Nightmare's Disciple

Rating:
Summary: Finally Another Full Length Mythos Tale!
Review: As a fan of longer fiction as opposed to short stories (and also a fan of Lovecraft's Mythos tales) it's always great to find full length stories like this.

Nightmare's Disciple is a great tale about a Mythos-mad serial killer in the present day. It was fun guessing throughout the whole novel: 'Is Lovecraft's Mythos real or is it just this killer who thinks it is?"

The only thing I had a hard time with and disliked more and more as the novel progressed was the amazing amount of space dedicated to pop-culture. As a Lovecraft fan I am used to his references of ancient texts and so forth. However, in Pulver's novel he seems to use it as a showcase for everything he knows about pop-culture. Characters discuss for page after page about Lovecraft and his disciples, authors like Lumley, Howard, even Rice and King. All kinds of music and musical styles (even lines from songs are used as prose in the novel, while cute at first, it becomes a major distraction later on in the novel) horror movies, models, posters, art, comics, just about every little thing you can imagine.

Sort through all of that and you have yourself a good novel that I really enjoyed. An excellent debut story from Mr. Pulver whom I hope continues on with more full length Mythos work. It appears the publishers 'Chaosium', while not accustomed to publishing full length Mythos work should have assigned a tougher editor for this novel. If some of the redundant information was cut it Would have made a much tighter and suspenseful story. It should not have been left up to Pulver alone on his first major work.

Overall Mr. Pulver should be commended for his work on his first full length novel! Hopefully as he produces more work, he will stick with fewer topics and not branch off into all of his interests.

Rating:
Summary: Finally Another Full Length Mythos Tale!
Review: As a fan of longer fiction as opposed to short stories (and also a fan of Lovecraft's Mythos tales) it's always great to find full length stories like this.

Nightmare's Disciple is a great tale about a Mythos-mad serial killer in the present day. It was fun guessing throughout the whole novel: 'Is Lovecraft's Mythos real or is it just this killer who thinks it is?"

The only thing I had a hard time with and disliked more and more as the novel progressed was the amazing amount of space dedicated to pop-culture. As a Lovecraft fan I am used to his references of ancient texts and so forth. However, in Pulver's novel he seems to use it as a showcase for everything he knows about pop-culture. Characters discuss for page after page about Lovecraft and his disciples, authors like Lumley, Howard, even Rice and King. All kinds of music and musical styles (even lines from songs are used as prose in the novel, while cute at first, it becomes a major distraction later on in the novel) horror movies, models, posters, art, comics, just about every little thing you can imagine.

Sort through all of that and you have yourself a good novel that I really enjoyed. An excellent debut story from Mr. Pulver whom I hope continues on with more full length Mythos work. It appears the publishers 'Chaosium', while not accustomed to publishing full length Mythos work should have assigned a tougher editor for this novel. If some of the redundant information was cut it Would have made a much tighter and suspenseful story. It should not have been left up to Pulver alone on his first major work.

Overall Mr. Pulver should be commended for his work on his first full length novel! Hopefully as he produces more work, he will stick with fewer topics and not branch off into all of his interests.

Rating:
Summary: Hot Air
Review: I cannot truly express how let down I was by this book. While the idea behind it sounded quite interesting, the execution was terrible. This story could EASILY have been about 200 pages shorter and the story wouldn't have suffered, instead the reader does. The book is stuffed with volumes of dialog that just seems to be Mr.Pulver showing off how many obscure bands(movies,books,etc.)he can name. The whole thing comes off as an amatuerish vanity piece, with no sympathetic characters at all. Poor editing, poor writing, this book has it all. Save your money and buy ANY of the other fine books in this series. This "Nightmare" is one you'll wish you never had.

Rating:
Summary: A Modern Cthulhu Tale At Last!
Review: I enjoyed "Nightmare's Disciple" a great deal (in fact, I just finished reading it five minutes ago...) My only real criticism is that it could have been about 50 pages shorter: a lot of the horror movie/music decriptions seemed more like filler than necessary content. I loved the idea of a Mythos-driven serial killer! Not a bad read.

Rating:
Summary: A refreshing read
Review: I have not read a horror book in 18 years, but this was highly recommended by my wife, Ris. I tepidly aproached the idea, but the first few pages caught me. Mr. Pulver, if you read this, PLEASE make more horror stories! You have a gift. I now read horror stories whenever I can and would greatly appreciate if you would continue producing. Thank you.

