Nothing epitomizes the fun summertime geek study more than Seamus Cooper ’s Mall of Cthulhu ( Night Shade ) . A charming sidekick squad – lesbian FBI agent Laura and loser barista Ted – struggle monsters and white supremacist in a Providence mall .
When the novel open , Ted and Laura are still trying to get over a trauma they shared ten years ago in college . During freshman twelvemonth , they discover that a local sorority was really a hideout of lamia , and nerdy folklore bookman Ted had to off them all ( admit his roomie ) . While Ted had to chop up a sign full of monster , Laura had to deal with the fact that the one lady friend she was finally go away to have sex with was actually a throat - chomp minion of evil .
Over the year they ’ve dealt with this horrify experience by sticking together as best friends , partly because this defining moment in both their lives is something nobody else would consider . Laura has become an ultra - competent FBI broker who is bored with investigating ATM fraud . And Ted has become an ultra - competent latte - maker for a Starbucks - esque chain . But when a group of Cthulhu cultists spud up Ted ’s coffee shop , they strike that there ’s nothing like awakening the Old Ones and destroying the humanity to really wipe that boredom off .
Their quest for the cultists take them to a Providence mall , and into a den of white supremacists who are trust the Old Ones will cleanse the world of hoi polloi that Lovecraft splendidly call “ bastard subspecies . ” This whole bit is both rummy and clever : writer Cooper knows his Lovecraft , and there is some not bad quippage about Lovecraft ’s ill-famed racialism and why his stories invoke to white supremacist who dread that their once - neat race is on the wane . Lovecraft himself conceive of that Cthulhu and his spawn would consort with “ mongrels ” out to destroy white people . But in the twenty - first hundred ( as Ted explain ) , perhaps white supremacists are so demented by the assorted - backwash time to come that they ’re even uncoerced to turn to Cthulhu – at least the great tentacled monster will destroy a creation the racists finger has been lost already .
Cooper ’s writing is more like clone Joss Whedon than H.P. Lovecraft , and often the playscript feel like a graphic novel lacking the mental picture that would really give it punch . What I intend is that there are no moments of literary brilliance – or pulpy weirdness – but there is a strong , fun adventure story and a circle of serious jest . Especially if you are a Lovecraft dweeb like I am .
The novel ’s setting in a human beings of malls and chain shop and deranged white people works quite well , too . Of course a twenty - first century Cthulhu metropolis would recrudesce into lifetime in the middle of a mall , raise by white Guy cantillate from stuff pen on their laptops . This is the geek variant of militant white terrorism , so of course it can only be stopped by a daring couple comprised of a well - understand geek and a kickass lesbian . And an underfunded branch of the FBI that cover with the paranormal , of course .
We never go much below the control surface of our characters , but if you ’re depend for brooding introspection this is the wrong novel . If , however , you ’re wait for a salutary , monstery time , Mall of Cthulhu wo n’t let down .
Mall of Cthulhu via Amazon
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