The Cipher Kathe Koja 9781068349737

Winner of the Bram Stoker Award 1992

Winner of the Locus Award 1992

Shortlisted for the Phillip K. Dick Award

Nicholas is a would-be poet and video-store clerk with a weeping hole in his hand - weeping not blood, but a plasma of tears...

It began with Nakota and her crooked grin. She had to see the dark hole in the storage room down the hall. She had to make love to Nicholas beside it, and stare into its secretive, promising depths. Then Nakota began her experiments:

First, she put an insect into the hole. Then a mouse... Now from down the hall, the black hole calls out to Nicholas every day and every night. And he will go to it. Because it has already seared his flesh, infected his soul, and started him on a journey of obsession - through its soothing, blank darkness into the blinding core of terror...

Kathe Koja is a writer, director and independent producer of live and immersive events. Her titles include The Cipher, Skin, Buddha Boy and The Blue Mirror. Her work crosses and combine genres, from historical to contemporary to YA to horror, and has won awards, been translated into many languages, and optioned for film and performance.