Some parts are interesting, some boring. Overall I would like to read the next one. ( )

McNeill's Ghouls of the Miskatonic is the first book in a trilogy premised on the "Arkham Horror" Lovecraftian gaming franchise. Derlethian might be a better adjective, in that both the typical gaming dynamic and the flavor of this book are closer to a Derleth pastiche like The Trail of Cthulhu than they are to HPL's own Yog-Sothothery.

I haven't played Arkham Horror itself, but I have played the lighter-weight spinoff Elder Sign, which I find quite enjoyable. Two of the characters available to players in Elder Sign are featured in Ghouls of the Miskatonic (Amanda Sharpe and Kate Winthrop), and these two--and probably others--are also Arkham Horror characters. I was a little surprised at the extent to which my interest in these characters was enhanced by prior game play. The novel also makes reference to Miskatonic University personalities established in the literary originals of the "Mythos": Henry Armitage, Laban Shrewsbury, and others.

Ghouls of the Miskatonic is set in Arkham, Massachusetts, in 1926. That places it in the year following the main events described in Lovecraft's "The Call of Cthulhu" (but before the narrator's discovery of them). McNeill puts a lot of emphasis on Prohibition and other features of 1920s America that aren't as evident in the "native" accounts of Lovecraft and his peers. Some of this works well. There is an occasional clinker in diction or dialect, and although anachronisms are mostly kept at bay, the assumed co-ed character of Miskatonic University is a little off-kilter, as other reviewers have noted.

The story starts off from every which way; at least half a dozen seemingly independent plot strands are brought together over the course of twenty chapters. In the process, the extremely diverse cast of heroes are brought into social relation with each other as well, so that by the book's conclusion there is a little band of defenders: three students, an anthropologist, a scholar of ancient religion, a journalist, a photographer, a Pinkerton, and a hoodlum. As the first volume of the "Dark Waters Trilogy," I actually had to wonder if this wasn't programmed by McNeill on the model of The Fellowship of the Ring!

The narrative is all provided in a pulpy third-person omniscient style, and while the characters' feelings are described extensively enough, there's not much to draw the reader in to share those feelings. A good helping of graphic violence is available, for the benefit of those who are drawn to the combat element in the games, I suppose. The cover of the book is both attractive and a clinically accurate depiction of the scene described on page 200. The volume does provide a plot resolution, while leaving a few key questions unanswered, allowing the demand for a sequel to be posed in the epilogue. It was a fast read, and I've already acquired the second book--though I'm not too proud to admit that a contributing motive for the latter was to secure the proof of purchase that will entitle me to a promotional component to be added to my copy of the Elder Sign game.

The most frustrating books are those you read and don’t like but can’t figure out exactly why. Ghouls of the Miskatonic by Graham McNeil is one of those books. There’s every reason it should be right down my alley. It’s unapologetically Lovecraftian, set in the mid-1920s in Arkham, Massachusetts at Miskatonic University. There are lots of ghouls, ancient gods, and cultists creeping around. And I love the cover (In all honesty, that’s why I bought the book. Happens a lot.) But while all the elements were there, somehow the magic was missing.

Ghouls of the Miskatonic tells the story of a whole host of characters. There’s Amanda and Rita, students at Miskatonic University. Oliver Grayson and Alexander (I forget his last name because he only shows up when certain plot points need to be revealed) are professors at Miskatonic whose mutual friend, Professor Henry Cartright, is in an insane asylum. Rex and Minnie work for the Newspaper, and Gabrial Stone is a hard-bitten Pinkerton detective whose daughter has been murdered. Finally there’s Charles Warren, an apparent bad guy, and Finn Edwards, a man with a criminal past and a heart of gold. Apparently these characters are originally from the role playing game, Call of Cthulhu. The plot involves efforts to resurrect that greatest of Great Old Ones, Cthulhu, from the depths of the South Pacific. There are some kidnappings, strange technological devices, and an appearance by a Great Old One who has an affinity for fire.

