The Bookwyrm's Review of The Tree of Azathoth by C.T. Phipps
Rating: 9/10 Stars
Synopsis
"The Dreaming City has a million stories."
The world has finally reached its final hours with Yog-Sothoth devouring time itself. John Henry Booth is not content to die and seeks out an old enemy to provide him an escape from the dying Earth. This results in him being transported to a strange monster-filled city where millions of humans live in a bizarre hodgepodge of eras. John soon finds out he's been here before, or at least some variant of him has, and he is soon founded by faces long thought dead. And what is his lost son's connection to the mysterious metropolis?
The Tree of Azathoth is the third novel of the Cthulhu Armageddon series, a post-apocalypse continuation of H.P. Lovecraft's popular Cthulhu Mythos.
Review
When The Tree of Azathoth was released, I was excited to see where the story would go, because so much had gone on in book two with Booth and his companions. Booth finally knew what he was becoming, and had a firm idea of where the world was headed. Unfortunately, it was a place where humanity meets its end in some form or another in 60 years, although what that really means is in doubt. This book shows just how it may not be what has been predicted, though.
The world building is excellent, as usual. Starting about 20 years after the end of book two, the world is still slowly sliding into disrepair and chaos. It's basically Judge Dredd's Cursed Earth, only caused by the return of the Elder gods, and with more mutants and monsters. It's a dying world, and people are losing hope, although they will go down kicking, screaming and fighting the entire way.
That's how the story begins. However, due to a surprise sacrifice I won't spoil, Booth is hurled into the dream lands, the realm outside time and space where dreams become the stuff of reality. In this case, Booth is stuck in an alternate version of himself, who wasn't raised in the dystopian weird west cataclysm, but instead a 1930's type noir dystopia, run by a fascistic dictatorship that lives down to every expectation you'd have for that kind of system. Mix that with mutant gangs and it's just as dangerous, of not quite so dirty, as the dystopia Booth just left. It's quite apparent the author has more than a passing familiarity with noir mystery stories, and that knowledge permeates the world he has created, in a good way. It's an interesting direction to go, and it pays off.
The characters are excellent as usual. Booth is such a complex character, tragically doomed to become something much different than human, but still holding onto his humanity as much as he can. He believes in honor in a remnants of society that has none, and finds himself more and more an outsider, alone and waiting for the inevitable end. The shift to the Dream Lands is interesting, because he has to make some drastic changes to his approach, because he is shifting from more of an old west type enforcer to a private detective type mentality, and those are distinctly different. It is a lot of fun watching him adjust to his new circumstances, especially since here, he has lost most of the protections he had in the wastes. His choices here have greater consequences than he could have ever imagined.
The secondary characters are familiar, since in most cases, they are kind of different timeline versions of his previous friends and enemies. They all get their own interesting arcs within Booth's main arc, and it is interesting the changes they have undergone with the change of setting. They are definitely different than their outlaw personas, but their cores are still the same, and Booth just works so well with them. It's a tonal change, but not in a bad way, and it will keep the reader turning pages.
The narration is performed by Cary Hite, who is new to the series. He has a different take on the character, who doesn't come off as quite as cynical and world weary, but he does an excellent job bringing Booth to life, infusing him with emotional resonance. He makes the listener feel as though Booth is flesh and blood, a man struggling with the end of the world, and he is trying to hold off despair, and it bleeds through into his performance. It is a worthy addition to the audible versions.
Overall, this is a worthy addition to the series. The tonal changes could have fallen flat, but instead just added spice to a complex character and the world he inhabits. I think the story has a lot of appeal to to a wide range of genres fans, and I highly recommend checking the series out today.
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