The 37th Mandala
From AwardAnnals
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| Author(s) | Marc Laidlaw |
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| Publisher | Leisure Books |
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| The incredible talents of Marc Laidlaw have brought us sharp-edged satire and edge-of-your-seat suspense, but nothing in the known world can prepare readers for the unsettling horror of The 37th Mandala. The mandalas spawn in the sickness of our souls. They have always been among us, unseen and uncalled. Those few occult masters who have encountered them have known to leave them alone. When a cynical New Age charlatan named Derek Crowe learns of them, he sees an opportunity for big bucks. All he needs to do is turn the mandalas into guardian spirits… | |
The incredible talents of Marc Laidlaw have brought us sharp-edged satire and edge-of-your-seat suspense, but nothing in the known world can prepare readers for the unsettling horror of The 37th Mandala.
The mandalas spawn in the sickness of our souls. They have always been among us, unseen and uncalled. Those few occult masters who have encountered them have known to leave them alone. When a cynical New Age charlatan named Derek Crowe learns of them, he sees an opportunity for big bucks. All he needs to do is turn the mandalas into guardian spirits with a message of joy—and fortune will be his. And Derek’s success will be our undoing.
Honors
Reviews
Amazon.com
Anyone who’s ever wished that the charlatans of the New Age movement would get their comeuppance from a real and potent Evil, will enjoy this well-crafted horror novel. From his wicked characterization of a cynical ad-copy writer who turns to writing occult books to make a buck, to his portrayal of the moral uncertainty of the followers who blindly hunger for occult knowledge, to his evocation of scary monsters (described as “astral jellyfish,” “ghostly buzzsaws,” and “wheels of grainy flame”) from the killing fields of Cambodia, Marc Laidlaw knows how to hit the high points. As a monsters vs. humans story, the novel’s plot is a bit unsatisfying (dramatic endings are hard to pull off), but as Brian Stableford writes in Necrofile, “the strength of The 37th Mandala … lies in its painstaking attempt to scrutinize and analyze the psychological malaise which lies at the heart of the so-called New Age.”
