Quick, fun read. I really enjoyed the ‘found footage’ type feel, but will admit that the story dragged a bit at half way mark. However, the ending was very well done. Will be going back and reading Fantasticland.

After reading this, I feel like I have experienced the immersive theatrical performance that is Come Knocking for myself. Honestly, I don’t know if I made it out alive. First off, I have to say how much I love love love the writing style and format of this book. Just like Fantasticland, it’s written as a series of interviews, etc to convey the story and this makes it feel so personal and real. Second, this book is full of chaos, violence, emotion, and gore, but the most horrific part of all was the removal of the mask to show the inhumane things people are capable of. I’m pretty sure Bockoven writes with the intent of getting into your psyche and staying there and that’s exactly what this book did. It’s one I will think about often.

"It’s been a safe haven in a strange world, a place of refuge in a storm of all sorts. A place we gather to be our most elegant selves. We’ve all breathed breath into this place, along with the spirits that are here and will continue to live on long after that final moment."

- Sleep No More, 1/5/25, final performance pre-show toast

I'm not a horror reader. I did attend Sleep No More over 30 times through the course of its 14 year lifespan. I was drawn into this by the cover, having worn that very mask so many times, and the blurb. At no point did I anticipate reading a graphic description of a burning man's brain leaking out of his skull while his wife announced she was having an affair.

Additionally, the timeline of the massacre did not seem to work on a scale and the several of the characters sounded the same despite being drastically different individuals. Would have been 1 star but added a second for taking the piss out of Emursive, I mean Dumb Willy.

My thanks to NetGalley for the ARC.

I absolutely loved Fantasic Land by this author, and so when I found out he was publishing another book, I BOLTED to see if I could read an early copy. Mile Bockoven writes in such a unique style that it is hard to walk away.
3.5 stars, rounded up.

Structured similarly to the author's previous novel, [book:FantasticLand|28695606], Come Knocking also portrays a tragic event through a series of interviews, plus a few Reddit posts and a few other mixed media elements interspersed. I do really like the structure and the way the story slowly comes together, but unlike the several weeks over which events unfold in FantasticLand, the events here unfold during a short time period in one night at six story immersive theater experience (though we also hear about what made things so tense leading up to that night).


One thing that was really distracting for me is that the timeline of events that night just did not seem to add up to me. I was hoping it would all make sense eventually, but after I finished, I went back to various sections trying to make sense of things and it just didn't add up to me. Am I just not understanding it? Is it meant to not make sense because people's memories are faulty? Are these just problems in the ARC that will be corrected before final publication? I don't know, so I won't detail my issues here but will submit them as notes to the publisher, but suffice it to say that to me out of the story.


There is a bit of gore here, and a lot of instances of a specific type of injury that I had to skim over because I hate reading about it, and between this and a particular, much worse, thing that happened in Fantasticland that almost made me stop reading, I'm questioning whether this author's books are for me. But if you aren't sensitive to body horror it shouldn't be an issue.

Overall this was a fascinating story of a tragedy, with a structure that worked well for putting together all the layers of a horrific event and what caused it, including how what happens on the internet spills into real life. It didn't all work for me, and I didn't like it as much as FantasticLand, but I do really enjoy reading books with this kind of innovative structure and about how people experience scary events like this one.

I have been following this author since I first read Fantasticland, a book that left me spellbound, flabbergasted, and just a little bit disturbed. This book is written in a similar narrative and interview format and unfortunately just didn't have the same effect on me. I found the repeated use of the title started to get on my nerves, especially since it is such an odd choice for a theatre experience. However, that is likely just a me thing. I enjoy horror novels set in theme parks and I think that was why I was so captivated by the prior book I mentioned. This one just left me fumbling and disappointed.

Mike Bockoven’s Come Knocking is a haunting, slow-burn descent into chaos that asks a familiar question: what happens when the systems we trust completely fall apart?

Like Fantasticland, this novel explores how fear and instability trickle from the top down. When no one feels safe, people start making desperate, terrible choices just to reclaim a sense of control. It’s not immediate. It creeps in. And by the time anyone notices, it’s already too late.

I’ll be honest—the first half was a bit of a struggle for me. The pacing takes its time. But once the unraveling begins, I was completely locked in. The story is told through a mix of interviews, online posts, transcripts, and voice memos. That kind of format can sometimes feel gimmicky, but Bockoven handles it well. Each voice felt distinct. Nothing came off as cheesy or forced, especially the internet-based content. The structure helped build tension rather than break it.

