''The House of the Toad'' is a

Cthulhu Mythos The Cthulhu Mythos is a mythopoeia and a shared fictional universe, originating in the works of American horror writer H. P. Lovecraft. The term was coined by August Derleth, a contemporary correspondent and protégé of Lovecraft, to identify ...

horror novel Horror is a genre of fiction which is intended to frighten, scare, or disgust. Horror is often divided into the sub-genres of psychological horror and supernatural horror, which is in the realm of speculative fiction. Literary historian J ...

by American writer

Richard L. Tierney Richard Louis Tierney (August 7, 1936 – February 1, 2022) was an American writer, poet and scholar of H. P. Lovecraft, probably best known for his heroic fantasy, including his series co-authored (with David C. Smith) of Red Sonja novels, fea ...

. It was published by

Fedogan & Bremer Fedogan & Bremer is a weird fiction specialty publishing house founded in Minneapolis, Minnesota in 1985 by Philip Rahman and Dennis Weiler. The name comes from the nicknames of the two founders when they were in college. The first Fedogan and ...

1993 File:1993 Events Collage.png, From left, clockwise: The Oslo I Accord is signed in an attempt to resolve the Israeli–Palestinian conflict; The Russian White House is shelled during the 1993 Russian constitutional crisis; Czechoslovakia is peace ...

in an edition of 1,050 copies of which 100 comprised a limited edition numbered and signed by the author and illustrator on a special plate affixed to the front free endpaper. The volume was illustrated by Harry O. Morris, who had published Tierney's first novel, ''The Winds of Zarr'', in 1975, through his Silver Scarab Press. Well-versed in Meso-American archaeology, Tierney, during his time working for the U.S. Forest Service, spent four winters in Mexico, Central and South America visiting ancient Amerind ruins (1962–66), photographing many of the most remote mountain and jungle sites. He later utilised this background for ''The House of the Toad.''

Plot

The novel follows James Kerrick, an archaeologist and black marketeer who for years has eked out a living looting archaeological treasures for sale on the international black market. Finally, in the ruins of a lost city in the region of

Azcapotzalco Azcapotzalco ( nci, Āzcapōtzalco , , from '' āzcapōtzalli'' “anthill” + '' -co'' “place”; literally, “In the place of the anthills”) is a borough (''demarcación territorial'') in Mexico City. Azcapotzalco is in the northwestern p ...

Mexico Mexico ( Spanish: México), officially the United Mexican States, is a country in the southern portion of North America. It is bordered to the north by the United States; to the south and west by the Pacific Ocean; to the southeast by Guate ...

, he makes a discovery which a Midwestern millionaire, J. Cornelius Wasserman, is willing to pay a fortune. For Kerrick, a bitter American ex-patriate, it is a chance to retire once and for all from his dangerous profession - and an opportunity to return home to see the woman he left behind years before. But she has inexplicably vanished and Wassermann is no ordinary collector. To his mounting terror, Kerrick is inexorably swept into a vast conspiracy of ancient cults and international intrigue. Worse still, the stars are becoming right. Various of the evil characters are servitors of the Primal Ones, incredibly ancient and powerful entities which sowed life throughout the universe and caused it to evolve both intelligence and the capacity to suffer. The novel incorporates references to

Robert W. Chambers Robert William Chambers (May 26, 1865 – December 16, 1933) was an American artist and fiction writer, best known for his book of short stories titled '' The King in Yellow'', published in 1895. Life Chambers was born in Brooklyn, New York, t ...

's King in Yellow mythology as well as to H.P. Lovecraft's

. The god Ghanta in the story is hinted to be identical to the

Ghatanothoa The Xothic legend cycle is a series of short stories by American writer Lin Carter that are based on the Cthulhu Mythos of H. P. Lovecraft, primarily on Lovecraft's stories " The Call of Cthulhu" and " Out of the Aeons". The cycle is centered o ...

of Lovecraft's story "

Out of the Aeons "Out of the Aeons" is a short story by American writers H. P. Lovecraft and Hazel Heald, a writer from Somerville, Massachusetts. First published in the April 1935 issue of ''Weird Tales'' magazine, it was one of five stories Lovecraft revised for ...

Critical reception

S.T. Joshi Sunand Tryambak Joshi (born June 22, 1958) is an American literary critic whose work has largely focused on weird and fantastic fiction, especially the life and work of H. P. Lovecraft and associated writers. Career His literary criticis ...

provides an extensive description of the plot and a criticism of the work in his ''The Rise and Fall of the Cthulhu Mythos'' (Mythos Books, 2008), pp. 273–75. Other reviewers have described the novel as having an Indiana Jones meets H.P. Lovecraft feel." Agent

Kirby McCauley Kirby McCauley (September 11, 1941 – August 30, 2014) was a Minnesota-born American fan of the macabre who went on to a career as a major literary agent and editor professionally based in New York City, becoming a prime mover behind the commerci ...

wrote of the novel that it was "an exciting and welcomed venture into dark and cosmic realms by one of the foremost authors writing in the tradition of H.P. L Lovecraft." Michael A. Morrison, reviewing the novel for ''Necrofile'' found that the novel failed to convince, though stating that "Tierney is a fine writer, with a special gift for evocative descriptions of place, and he makes a more serious effort at characterization than one is accustomed to in modern Mythos yarns."S.T. Joshi, ed. ''Necrofile'' No 10 (Fall 1993).

References

Sources

* * {{DEFAULTSORT:House Of The Toad, The 1993 American novels Cthulhu Mythos novels Fedogan & Bremer books