Review of The Exaltation of the Minotaur by Damian Murphy

Whatever forms D. M.’s stories assume, whatever mantles of obscurity they adorn, they remain an inspiration.

In the Hieromantic Mirror, we are introduced to a sultry protagonist engaged in more investigations of the uncanny and underlying uncertainty of societal constructs. Like most of his characters, she is a seeker after the profound.
Esoteric board games may exert a fascination over the author. In this story, the main character is an initiate into a mysterious system. She draws daily meaning out of the seemingly innocuous tasks she is required to perform by a shadowy Consulate.
Her husband, while unsympathetic, behaves reasonably, without investigating the depths of her unusual researches. Deeper meanings may allude the reader, while the narration is as rich with subtext as usual. The writing is concerned with describing the initial stages of encountering forces beyond human control. The characters grope through an uncanny world where each action seems guided by destiny and strangely pregnant with concealed meaning. The vague and unsettling sense of ineffable forces at work burns like an unquenchable flame beneath all of the author’s surface level descriptions, which in their own right, possess transportive power.
In a sense, a similar summary can be applied to most, if not all of his stories and novels. The advantage of such an approach is that the reader can enter into this mode of storytelling anywhere, and explore the elaborate constructions of a decadent imagination.