Nick Marsh (1)

This book contains disturbing content, including violent murder, mutilation and body horror.

I've heard the podcast this book is based on, so it was a familiar story in many ways. However, it's been skillfully adapted from an RPG session to what felt to me like an actual novel. RPG novelisations are not a new thing, but many of them feel very much like exactly that, unable to shake off the feeling of rolling dice and class abilities.

Call of Cthulhu admittedly doesn't have much of either, but Marsh's decision to reframe the story completely helps a great deal too. Rather than the usual third-person narrative, which is often quite similar to the gaming session in question, he presents a series of diaries, letters and documents, compiled by an archivist many years after the event. This provides a very different angle on the events, particularly once the variety of voices and perspectives are considered.

This is not a cheerful story. It seems a little along Agatha Christie lines to begin with, but as the plot unfolds it grows rapidly grimmer. This is not merely down to the grisly murders and horrific nature of the antagonists, but also the atmosphere of the book itself. Once the protagonists are forced to realise what they are involved in, the story is laden with dread, sorrow and despair. The first-person perspectives drive the point home as one voice after another is silenced forever. There are many violent or horrific scenes, including mutilation and body horror, and references to yet worse things. Bad things happen to innocent bystanders throughout the story. Nobody is safe.

Although I didn't find it hard to finish the book, I did find it genuinely quite a downer. It's not that it's badly written, just that it's quite grim reading. The tragedy continues right to the end, so there's little of the feeling of relief that many stories provide in the final chapters. There's also a certain gloom in how unnecessary all the suffering was - though that's due to the writers of the scenario on which this was all based, and out of Marsh's hands.

Marsh seems to have a very good grasp of his material, and the various voices of his many protagonists. He manages to evoke the turmoil of their thoughts, the atmospheres of the many locations they pass through on their journey, and the weirdness and horror of their situation. He also manages to pull off diary entries that are reasonably convincing, while still passing on all the needed information to the reader - not an easy trick, I suspect.

I hold out some faint hope that Marsh will one day feel like writing up more of the Casebook of Dr Moretti, who feels like he has a lot of unexplored potential. But I do hope it will be a bit more cheerful!

My rating is influenced by the grimness of the story - it's not something you can read in every frame of mind, I don't immediately feel a desire to read more, and it's definitely not for everyone. Technically, though, I thought it was very sound and well-written. I confess that I slightly prefer Marsh's other, somewhat more optimistic stories.… (más)

This is a very impressive debut novel by an obviously talented and intelligent author. I love this quintessentially British style of humor which oscillates between tongue-in-cheek to downright zany, from witty to just plain bizarre. Which is not to say that it is all for laughs, either. There is a plot and suffice it to say that true to the genre there is a scary threat to the time-space continuum and the future of the world, as we know it, rests in the hands of an unassuming veterinarian who in the course of his regular practice is called out in the dark of night to help assist in the birthing of what turns out to be a very otherworldly-looking calf. Little does he know the adventure he is about to embark upon but luckily for him he has his not-so-bright sidekick and soon crosses paths with a very pretty girl, who along with her good looks is also a genius physicist with the ability to see dead people; skills which will come in very handy indeed when the extent of the threat to the nature of our very existence becomes more evident. You do not need to like science fiction to enjoy this book. A healthy sense of humor and a concern for the future of humanity would suffice:)… (más)

I love reading Nick Marsh books because not only do you get to laugh but you also learn something about physics, medicine and history as well! What I'm beginning to discover in this particular series is that it's very inconvenient to one's lifestyle to be a conduit (basically a doorway between worlds) as people, spirits and things from other worlds just wouldn't leave you alone and you'd seldom get a minute's peace, invariably having to save the world every couple of months or whenever strange life forms show up, unannounced. The conduit, in this case, called Alan, is just like you and me and hasn't got anything special going on, except maybe a wise-cracking way of looking at the world which is definitely his strong point. He also has good taste in women, like Kate, for instance, even if she doesn't dig him back and who has seriously bad taste in men. Note to author: When are these two ever going to get together? Do I have to read the third in the series to find out? Is there a third in the series? Please say yes.… (más)

This is a sequel to "Soul Purpose", which I enjoyed very much (review here). "Soul Purpose" had an ordinary vet and a psychic dragged into a nasty supernatural plot, and surviving against the odds. "Past Tense" draws them further out of the ordinary, and sends them on a trip through time.

Marsh's style is much the same as ever, and I enjoyed spending a bit more time with the characters. However, I wasn't quite as happy with the plot as in "Soul Purpose". This is partly because it steps away from the "wrong place, wrong time" way that Alan stumbled into things, and reveals him as a unique individual and Chosen One. I'm a bit wary of that trope, and didn't feel it was particularly called for. I also felt that, while the time-travel idea was interesting, it meant dropping a lot of the everyday characterisation that I'd enjoyed in "SP", while the characters struggle to handle Roman Britain. I'm not saying it's a bad book, but the shift away from aspects I'd liked in the previous book meant I didn't enjoy it as much. That being said, it's still a perfectly decent read.… (más)