So what’s the problem? I’ll start with the general and work my way down to specifics. Something about the writing doesn’t pop. I’m not sure what it is, and I don’t know how I would fix it. The book is technically proficient, but somehow, the heart is missing. It reminds me (and this is probably a weird allusion) of that scene in Black Swan when Padme is auditioning for the title role. Her dancing is perfect, but it lacks the fire, the passion that is necessary for the part. I felt the same way about this book. The fire is missing.

But it’s more than that. There are some more specific problems as well. The book has a few parts that are woefully anachronistic. First, the presence of women at Miskatonic University. I’m as forward thinking as the next guy, but facts are facts, and there is no way that an Ivy League university (which Miskatonic more or less is) would admit women in the 1920s. Wouldn’t happen. Sorry. Harvard University did not become co-educational until 1973(!). Yale was way ahead of its time, admitting female undergraduates all the way back in 1969. And yet, not only does Miskatonic admit women, but one of them, Kate Winthrop, has her own laboratory. But it gets better. One of our main characters, Rita, is an African American student from New Orleans . . . who is on the track team. Oh yeah, the white captain of the football team asks her out on a date. And I repeat, this is the 1920s. That’s the sort of thing that pulls you right out of the narrative.

It wouldn’t have been hard to fix the problem. Just mention that Miskatonic, being a strange place, was EXTREMELY ahead of its time on race and gender relations. Shoot, it might even serve to make the place seem all the more unusual than it already is. Just give me something so that every time Rita is mentioned I’m not questioning the fact that schools didn’t have women’s sports until Title IX. (And at one point the author mentions “the girls at Princeton.” Once again, 1969.)

But there’s more. People say funny things that they shouldn’t be saying. One cop says to one of the doctors, “You might have come up from Boston with your fancy Yale degree, but this is my town.” Now, maybe the guy was in Boston and happened to go to Yale, but it seems more like the author wants us to chuckle at the cop’s stupidity. Harvard is in Boston (or just across the river at least), and here this silly cop thinks Yale is there. But no New Englander, much less someone from Massachusetts, would make such a mistake. So it just comes off as wrong. Later, the book mentions a “faded photograph from 1917.” Now, I know photographic technology has improved, but were things so bad back then that pictures faded in less than a decade?

Then there are the plot points that are never answered (spoilers ahead!). Why are all the young girls disappearing? Who exactly is Charles Warren? Why was Stone’s daughter killed? Surely it’s not just to feed beasts. Were there not less conspicuous people to kill? Drifters, hobos. Who is the man in red? Why are all the apparently bad guys killed by the fire demon at the end, and why would the man in red, whoever he is, do that? What was the purpose of the sphere? Where is it going? Now, I understand this is the first book in a trilogy, but leaving so many questions—many of them basic—unanswered is extremely dissatisfying. A book in a trilogy should work as one book. (Imagine if Hunger Games ended right before the games started). I fear this book does not.

Unfortunately I cannot recommend Ghouls of the Miskatonic to anyone other than the most devoted fan of Lovecraft or the gaming series on which it was based. There is much that is good about the book, but it simply feel incomplete. A shame, too. The cover is awesome. ( )

The RPG-to-fiction machine is now running full throttle for games based on the Cthulhu mythos. For years there was fan fiction based on Delta Green. This was followed by published novels and anthologies set in the DG universe; many of these books are quite good (Dark Theaters, Alien Intelligence) and The Rules of Engagement by John Tynes is superb. The next book in this direction was Arkham Tales, which is a pretty enjoyable anthology of stories set in the particular Arkham from the gaming world of Call of Cthulhu. Then Chaosium published Cthulhu’s Dark Cults which is a collection of stories based on actual Call of Cthulhu gaming scenarios. While I found it to be a largely worthwhile read, the constraints of sticking to parameters set by a gaming scenario placed some significant limitations on the authors. No one would think it was as fine as a collection as one where authors are given complete creative control, like Cthulhu Unbound for example.

