It took me quite a while to formulate my thoughts on Laird Barron’s Lovecraftian-by-way-of-Robert E. Howard novel “The Light is the Darkness.” This was primarily because I try to find good sides of anything I read. (Yes, even Twilight, which had an interesting idea regarding vampirism—if you WANT to be a vampire, you don’t lose control. It’s a mishandled, throwaway line in an awful series, but it IS a bright spot.) Let’s just say it was difficult with Barron.
See, the problem with Barron is that he tries too hard. His writing seems like that of a very excited child who’s been given permission to play with big kid toys. He’s tinkering in Lovecraft’s sandbox (Lovecraft’s antipersonnel-mine-laden sandbox), and he’s so glad to be there that he wants to mention every single Lovecraftian idea Lovecraft, Howard, and every similar writer afterwards has invented. Because I am a singularly boring man, I spent some time picking through the book, finding every Mythos organization or Elder God Barron namedrops.