by 
Ph’nglui mglw’nafh Cthulhu R’lyeh wgah’nagl fhtagn!
This is far more of a Cthulhu Mythos novel than a zombie novel but we’ll leave our traditional title in place anyway. If you don’t know what Cthulhu Mythos means I will give a brief explanation. Cthulhu is a Godlike monster created by H.P Lovecraft back in the the 1920’s that is something like a cross between a giant Octopus and a dragon. Mythos is basically a set of central rules of a story line that take place. So with If God Doesn’t Show we have a Cthulhu Mythos meaning we have a story that takes place in the shared world that H.P Lovecraft created featuring one of this most famous monsters. If that still isn’t clear, think of it like the Marvel Super Hero stories. There is countless stories branching off but they all exist in the same Universe with a lot of the same characters.
If God Doesn’t Show begins with Thaddeus Archer who is a Secret Service agent whose job is to protect the president. Thaddeus is a hard working man who is pretty high up in the Secret Service. He is respected by the President and puts in long hours to do his job. But even with the admiration of one of the most powerful person in the world at his side, Thaddeus can’t stop the tragedy that is becoming his life from getting worse.
A mysterious cult has learned of a way to make the Elder God rise again but while this gate open there is another evil coming through it that this cult can’t control. Earth is under attack from every direction and the only clue humanity has to stop it is an Island that has suddenly appeared in the Pacific ocean.
This is a clever book that weaves together everything from nuclear war to supernatural monsters. It’s the standard Permuted Press length of hovering around 200 pages and moves very fast. It’s balanced between a thriller and a horror novel. It’s far from predictable as authors R. Thomas Riley & John Grover did an excellent job of hiding the books secrets until they were ready to unveil them.
As noted above the book is fast paced. In fact it was so faced paced I got confused a few times and had to back track a page to reposition the story. I felt like there was a couple missed opportunities where they should have slowed down to explore a rather brilliant story line that presented itself.
There is a lot of characters in this book and each of them had their place in the story being well defined. Leading the way is Thaddeus and Gibson Blount who is the leader of a military ops croup that is like the CIA version for the supernatural.
Aside from my feeling that it moved too fast at times I really enjoyed the book and finished up in a couple days. I highly recommend this, especially if you’ve never read anything that includes our Dark Overlord Cthulhu.
Coming up soon we’ll have an interview with co-author R. Thomas Riley.
If God Doesn’t Show is published by Permuted Press.
Grade: 
Intriguing pitch!
Awesome MOC, I love the Zombies stuck in the revovling doors (at least I like to think they are actually stuck and that they have been turning for days).
Thank you good sir! Yeah the zombies will likely be stuck in that door for weeks : )
Is that from the book?
Naw. I kind of incorporated a bunch of various elements from the first third of the book you could say. There is a scene I really wanted to do towards the end but it would have been a spoiler should anyone see it and then read the book. So I chose to mix & match. It’s a motorcade and then all hell breaking loose so its close enough I guess. There is a mini-fig shooting an RPG above but I couldn’t get it to fit the scene correctly without the mini-figs being way too small.
looks really good even
Thank you good sir!
@Evan Thanks for the review!
@Greg no, that scene is not in the book, that was Evan’s genius, but I’ll definitely consider it for a scene in the rest of the Gibson Blount series down the road 🙂
Thank you. Also, I emailed you that file we talked about. Check your spam filter if you don’t see it.
I really wanted to do that scene under the island, but, like I said above. I didn’t want to drop a spoiler. Oh well. 🙂
@Evan heh, yeah I know what scene you’re talking about, would’ve been interesting to see what you would’ve done with it. The scenes you did incorporate, once people read the book, it’ll make much more sense. I’ve been looking over the above pic (for the review) and I’m still finding touches I didn’t see at first. The shadow figure, etc, loving the detail 🙂
All praise Cthulhu! Our great Dark lord! May we forever be in his glorious shadow in hopes that one day we may be blessed with his presence.
I am ashamed to say that I have not read Lovecraft even though Evan was awesome enough to send me his complete works.
I am remedying this as I type. Promise.
Skip up to “The Call of Cthulhu”
The problem with his work is that it hasn’t ever been edited and is over “wordy” at times.
“Horro of Dunwhich” was amazing.
Yup it is!
I still haven’t read them all. His collection is massive. I probably read a story a month I suppose. I’m in no rush. Lately I’ve been reading some of his personal letters to colleagues.
He’s a strange man and very fascinating.
As Evan said, Lovecraft can be a bit tedious to wade through, but the ideas he presented were always bigger than the actual stories. I think that’s why most readers (and authors, like me) are fascinated by his work. There’s just so many directions he left open. Once you ingest his work, there’s plenty of other authors out there that have delved and expanded his ideas.
I love this mythology he created and the cult aspect. I like that he seemed to back track the events to the cults almost like a mystery. I am anxious to see what you did with that cult aspect in your book.
@Angelina I played with the cult aspect and tried to approach it from a slightly different aspect, hopefully, John and I pulled it off 🙂
Finally got to read this review. OMG that MOC is fantastic. I love the sidewalk outside the shop.
Thank you! It was a lot of fun.