When it becomes clear how badly everything goes during the March 14th performance of Come Knocking, the book hits its stride. The accounts are intense and often conflicting. One moment you think you understand what happened. Then another voice contradicts it, and suddenly everything shifts. It forces you to stay active as a reader. You’re piecing things together while also questioning your own assumptions.

The themes that stood out most to me were paranoia, helplessness, and the quiet dread that something terrible is coming. That feeling is so familiar—living your life with the sense that disaster is always one step away, and there’s nothing you can do to stop it. That emotional undercurrent really stuck with me.

As a follow-up to Fantasticland, this works well. I personally liked Fantasticland more, but Come Knocking never felt like a retread. It builds on similar ideas while exploring them through a different lens. The immersive theater setting adds an eerie theatricality that feels fresh.

My one frustration—and it’s more emotional than critical—is that I still wanted a clearer picture of what happened that night. I kept hoping for a single answer or full reconstruction. I didn’t get that. But maybe that’s the point. This book is soaked in voyeurism. It reflects how we consume horror, grief, and tragedy through filtered, often unreliable lenses. Wanting the “truth” might be missing the bigger question.

Recommended for:
Readers who loved Fantasticland, fans of oral history-style horror, and anyone drawn to stories about the slow, creeping collapse of order. If you don’t mind ambiguity and you’re comfortable sitting in discomfort, Come Knocking will leave a mark.

Come Knocking is presented through interviews with various crew members, performers, attendees, and others. Before these interviews, a disaster occurred during an interactive theatre experience based in LA.

I’ve previously read his other book Fantasticland that was also based on interviews of a disaster. I enjoyed these a lot! It was interesting seeing it all unravel and uncovering what happened at this event. It was different and unique! Every page got a lot more violent and it keeps you on edge wanting to read more.

Thank you to Netgalley for my ARC.

3.25 Stars

This is the story of one violent, tragic night at an interactive theater presentation called Come Knocking. It is told through interviews of people involved at various levels- performers, workers, audience members, first responders, etc. And these interviews are combined into a book written by the fictional interviewer. I read Mike Bockoven's Fantasticland, which uses this same format, so was very excited to get my hands on this book. In fact the fictional interviewer/author are the same in both books. I love that we got a lot of that same voice.

Multiple POV's are one of my favorite story telling methods,, and it was done so well in Fantasticland. Unfortunately, I didn't feel like it worked as well here in Come Knocking. It was not as easy to track the action, or characters within the story and it felt a bit too long to me. The action was slowed down because of the length, so the climax was not as impactful. Despite this, I would still recommend this book to those that enjoyed Fantasticland, and will likely read this author's work in the future as I do like his writing style.

Thank you to the author, publisher and NetGalley for the advanced copy in exchange for my honest review.

Come Knocking by Mike Bockoven is the story of a mass casualty event told from several different perspectives after the fact, in interview format (along with some thrown in reddit posts). The book starts with interviews that describe Come Knocking, an interactive theater experience in Los Angeles. The first few interviews set the story for what's going on with the show (how it moved from New York to LA, how people feel about it, what kind of experiences there are) with hints of the tragedy that is to follow. Each subsequent interview or reddit post gives more and more detail until the reader is taken to the night of the tragic event that led to the death of more than 100 people and the closing of the show.

Leading up to my reading of Come Knocking I decided to re-read FantasticLand and I wasn't disappointed. I enjoyed it even more than the first time and it really put me in the right mind frame for Come Knocking. One thing that I absolutely love in books is when a writer introduces a mixed media element. Whether it's a podcast, elements of a script, reddit posts doesn't matter, I will eat that right up. And that worked to the book's advantage in Come Knocking. On top of that I'm a sucker for interactive art, museums, and haunts - which is what Come Knocking felt like to me through the descriptions of the performance in the book.

There were a lot of graphic depictions of violence in this book, but nothing that went into full tilt body horror - a place where I'm not usually that comfortable as a reader, so I was able to overlook some of that. Mostly I was just entirely sucked into the story and completely willing to suspend disbelief the whole time I was there.

I also felt that Come Knocking had a higher emotional element to it than FantasticLand and packed a little bit more of a punch. While the events of FantasticLand took place over five weeks, the majority of everything went wrong for Come Knocking in just one night (though the build up to that night was gradual), which made for a really intense build up to the back half of the book. I was on the edge of my seat for this book and found myself anxious to pick it back up to find where it was going. It was absolutely a page-turner and kept me wanting more.

