I loved Fantasticland so I was very excited when I saw this new novel! If is difficult not to compare the two, but I wasn't as pulled in for Come Knocking as I was for Fantasticland. The "author" interviews people associated with a tragedy that takes place at a theater show called "Come Knocking" about how death will take us all eventually. There is also an internet group called "Who's There" who actively hate and try to sabotage the show. You can guess what happens when the two collide.
The beginning felt too slow/long on describing the play and all of its elements, and most of the characters sounded the same. It felt like a few POVs were different characters saying the same thing in different words.
Thank you NetGalley for the ARC!

Rating: 3.5

I absolutely loved FantasticLand so couldn't wait to request the arc for Come Knocking as it sounded like a similar premise.

Come Knocking is an interactive theatre production which endures a night of horror on March 14th. The story is told through interviews, Reddit posts and call/voice memo transcripts.

I feel the first half of the book was quite slow and mostly focused on what the theatre show was about how successful it was and why it was popular etc... It became a bit repetitive and I wanted it to hurry up and discuss what actually happened on March 14th.

There was madness and violence and the accounts were told by theatre goers, staff, and emergency services. Where it lost me is I felt their were too many voices and it was hard to keep up with who was who, especially when some staff accounts were split into two.

Whilst it touches upon the social commentary of the dangers of the internet and the downfall of humanity when it comes to being trapped in a dangerous situation, I do feel like it felt more ominous and suffocating in FantasticLand.

The ending left more desired and felt a bit rushed to me.

This book serves as an allegory of the post truth world we live in, where masks are both real and socially constructed.

The narrative jumps from person to person, in sort of a 'found footage' technique that records individual testimony, interspersed with reddit threads, online comments and threads which together, piece a picture of the some what truth of what happened on March 14th at an immersive theatre event.

I say somewhat, as each perspective is subjective and personal by nature and we, as the readers, have come to this novel masquerading as a true life investigation into an event where nearly 100 people died.

What is so very clever, and which is similar to 'Fantastic Land' where the scene is, quite literally set, and by the time things go horribly, horribly wrong, you are emotionally attached to the characters and feel their loss keenly.

Here, an immersive theatre experience has moved from New York, to L.A , taken over a derelict building in an salubrious part of that city, depicting across the several floors of this building various visions of hell and heaven, taken from medieval literature.

Scenes are created by actors and dancers, with feedback from the technical crew really establishing just how select it was to get tickets and intricate details of just how certain visual effects are achieved.

Their control room which is in overall charge of high flying , flame and smoke effects is a locked room behind the bar on the ground floor, each experience is individual to that person as no two nights are the same. The dancers and actors act in response to those in the audience, and the energy generated by them, so apart from tickets being so hard to get hold of, the drive to go to 'Come Knocking' is from this level of exclusivity.

Run by a company called 'Dumb Willie', and early foreshadowing of a disastrous tour ending event are given at the beginning of the book so as a reader, my heckles were rising before anything even happened.

As with a social movement which relies on social media and word of mouth to create demand, the actors and technicians describe in detail how they interact with the audience and the change in mood on moving from East Coast to West, their reflections on how rabid some of the fans are, and in response, the trolls which dog the production's every move.

'Who's There' is the online response to 'Come Knocking' who feel this ensemble represents every moral vacuum in modern society so when the final performance happens, you know that things are about to go catastrophically wrong. The aim of disruption of the performance goes from online trolling to in real life interference which when it kicks off, you have a performance troup on edge from weeks of microaggressions, and aggressors intent on bringing the curtain down.

And in between both camps, the 300 strong audience trapped in a building where truth and artifice overlap and are visually interrupted by the masks all attendees have to wear.

What you see and believe you see is part of a narrative which is bigger than yourself and even the evidence of your eyes is open to interpretation...just what on earth is going on?

The sense of panic and fear that is engendered in this reader is claustrophobic and all consuming, the story is intense and deeply disturbing in all the best ways where you cannot stop reading until you have finisihed the book.

And then, here comes the book hangover...

This is one hell of a journey that you feel completely immersed in, it is deeply impressive how Mike manages to create such a disarming, believable and heart breaking story that could be ripped from the headlines, it is all too authentic from the character perspectives which is where the real horror enters the room.

Highlym, highly recommended and not for the faint of heart, if you weren't already a fan of Mike Bockoven this novel will make you one.

3 stars….I wish it had been better. It had promise, but just didn’t get there.

“Come Knocking” was an interactive theatre experience, which, as described, both really made me want to go to an interactive theatre experience and made me think I might run in the other direction if anyone ever mentions one to me.

So, “Come Knocking,” first in New York, then in L.A. was loosely based on the Canterbury Tales. The L.A. version was held in a six story building and was originally met with raves; people were anxious to get tickets and reviews were great.

However, there was some backlash, generally centered online with people who thought the show was bad, evil and more. That gradually escalated into a deadly night where dozens of people died and hundreds were injured during a performance.

To find out what really happened, the “author” of this book interviews many people who were there, actors, staff and witnesses and pulls some information from the internet to gather all the facts.

Oddly, I happened to be reading two books at one time which use the “interview” format, and both involved the performing arts and I think I sometimes got a little confused, but that’s on me. This book was nice in that it’s refreshing to read a good horror book that doesn’t include a supernatural component, this is just the evil that men do. The whole thing is a little meta, in that a real author is writing as a fake author created a fake book called COME KNOCKING, and, in it, I believe there’s a reference to one of the real/fake author’s other books which MAY be written in the same format…if it is, I’m much more interested in it than I was when I heard about it previously.

Anyway, if the premise sounds good to you, you are probably going to like it. This might have gone up to four stars, but I thought there was a bit of, not quite repetition, but a bit of sameness to many of the voices presented…I wish Bockoven had done a better job at making them not sound like different versions of Bockoven, but overall he does a good job with making the interviews short enough that I never got tired of o e particular point of view. And a small safety quibble that I won’t mention as it would be a minor spoiler, but I’m thinking their insurance would have required (how I wish I could turn off the lawyer in me. She never. Shuts. Up.) Some good stuff here.

I loved Fantasticland and I loved Sleep No More and apparently I love the crossover of the two!

This novel is a fictional reporter’s account of a murderous interactive theater event in which things got far too interactive. We read through numerous interviews and other forms of mixed media including letters, Reddit posts, and phone messages.

I adored this and cannot wait to pick up a physical copy. The story is slowly unveiled and we see what led up to the disastrous events of March 14th. Each character’s voice felt unique and added to the story. The writing was enthralling, thrilling, and visceral. Highly recommend to all thriller readers!

Thank you to NetGalley and Skyhorse Publishing for access to this work. All opinions are my own

As soon as I saw “Come Knocking”, I immediately requested a copy, as I really enjoyed “Fantasticland” by Mike Bockoven. This story was told in the same way, in a pseudo-interview style with questions omitted. I am a huge fan of this form of storytelling, as it provides the perspectives of a multitude of characters without compromising the integrity of the story or excessively muddling the narrative. It is enjoyable to attempt to put together the pieces of the events before the ultimate reveal, and “Come Knocking” absolutely gave me that experience. Concluding with secondhand testimony from someone who could be considered a mastermind or antagonist was a great touch that gives perspective. I think the inclusion of the internet element, and how different people can come together for a singular purpose, nefarious or otherwise, was a chilling reminder of information accessibility and how relative anonymity can empower people to be despicable. An excellent read.