Horrorstör

April 10, 2020 8:03 PM - by Hendrix, Grady

Five workers in an IKEA knockoff are about to discover what happens when you put a big-box store on the former site of a 19th Century torture-prison. Spoiler: Bad things.
posted by Etrigan (10 comments total)

Fun enough concept, but really, it was done better in the well-known SCP. First novel and felt like it.
posted by Chrysostom at 10:39 PM on April 10, 2020

I loved the idea. The execution was... okay. When it devolved into a standard heroes vs. big bad, it got a lot less interesting. Still, I enjoyed it, and I've at least thought about rereading it now and then.
posted by Scattercat at 1:33 AM on April 11, 2020 [1 favorite]

There's not a lot of depth to Horrorstör beyond some critiques of corporate culture and capitalism, but the book is a fun ride that does horror humor well.

(Incidentally, the recently published Finna, by Nino Cipri, has a tangentially similar concept and I liked it a little bit more.)
posted by kyrademon at 5:35 AM on April 11, 2020 [1 favorite]

I found this at a Half-Price Books before I'd ever been to an IKEA and what I pictured in my head was very different! It's competent horror, though, and I'm a huge fan of Grady Hendrix's Paperbacks from Hell, which is a history of the paperback horror novel boom of the 70's and 80's and full of absolutely gorgeous prints of the amazing cover art that graced those books.

I just picked up his My Best Friend's Exorcism, which got an absolutely rave review from a podcast I like. Excited to get into it.
posted by Pope Guilty at 6:59 AM on April 11, 2020 [1 favorite]

Super disappointing. Did not live up to its SCP-like premise and I thought the book jacket and description were actively misleading people (including but not just me!) into thinking the whole thing would be largely an Ikea-style catalogue. More fool me for not checking closer.
posted by adrianhon at 1:30 AM on April 12, 2020

Aw, I liked it, though a large part of it was due to design: the way the not-IKEA product drawings got increasingly malevolent, that every SKU contained 666, and the cheery end announcement of the site's new tenant.

This wasn't his first novel (there were a couple self-published) titles, but certainly there is improvement between this and My Best Friend's Exorcism (A++ would read again) and We Sold Our Souls.
posted by Flannery Culp at 7:49 AM on April 12, 2020 [2 favorites]

I don't know if I'll read this, but I'm definitely read Paperbacks From Hell that Pope Guilty mentioned. Alas, under the circumstances, a Kindle edition was the best choice, so I bet I'll miss out on the artwork.
posted by heteronym at 11:22 AM on April 13, 2020

I inhaled this in the last couple of days after seeing it here. I thought it was pretty fun, if nothing ground breaking. It was definitely a great little diversion. I agree that buildup to the evil was better than the reveal, but it was a quick enough read that I'm not especially mad about it. The tone reminded me quite a bit of J-Pod or Microserfs; I wonder how much the artwork influenced that.
posted by piedmont at 1:35 PM on April 18, 2020 [1 favorite]

This is cheeky and slight. But it's a very good writer (if one who is still finding his style) being cheeky and slight. It was good fun.

Gawd knows, an IKEA that wants to trap you forever is a relatable fear.
posted by DirtyOldTown at 11:57 AM on December 29, 2021

Just finished this and thought it was really fun! Short and nasty, not my favorite Hendrix but it had elements of what I really like in his other works.
posted by quatsch at 12:03 PM on September 27, 2023