What I will say for certain is that if Come Knocking had ever been a real thing while I lived in Los Angeles I absolutely would have gone to it and probably more than once.

I personally had a blast with Come Knocking. It is similar to Mike Bockoven's other book, Fantasticland, in the sense that it is written through a series of interviews.
Essentially, there is an interactive play on LA, called Come Knocking, and the play ends up having a really bad night.
As the book progresses, you as the reader are able to piece together the events of the night.
I would absolutely recommend checking triggers for this one if you need to. There's some body horror in there amongst other things.
I would say that this book is more plot driven than character driven, and because of that you don't really get to know each character very well. I thought that aspect worked well with the play itself.
The audience members all wear masks so its hard to tell who individuals really are, and not many of the actors/dancers knew one another well either. Just adds to the atmosphere and massive disconnect between the groups of people.

I loved this authors work in Fantasticland, so I was very excited to get my hands on the arc for this new book. It was every bit as enjoyable as Fantasticland, if not more. I loved the premise for this book and thought it was done very well. The pacing was fantastic. I loved the background we got into the performers for the show and thought many of the characters were very relatable. Mike Bockovan is quickly becoming one of my favorite authors, and this book was a thrill ride from the first page to the ending. I could not put it down. I highly recommend this to anyone who is a fan of horror or who also read and enjoyed Fantasticland.

Thank you to Netgalley and Skyhorse publishing for providing me this free copy in exchange for my honest review!

Bleak and brutal, this blends documentary metafiction with the psychological horror of mass violence, chaos, and unraveling morality. If you’re looking for something sharp, dark, and disturbingly relevant, this’ll probably stick with you — whether you want it to or not!

Extreme violence warning. After about 50% it’s mostly that and is descriptive.

Energy: Morbid. Fascinating. Pertinent.

🐕 Howls: After 50% we see the same extreme violence just from slightly different perspectives. Not poorly done, just emotionally exhausting at times. Sometimes the interviews knocked me out of the story when characters sounded similar so I mixed them up or when they spoke in a way that didn’t feel true to interview formats (more like a novel).

🐩 Tail Wags: Unsettling because it holds a mirror to humanity and the commentary feels particularly relevant. The documentary-style storytelling. Using interviews to show the mess of justifications, delusions, and lies by omission that led up to the tragedy. How it made me keep asking myself what I’d do in that situation, if I’d go to the show, if I’d like it.

Scene: 🇺🇸 Los Angeles, California, USA
Perspectives: Interviews with multiple characters who were adjacent to the Incident, including attendees, staff, crew, bartenders, actors, protestors, fans, and trolls.
Timeline: After an incident on March 14th (2020s)
Narrative: Listening to characters speaking to us, in-the-dark (epistolary)
Fuel: Exploring dynamics of ‘why we can’t have nice things’, hive mind, and mass violence/hatred. What was the incident? What led up to it? Who was ultimately responsible?
Cred: Hyper-realistic

Mood Reading Match-Up:
‘I didn’t do anything wrong’. Flame thrower. Demon dance. Tickets. Screaming. Fans. Trolls. Mods.
• Folksy, immersive, journalistic writing style
• Interviews with mix of likeable, nasty, rude, self-absorbed, sympathetic, unlikeable, and villainous characters
• Psychological manipulation, paranoia, and jumping to conclusions (first-half)
• Extreme mass murder survival horror (second-half)
• Online & media critique of fandoms, trolls, conspiracy theories
• Documentary style metafiction
• Disturbing, detailed, chaotic violence
• Grim exploration of destruction, hate, hypocrisy, helplessness, societal decay, art, and fragile morality
• Horrific things happen, Heartstring hits, and Humans are the real horror

Content Heads-Up: Alcohol (bars). Bullying (online). Death. Drug use (mention). Entitlement. Fire, smoke, fire injury (recalls; graphic on page; burns). Homophobia (online slurs and comments). Infidelity. Loss of friend. Loss of spouse. Massacre (attack, shooting, targeted and random; manifesto). Murder. Nudity. Racism (bullying). Satanic/occult themes. Sexual assault (in relationship). Sexual harassment. Violence (graphic, on page; physical, stabbing, blood, sabotage, threats).

Rep: American. British. Dutch upbringing. Cis. Hetero. Gay. Brown and ambiguous skin tones.

