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Nightmare's Disciple
In this original novel of Mythos mystery and horror, a serial killer is terrorizing Schenectady, NY. Detective Chrisopher James Stewart must follow the trail of mutilated bodies and solve the enigmatic clues before the murderer strikes again. Here is a wealth of terror and exuberant scenes, a detailed Cthulhu Mythos novel of the present day. In it H. P. Lovecraft is more prophet than anyone dares to dream.
395 pages, Paperback
First published July 1, 1998
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Displaying 1 - 7 of 7 reviews
June 6, 2011
Cthulhu Mythos writers are a tight lot. Just as Lovecraft had his own circle of colleagues who went on write some of their own amazing weird fiction, subsequent generations have done likewise, borrowing from each other's work. This has worked particularly well for Chaosium, who is a both a fiction and role-playing game publisher. The obsessive cataloguing of every detail of the Cthulhu Mythos are attributable more to Chaosium's role-playing roots, where every mystery must be explained to the Keeper so he can run an effective game. Nightmare's Disciple is the penultimate merging of these two worlds.
Things start out promising in the decaying frost of Schenectady, New York, where serial killer Gregory Marsh is free to stalk local prostitutes for their skin. New York Detective Christopher James Stewart is a war veteran and widower just rediscovering romance with his high school sweetheart when he crosses paths with Marsh. These two threads twine throughout the book, with a third flashback to Marsh's initiation into the occult.
Marsh is the ultimate serial killer: rich, well-connected, and non-descript. Pulver's creation seems to be the modern answer to a traditional cultist - in the real world, what passed for a raving madman with a knife in pulpy Lovecraft-style is the serial killer of today. Unfortunately, Marsh is a cartoon-brand villain; he's like the Addams Family meets the Manson Family. He makes grand speeches, cackles insanely at random, and makes dire threats of the coming of the Holy Ones (his word for the Great Old Ones). Marsh seems too snooty to dirty his hands in slaying his victims and too nutty to not be caught five minutes after his first murder. And that's a shame, because Marsh is the star here - his life story takes up two-thirds of the book. He's a parody of a villain with no remorse or humanity that makes him remotely interesting, a scene-chewing bad guy who quickly wears out his welcome.
Stewart, on the other hand, is a pulp-style detective with simple tastes. We know this - indeed, we know everything every character thinks - because Pulver pops into his head to frequently tell us what might be inferred. Here's an example of "aw-shucks" Stewart encountering a geeky horror shop: "It's as if I can touch her torment...Guess if anybody's gonna know about this guy Lovecraft and his horrors, it'll be these two. Everything here is death, horror, and torment. This must be the right place."
No character's secret thoughts are off limits, not even an extra dimensional being from beyond named Kassogtha, a Great Old One who is an awful lot like Shub-Niggurath but with snakes. Kassogtha has a lot to say: "TAKE! KEY! WAY-CEREMONY! NO! LIGHT-BURNING! HATE! EVIL! LIGHT! HURT! PAIN! FREE! HOME KASHKASH UBH'SOTTI R'LYEH! I NOW!" Yes, seriously.
The two people Stewart references in the earlier quote are Cosmo and The Wizard, the fat and thin comedy duo who know everything about Lovecraft and Chaosium, because all the Lovecraftian-inspired fiction in Nightmare's Disciple is real. All of it, including the subpar stuff. Pulver's world-building with this book, dumping heavy chunks of text about whatever catches his fancy on topics that do nothing to propel the plot and everything to outline a world we never explore. Throughout, there is an impassioned defense of fans of horror movies, Lovecraft fans, fans of weird art, and music fans.
Did I mention the music fans? I guessed Pulver was a music critic long before I read his bio after the fifth time a character quoted a song. If you don't know the songs he's referencing, and there are too many to count, very little of what they say make sense. And if you're too young to get the references, then you must be a moron - a point reinforced by different characters in reaction to the snot-nosed youth who don't appreciate the sixties counterculture.
But I was willing to forgive all that until I reached THE LIST. The book really jumps the shark when the serial killer/cultist makes a LIST about his activities for the day:
"1 - One more. Whore? Black skin!
2 - Have Christa practice the incantations of the rite. Her timing and phrasing must be exact.
3 - Place the remaining candlesticks .Arrive tomorrow?
4 - Finish sewing robe.
5 - Contact the others and confirm their arrival plans.
6 - Call Beckett and the store. What should I say?
7 - Check out the stones at the store?"
That's right. The main villain sits down and, looking up wistfully with a pen tapping his cheek, writes a to do list that covers everything from murdering his victims to sewing his cultist robe. All in a day's work for a man out to destroy the world...
