Richard L. Tierney (1936–2022)

The Drums of Chaos is a splendid sword-and-sandal-and-sorcery-and-superscience romp in which Richard Tierney brings together his two recurring protagonists Simon of Gitta (the young Simon Magus) and John Taggart, for a re-imagining of events in Palestine at the inception of the Christian era. The jacket copy emphasizes the sprawling continuity of Tierney's other stories about these two men, and I would point to "Seed of the Star-God" and "The Throne of Achamoth" (collected in The Scroll of show more Thoth and The Azathoth Cycle respectively, for Simon) and The Winds of Zarr (for Taggart) as the most valuable orientation for readers wanting to approach this book within the context of the larger Tierney oeuvre.

But enjoyment of this novel does not depend on acquaintance with other Tierney stories as much as it does on the reader's familiarity with Yog-Sothothery, and even more, the Christian New Testament. Tierney's twists on the various Gospel pericopes are delightfully inventive. His representation of a proto-Gnosticism, as developed in the Simon stories, is also fine, and this book sees what is probably its fullest expression, elaborating the mundane consequences of the theology staked out in "The Throne of Achamoth." Among Lovecraft's stories, "The Dunwich Horror" is the one most relevant to The Drums of Chaos, and, as introducer Robert M. Price observes, even the 1970 cinematic version of that story has made a contribution here. Tierney also cleverly fuses the Jauniste lore of Carcosa and Hastur with the Lovecraftian "mythos," supplying far more integration than the usual mere juxtaposition which relates the two.

The writer with whose work Tierney's bears closest comparison is Brian Lumley. The Drums of Chaos contains a mix of genre elements that is very much like the one in Lumley's Titus Crow stories, along with a similar pulp adventure pacing. But it is all the richer for its hermeneutic cleverness and theological insight. Lumley's Khai of Khem is also a comparable effort at science-fictional horror in an ancient setting. In Tierney's approach to a Weird Antiquity, he doesn't draw on the 21st-century vogue for "ancient aliens," but instead on virtually all of the fictional and fanloric precedents that made that trend possible, which probably includes Khai of Khem.

The physical volume published by Mythos Books is quite impressive, a cloth-bound hardcover showing a sword-wielding Simon on the dust jacket. But it does include a fair number of typographical errors in its 400+ pages. These didn't slow or sour my reading at all. It's not surprising that Tierney's work is obscure and sometimes hard to obtain, but for those readers looking for a Gnostic and/or Lovecraftian version of a para-biblical epic like Ben Hur, this book is as good as it gets. show less

This Lovecraftian romp is set in the Midwestern Quad Cities area around the date of its publication in 1993. Tierney does a fine job of tying together occult horror and conspiracy adventure on a Cthulhu Mythos base, and provides some genuine creepiness along with even a tiny bit of genuine philosophical reflection.

The occultist elements are well-informed, with the Elder adage about the stars being "right" given a generous heaping of astrological detail. The chief villain J. Cornelius show more Wassermann (!) uses a mutation of the Law of Thelema, and claims that "What Aleister knew he learned from me." And the integration of the Chambers-derived King in Yellow features is handled with unusual skill and sensitivity, in contrast to their role in e.g. Derleth's Cthulhu stories.

The House of the Toad deploys many of my favorite genre tropes, so I give it the fetishistic thumbs-up for bizzarre dream sequences, maiden sacrifices, a weird mansion, an unreliable protagonist, and pervasive paranoia. show less

I was surprised at how much I enjoyed this book. I expected some pretty cheap story, characters and plot, with Red Sonja being a fairly predictable protagonist and lacking depth - sometimes I seek out those books because honestly that's what I'm in the mood for sometimes. This book was much better than that, though. And for a short book, it was nearly non-stop action. I have read quite a few Conan novels and I have to say I enjoyed this book as much as the best of those. I would typically show more give a book like this 3 of 5 stars, but I'm bumping it up to 4 because this one surprised me. show less

This book collected most of Tierney's "Simon" stories, in which the protagonist is the Gnostic hierophant Simon Magus. They are adventure stories with a strong Weird Tales flavor, set in a well-researched late antique context. They are really good, even if you've outgrown (or never particularly liked) pulp sword and sorcery stuff. The appropriation of the Lovecraft "mythos" and its integration with classical Gnostic theology is handled really artfully.

Unfortunately, the very best Simon show more story is not included in The Scroll of Thoth. "The Throne of Achamoth" was co-written by Scroll editor (religious scholar and fringe ecclesiastic) Robert M. Price, and it appears in the Azathoth Cycle collection, also published by Chaosium, and also out of print. show less