Frightening Curves

by Antony Johnston and Aman Chaudhary

This is the story of Phil London, a British ex-government agent and psychic. Phil discovers that the London Underground system holds an ancient power that once ruled the capital city, and threatens to... This description may be from another edition of this product.

• Format: Paperback
• Language: English
• ISBN: 0970947402
• ISBN13: 9780970947406
• Release Date: July 2001
• Publisher: Cyberosia Publishing
• Length: 132 Pages
• Weight: 0.30 lbs.
• Dimensions: 0.2" x 5.1" x 8.4"

Customer Reviews

Like NEVERWHERE except with illustrations and less pages !

Frightening Curves follows Phillip London, ex-Section (the secret, occult police) employee, as he runs around both the streets, and the dark and messy sewers of London. It is a nice, quick tale that just gets weirder and weirder as you read it. At first it seems like an old Raymond Chandler-esque detective story, only the main character may or may not be insane and hallucinating visions of his dead wife. But as the story progresses, and more facts of this secret world are revealed, the story becomes more of a science fiction novel than a classic private eye book. There is a good balance between mystery and science fiction and something much more bizarre.The only complaint I have with the book is a minor one. Stylistically, the book cuts between first person narration, third person narration and screenplay (yes screenplay) format. As neat of a thing to mix up as the narrative is, I found it a bit jarring to the story flow, and overall it left me feeling very confused at times. As far as actual writing goes, Johnston has a nice, sparse style, one that is kept light and infused with his dark sense of humor. The words are accompanied by illustrations from Chaudhary. These are more than just colored in pencils; we are talking richly painted and designed illustrations that do well to sum up what the current section of the story is about. Very good art, very well composed pages. From the color scheme to the placement and poses of characters, Chaudhary put serious thought into these drawings - and it shows.All in all, a nice tale that is reminiscent of Neil Gaiman's NEVERWHERE

Compelling, Intense Horror.

Frightening Curves is a compelling mix of mundane and fantastical horror, not to mention a lovingly researched "pulp" novella, with a generous splash of paranoia and conspiracy thrown in for good measure.I found the first few chapters a bit bumpy, but after getting through them, the ability of Johnston and Chaudhary to draw the reader into the strange, "up is down" world that Phil London steps into is pure magic. (In fact, the prose and pictures are so gripping, that at one point I felt my mouth going dry and cottony with terror at the thought of the same fate -- the ultimate in loss of identity -- being visited upon me.)If the idea of The Twilight Zone meets X-Files by way of Clive Barker sounds like a grand way to spend an evening, then this is your book.