The 37th Mandala

The mandalas have always been among us, unseen and uncalled. Those few occult masters who have encountered them have known to leave them alone, for to these unholy forces we are mere playthings, insignificant tools to be used, fed upon—and eventually discarded. When New Age charlatan Derek Crowe learns the secrets of the mandalas he sees only the opportunity for easy money. He ignores the warnings, alters the mystical texts to make the dreaded mandalas seem benevolent to a gullible public, then publishes his book and waits for the profits to roll in. But Crowe is all too successful. For he has inadvertently released upon the earth a horror that is beyond all understanding or control—a horror both infinite and hungry. Named Best Novel of 1996 by the International Horror Guild Award, and a finalist for the World Fantasy Award, this marks The 37th Mandala’s return to print after many years, and its first appearance as an ebook. Reviews: “Genuinely creepy. This book has enough to keep the reader checking the corners.” – Stephen King “Marc Laidlaw is writing the kind of horror fiction that made me fall in love with the field in the first place. While he can be gruesome when he needs to be, his real power is in the largeness of his vision. The 37th Mandala is a masterpiece of the kind of visionary horror we’ve hardly seen since Lovecraft died.” – Ramsey Campbell “This one will eat your brain.” John Shirley “Attempts to achieve a genuine sense of awe are rare in contemporary horror. Describing the unspeakable is a daunting task, but Laidlaw rises to it, creating a manifestation of the unearthly that is both accessible and impenetrably alien. A superior tale of human beings in thrall to occult forces.” – Publishers Weekly "To all rational men, there are horrific thoughts—and their particular horror is what underlies and sustains such distinctively modern novels as The 37th Mandala. … 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. … A thoroughly modern horror novel.” – Brian Stableford, Necrofile “Laidlaw lays out a work … nearly as compelling as Lovecraft's. … Stick-fast storytelling and brilliant discursive detail about occultism. Deserves high marks indeed—and those mandalas cry out for celluloid computerization.” – Kirkus Reviews “Marc Laidlaw writes with originality and brilliant finesse from a classic, back-to-the-roots-of-horror base that doesn’t stint on up-to-the-minute visceral intensity and sardonic wit. The 37th Mandala is a visionary, wicked tale of New Age spirituality and sheer evil. … Laidlaw immediately draws the reader into the fantastic with powerful writing and believable characterization.” – Paula Guran, Dark Echo Horror "Laidlaw presents the reader with surreal visions of our reality intersecting with a hellish alternative. It's Lovecraftian in the best sense of the word, suggestive of vast yawning chasms that lie beneath our every step, intuiting the hopeless terror that hides behind our mundane actions. Unlike Lovecraft, however, Laidlaw puts a fair amount of effort in his characterizations. By making his characters come to life, he is able to breathe more life into his hellish visions. This leads to some particularly effective 'dual-reality' scenes that will linger in the reader's mind long after the novel is finished." – The Agony Column

Amazon.com Review

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."

From Publishers Weekly

Attempts to achieve a genuine sense of awe are rare in contemporary horror. So Laidlaw (The Orchid Eater) is to be complimented for making the effort in his new novel, even though it falls short of its visionary ambitions. The titular mandalas, clearly influenced by Lovecraft, are both extradimensional "organisms" and symbolic "archetypes of decay" that manifest in our world as 37 distinct designs. When New Age hack writer Derek Crowe pilfers the manuscript in which they appear and rewrites it as a book of bromides for the crystal-gazing crowd, he inadvertently creates a cult of believers that attracts the evil entities from across the terrestrial threshold. Crowe's struggle to deal with what he has wrought brings him into contact with a wildly varied cast of characters, including a woman who becomes a physical embodiment of the worst mandala and a Cambodian refugee who seeks to control the mandalas for his own purposes. Describing the unspeakable is a daunting task, but Laidlaw rises to it, creating a manifestation of the unearthly that is both accessible and impenetrably alien. Yet the novel's cosmic scope never quite comes to life, as the sense of menace generated by the mandalas remains embedded in the individual dramas of the novel's characters. The result is a superior tale of human beings in thrall to occult forces, but one whose reach exceeds its grasp. Copyright 1996 Reed Business Information, Inc.

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