The Thing From HR
In 1928, H.P. Lovecraft published a short story, “The Call of Cthulhu,” which told of vast and ancient entities that pre-existed time and space––Beings that waited hungrily just outside of reality, ready engulf and devour our world. The stories are beloved by horror masters like Stephen King and Guillermo del Toro. These tales of Great Old Ones, Elder Things, Dark Gods, and their hideously unnatural minions have inspired books, graphic novels, films, role-playing games, and heavy metal bands.
Now it’s spawned a comedy.
Take NargLAh. He’s a Shoggoth, an amorphous shape shifter, the lowest of the low at Cthulhu, Amalgamated, the corporate entity that supports the inscrutable aims of the Vast Inhuman Intelligences That Gibber In The Darkness Beyond The Farthest Stars (most of them have titles like that on the org chart). Narg is content working as a Damnation Services-10 in HR (“Human Restraint”). Sure, he was related to one of the Elder Gods, but a little nepotism never hurt any Thing. His life was just wailing and gibbering, right up until his Uncle needed a small favor from his nephew, who is one of the few of his kind to have studied the Hairless Apes. All Narg had to do was go down among the humans…and pretend to be one of them.
Stuffed into a meatsuit, our every-Thing hero finds himself in a small American college in the late 1930s, where intrigue, murder, magic, theoretical physics, hostile shadows, and the occasional nude co-ed are afoot. Aided by his only slightly less-hapless native guide Murph (a dead 70's surfer dude, also stuffed into the meatsuit), Narg has figure out why he was sent here and what he is supposed to stop; after all, his career is on the line. To his surprise, he grows to appreciate humans and their capacity for love, and along the way, he discovers that it’s possible for a Bad Thing to be a Good Guy, even by accident.
Roy M. Griffis (Author), Magnus Carlssen (Narrator)
Audiobook