Fantasy Flight Games now enters the fray. Most Cthulhu geeks and fans of Call of Cthulhu from Chaosium are familiar with Fantasy Flight Games. Originally published by Chaosium, Fantasy Flight Games took over the Call of Cthulhu Collectible Card Game circa 2004. I don’t play but I know the cards are absolutely gorgeous (mind you, I would get the cards but you should see the looks I already get from my wife about all the books). There must be some market for them as FFG next published The Art of HP Lovecraft’s Cthulhu Mythos, which is a catalogue of sorts of art from the card game. Next FFG took over the old Chasoium Property, Arkham Horror in 2007. Arkham Horror is a combination board game/RPG where players investigate goings on in Arkham and its surroundings, trying to preserve their sanity while banishing mythos entities. There have been numerous supplements and expansion, attesting to the game’s (and Cthulhu’s) growing popularity. I have some of these and I again have to say they are top notch gorgeous products. I can spend hours just flipping through the sets without ever playing. FFG’s latest venture is Mansions of Madness, more board game than RPG, but with heavy role playing elements. No doubt the head honchos at FFG looked enviously at sales of Dragonlance novels and decided that the time could not be riper for fiction based on their RPG materials.

All of which finally brings me to Ghouls of the Miskatonic. FFG has produced a mmpb with an attractive cover by Anders Finer, 329 very manageable pages and very affordable at $8.99 list. In fact, trade paperbacks and hardcovers from small presses tend to be pricey so GOTM seems like a bargain. Anders Finer has produced wonderful art for FFG over the years, including covers for the Arkham Horror games. I am not familiar with the work of Graham McNeil; he has written novels set in the Warhammer worlds and helped develop some RPG material but as far as I know this is his first foray into Lovecraftiana.

Basically you can think of GOTM as a novelization of a gaming session of Arkham Horror. Quiet a few of the characters are known to Arkham Horror fans as characters/investigators in various scenarios. In the game, each investigator has a 2-3 paragraph biography to add some spice to the game play. These sketches have been used by Mr. McNeil as a starting point for his novel. The setting is in and around Miskatonic University in 1926 (about six months after the events in HPL’s story, The Call of Cthulhu). Amanda Sharpe and Rita Young are students at MU. Amanda is having unsettling underwater dreams. Rita discovers a mutilated body during a training run. Something was eating it. Meanwhile Professor Oliver Grayson, an anthropologist at MU, is finding out the world is a dark and unsettling place. His old friend is a patient at the Arkham Sanitarium and mutters about Cthugha. Gabriel Stone is a PI looking into his daughter’s murder and finding out it may be connected to a web of disappearances. Rex Murphy and Minnie Kline work for the Arkham Advertiser and poke into strange places. The lives of these and other characters begin to intersect as Arkham begins to unravel in a plague of fear and mayhem. More bodies are uncovered, mysterious artifacts are found and ancient texts are consulted, sanity is threatened. Hmm…just like would happen in a well run game of Arkham Horror, imagine that. The mythos elements do not rise above Derleth.

For the most part I was entertained. GOTM is a breezy, undemanding read and kept me turning the pages. It is not particularly original but I think the author was just aiming at spinning a decent yarn within the RPG constraints. Of course, the characters never develop above their stereotypic role in a gaming scenario, but that’s OK. The prose was good enough and the action fast paced. If you like Arkham Horror you will be very happy with this book. If you like novels based on TV shows and movies, or fiction based on D&D, you will know what sort of quality to expect. Comparing it to other Cthulhu mythos novels is a bit more problematic. I guess I liked this about as much as Hive, better than The Dark Destroyer, and perhaps not as well as Denied to the Enemy. GOTM reads like Nobel candidate literature compared to Cthulhu’s Chosen but comes nowhere near to the Laundry novels of Stross. Ghouls of the Miskatonic is the first book in a trilogy, and FFG has a second trilogy of Arkham Horror based fiction coming out as well. I will be happy to add them to my library. ( )