Novelist Shaun Hamil hits the ground running with A Cosmology of Monsters, his masterful novel. It’s the story of the Turner family, which finds itself overshadowed across the generations by Lovecraftian forces from beyond. As their youngest son, Noah, tries to make sense of his family’s fractured dynamics and discovers himself at their commercial haunted house, he finds his life changed after establishing a connection with an impossible creature. As his fate becomes intertwined with the designs of the mysterious City, Noah is forced to face hard truths about love, loss, damaged souls, and the special pains of growing up.
The book pays tribute to horror tropes while at the same building beyond them, creating a rich cast of flawed, complex characters just trying to live their lives in a world where the darkly magical is only a hair’s breadth away. The perfectly spun narrative manages to blur the line between good and evil, while still producing a decent help of shock and awe. As we charge steadily through the years and toward a gut-wrenching climax, Hamil merrily flicks every monster-story cliche on its head. This is a pristine work of horror fantasy that deserves its place among the greats, guided by a boundless imagination and a skilled grasp of language. I will be awaiting the author’s next offering with breathless anticipation.
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