The House of the Toad
 Dust-jacket from the first edition | |
| Author | Richard L. Tierney |
|---|---|
| Illustrator | Harry O. Morris |
| Cover artist | Harry O. Morris |
| Country | United States |
| Language | English |
| Genre | Horror novel |
| Publisher | Fedogan & Bremer |
Publication date | 1993 |
| Media type | Print (Hardback) |
| Pages | 248 pp |
| ISBN | 1-878252-03-8 |
| OCLC | 28757784 |
| 813/.54 20 | |
| LC Class | PS3570.I332 H68 1993 |
The House of the Toad is a Cthulhu Mythos horror novel by author Richard L. Tierney. It was published by Fedogan & Bremer in 1993 in an edition of 1,050 copies of which 100 were numbered and signed by the author and illustrator.
Plot
The novel concerns James Kerrick, an archaeologist and black marketeer who sells artifacts from a lost city in Mexico. He soon discovers himself the focus of a conspiracy of ancient cults. Various of the evil characters are servitors of the Primal Ones, incredibly ancient and powerful entities which sowed life throughout the universe and caused it to evolve both intelligence and the capacity to suffer.
The novel incorporates references to Robert W. Chambers's King in Yellow mythology as well as to H.P. Lovecraft's Cthulhu Mythos. The god Ghanta is in the story is hinted to be identical to the Ghatanothoa of Lovecraft's story "Out of the Aeons".
S.T. Joshi provides an extensive description of the plot and a criticism of the work in his The Rise and Fall of the Cthulhu Mythos (Mythos Books, 2008), pp. 273–75.
References
- Brown, Charles N.; William G. Contento. "The Locus Index to Science Fiction (1984-1998)". Retrieved 2008-03-26.
- Chalker, Jack L.; Mark Owings (1998). The Science-Fantasy Publishers: A Bibliographic History, 1923-1998. Westminster, MD and Baltimore: Mirage Press, Ltd. p. 252.