Those Who Go Forth Into The Place Of Gods: Curtis M Lawson & Doug Rinaldi
Reviewed By Steve Stred
I’ve followed Curtis on social media for a bit and interacted with him and he’s always been really nice. I’d pre-ordered his release earlier in the year (Black Heart Boy’s Choir) and when I heard this novella had essentially been resurrected from the dead and some sort of Kickstarter style project that fell apart, I was intrigued, so I also pre-ordered this one.
At its core, ‘Those Who…’ is a story about a sect of guardians controlling and keeping tabs on a few cosmic places. At least, that’s how I’m going to try and simply describe it.
The story follows an incredibly annoying genius who stumbles on a secret group and then has his mind imploded when his grandfather returns and shows him the secrets of the universe.
There were large sections of this book where I tuned out. I tried to be engaged, but so much was packed into so few pages that some sentences felt like throw away parts to skim over larger descriptive pieces.
I dove into this the day it arrived on my Kindle and found that it became harder and harder to force myself to get back into it. The cosmic horror parts are fantastically descriptive, but then I would have to try and recall how we got to this point, because there were pieces that just didn’t seem to fit.
I believe this was supposed to come off as an ode to Lovecraftian horror but it just felt like the world-building continued and continued and continued while the story itself didn’t move along.
I myself do love cosmic horror, so I found it a bit disappointing that I couldn’t pinpoint a key narrative or overall plotline as to what the book wanted to accomplish.
There were a number of parts that felt like it was attempting humour which threw me off, but as the story went on, I saw more and more bits of pure bizarro moments and this once again threw me for a loop.
I think this book would absolutely work if it was maybe tripled in length. More room to let the mythos breathe and be expanded on, but with a page count of around 100 pages, it just didn’t have space to fully function.
There will be a number of people who really dig this, which is fantastic, but for me, it was a struggle not to DNF.
Those Who Go Forth Into The Place Of Gods
Brewster Gilligan, an underachieving genius, believes that his loss on a television quiz show is the worst thing to ever happen to him. Little does he know that the phrase he answered with, a bit of trivia he remembered from his dead grandfather, was a scrap of forbidden knowledge that would trigger a cabal of dangerous immortals to hunt him down.
You can buy Those Who Go Forth Into The Place Of Gods from Amazon UK & Amazon US
Steve Stred
Steve Stred writes dark, bleak horror fiction.
Steve is the author of three novels, a number of novellas and four collections.
He is proud to work with the Ladies of Horror Fiction to facilitate the Annual LOHF Writers Grant.
Steve is also a voracious reader, reviewing everything he reads and submitting the majority of his reviews to be featured on Kendall Reviews.
Steve Stred is based in Edmonton, AB, Canada and lives with his wife, his son and their dog OJ.
You can follow Steve on Twitter @stevestred
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