Review: The Thing From HR, by Roy M. Griffis

When I first opened up this book I wasn't sure what to expect. It had been years since I'd read Lovecraft and I was never that big of a fan of Cthulhu to begin with.

But what I found was a great read that pays homage to Lovecraft's vision and peppers his mythos with a healthy dash of Harry Harrison's Stainless Steel Rat and Douglas Adams' Hitchhikers Guide to the Galaxy.

Here's why this is a book you really should be reading...

The story

Narg is a shoggoth who works in HR, Human Restraint Office, not human resources, dear ones. He's also the nephew of an Elder God who has a favor to ask - and by favor I mean a direct order: Hop on down to Earth, have his essence downloaded into one of the humans and complete an assignment that he will not be briefed on until he has arrived in his new "meatsuit" by his local native guide.

Telling an Elder God no is not an option, so off Narg goes. Only the Chaos Department isn't very helpful, even when Narg burns down a dwelling trying to contact them for more info and has to carry a naked co-ed out of the fire he started. And his native guide? He knows even less about what's going on.

What Narg does know is that there is a human nearby using forbidden knowledge to try and summon Vl’mrkh, an Elder Being whose only purpose would be to devour everything on the Earth, and only he and Murph can stop its arrival.

Working their way through suspects, and an increasing number of bodies, while trying not to become suspects in murder themselves to the local constabulary, the pair final confront the human with evil intentions and face off against the Vl’mrkh in a final confrontation with all of existence hanging in the balance.

The characters

Narg is the driver of the story, after all it is told from his POV. He's content to be a simple paper-pushing Shoggoth from Damnation Services-10 in HR - sipping from his nice hot mug of blood from a thrice-damned man - but he's been assigned to go to Earth because he's the only one around who has made the study of the "Hairless Apes Who Fling Their Poo" his own.

His local guide is Murph, a human whose soul was stolen just before the thief plunged a knife into his heart and is now damned to spend eternity hanging upside down in a cave whilst being nibbled upon by bearded, winged clams. Like Narg, he has been inserted into the body of Dr. Weisenheimer, and like Narg, he has no clue who it is they are supposed to find and stop.

There are a host of humans, unaware of who is inhabiting the visiting Professor, and one among them is the person meddling in knowledge forbidden to humans. Which means I can't tell you much about them without giving away who it is our protagonists seek. Narg and Murph are forced to try to figure out who it is with very few clues thanks to the inept Chaos Department. This is also, in a bizarre sort of way, a buddy story, as Narg and Murph work their way through the story and become as much friends as a shoggoth and a human can.

The world

Is actually two worlds. Narg's underworld where the Elder Gods live and underlings like Narg gibber away over steaming mugs of the blood of thrice-damned men while knowing why one should never give power to cats, opens and closes the story. The human world is set nearly eight decades in the past, which makes some of Murph's hippie anachronisms clash with the humans of the time. Where those worlds collide is where this story lives and how they interact is where this story is told.

The politics

Real world politics don't exist in this story. And I prefer my fiction stories to keep present day politics out of the plot. We do encounter some of the politics at play in Narg's plane of existence, especially where his uncle - an Elder God they all call 'The Bits' - is concerned. As for Narg's time on Earth, he's too busy trying to figure out why's he here in the first place and then later trying to figure out which human is trying to use forbidden knowledge to destroy the world to get involved in Earth's politics of the time the story is set in.

Content warning

Yes, Roy was writing something meant to be fun, but there is still a lot of blood and guts involved, especially near the end. But they are mixed in with just the right light touch that it isn't much of a problem. Other than that, its a PG-13 read for the most part.

Who is it for?

Anyone who wonders what would have happened if Harry Harrison or Douglas Adams had decided to step into H.P. Lovecraft's Cthulhu Mythos with their flair for sci-fi with a healthy dollop of humor mixed in.

Why read it?

If you are looking for a story about monsters - both human and non-human - that is a lot of fun to read, this is the book you want to read.