Patrick Thomas (1)

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!

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 show more 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. show less

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.

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 show more 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. show less