Billed as the science fiction answer to Mark Z. Danielewski’s House of Leaves, Matt Wixey’s Basilisk is quite the beast.
I feel it is written for the modern tech audience, with its constant mentions of hacking terms that may fall on deaf ears for the unannointed.
The reason for the comparison to House of Leaves, is the style of writing, as we get the story from our protagonist Alex’s point of view, but also another facet of the story told within the style of an ongoing police investigation.
Alex is drawn into, forgive the phrase, a dark web through a hacker known as The Helmsman, and he is hooked. After his friend Jay disappears after playing the same game, Alex is set on a path to discover the truth behind the titular Basilisk.
Basilisk is a complex novel and in itself is quite unique; no one is writing stories like this at the moment. The flipside of this is that it may narrow its wider audience appeal as at times it gets quite muddled in its own words and code.
I have to say though, if you remain with it, the last 100 pages or so of Basilisk is utterly compelling as the true horror of what’s going on is made clear to Alex and us as the reader.
It won’t be for everyone, but Basilisk certainly stands out on the book shelf.
Basilisk by Matt Wixey is available now in various formats from Titan Books.
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