Rating:
Summary: Cthulhu's new honey
Review: I liked this book alot, because in many ways it put a more palpable spin on the whole Cthulhu Mythos. Where Lovecraft's protagonists were, in part, pallid and sort of ponderous---and almost always male---Nightmare's Disciple was a story with sterner, stronger heroes. Characters with flaws and believable virtues. The tale's villain is singularly vile, though also sympathetic only in the sense that he believes himself to be a messiah with a genuine cause. The introduction of a new Mythos entity, Kassogtha, I also liked, though she struck me as a kind of alternate identity for Shub-Niggurath. And, moreover, I was able to experience the evil majesty of the monster, as opposed to obscure references and last minute passing glimpses. Others, such as Cthulhu and Ithaqua and Yog-Sothoth, were of course mentioned, which was also very cool. All in all, though, the writer viewed his tale through fresh eyes. I think H.P. would have been proud. My only complaint was the overabundance of uneccessary references to music and movies and even other writers that shared little or no connection with the Mythos. Less deadwood and more monsters---that's my motto. Still and all, I recommend the book highly. It'll grab you and keep you until the last page, whether you're a Lovecraft buff or not.

Rating:
Summary: Had hopes, was disappointed
Review: I love Lovecraft, but this book was such a disappointment that I threw it away immediately after reading it.

Rating:
Summary: Masterful!
Review: I'm not giving five stars to this book because, for me, five stars is something to give to Poe's "Cask of Amontillado", or, in a Mythos-related reference, to Lovecraft's own "Shadow over Innsmouth" (ok, those are short stories, but you get the point). And Joe Pulver's work is not there. At least, not yet. But, gosh, it hits VERY CLOSE! It's a Cthulhu Mythos novel? Yep. It's entertaining for those who dwell in this specific literary ghetto? Sure. But it's more than that -- it's a suspenseful novel, masterfully written... Pulver manipulates time, scene and space as a maestro comanding an orchestra. At one moment, you know more than the characters, and fears for them (a beautiful hitchcockian touch). In the next, all you knew seems to be nothing... If you like horror, read this book. If you like suspense, read this book. If you like just a good, good read, read this book!

Rating:
Summary: A cosmic mind-blower of a read!!
Review: In Nightmare's Disciple, Joe Pulver takes us on a thrilling, mind-rending ride through the nightmare realm of the Cthulhu Mythos while peering through the twisted eyes of a psychotic serial killer-cultist, spilling gallons of blood in abominable service to a vile cosmic goddess who schemes to escape her aeons-old prison and plunge the earth into chaos. It was very hard to put this book down! To anyone who wants to plunge headlong into the abyssal worlds of HP Lovecraft and the Cthulhu Mythos, this book will become a must read!! He threw everything into it, including two kitchen sinks!

Rating:
Summary: Interesting but disappointing
Review: It seems like a winning idea: combine the serial killer novel with the Lovecraftian horror story. But the author may have been a bit too ambitious in writing his first book as a 400-page novel with a wide variety of viewpoint characters.

One of the key failures is the title character, the serial killer driven by his belief in Lovecraft's Old Ones. We're told that he commits his murders without leaving a scrap of evidence. But the character comes across more as a raving nutbar than as a cold and calculating killer. It's hard to believe that this character could have so easily eluded capture.

The dialogue is also weak. The characters infodump at each other. (Not actual quotes, but close: "Have you heard of this book?" "Yes, it was written in 1569 by a Jesuit priest, Guillermo O'Brady. Jorge De Nada, in his masterwork De Rerum Spatula, discusses O'Brady's retelling of the arrival of G'Brish and the cult activities performed in its name. Few copies still exist of the book; its contents are summarized, though in censored form, in the Acta Studia of Peccata Mundi," he replied.)

The in-jokes are also occasionally obtrusive, knocking the reader out of the flow of the story. When I stop to notice that a couple of cops are named after members of the MC5, I have to make an effort to get back into the story.

There are some intriguing characters in the book, and some reasonably well-written passages. It's enough to make me wish that Pulver could have had the help of a sympathetic but merciless editor to make a leaner, more powerful, less comic-bookish novel from this story. As it is, it reads like promising but unpolished fan fiction.