The ratings from my goodreads friends for this novella ranged from 2 stars, 3 stars, and five stars. The novella is not like Barron's early horror fiction. But I don't think its bizarro fiction either. The novella has been compared to the TV show The Venture Bros. I haven't seen the TV show. The Wikipedia article on The Venture Bros. says: "The Venture Bros. is an American animated television series that premiered on Cartoon Network's Adult Swim on February 16, 2003. It is considered to be an ac...

Brothers Macbeth and Drederick Tooms should have it made as fair-haired scions of an impossibly rich and powerful family of industrialists. Alas, life is complicated in mid-1950s USA when you’re child heirs to the throne of Sword Enterprises, a corporation that has enshrined Machiavelli’s The Prince as its operating manual and whose patriarch believes, Now I am become Death, the destroyer of worlds, would be a swell company logo. Consider also those long, cruel winters at the Mountain Leopard bo...

This was a hell of a lot of fun. Action packed and audacious cosmic pulp SF horror with more layers than an onion. A few names whirled through my mind at different points, including Cody Goodfellow, William Gibson, and Robert Howard. Links and references to a number of other Barron stories and the entire riff on the "boy adventurers" trope at the center of the story make this an immensely satisfying read.

The most demented "teen adventure" book you'll ever read. This reminded me a bit of Barron's The Light is the Darkness, with the same breathless pace, and a similar focus on larger-than-life events happening just under the surface of a world that mostly resembles our own. It even has a character named Navarro, like Conrad Navarro in The Light is the Darkness. Other familiar Barron characters like Mandibole also appear. This story was a kick-ass, high octane blast of fun.

What to say about X's For Eyes? It's espionage on acid, nightmare noir, a black comedy that sends you reeling through a funhouse of gonzo horrors, fondly tweaking every shibboleth of the cosmic weird along the way. Thank you, Mr. Barron, for dropping this gruesome and hilarious chunk of coal in my Xmas stocking!

Funny, fast-paced, pulpy, weird crime-noir horror. A story equal parts hard-boiled and Lovecraftian, about a pair of brothers, heirs to a family super-villains and latest link in a chain of liaisons to otherworldly alien gods. A pretty fun read through-and-through.

This was fun, pulpy and over the top. Though Laird's universe is very present, this felt like a much more light-hearted take on it than usual. It still manages to take itself seriously enough for the story to be compelling.

What a nice surprise Mr. Barron has treated us with. What begins as an adventure tale, think of a cross between the Hardy Boys/The Venture Brothers which turns into a tale of cosmic horror beneath the Polar ice. The names of some of the characters was a hoot. we get Tom Mandibole, a cyclops named Noman collector of lost dreamers, the sultry Dr. Bravery, Daredevil Telemachus Crabbe, Captain Ustinov, Dr. Amanda Bole and Cassius Labrador to name just a few. But you get the idea. Mr. Barron must hav...

Along with Laird’s usual heavy cosmic horror tones, there is also a bit of a lighter side in this one as well. A dark and wee more playful Lovecraftian tale from one of the masters of the genre. Fun isn’t typically a word I relate to Laird Barron, but dude pulls it off with this one. Very nicely done. Btw, there is plenty of signature dark and crazy nastiness in this one as well, so don’t get me wrong. This ain’t no comedy.

There's really no point in writing a formal review of this book. Either you already know who Laird Barron is, in which case you're counting your pennies and cadging a buck from your moneybags pal to get the book, or you don't, in which case buy this book for $2.99 and read it and you'll be in Category A.There are other options, of course, but they don't bear thinking too closely about.One note to the author: NO MORE WINKING NOW OR EVER AND GO BACK AND EDIT IT OUT OF THIS BOOK TOO. WINKING IS GRO...

If you, like me, graduated from children's books to Hardy Boys, Nancy Drew, and Archie Comics, then "grew up" into more adult fare, including the work of, say, Laird Barron; if you've given up hooded hawks and double jinx's and replaced them with existential darkness and horrors that await us all, then maybe it's time for you to take a trip into the void between the stars and rethink your notions of causality.Because it's all going to come back to you. Everything at once, in an extra-dimensional...

October spooky read #8!My husband turned me into a huge “Venture Bros.” fan: if you don’t know that show, check it out; it is a masterpiece of adult animation, and a wonderful postmodern deconstruction of the superhero and super-villain story. It’s hilarious and unhinged. So when I learned that Barron took the basic idea behind the “Venture Bros.” and drenched it in cosmic horror, I knew I’d have to read it.Brothers Macbeth and Drederick Tooms are the latest in a long line of eccentric industria...

Insanely fun pulp adventure, Lovecraftian, mash-up.

Something like a cosmic horror Hardy Boys adventure, this novella detailing the exploits of the adolescent Tooms brothers, Macbeth and Drederick, is wickedly poetic, deliciously dark, and brutally bizarro. Not only is Laird Barron at the top of his game here, you can also tell he's having a great deal of fun. Fans of The Venture Brothers and the weird renaissance alike will have a blast. Hopefully the future brings us more weird tales of the Brothers Tooms.

X's FOR EYES, by Laird Barron was a treat to read! Although it began with a Hardy Boys feel--two brothers up against a mystery of some sort--it quickly morphed into something so much more! Add in a scandalous family with no love for even its own, science-fiction/alternate dimension technology, a sadistic school where torture and pain are "useful lessons", and technological rivals, and you have a very rough outline of what you'll be getting here.I'll admit that I honestly did NOT know where this

Macbeth and Drederick Tooms are the wealthy sons of the founder of Sword Enterprises, an evil corporation bent on world domination. When they discover the wreckage of a Sword space probe, one that isn't due to launch for several days, a mystery is afoot!Since I've recently discovered Laird Barron, I plan to devour everything he's written by the end of the year. Fortunately, I had this one on my kindle already.X's For Eyes is an homage to the Hardy Boys books with Laird Barron's twisted cosmic ho...

Laird Barron’s X’S FOR EYES is the first five-star book of 2016. I predict it will be this year’s A HEAD FULL OF GHOSTS or SLOWLY WE ROT — a book that readers talk about throughout the rest of the year and an early, almost certain contender to appear on many Best of 2016 lists twelve months from now. A television reviewers once described Adult Swim’s THE VENTURE BROS as “JOHNNY QUEST on acid.” If that’s so, then X’S FOR EYES is THE VENTURE BROS on acid. A loving homage to all things pulp — Lovec...

Fast paced, trippy, and fun! Cosmic horror insanity-evil conspiracies-that beautiful Laird Barron prose. Another winner. And the best part, is I still have a shelf full of unread Barron books to devour! 😁📚

Yes, this is quite different fare from the author we have here. Still firmly rooted in the 'cosmic horror' category but there's a strong sense of black humour running through.I quite like the novella length story; gives you something to get your teeth into without overstaying its welcome. But here I find myself wondering whether it would have been better either condensed into a short story or developed more fully into a novel. Although this was a good story I sometimes found it quite disjointed

This was a short and fast and fun little bizarre novella of cosmic horror with nice little nods to (and lampoons for) the boys' adventures series of the last century. The lads here, Macbeth and Drederick Tooms, smoke and drink and consort with ladies of easy virtue and engage in all manner of vile and violent pursuits, so it's not intended for kids, but the spirit feels the same. There's nothing graphic; I can't imagine an adult taking offense. There are amusing gags and pop cultural references