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The Kingdom of Shadows
In the sinister and glamorous world of the film industry of both the Third Reich and Hollywood, a young actress struggles not just to survive, but to unravel her own mysterious heritage.
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First published June 8, 2011
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87 people want to read
About the author
K.W. Jeter
112 books366 followersKevin Wayne Jeter (born 1950) is an American science fiction and horror author known for his literary writing style, dark themes, and paranoid, unsympathetic characters. He is also credited with the coining of the term "Steampunk." K. W. has written novels set in the Star Trek and Star Wars universe, and has written three (to date) sequels to Blade Runner.
Series:
* Doctor Adder
Series contributed to:
* Star Trek: Deep Space Nine
* Alien Nation
* Blade Runner
* Star Wars: The Bounty Hunter Wars
* The Mammoth Book of Best New Horror
* The Year's Best Fantasy and Horror
Series:
* Doctor Adder
Series contributed to:
* Star Trek: Deep Space Nine
* Alien Nation
* Blade Runner
* Star Wars: The Bounty Hunter Wars
* The Mammoth Book of Best New Horror
* The Year's Best Fantasy and Horror
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Displaying 1 - 13 of 13 reviews
October 7, 2012
After being a prolific horror writer in the 1980s’, K. W. Jeter turned his writing abilities to novelizations of popular TV series and movies. Although he did an occasional publication such as Noir, the intense output of his 80′s work seemed to wane. I suspect he had bills to pay and the novelizations helped.
Kingdom of Shadows is a new direction for Jeter. Although a horror novel, it takes place during WW2. Most of the novel is set in Germany, although some of it happens in Hollywood. The theme of exploited innocence, always an underlying current in his works, runs through out Kingdom. Another theme is that of the power of visual art to influence the way people think. The horror in this novel is subtle, although extreme acts of violence are everywhere in it.
The book begins in Berlin, 1936. Young Pavli Iosefini is working in his Uncle’s camera and photography shop. He’s an orphan, but his uncle had given him work out of a sense of duty. Pavli’s extended family are members of a religious sect only known as The Lazarenes. Initiated members of the faith are tattooed on their wrist, ankles and side to represent the stigmata of Christ. They’re also been marrying close enough for generations so that each of them have one eye blue and another brown.
Pavli has a cousin whom he has only seen in pictures: Marte. She’s the product of a union between a Lazarene who left the faith (even paid to have his tattooes removed) and an outsider. She doesn’t have the contrasting eye color. She’s also one of the most beautiful women imaginable, with he face of an angel. Marte soon enters the picture as she finds herself shipped off to a Nazi Lebensborn home where’s she’s bred with an SS officer. Unfortunately for her, the baby has the Lazerene mixed eye color, anethma for the Nazi race purists. Marte’s baby is given to another mother and she’s kicked out of the home.
But all is not lost for Marte as she soon makes the acquaintance of the film director Ernst von Behrens who decides her profile is just what is needed for a film star. One who will grab the eye of Hitler’s minister for public enlightenment: Josef Goebbels. The novel really takes off at this point where Marte’s film career is mixed with Pavli’s life. Most of the Lazerenes’ find themselves imprisoned in a Nazi concentration camp.
One of the novel’s strengths is that it depicts the horror of Nazism without focusing too much on the Nazi leaders. Goebbels is a major figure as one of Marte’s sponsors and lovers, but most of the action is shown through the eyes of average people. It all builds to a crescendo in the final part of the novel which takes place during the Russian assault on Berlin. I don’t think I’ve ever read a book which dealt with the effects of the allied bombing from the receiving end. Pavli’s attempts to find Marte are right out of a medieval painting of hell.
There’s also a lengthy section where the film director is attempting to film a medieval epic during the bombing. It’s based off a German fairy tale about the Red Hunter, a skeletal figure who lays waste to the countryside. The director puzzles over the reason Goebbels allows him to film the epic, deciding it ties in with his lust for the apocalypse.
The Lazarenes seem to have been invented by Jeter. Wrist tattooing is predominant in the middle east, where indigenous Christians mark their children to protect them from kidnappers. The contrasting eye color is ultra rare among any group of people. They remind me of the gypsy tribes.
This is a intensely written novel about a horror tale which happens to take place within the fall of the Third Reich. I give credit for Jeter for doing his homework: he even references the historical epic Kolberg, where troops where diverted from the eastern front to protect the filming. It does have the same frustrating end of Dark Seeker, but the novel is worth reading just the same.