📚 Format: Advance Reader’s Copy from Skyhorse Publishing and NetGalley

I’m a huge fan of Fantasticland, so I was very excited to read this! It is a very similar story type told in the same manner- an event turning very violent, forcing people to struggle to survive, all due to bad human behavior. It’s told in the same way as Fantasticland, through interviews and other source material.

Overall, I enjoyed this book- but I can’t say it matches the magic of Fantasticland. I wasn’t quite as taken with the “setting” of the play, but I did enjoy the different twist on the type of event and the reason behind it. If you enjoyed Fantasticland, it’s worth a read.

Thank you to NetGalley and the publisher for this ARC in exchange for an honest review!

This was an overall great read. I love the format he tells stories in. The building of Come Knocking the play was very very well done and this author is really great at creating memorable scenes that stick in your head. I felt like this one was missing a lot of the character work I loved in Fantasticland.

Not that I'm telling you anything you don't already know, but this is basically the author's Fantasticland in a slightly different font. Did you like Fantasticland? Great, you'll probably like this too. Did you hate/ DNF Fantasticland, and hoping this might hit the spot better? Hmmm, probably not.

It's interesting, it's fun, it has all the elements that made me like Fantasticland (take a shot every time I say....). Multiple POVs that often contradict each other in a delicious "Who do YOU choose to believe?" way while also providing the missing puzzle pieces for earlier people's testimonies, creepy setting, escalating violence, subtle (or not) social commentary, the book has it all.

Why the missing star? I don't really know how to explain it.

SPOILERS AHEAD!!!! The tragedy being entirely preventable makes it a bit.... stupid, maybe? Unlike Fantasticland (shot!), where people were in a life or death survival situation that they couldn't possibly avoid (they were flooded in, where were they supposed to go??), so they just went all out to try and get through it, here it's mostly a combination of ego and stubbornness and a sprinkle of mass mentality hysteria. The motivations do make sense, but I never claimed to be a totally objective judge. I rate books based on enjoyment of the overall premise. I know it's unfair to compare 2 totally unrelated books like this, even if it's the same author, but like I said: just a slightly different font. The author knows it, we know it, everyone knows they'll be compared. SPOILERS END

"WHEN A GROUNDBREAKING THEATRICAL EXPERIENCE GOES HORRIBLY WRONG, A DEADLY NIGHT REVEALS THE DARK CONSEQUENCES OF BLURRING THE LINES BETWEEN PERFORMANCE AND REALITY

When Come Knocking came to Los Angeles, the interactive theater production that took over six floors of an abandoned building was met with raves, lines for tickets, and reviews calling it the "must-see experience of a generation." But after dozens of people were killed and hundreds injured on a bloody night of chaos during the show's run, the nation was captured by one inescapable question: How could this happen?

As the dust settles, investigative reporter Adam Jakes is tasked with uncovering the truth behind the massacre. Through a series of gripping interviews with survivors, cast members, and witnesses, Jakes pieces together the chilling reality behind what was supposed to be the ultimate theatrical experience.

In Come Knocking, the enthralling and terrifying exploration of human nature under extreme conditions poses unsettling questions about the grotesque underbelly of immersive experiences and the true nature of reality."

I mean, I always thought that Sleep No More would lend itself to a murder mystery.

FantasticLand remains to be my favourite book written by this author, and when I heard that Come Knocking would have the similar instructure as the other one, I was in it!
Sadly, this book lacks the original and exciting premise that other book has. Maybe the lightening doesn't strike at the same place twice?!
Thank you, anyway, NetGalley and the publisher for the eARC.

As someone who saw Sleep No More, the production this is inspired by, several times when it opened, I loved the concept of this book and it was easy to envision the chaos that kind of production could potentially have. I saw Sleep No More pre-Instagram/TikTok, so I found the aspects about the internet interacting with the show both interesting and, honestly, fairly believable. I also liked how the story was presented in a series of interviews like Fantasticland.

Definitely worth a read for anyone who loves theatre and horror!

I’m not sure what I was expecting with Come Knocking, I was interested in the copy based off previous works from Mike Bockoven. As much as I want to say that I enjoyed this book, it just was not for me. I’m not saying it’s not a good book, I personally just had a problem with the structure of the entire book being interviews with characters, Reddit posts, discord posts and voicemails. It had a really good premise but I think if it was done as a story following the same characters as the night in question occurred I would have rated this higher.