re probably wrong.

I won’t spoil it for any other readers either. It claws at you and, whether you like them or not, you’ll end up following them down.Īnother aspect of this book that I appreciated was the way that Koja never really gives away the ending. The feeling of their descent is visceral. As the story twisted and turned, I found myself caring less about how much I liked them and more about the fact that their decisions were leading them closer and closer to certain doom. Real, gritty, possibly unlovable, people. Koja doesn’t care whether you like Nicholas and Nakota. For me, it was kind of a breath of fresh air. I had a few friends tell me before I started this story that they didn’t like how unlikable these two are. First off, I actually appreciated the fact that Nicholas and Nakota feel so realistic. Let’s start with what I liked about this story. I still have goosebumps, and my thoughts are all over the place.

Kathe Koja doesn’t write about Nicholas and Nakota’s experience with the Funhole, she drags the reader into that terrifying space with them. There’s something raw, dangerous and downright uncomfortable about this story. See, The Cipher is something completely different from most of the horror novels that I have read in the past few years.

This is a tough book to review, for a myriad of reasons, but I promise to do my best. Nicholas says, “We’re not.” But no one is in control, and their experiments lead to obsession, violence, and a very final transformation for everyone who gets too close to the Funhole. “Wouldn’t it be wild to go down there?” says Nakota. When a strange hole materializes in a storage room, would-be poet Nicholas and his feral lover Nakota allow their curiosity to lead them into the depths of terror.

Pure black and the sense of pulsation, especially when you look at it too closely, the sense of something not living but alive.” Dick Award, and named one of io9.com’s “Top 10 Debut Science Fiction Novels That Took the World By Storm.” With a new afterword by Maryse Meijer, author of Heartbreaker and Rag. Winner of the Bram Stoker Award and Locus Awards, finalist for the Philip K. Add it on: Goodreads | Amazon | Meerkat Press | B&N

Koja the cipher