Kingdom of Shadows is a new direction for Jeter. Although a horror novel, it takes place during WW2. Most of the novel is set in Germany, although some of it happens in Hollywood. The theme of exploited innocence, always an underlying current in his works, runs through out Kingdom. Another theme is that of the power of visual art to influence the way people think. The horror in this novel is subtle, although extreme acts of violence are everywhere in it.
The book begins in Berlin, 1936. Young Pavli Iosefini is working in his Uncle’s camera and photography shop. He’s an orphan, but his uncle had given him work out of a sense of duty. Pavli’s extended family are members of a religious sect only known as The Lazarenes. Initiated members of the faith are tattooed on their wrist, ankles and side to represent the stigmata of Christ. They’re also been marrying close enough for generations so that each of them have one eye blue and another brown.
Pavli has a cousin whom he has only seen in pictures: Marte. She’s the product of a union between a Lazarene who left the faith (even paid to have his tattooes removed) and an outsider. She doesn’t have the contrasting eye color. She’s also one of the most beautiful women imaginable, with he face of an angel. Marte soon enters the picture as she finds herself shipped off to a Nazi Lebensborn home where’s she’s bred with an SS officer. Unfortunately for her, the baby has the Lazerene mixed eye color, anethma for the Nazi race purists. Marte’s baby is given to another mother and she’s kicked out of the home.
But all is not lost for Marte as she soon makes the acquaintance of the film director Ernst von Behrens who decides her profile is just what is needed for a film star. One who will grab the eye of Hitler’s minister for public enlightenment: Josef Goebbels. The novel really takes off at this point where Marte’s film career is mixed with Pavli’s life. Most of the Lazerenes’ find themselves imprisoned in a Nazi concentration camp.
One of the novel’s strengths is that it depicts the horror of Nazism without focusing too much on the Nazi leaders. Goebbels is a major figure as one of Marte’s sponsors and lovers, but most of the action is shown through the eyes of average people. It all builds to a crescendo in the final part of the novel which takes place during the Russian assault on Berlin. I don’t think I’ve ever read a book which dealt with the effects of the allied bombing from the receiving end. Pavli’s attempts to find Marte are right out of a medieval painting of hell.
There’s also a lengthy section where the film director is attempting to film a medieval epic during the bombing. It’s based off a German fairy tale about the Red Hunter, a skeletal figure who lays waste to the countryside. The director puzzles over the reason Goebbels allows him to film the epic, deciding it ties in with his lust for the apocalypse.
The Lazarenes seem to have been invented by Jeter. Wrist tattooing is predominant in the middle east, where indigenous Christians mark their children to protect them from kidnappers. The contrasting eye color is ultra rare among any group of people. They remind me of the gypsy tribes.
This is a intensely written novel about a horror tale which happens to take place within the fall of the Third Reich. I give credit for Jeter for doing his homework: he even references the historical epic Kolberg, where troops where diverted from the eastern front to protect the filming. It does have the same frustrating end of Dark Seeker, but the novel is worth reading just the same.
October 30, 2011
I received a complimentary copy of this book in exchange for my review. After reading the book and then reading the reviews, I almost feel bad about writing mine. I wonder, did I miss something? I didn't find it as mesmerizing as most of the other reviewers. The story, set in WWII Germany, was written in a way to draw you in, but I was left wondering what the point of the story was. I felt that I had too many unanswered questions at the end of the book, almost like there was a chunk of the book missing.
January 16, 2012
If you are a Jeter fan, this is a must-read. BEST JETER YET. Excellent pacing and Jeter's at his strongest in creating the dark, shadowy mood in this dark tale.
July 16, 2012
A good, if dark story about two innocents in Germany during the dark time before and during the second World War. It was too dark and too internal for me to enthusiastically like it, but if your taste is to the somber you might enjoy it more.
Two children in Germany have two different destinies. Pavli is a Lazarene: a member of a gypsy tribe rumored to have heard secret knowledge from Christ about how to live forever. Marte is a half-breed Lazarene, whose father hopes she can pass as the Aryan ideal with her cool blond looks and blue eyes. Pavli suffers tremendous loss and horror, while Marte rises to the heights of film stardom yet is little more than the plaything of powerful men. But blood will tell, and as the war ends, the two must face their heritage and survive.
It's hard to say I enjoyed the book, as enjoyment really isn't something I'd think it's trying to evoke. It's more a meditation on the insanity of man, I guess. Dark reading, and a bit too internal for my tastes. This might be due to Marte's and Pavli's passive status. Germany then was a big machine that grinded up people, and there was not much for the powerless to do there. Even escape wasn't always a relief, and the two characters react to situations rather than drive them. I agree that a little more focus on the Lazarenes might have been good: they were a fascinating idea, and one I hope he revisits in other books.
