What do you think?
Rate this book
I Am the Doorway
Ben Leventhal worked as a psychiatrist for years, but he’s never met a patient like Alex, who can see the secrets of other patients and holds a hypnotic power over them. He’s never heard a story like hers, either, about a ritual she was forced to participate in as a child which infected her with an otherworldly power, and a cult trying to use that power to destroy the world. But when the power inside Alex infects him, Ben sees things he never the writhing chaos beneath normal reality and the horrors that live there, the hollowness of the lives around him, and the end of the universe, approaching faster than anyone suspects. And beyond it all, a searing, unquiet luminosity, an unbound circle of sucking vortices, a pure fiery presence of light—both beyond the universe and inhabiting him.
Hideous fiery light.
I Am the Doorway is dark fantasy in the Lovecraftian tradition of outer unknown forces, strange rituals, and madness, combined in new ways as reality shatters and chaos walks among us.
Hideous fiery light.
I Am the Doorway is dark fantasy in the Lovecraftian tradition of outer unknown forces, strange rituals, and madness, combined in new ways as reality shatters and chaos walks among us.
- GenresHorror
330 pages, Kindle Edition
Published January 14, 2022
10 people are currently reading
28 people want to read
Ratings & Reviews
Friends & Following
Create a free account to discover what your friends think of this book!
Community Reviews
Displaying 1 - 6 of 6 reviews
April 24, 2024
A lot going on, most of it great, and some brilliant, brain-stretching moments that spoke to the soul - I was often reminded of CS Lewis, especially the space trilogy, which is an amazing compliment but also I think indicates that we just need more Christian fantasy/sci-fi/horror in general (or, if it's out there already, I need find it!) Thinking about God in terms of forces of such entire otherworldliness they completely consume the earth and thus bring incomprehensible ascension is not something I do often, but it's also not wrong! Worth thinking about! And fiction can do this in new and exciting ways very helpfully.
Sadly, missed out on five stars mainly due to the editing; the action went missing in the middle for a good long while, one or two questions raised at the beginning seemed to be forgotten by around the two-thirds mark, and a few angles that I thought could have been really interesting were skated over quite a bit.
Sadly, missed out on five stars mainly due to the editing; the action went missing in the middle for a good long while, one or two questions raised at the beginning seemed to be forgotten by around the two-thirds mark, and a few angles that I thought could have been really interesting were skated over quite a bit.
January 31, 2022
This is a superbly written cosmic horror/dark dystopian thriller.
Psychiatrist Dr Ben Leventhal thinks he matters. He has spent his life building on his knowledge, expertise and trying to help people. That is, until he meets her. Alex is a patient unlike any other, who tells him of an alien force that has invaded her to see into another realm.
After the same power infects Leventhal, he begins to see beyond the illusions of his own making to see the invisible fabric of the universe - but then when the force beyond threatens to destroy the world, Leventhal must race to try to save it.
This is a fascinating and brilliant book, with a wonderful character development of Leventhal and a gripping plot. Ultimately this is an important book, too, about humankind against the universe - about why our existence does and doesn't matter. Highly recommend this book.
Psychiatrist Dr Ben Leventhal thinks he matters. He has spent his life building on his knowledge, expertise and trying to help people. That is, until he meets her. Alex is a patient unlike any other, who tells him of an alien force that has invaded her to see into another realm.
After the same power infects Leventhal, he begins to see beyond the illusions of his own making to see the invisible fabric of the universe - but then when the force beyond threatens to destroy the world, Leventhal must race to try to save it.
This is a fascinating and brilliant book, with a wonderful character development of Leventhal and a gripping plot. Ultimately this is an important book, too, about humankind against the universe - about why our existence does and doesn't matter. Highly recommend this book.
March 26, 2022
Excellent novel! Think fantasy, horror, Charles Williams, Lovecraft, Kafka, Egyptology, and Christian myth-making all blended together. Personally, I preferred this author's Dead Petals, a Christian zombie apocalypse (!), but I Am the Doorway is great as well and interacts with many of the same themes--suffering, death, sacrifice, meaning, purpose, reality, illusion, transformation, and the end/beginning of the world.
July 7, 2023
I didn't get much of a Lovecraft feel from it. It was difficult to remember what had happened when I would begin to read after having stopped for the night or going to work. It seemed to ramble in a 'stream of consciousness' way during many sequences which served to confuse me most of the time.
October 28, 2022
A story full of action, supernatural, and suspense, but a story that is not just an interesting sequence of events, but a parable full of philosophical and theological meaning. Eric has written a book that is readable, fast-paced, and engaging. Already from chapter 1, there is more than enough material to make the reader look forward to reading further to discover what on earth is going on. The descriptions are just about enough to leave the reader to use his imagination to complete the pictures and imagery. A couple of the secondary characters are perhaps not as well-developed as they could have been, but on the other side they end up stimulating the reader's imagination even more.
The book is not for the existentially fainthearted, that is, those whom Pascal describes in his Pensées, no. 168: "Diversion.—As men are not able to fight against death, misery, ignorance, they have taken it into their heads, to be happy, not to think of them at all." Death, misery, ignorance, vanity, emptiness, and the problems (or some of them) that they posit (or should posit) to our lives, are powerfully omnipresent themes in this story. Or, even better, this book actually IS for the existentially fainthearted: it is a story that gradually and effectively draws the reader to seriously consider the impossibility to ignore the reality of death, misery, ignorance, vanity, and emptiness. Such consideration, though initially painful and unsettling, can lead to a new beginning, a new life, a new world.
It seemed to me that during the reading I was seeing elements from the New Testament and Lewis, the Old Testament and Lovecraft, Dostoevsky and Lord Dunsany. But that's just me.
Very rewarding reading. Thank you, Eric!
The book is not for the existentially fainthearted, that is, those whom Pascal describes in his Pensées, no. 168: "Diversion.—As men are not able to fight against death, misery, ignorance, they have taken it into their heads, to be happy, not to think of them at all." Death, misery, ignorance, vanity, emptiness, and the problems (or some of them) that they posit (or should posit) to our lives, are powerfully omnipresent themes in this story. Or, even better, this book actually IS for the existentially fainthearted: it is a story that gradually and effectively draws the reader to seriously consider the impossibility to ignore the reality of death, misery, ignorance, vanity, and emptiness. Such consideration, though initially painful and unsettling, can lead to a new beginning, a new life, a new world.
It seemed to me that during the reading I was seeing elements from the New Testament and Lewis, the Old Testament and Lovecraft, Dostoevsky and Lord Dunsany. But that's just me.
Very rewarding reading. Thank you, Eric!
September 17, 2024
I really enjoyed this- some of the visuals will likely stay with me for decades
Displaying 1 - 6 of 6 reviews