I fell for the hype on all every TV blog on the internet and sprang for this book once I'd heard it was a heavily referenced in and influential to True Detective, which might be my favorite show airing at the moment. And while there are several oblique references and some tonal homages to this book in the show, I have to say there really isn't much reason to read this. 
 I was also taken with the fact that The King in Yellow is said to be a major influence over H.P. Lovecraft, whose complete works I've been steadily working my way through over the past few months. The influence is pretty clear, as Chambers deals with cosmic, unknowable entities and knowledge which drives men mad in the first few stories. Chambers does a great job in the first half of the book creating creepy, looming atmospheres and a sense of certainty that something is wrong, even if we don't know what it is yet. 
 However, as a complete collection of stories, The King in Yellow comes across very random. The latter half of the book devolves into very standard storytelling, with cheesy, seen-it-a-million-times twists (even for stories written in this era), and even kind of ditching the supernatural altogether. It makes no sense as a collection, and I actually gave up reading it after about 3/4 of the book. 
 The interesting idea of having a collection of works all centered around a play that drives people mad (the titular King in Yellow) was very appealing, but this connecting through-line gets dropped pretty quickly overall. Once I'd read enough of the stories that followed the 4 King in Yellow portions, I did some research, saw they weren't going to get any better, and gave up. So, if you're reading this book to get a solid glimpse at a macabre writer you may not have heard of, stick with the first 4 stories. The rest is pretty forgettable.