Having fled town under a cloud of salacious scandal, Shelby Tyree has returned, a mysterious woman at his side and a strange new devotion to horror writer H.P. Lovecraft in his head. His childhood friends Rick and Conrad scarcely recognize Shelby, who has been transformed from a rakish dilettante into a zealous guru devoted to his own pseudo-religion. They take it upon themselves to discover what Shelby is really up to. Why has he founded his own church, devoted to a presumably fictional demonic alien? Is it possible Shelby's lost his grip on reality or is somehow under the spell of this mysterious woman? Or is it possible that Shelby has uncovered some secret truths that man was not meant to know? "The Cthulhu Cult is a brilliant and scintillating novel of Lovecraftian terror. It grips the reader from the first page and develops a tremendous cumulative power. Anyone who has the least interest in H. P. Lovecraft's work will find The Cthulhu Cult a must-read." --S. T. Joshi
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4 of 5 people found the following review helpful:
5.0 out of 5 stars
Outstanding self published novel about Cthulhu,
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This review is from: The Cthulhu Cult: A Novel of Lovecraftian Obsession (Paperback)
The Cthulhu Cult is a self published novel by Rock Dakan available for $15.00, which is actually a substantial discount. The publisher is [...], a well known self publication site. Even better, shipping is free if you order $25 worth of stuff; otherwise shipping charges attach. It is nice trade paperback, 333 pages with text starting on page 5, about the same cost as usual for [...]. I don't know much about Mr. Dakan but apparently he is a well known figure in rpg circles.
First of all, unlike most offerings at lulu, Mr. Dakan hired a professional copy editor and it shows; the novel was pretty much free of the errors so common at lulu. Let me get my beefs out of the way first. I think it was prbably a mistake for the author to make himself the viewpoint protagonist. In terms of world building/suspension of disbelief it makes it more difficult to get into the book. However, once past that quibble I just let the words flow over me. Second, I think some of the prose was clumsy in terms of the transitioning and some of the dialogue; this was most notable in the first 50 pages or so. Some of the scene setting did not work for me, particularly at the beginning where a thug with a knife is outfought by some nude yoga freak who happens to be physically aroused at the time. Probably the book would have benefited from being shortened by about 10% to make it a little tighter. On the copyright page there is a small statement saying this is an advance copy of an uncorrected proof, but I wonder if that is something that was accidentally not deleted? There are favorable cover blurbs from Ken Hite and ST Joshi (which is a trifle ironic). Having said all that....I think this an excellent novel, well worth the money and well worth the read. If there are clumsy bits of prose early, the novel picks up steam as it goes and ends up being very compelling. For the last 200 pages I had difficulty putting it down and finished it in about 2 days, sneaking reads at work and while waiting for my sons at soccer. What impels the book is the plotting and that is quite deftly done. It was entirely believable and also had a certain resonance with me. At first I wasn't sold on the characters but I ended up caught up with all of them even down to the secondary figures. It is a Cthulhu mythos novel in the same sense that Spencer's Resume With Monsters is a mythos novel; I will defer discussion for fear of spoilers. I feel obligated to comment that Mr. Dakan shows himself to be a very insightful student of Lovecraft and the mythos (and HPL's social proclivities). Here is an author who knows his stuff! Here is a plot summary with only minimal spoilers: The novel begins by introducing us to three friends, Shelby Tyree (a free spirited free thinker who loves outrageous gestures) and his more geeky childhood companions, Conrad Laughton (a married semisuccessful realtor) and Rick Dakan (a single semisuccessful writer). Shelby is throwing a party, something of a spectacle and orgy by the beach. There is an attempted rape and Shelby is run out of town; he falls out of Rick's and Conrad's lives only to return some time later with a new girl friend. He is now *heavily* into Lovecraft and his cosmic nihilism, and is starting a new church, The Starry Wisdom. He says he wants to use Cthulhu as an example or metaphor for cosmic indifference and thereby stir up Sarasota, where the story takes place. At first Rick and Conrad are accepting that their friend is into another outrageous hobby but then they become less sure. There are weird tattoos, weirder books and strnage rituals. The free use of hallucinogenic drugs and optical effects, with the heavy veil of secrecy makes it difficult to sort out. With the help of Calvin Sinclair (met online), who presents himself as a distinguished scholar of books and the occult, they being to suspect darker motives and darker forces are behind everything. When an old flame from highschool, Cara McMillan, comes back for a reunion, catching Rick's eye, she is swept into Shelby's sphere of influence and Rick begins to fear for her safety. As Shelby gets more distant from Conrad and Conrad attempts with more fervency to penetrate the mysteris of Shelby's church, Rick gets swept up in events beyond his control. The fear of mind control and ritual become palpable as Walpurgis Night approaches, when everyhting comes to a climax. I may have started this review appearing to be a skeptic (and why not, most everything self published from [...] stinks, except for Where Goeth Nyarlathotep by Daniel Reiner and [...]), but I am now a big fan of Mr. Dakan. He addresses all the possibilities: HPL was an author of fiction. No, HPL was really a believer and put secret codes into his work. No, HPL was heavily influenced by his dreams and his dreams were heavily influenced by powers he did not understand. The desperation of the protagonists on the outside looking in was palpable; the readers are left guessing with the characters right up to the final pages. I loved this book and I think most regular mythos readers would also. Just don't expect your typical mythos story. Bravo and more please.
2 of 4 people found the following review helpful:
5.0 out of 5 stars
I think you're gonna get a kick out of it,
By
This review is from: The Cthulhu Cult: A Novel of Lovecraftian Obsession (Paperback)
I can only share my experience with this book, which was a feeling of time spent with a friend who loves stories. I recall having to stop reading once or twice because I just couldn't handle the suspense anymore. The characters seem like real people, you almost believe they were, like all this stuff really did happen. Besides which, any book with a mention of Rambam is tops in my list.
2 of 7 people found the following review helpful:
1.0 out of 5 stars
You're kidding, right?,
By Larry Latham (Tulsa, OK United States) - See all my reviews
Amazon Verified Purchase(What's this?)
This review is from: The Cthulhu Cult: A Novel of Lovecraftian Obsession (Paperback)
I have to assume that I read the same book as the other two reviewers, but I wouldn't know this from their reviews. I'm a big Lovecraft fan and a big weird fiction fan in general. This book is pure fan fiction: amateurish, tedious, and repetitive. The lack of typos, mentioned in another review here, is one of the only plusses in the book. The characters are so wooden that they make HPL's characters positively three-dimensional by comparison. The incidents are contrived and strung together like laundry, and the tension builds with all the explosive power of an insurance adjustor's claim report. I struggled through to the end, but it was by sheer force of will.
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