Mythos writers are a tight lot, and Nightmare's Disciple biggest achievement is the blessing of so many horror luminaries, including Brian Lumley, Scott David Aniowolski, H.R. Giger, Alice Cooper, Frank Belknap Long, Thomas Ligotti, Ramsey Campbell, Lin Carter, and Robert M. Price. It's easy to see why they agreed. With Pulver's credentials, connections, and writing talent, Nightmare's Disciple should have been a rollicking tale of murder and the Mythos for the modern age.
It isn't. Putting aside the pointless monologues, the horror fan service, the inclusion of every nook and cranny of Lovecraftian fiction as gospel, the one-dimensionality of the villain and hero, and the fact that some characters and organizations are introduced that have no impact on the plot whatsoever...Pulver can really evoke dread and horror when he focuses long enough to try to scare the reader. The rest of the time he's building a world meant for an obvious sequel that the first installment never earns.
But it would have made a great role-playing game setting.
Things start out promising in the decaying frost of Schenectady, New York, where serial killer Gregory Marsh is free to stalk local prostitutes for their skin. New York Detective Christopher James Stewart is a war veteran and widower just rediscovering romance with his high school sweetheart when he crosses paths with Marsh. These two threads twine throughout the book, with a third flashback to Marsh's initiation into the occult.
Marsh is the ultimate serial killer: rich, well-connected, and non-descript. Pulver's creation seems to be the modern answer to a traditional cultist - in the real world, what passed for a raving madman with a knife in pulpy Lovecraft-style is the serial killer of today. Unfortunately, Marsh is a cartoon-brand villain; he's like the Addams Family meets the Manson Family. He makes grand speeches, cackles insanely at random, and makes dire threats of the coming of the Holy Ones (his word for the Great Old Ones). Marsh seems too snooty to dirty his hands in slaying his victims and too nutty to not be caught five minutes after his first murder. And that's a shame, because Marsh is the star here - his life story takes up two-thirds of the book. He's a parody of a villain with no remorse or humanity that makes him remotely interesting, a scene-chewing bad guy who quickly wears out his welcome.
Stewart, on the other hand, is a pulp-style detective with simple tastes. We know this - indeed, we know everything every character thinks - because Pulver pops into his head to frequently tell us what might be inferred. Here's an example of "aw-shucks" Stewart encountering a geeky horror shop: "It's as if I can touch her torment...Guess if anybody's gonna know about this guy Lovecraft and his horrors, it'll be these two. Everything here is death, horror, and torment. This must be the right place."
No character's secret thoughts are off limits, not even an extra dimensional being from beyond named Kassogtha, a Great Old One who is an awful lot like Shub-Niggurath but with snakes. Kassogtha has a lot to say: "TAKE! KEY! WAY-CEREMONY! NO! LIGHT-BURNING! HATE! EVIL! LIGHT! HURT! PAIN! FREE! HOME KASHKASH UBH'SOTTI R'LYEH! I NOW!" Yes, seriously.
The two people Stewart references in the earlier quote are Cosmo and The Wizard, the fat and thin comedy duo who know everything about Lovecraft and Chaosium, because all the Lovecraftian-inspired fiction in Nightmare's Disciple is real. All of it, including the subpar stuff. Pulver's world-building with this book, dumping heavy chunks of text about whatever catches his fancy on topics that do nothing to propel the plot and everything to outline a world we never explore. Throughout, there is an impassioned defense of fans of horror movies, Lovecraft fans, fans of weird art, and music fans.
Did I mention the music fans? I guessed Pulver was a music critic long before I read his bio after the fifth time a character quoted a song. If you don't know the songs he's referencing, and there are too many to count, very little of what they say make sense. And if you're too young to get the references, then you must be a moron - a point reinforced by different characters in reaction to the snot-nosed youth who don't appreciate the sixties counterculture.
But I was willing to forgive all that until I reached THE LIST. The book really jumps the shark when the serial killer/cultist makes a LIST about his activities for the day:
"1 - One more. Whore? Black skin!
2 - Have Christa practice the incantations of the rite. Her timing and phrasing must be exact.
3 - Place the remaining candlesticks .Arrive tomorrow?
4 - Finish sewing robe.
5 - Contact the others and confirm their arrival plans.
6 - Call Beckett and the store. What should I say?
7 - Check out the stones at the store?"
That's right. The main villain sits down and, looking up wistfully with a pen tapping his cheek, writes a to do list that covers everything from murdering his victims to sewing his cultist robe. All in a day's work for a man out to destroy the world...
Mythos writers are a tight lot, and Nightmare's Disciple biggest achievement is the blessing of so many horror luminaries, including Brian Lumley, Scott David Aniowolski, H.R. Giger, Alice Cooper, Frank Belknap Long, Thomas Ligotti, Ramsey Campbell, Lin Carter, and Robert M. Price. It's easy to see why they agreed. With Pulver's credentials, connections, and writing talent, Nightmare's Disciple should have been a rollicking tale of murder and the Mythos for the modern age.
