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Book List: 21st Century Lovecraftian Fiction

A lot of people have had limited (or no) exposure to the work of H.P. Lovecraft. Maybe they’ve seen those memes that go around at election time that say “Cthulhu for President: Choose The Lesser of Two Evils”, or have an adorable tentacled plushie, but that doesn’t mean they have ever actually read his stuff (and in addition to being creepy and terrifying, his writing can get pretty cumbersome). And once you toss in the really problematic aspects to his work, those people are probably not going to seek it out.

But you do not have to be a fan of the man to appreciate the imaginative worlds he created. Way before the Internet made fanfiction communities possible, people took his words and ran with them to create their own stories, and they are still doing it. I think he’d truly be astonished to see what people today have done with what little he wrote.

I will admit that I am not his biggest fan, mainly because his work gave me the heebie-jeebies in high school and I’ve never been able to get past that. But as an adult, I have read books that are grounded in the universe he imagined, and some of them have been really, really good. Books that are outstanding on their own merits, but that would never have existed if he hadn’t written down his own stories first.  Also, there are many authors that have approached his work in different ways, some more inventive than others. It makes me curious as to what will come next!  I’m going to share a few titles with you here that either I have read and enjoyed or that our reviewers have recommended. If you’re ready to move on from the past,  here are a few books you can try to check out what’s new in the world of Lovecraftian fiction.

 

 

Winter Tide by Ruthanna Emrys

 

Emrys flips Lovecraft’s view completely, by giving the narrative voice to Aphra Marsh, one of the “people of the water” who inhabited Innsmouth until the government destroyed it and took the survivors to an internment camp in the desert in 1928. Aphra and her brother Caleb are the only survivors, and are adopted by the Koto family, Japanese-Americans interned there during World War II. After the war is over, Aphra is contacted by a Jewish FBI agent, Ron Spector, who has reason to believe that the Russians may have learned the dangerous ability to body-switch, a power possessed by the Yith, long-lived time travelers who archive as much of history as they can. Spector wants Aphra to visit Miskatonic University as part of a research delegation and attempt to discover who at Miskatonic might have presented the Russians with the information. Aphra and Caleb jump at the opportunity to visit the Miskatonic library, where all books and documents remaining after the destruction of Innsmouth are stored. All this is just the beginning of a suspenseful and creepy mystery with more than its fair share of terror. A second team of FBI agents working at cross-purposes with Spector, a mysterious Yith, and an unexpected family reunion all feed into the chaos and pain, but there’s also love and loyalty, coming from unlikely places. With survivors of Innsmouth, formerly interned Japanese-Americans, a Jewish FBI agent, and an African-American informant, as central characters, genocide and racism must be faced head-on, but Emrys handles it without ever getting didactic. From Aphra’s point of view, we are all monsters, and it’s the choices we make that matter.

 

Dreams from the Witch-House: Female Voices of Lovecraft edited by Lynne Jamneck

 

This feminist anthology of Lovecraft-inspired horror received a rave review from Monster Librarian reviewer Lizzy Walker. Read her review here.

 

The Dream-Quest of Vellit Boe by Kij Johnson

 

This novella by Kij Johnson is her response to Lovecraft’s The Dream-Quest of  Unknown Kadath. It has an unreal, dreamlike feel to it, reminiscent in places of Ursula K. Le Guin, and draws the reader in to that dimension where uncaring, destructive, and capricious gods determine the fate not just of individuals but of entire communities. Vellitt Boe is a professor of mathematics who goes on a nightmare quest to retrieve one of her students, who has escaped to the waking world, before her grandfather, an insane god now deep in sleep, awakes and destroys the women’s college Vellitt works at, out of vengeance. An  adventurous traveler earlier in her life, Vellitt, now middle-aged, sets out again to find her student, a rare woman traveling through dangerous places, forced to face her regrets and past decisions as she moves closer to her goal. In a note at the end of the novella, Johnson writes that her first experience with Lovecraft was with The Dream-Quest of Unknown Kadath, and that while she was uncomfortable with the racism, it was only later that she noticed the absence of women. Even though there are women in Johnson’s story, that absence is notably obvious. It’s also rare to see an adventure story with a middle-aged woman as protagonist, and it’s pretty cool that Johnson chose to center her in this novella.

 

The Ballad of Black Tom by Victor Lavalle

 

This is Lavalle’s response to Lovecraft’s “The Horror at Red Hook”. It’s been featured in many major review sources and has won multiple awards. Read our review here.

 

Maplecroft: The Lizzie Borden Dispatches by Cherie Priest

 

Lizzie Borden lives with her sister Emma, a disabled, brilliant, mad scientist, near the town of Fall River, Massachusetts, in the remote estate of Maplecroft. Although she’s been found innocent of the crime of murdering her parents with an ax, she can see malevolent entities from the ocean infecting the people of her community with nightmares and insanity, and she is not afraid to take them on, with every resource at her disposal. This is an epistolary novel, made up of journal entries and letters, and it’s easy for a story told using this method to drag. In this case, though, the plot is fast-paced, descriptions are vivid and horrific, and characters are revealed as in the peeling of an onion. Priest climbs inside the minds of characters who are slowly going insane, and we see through their eyes– it is a riveting, disturbing, trainwreck of a book. Priest does a great job of integrating historical details and Lovecraftian elements into her story. In addition to being ruthless and brutal with an ax, Lizzie also has a lover, Nance, who adds to the tension of the story. With complex women at its center, Maplecroft is a take on Lovecraft that would blow him away. A second volume, Chapelwood, is also available.

