Patrick Thomas (1)Besprekingen

A cute, humorous little read that will take you away from your everyday troubles and shine the light on other's troubles. Not to mention, Cthulhu's priceless advice to those in need of his ancient wisdom. Definitely recommend.
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Fun characters, intriguing plots, cool settings -- everything you would want from a collection of stories featuring demons, old gods and hell! The stories all have a nice mix of humor and drama and the characters are all well-drawn enough that you end up caring about how things work out for them.

A fun (and rather disturbing) take on the advice column genre. Dear Cthulhu leads you into the dark corners of the human and elder god mind, dispensing advice that is much more likely to get you jailed or damned than to actually help you solve your problems. Cthulhu's snarky, humorous and dismissing take on human problems is sure to make you laugh so if you like twisted humor and really bad advice, this is definitely the book for you!

I bought this book at I-CON a few years ago and the author actually signed it for me. It's a group of short stories told by Murphy the Bartender at Bullfinches Pub. The stories are funny but also dark and sad. Bullfinches Pub is owned by Paddy, a lepruachan who spent his pot of gold on the bar, so now rainbows lead to the bar. This is where gods, demi gods and other mythical beings congregate to drink, work and have fun. There are some normal humans around as well. It's interesting to see the interplay of all the different beings and creatures. It's great to see creatures of different mythologies and religions work together towards common goals and nice to believe that some actions are unacceptable to everyone. Very entertaining, I want to read more.

I bought this book at I-CON a few years ago and the author actually signed it for me. It's a group of short stories told by Murphy the Bartender at Bullfinches Pub. The stories are funny but also dark and sad. Bullfinches Pub is owned by Paddy, a lepruachan who spent his pot of gold on the bar, so now rainbows lead to the bar. This is where gods, demi gods and other mythical beings congregate to drink, work and have fun. There are some normal humans around as well. It's interesting to see the interplay of all the different beings and creatures. It's great to see creatures of different mythologies and religions work together towards common goals and nice to believe that some actions are unacceptable to everyone. Very entertaining, I want to read more.

I bought this book at I-CON a few years ago and the author actually signed it for me. It's a group of short stories told by Murphy the Bartender at Bullfinches Pub. The stories are funny but also dark and sad. Bullfinches Pub is owned by Paddy, a lepruachan who spent his pot of gold on the bar, so now rainbows lead to the bar. This is where gods, demi gods and other mythical beings congregate to drink, work and have fun. There are some normal humans around as well. It's interesting to see the interplay of all the different beings and creatures. It's great to see creatures of different mythologies and religions work together towards common goals and nice to believe that some actions are unacceptable to everyone. Very entertaining, I want to read more.

I bought this book at I-CON a few years ago and the author actually signed it for me. It's a group of short stories told by Murphy the Bartender at Bullfinches Pub. The stories are funny but also dark and sad. Bullfinches Pub is owned by Paddy, a lepruachan who spent his pot of gold on the bar, so now rainbows lead to the bar. This is where gods, demi gods and other mythical beings congregate to drink, work and have fun. There are some normal humans around as well. It's interesting to see the interplay of all the different beings and creatures. It's great to see creatures of different mythologies and religions work together towards common goals and nice to believe that some actions are unacceptable to everyone. Very entertaining, I want to read more.

In 2009, Dark Quest published Dear Cthulhu, Have a Dark Day, a compilation of advice columns from every one's favorite Great Old One. Sales must have been OK as they now return for a second collection, Good Advice for Bad People by Patrick Thomas. Mr. Thomas' columns have been appearing in genre publications for years, I know at least as far back as the days of Cthulhu Sex.

The bottom line is if you enjoyed the previous volume you will similarly be engagaed by this one. Otherwise, don't feel like you are missing out on much. I guess between the sort of stories that grace the pages of genre fanzines, mostly read by ultra-enthusiasts, a letter or two to Cthulhu would likely be a pleasant enough diversion. Here there is no leavening of the material with anything else and frankly I found it tedious. While some were witty enough, they all sort of ran together. Like the last book, perhaps you could keep this on your nightstand and read one or two entries between short stories/chapters in your current anthology/novel.

Production qualities are pretty good although I saw a few scattered typos. Mr. Thomas provides the cover art, which was a pretty good Cthulhu. For the $9.95 list price the page count of 92, with text starting on page 7, is a bit meagre.

Dear Cthulhu: Have a Dark Day is 2009 paperback from Dark Quest Books. It has 94 pages of text but note the dimensions of 9x6.1"; it takes about a half hour to read. The cover art is by the author, Patrick Thomas, and is probably the best thing about the book. The only thing I know about Mr. Thomas is his somewhat overwrought story "Surely You Joust" in Cthulhu Unbound #2, although his web site shows him to have published quite a few short stories. He just hasn't crossed over into Cthulhu mythos country very much until now. I gather for a few years he has been writing a satirical advice column, Dear Cthulhu, where everyone's favorite elder god answers questions in the manner of Ann Landers. This book is the first in a series of compilations of these columns.

It's not a bad idea but the execution isn't all that hot. I was more bored than amused. Maybe it works better in small doses between stories in an anthology or magazine. Try reading only one or two `letters' at a time. If you want to see something similar done better, check out Calls for Cthulhu on YouTube, particularly episode 6 (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=njcB7xN0Pec). Maybe I'll pick up the next volume because I'm a ridiculous completist, but I definitely recommend checking it out before you shell out the somewhat exorbitant $9.95 list price.

This book was in sore need of editing. Constant tense confusion, multiple copy editing errors, grammar mistakes and a plodding, dull cadence to the prose made it difficult to take the story seriously, and when I did manage to get past the writing and concentrate on the story I realized there wasn't much there. The storytelling is also rudimentary, with a whole lot of telling and plots that, once complete, left me going, "Ok, so?"

The one bright point in Murphy's Lore is with its puns. They are some of the worst I've ever read ("Realization struck me. Being the only witness I decided to not press charges"), but in the world of puns, worse is better, and most of them left me amused, if not laughing.

While I usually make an attempt at finishing any book I start, this one was so obviously unpolished that I did not feel bad about giving up only a few chapters in. If the publisher didn't care to put the least bit of effort into editing Murphy's Lore, I don't see why I should put any effort into reading it.½