It isn't. Putting aside the pointless monologues, the horror fan service, the inclusion of every nook and cranny of Lovecraftian fiction as gospel, the one-dimensionality of the villain and hero, and the fact that some characters and organizations are introduced that have no impact on the plot whatsoever...Pulver can really evoke dread and horror when he focuses long enough to try to scare the reader. The rest of the time he's building a world meant for an obvious sequel that the first installment never earns.
But it would have made a great role-playing game setting.
July 28, 2010
There's the skeleton of an interesting story here, but he keeps interrupting it with tedious asides, and those asides' tedious asides.
September 30, 2022
Just felt like picking up a book and reading a little bit every night, so I chose Nightmare’s Disciple that’s been collecting dust on my bookshelf since Christmas. Can say I thoroughly enjoyed it and actually found myself excited to pick the book up again each day. It was a nice pace of mystery and horror along with the gruesome details and believable language (as believable as you can imagine in this kind of scenario) that Joseph Pulver thought up. I recently got into Lovecraftian lore which made me decide to get this book to begin with, and I sure didn’t regret it a bit. There were quite a bit of typos that I noticed but that’s not solely on the writer and the ending felt a tiny bit rushed but I guess things like that do happen fast in reality so I can look past it. If you are a Lovecraft buff, or if you like a good mystery/horror book, then Nightmare’s Disciple is for you.
January 30, 2020
Nightmare's Disciple is basically love poem to the Cthulhu Mythos and its tight-knit circle of writers and as such was meant to be tropey and even satirical at times. Unfortunately I don't think he stuck a good balance between compelling horror and self-awareness. The writing just felt sloppy and thrown together out of whatever Pulver could come up with off the top of his head. His Super Scary Serial Killer actually makes a list that includes items like "Finish sewing robe." Compare this to Warhammer 40k, which is an absolutely gonzo amalgamation of various speculative fiction clichés that nevertheless pulls it off by being just so gleefully metal. So it can be done but you need to commit to the ridiculousness and it has to be fun.
And ugh, Derleth. This is the childish good-vs-evil version of the Mythos that completely obliterates Lovecraft's atheistic vision of a universe that is fundamentally indifferent.
There were some good concepts scattered throughout, however. I actually read this because it takes place in Schenectady and I'm an Upstate New Yorker myself. I liked the deconstruction of Lovecraft's notorious racism in that the bad guys are virulently white supremacist while the good guys include black people who practice voodoo. I aso found the exploration of Lovecraftian influence in avant-garde music fascinating and worthy of its own story - preferably without the distractions of cackling, mustache-twirling villains, homicidal cultists, tentacles, magic artifacts, dead prostitutes, Satanists, secret societies, powerful dynasties with dark secrets, human sacrifice and naked chicks on altars (Christ, just stop with this one already), grizzled police detectives who have seen some shit, awkward nerds who discover their fictional fandom is real and start kicking ass, and "all myths are true."
And ugh, Derleth. This is the childish good-vs-evil version of the Mythos that completely obliterates Lovecraft's atheistic vision of a universe that is fundamentally indifferent.
There were some good concepts scattered throughout, however. I actually read this because it takes place in Schenectady and I'm an Upstate New Yorker myself. I liked the deconstruction of Lovecraft's notorious racism in that the bad guys are virulently white supremacist while the good guys include black people who practice voodoo. I aso found the exploration of Lovecraftian influence in avant-garde music fascinating and worthy of its own story - preferably without the distractions of cackling, mustache-twirling villains, homicidal cultists, tentacles, magic artifacts, dead prostitutes, Satanists, secret societies, powerful dynasties with dark secrets, human sacrifice and naked chicks on altars (Christ, just stop with this one already), grizzled police detectives who have seen some shit, awkward nerds who discover their fictional fandom is real and start kicking ass, and "all myths are true."
May 9, 2020
Part Lovecraft pastiche, part detective novel, part grotesque fest. If you are a mythos fan you will love all the 'shop talk' and interesting tie-ins. If not, it is one enjoyable violent ride.
Pulver mimics the descriptive prose style of HPL in a way that few others can.
So long Joe Pulver.. IA! kASSOGTHA!
Pulver mimics the descriptive prose style of HPL in a way that few others can.
So long Joe Pulver.. IA! kASSOGTHA!
July 16, 2018
The Schenectady setting made this a fun read, but the story and characters were rather weak.
July 26, 2016
Finished Nightmare's Disciple by Joseph Pulver. Though slow in parts (more so than need be) it becomes clear that more is at work with the characters than what appears on the surface. Even though it seems as if there is no otherworldly aspect to the story it is there beneath the surface which makes reading this pay off in the end. Yes, it's a love letter to Lovecraft and the Mythos, but it also is able to stand on its own.
Displaying 1 - 7 of 7 reviews