 

Lovecraft Country by Matt Ruff

 

This is a series of interlocking stories taking place during the Jim Crow era,  about two African-American families threatened by cultists. Some critics have said it’s short on the existential dread and wiggly creatures, but an argument can be made that African-Americans in segregated America had more immediate terrors as part of their daily lives. This book is being made into an HBO series produced by Jordan Peele, the individual responsible for the excellent movie Get Out. 

 

 

Posted on October 17, 2017 by , Reply

Musings: The Same Old Arguments About H.P. Lovecraft

H.P. Lovecraft was a racist.

It’s not an argument we are going to have here. He was a racist, and it’s clear as it can be from his writing that he was racist, misogynistic, and anti-Semitic.

I often hear apologists say “He wasn’t any worse than anyone else at the time.”  That’s a terrible argument. Other people being racists at the same time doesn’t excuse Lovecraft– it just shows that an appalling number of people were racist.

I’ve actually seen someone compare him to Abraham Lincoln (I’m totally willing to say that Lincoln was not an angel, and he certainly held racist beliefs. But that’s one of the most bizarre comparisons I’ve ever come across). Lincoln’s racism isn’t an excuse for anyone else’s racist beliefs, either.

Also, can we please get past the idea that people who object to Lovecraft’s racism are destroying literature? Or that any literature belongs to any one person?  Lovecraftian fiction is more popular than it’s ever been, and his racism isn’t stopping a lot of people from reading and enjoying it, or even writing it.  And authors and publishers who address the problematic nature of Lovecraft’s work are producing some amazing work. Victor Lavalle’s The Ballad of Black Tom, a response to The Horror at Red Hook, received rave reviews.  Silvia Moreno-Garcia at Innsmouth Free Press, published and co-edited She Walks in Shadows, an award-winning anthology of Lovecraftian fiction.

I’m not a fan of Lovecraft at all, but I don’t think Lovecraft’s work should be banned, or shoved under the table. Just because he wrote about shadowy creatures doesn’t mean he and his work should be hidden. He existed, and regardless of what you, or I, or anyone else, think of him,  he made tremendous contributions to horror literature, and his mythos, at least, has solidly embedded itself in mainstream culture.  As individuals, we can each decide whether his problematic attitudes toward race, women, and Jews are enough to keep us from reading his work or even loving it. But they shouldn’t be forced on anyone.

But this back-and-forth on “is Lovecraft a racist” is taking the focus away from some really brilliant writers who have already recognized that he is problematic, and are facing that head-on. Let’s see how far-reaching the diversity and creativity of today’s writers of Lovecraftian fiction can take us as we acknowledge his racist past.

 

 

Posted on September 3, 2017 by , Reply

Book Review: The Ballad of Black Tom by Victor Lavalle

The Ballad of Black Tom by Victor Lavelle

Tor Books, 2016

ISBN-13: 978-0765387868

Available: Paperback, Kindle edition, Audio

 

This could be one of the most important books of the year, maybe in quite some time. The cosmic horror of H.P. Lovecraft, especially his stories of the “Old Ones”, the Cthulhu Mythos, has been a driving force for decades: however, most of the recent books standing in the shadow that he has cast, have been disappointing.

Lovecraft’s virulent racism has been the topic of considerable controversy over the last several years. The question of how to reconcile his problematic views with his genius has been a difficult one for readers and lovers of horror to wrestle with. In The Ballad of Black Tom, Victor Lavelle responds to Lovecraft’s racism by re-visioning of one of his most racist stories, “The Horror at Red Hook”, bringing it up to date by presenting it from a fresh point of view. Excellent on its own, The Ballad of Black Tom is easily one of the finest horror stories bridging the racism of our dreadful past to our present-day troubles.

The story features an African-American musician and hustler, Charles Thomas Tester, living in downtrodden Harlem in 1920s New York. He travels to Flushing Meadows, delivering dangerous occult items, always hunted by gangs and bigoted cops, knowing each trip might be his end. One evening, he meets up with the mysterious Robert Suydam, who promises Charles a fine payday to play at his party. Charles is unaware that the man seeks to awaken the “Sleeping King.” After suffering daily, with the threats of street life in jazz-age New York, the otherworldly doesn’t frighten him much… but it should.

Lavelle is a strong, talented writer with a voice I would like to hear more often. His style is as smooth as the notes of the forbidden song Charles plays, which transforms 1920’s New York into the living, breathing organism it needs to be for this novella. The Ballad of Black Tom is a twisting tale of the Lovecraft mythos that is both refreshing and suspenseful. I could easily have read more of Charles’ journey, which ends with a surprising, but utterly satisfying conclusion. If this book is not claiming awards next season, there’s something wrong with the system. Highly recommended.

 

Reviewed by David Simms

Posted on September 30, 2016 by , 1 comment
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