Average Reviews:
(More customer reviews)What a breath of fresh air! I had been slogging through more mediocre mythos for some time now and Mall of Cthulhu was just what I needed. It is a terrific read and I highly recommend it. I first heard about it advertised on Amazon in early 2008; publication was delayed until just recently. It is a nice trade paperback from Nightshade Books, listing at $13.95 (discounted a bit by Amazon) and clocking in at a generous 235 pages, all text. Editing was good; there were no typos I could see. The minibio of the author provides no useful information, but as far as I can tell this is his first book. Cover art is by Scott Altmann. It's OK, but with this cover and this title, my first impression was this was going to be a deliberate attempt at mythos humor. As such, I was not particularly enthusiastic when I started it. This is actually not what this book is about at all. The plot synopsis has minor spoilers, but no more than the blurb on the book. Skip to the next paragraph if that bothers you.
10 years ago, Laura Harker (and all name coincidences in this book are decidedly deliberate) was rescued from a sorority house full of vampires by super nerd, Ted (you know, I'm not sure the author ever mentioned his last name), who had to slaughter the lot of them. Fast forward 10 years and we find Laura is a low level FBI agent who has trust issues, because she cannot confide in anyone about this terrible moment in her life. Ted is a wreck, following his only friend, Laura, from city to city, holding down odd jobs in coffee shops. Whenever he confides the truth to a new girl they think he's psycho and leave (Laura is a lesbian so they stay just sort of co-dependent friends). He is awakened ever night by vivid flashbacks of the bloody events of that night. Ted has sort of settled into Boston, making lattes. He has to serve an obnoxious customer, who doesn't notice when he drops a CD. In a fit of pique Ted pockets the disk. Later, as a favor he brings a coffee to Laura at her job site. When he gets back to the coffee shop everyone has been gruesomely murdered. The obnoxious man is there and demands the disk from Ted. Ted manages to escape, and tries to calm himself while hiding and phoning Laura. Their life abruptly takes a turn into the surreal when they discover a conspiracy of men who are attempting to cause a transdimensional rip with the Necronomicon that would allow Cthulhu access to our plane where he may ravage everything. The bulk of the book describes how Laura and Ted track down the cult to a mall across from the Masonic Temple in Providence and attempt to thwart the machinations of the cult.
This book is by no means a comedy; it is more an action thriller. There is a huge leavening of humorous banter and jokes, but these are all intrinsic to the characters and their personalities. I laughed out loud a frequently but I never thought anything was forced. And what vivid characters! Ted and Laura light up the pages, they are so real. I know people who act like this! Even the minor character FBI agents were deftly drawn. Only the bad guys and maybe the paranormal investigator who shows up near the end were little more than plot contrivances. Usually I have terrible heartburn when HPL's fiction is found to be true; for me it spoils the world building. In Mall of Cthulhu it was an organic part of the plot. Terrific writing with a propulsive plot and sparkling dialogue trumps everything else. Mr. Cooper's book is wildly inventive; his take on R'lyeh is different from any other I have read but is very clever and it works well in this story. I was so captivated I zipped through the whole book in a matter of a few hours. I will happily read his next book, even if it has no mythos connections.
So is Mall of Cthulhu for all mythos fans? Well it should be but of course it isn't. If you like Delta Green and Cody Goodfellow, or perhaps Charlie Stross, then Mall of Cthulhu is for you. If you only prefer HPL pastiches you won't be pleased. If you demand complete apocalypse, look elsewhere. Some readers only care for the dreamy, equally vivid world of the Sesqua Valley. To each their own. For me, I like all mythos stories that are well written. Mall of Cthulhu is an effervescent romp through one man's take on the mythos. I was completely won over and you should be too.
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A decade ago, college student Laura Harker was saved from a fate worse than death at the hands (and fangs) of a centuries-old vampire priestess and her Satanic minions. Her rescuer, an awkward, geeky folklore student named Teddy, single-handedly slew the undead occupants of the Omega Alpha sorority house, spurred into heroic action by fate itself, inexorably intertwining his and Laura's destinies. After navigating her way through law school, Laura is now a junior FBI agent assigned to the Bureau's Boston office.Unfortunately, she finds her job involves more paperwork than adventure. When Ted stumbles onto a group of Cthulhu cultists planning to awaken the Old Ones through mystic incantations culled from the fabled Necronomicon, he and Laura must spring into action, traveling from Boston to the seemingly-peaceful suburbs of Providence and beyond, all the way to the sanity-shattering non-Euclidian alleyways and towers of dread R'lyeh itself, in order to prevent an innocent shopping center from turning into...The Mall of Cthulhu!