Two children in Germany have two different destinies. Pavli is a Lazarene: a member of a gypsy tribe rumored to have heard secret knowledge from Christ about how to live forever. Marte is a half-breed Lazarene, whose father hopes she can pass as the Aryan ideal with her cool blond looks and blue eyes. Pavli suffers tremendous loss and horror, while Marte rises to the heights of film stardom yet is little more than the plaything of powerful men. But blood will tell, and as the war ends, the two must face their heritage and survive.
It's hard to say I enjoyed the book, as enjoyment really isn't something I'd think it's trying to evoke. It's more a meditation on the insanity of man, I guess. Dark reading, and a bit too internal for my tastes. This might be due to Marte's and Pavli's passive status. Germany then was a big machine that grinded up people, and there was not much for the powerless to do there. Even escape wasn't always a relief, and the two characters react to situations rather than drive them. I agree that a little more focus on the Lazarenes might have been good: they were a fascinating idea, and one I hope he revisits in other books.
August 6, 2012
It was beautifully written and I really both enjoyed and liked it. It would be absolutely worth 5 stars except for one small detail. In all the intricacies of the story and the sometimes even painfully emotional scenes I think the writer got so caught up in the storyline, that as a reader there seemed to be no conclusion or point to the story. This is no way reflects upon how great I thought it was, but just to iterate. What is Martes' story about? The way men use beautiful women or perceive them only as a pretty physical shells? What is the point of the last scene in relation to the fate of the Lazarenes? Pavil spends the entire book wanting to meet Marte and when he does that also seems to have no bearing other than helping her towards the last scene. I thought the scenes that describe and depict the savage torture by so called medical professionals (Menegele ect.)before and during WW2 was brilliantly researched, so kudos to the author for that. That includes the descriptions of how the war brought the Germans to their feet and made each previously proud believer of the regimes policies into fugitives and then they become the victims of their own crimes. I am hoping there is a sequel or even a prequel that explains more closely what the Lazarenes are or were. I received a free copy of this book for my review.
July 9, 2011
I am in two minds about this novel. A very far cry from Jeter's earlier works, it almost works as a tale bordering on magic realist. At first, working through the fact that it was set in Nazi Berlin, I thought, oh, do we really need another Nazi atrocity novel? Well, yes it is that, but it's different. The other side of the equation in this is an ethnic group of Christian mystics called the Lazarenes. They, I found to be quite interesting. Jeter's main female protagonist is the mistress of Goebbels and a hidden member of the Lazarenes. She is also a film actress. In that respect, Jeter has taken his inspiration from Lida Baarova, Goebbels' real movie actress mistress.
Though for the most part well told, there are places where depictions of the Nazi mind become little more than caricatures and are over-laboured. From time to time, we found ourselves in the POV character's head for a little overlong, waiting for things to happen. Especially in the latter part of the book, it could also have done with some more rigorous proof reading, one of the things I guess we suffer with more direct publishing. I think, overall, Jeter could have spent a little more time on the Lazarenes, and quite a bit less on Goebbels and this would have made it a better book.
Though for the most part well told, there are places where depictions of the Nazi mind become little more than caricatures and are over-laboured. From time to time, we found ourselves in the POV character's head for a little overlong, waiting for things to happen. Especially in the latter part of the book, it could also have done with some more rigorous proof reading, one of the things I guess we suffer with more direct publishing. I think, overall, Jeter could have spent a little more time on the Lazarenes, and quite a bit less on Goebbels and this would have made it a better book.
April 24, 2013
I started this book hoping for a decent horror tale, but it turned out to be quite a struggle to get through. Set mainly in Germany during World War II, half of the plot deals with a Nazi doctor's deranged and homicidal investigation into the Lazarene--a Gypsy-like Christian sect believed to possess the secret to immortality--and (the less interesting) half deals with an actress of Lazarene heritage.
Despite heartbreaking circumstances (forced to act as Joseph Goebbels' mistress, having her child torn away from her), actress Marte is presented as more or less a flat, passive cipher. Concentration camp internee Pavli shows a bit more initiative, but he too is more or less a reactive character until the climax. The plot is as weak as the characters. Events happen and then the book stops. Marte's child is hinted as having some greater importance, but he doesn't really.
Throughout the book Jeter demonstrates technical competence, but I can't remember the last time I read a story this uninteresting and unengaging. It's not poorly written, just tedious and bland. It sparked almost no emotion or surprise in me whatsoever. It was only my dislike of leaving books unfinished that kept me from abandoning it partway. This is the second book I've read by Jeter and assuredly the last.
Despite heartbreaking circumstances (forced to act as Joseph Goebbels' mistress, having her child torn away from her), actress Marte is presented as more or less a flat, passive cipher. Concentration camp internee Pavli shows a bit more initiative, but he too is more or less a reactive character until the climax. The plot is as weak as the characters. Events happen and then the book stops. Marte's child is hinted as having some greater importance, but he doesn't really.
Throughout the book Jeter demonstrates technical competence, but I can't remember the last time I read a story this uninteresting and unengaging. It's not poorly written, just tedious and bland. It sparked almost no emotion or surprise in me whatsoever. It was only my dislike of leaving books unfinished that kept me from abandoning it partway. This is the second book I've read by Jeter and assuredly the last.
July 8, 2013
For a violent, graphic and disturbing look at Germany during WWII, this book was surprisingly passionless. I didn't care much for either of the main characters, Marte or Pavli, and didn't get the feeling that they cared much for themselves. Both were incredibly passive characters, satisfied to let things happen to them without taking charge of their own actions or choices. Marte is content to sleep with any many who grabs her, go along with several inter-continental moves and faces the horrors of war with bored numbness. She seems complacent in her own suffering. Pavli should have been more interesting, given that he's in a concentration camp through most of the story and is a member of a secret Christian society, but most of the story's focus is on boring Marte and so Pavli's story feels unexplored.
What really sunk this book for me is that I didn't cry once. For me, a book about war, especially civilians during war, usually guarantees a handful of sodden tissues and the Ugly Cry Face. For a book to have missed the emotional mark so far... well, I just can't recommend this.
What really sunk this book for me is that I didn't cry once. For me, a book about war, especially civilians during war, usually guarantees a handful of sodden tissues and the Ugly Cry Face. For a book to have missed the emotional mark so far... well, I just can't recommend this.
August 23, 2011
This is K. W. Jeter's first original novel in over ten years.
Mostly people know Jeter through his dystopian science fiction and "Steampunk" Victorian fantasies. In this book, he explores supernatural historical fantasy with great success. Because of our own memories, enhanced by the History Channel, most of us have a mental picture of the World War II era, and Berlin especially. As is his way, Jeter takes our images and flips them up, over, and sideways.
The connection of the Hollywood and the German film industry between the two World Wars, the fall-out from the Nazi social and genetic engineering, topped with a touch of the paranormal -- this is an intriguing book that I found difficult to put down.
[FULL DISCLOSURE: K. W. Jeter is my husband. Nevertheless, I found this to be one of his best books -- a more mature look at some of the themes seen in his other work.]
June 4, 2013
The further I got into this book the worse the typos got until by the end, I couldn't even tell who was speaking because the names were incorrectly attributed to the dialogue. Plus, throughout the books characters were introduced, ignored/forgotten for many chapters, then brought back without anything to remind the reader who the hell they were.
That combined with an ending that was so weak it made me wish I hadn't bothered reading the book means I will avoid this author's work in the future. It's a shame, because the characters were interesting when they were "on screen," the historical setting well incorporated, and the story engaging for the first three quarters of the book.
Unfortunately, after that it petered out as if the author didn't have a clue where to go with what he had built.
That combined with an ending that was so weak it made me wish I hadn't bothered reading the book means I will avoid this author's work in the future. It's a shame, because the characters were interesting when they were "on screen," the historical setting well incorporated, and the story engaging for the first three quarters of the book.
Unfortunately, after that it petered out as if the author didn't have a clue where to go with what he had built.
March 7, 2012
A very well-written look at Nazi Germany and its excesses, with some paranormal thrown in. The characters and situations were very detailed. I felt more like I was reading a series of memoirs at times as the descriptions seemed real. Nice mix of historical and fictional characters. I especially enjoyed the views of the movie industry in both Germany and Hollywood. So as an historical novel, nicely done. But then there were the Nazarenes, a strange and mystical people. Who and what they were weaves throughout the scenes of atrocities and the end of the Reich, bring the story to another level. The Kingdom of Shadows will linger in my memory.
I received a complimentary copy of this book in order to review it.
I received a complimentary copy of this book in order to review it.
March 21, 2013
Well I have to admit that I struggled with this book. I liked the idea of the concept behind the story and the dark undertones, but I think that it was the style of writing that caused me the problem.
March 28, 2013
Fantastically beautiful novel about war, desire and the role cinema has played in intensifying our desires. Both a work of media theory and a tragic love story set during WWII
Displaying 1 - 13 of 13 reviews