Welcome back to the Lovecraft reread, in which two modern Mythos writers get girl cooties all over old Howard’s sandbox, from those who inspired him to those who were inspired in turn.
Today we’re looking at Neil Gaiman’s “A Study in Emerald,” first published in 2003 in Shadows Over Baker Street (edited by Michael Reeves and John Pelan). Spoilers ahead. We’re not worthy, we’re not worthy.
“She was called Victoria, because she had beaten us in battle, seven hundred years before, and she was called Gloriana, because she was glorious, and she was called the Queen, because the human mouth was not shaped to say her true name. She was huge, huger than I had imagined possible, and she squatted in the shadows staring down at us, without moving.”
Summary
Narrator, a retired army major, returns to Albion from Afghanistan, where gods and men are savages unwilling to be ruled by London, Berlin, or Moscow. The Afghan cave-folk tortured Major by offering him to a leech-mouthed thing in an underground lake; the encounter withered his shoulder and shredded his nerves. Once a fearless marksman, he now screams at night. Evicted from his London lodgings, he’s introduced to a possible roommate in the laboratories at St. Bart’s. This fellow, whom Major soon calls “my friend,” quickly deduces his background. He won’t mind screaming if Major won’t mind Friend’s irregular hours, his use of the sitting room for target practice and meeting clients, or the fact that he’s selfish, private, and easily bored.
The two take rooms in Baker Street. Major wonders at the miscellany of Friend’s clients and his uncanny deductive powers. One morning Inspector Lestrade visits. Major sits in on their meeting and learns that Friend is London’s only consulting detective, aiding more traditional investigators who find themselves baffled. He accompanies Friend to a murder scene. Friend has a feeling they’ve fought the good fight together in the past or future, and he trusts Major as he trusts himself.
The victim lies in a cheap bedsit, sliced open, his green blood sprayed everywhere like a gruesome study in emerald. Someone’s used this ichor to write on the wall: RACHE. Lestrade figures that’s a truncated RACHEL, so better look for a woman. Friend disagrees. He’s already noted, of course, that the victim’s of the blood royal—come on, the ichor, the number of limbs, the eyes? Lestrade admits the corpse was Prince Franz Drago of Bohemia, her Majesty Victoria’s nephew. Friend suggests RACHE might be “Revenge” in German, or it might have another meaning—look it up. Friend collects ash from beside the fireplace, and the two leave. Major’s shaken—he’s never seen a Royal before. Well, he’ll soon see a live one, for a Palace carriage awaits them, and some invitations can’t be rejected.
At the Palace, they meet Prince Albert (human), and then the Queen. Seven hundred years ago, she conquered Albion (hence Victoria—the human mouth can’t speak her real name.) Huge, many-limbed, squatting in shadow, she speaks telepathically to Friend. She tells Major he’s to be Friend’s worthy companion. She touches his wounded shoulder, causing first profound pain, then a sense of well-being. This crime must be solved, the Queen says.
At home, Major sees that his frog-white scar is turning pink, healing.
Friend assumes many disguises as he pursues the case. At last he invites Major to accompany him to the theater. The play impresses Major. In “The Great Old Ones Come,” people in a seaside village observe creatures rising from the water. A priest of the Roman God claims the distant shapes are demons and must be destroyed. The hero kills him and all welcome the Old Ones, shadows cast across the stage by magic lantern: Victoria, the Black One of Egypt, the Ancient Goat and Parent of a Thousand who’s emperor of China, the Czar Unanswerable of Russia, He Who Presides over the New World, the White Lady of the Antarctic Fastness, others.
Afterwards Friend goes backstage, impersonating theatrical promoter Henry Camberley. He meets the lead actor, Vernet, and offers him a New World tour. They smoke pipes on it, with Vernet supplying his own black shag as Camberley’s forgotten his tobacco. Vernet says he can’t name the play’s author, a professional man. Camberley asks that this author expand the play, telling how the dominion of the Old Ones has saved humanity from barbarism and darkness. Vernet agrees to sign contracts at Baker Street the next day.
Friend hushes Major’s questions until they’re alone in a cab. He believes Vernet’s the “Tall Man” whose footprints he observed at the murder site, and who left shag ash by its fireplace. The professional author must be “Limping Doctor,” Prince Franz’s executioner—limping as deduced from his footprints, doctor by the neatness of his technique.
After the cab lets them out at Baker Street, the cabby ignores another hailer. Odd, says Friend. The end of his shift, says Major.
Lestrade joins our heroes to await the putative murderers. Instead they receive a note. The writer won’t address Friend as Camberley—he knows Friend’s real name, having corresponded with him about his monograph on the Dynamics of an Asteroid. Friend’s too-new pipe and ignorance of theatrical customs betrayed that he was no shag-smoking promoter. And he shouldn’t have talked freely in that cab he took home.
Writer admits to killing Prince Franz, a half-blood creature. He lured him with promises of a kidnapped convent girl, who in her innocence would go immediately insane at the sight of the prince; Franz would then have the Old One-ish delight of sucking her madness like the ripe flesh from a peach. Writer and his doctor friend are Restorationists. They want to drive off man’s Old One rulers, the ultimate act of sedition! Sating monsters like Franz is too great a price to pay for peace and prosperity.
The murderers will now disappear; don’t bother looking for them. The note’s signed RACHE, an antique term for “hunting dog.”
Lestrade initiates a manhunt, but Friend opines the murderers will lay low, then resume their business. It’s what Friend would do in their place. He’s proven right—though police tentatively identify Doctor as John or James Watson, former military surgeon, the pair aren’t found.
Major consigns his story to a strongbox until all concerned are dead. That day may come soon, given recent events in Russia. He signs off as S____ M____ Major (Retired).
What’s Cyclopean: Nothing, every word in this story is perfect.
The Degenerate Dutch: Even seven hundred years after the Old Ones turn the moon blood-red, England exists in noticeable form. In British fantasy, England tends to be as essential a component of the universe as hydrogen.
Mythos Making: The returned Old Ones include Nyarlathotep, Shub-Niggurath, and Cthulhu, as well as several less immediately identifiable entities.
Libronomicon: Oddly for a Gaiman story, books don’t play any notable part in “Study.” There’s a theatrical script, though.
Madness Takes Its Toll: Those of the blood royal feed on madness for their pleasure. It is not the price we pay for peace and prosperity. It is too high for that.
Ruthanna’s Commentary
Like one of Lovecraft’s unnamed narrators, I react to this story instinctively and viscerally. Like a Holmesian detective, I can lay out clear and reasoned arguments for its quality. And as in “A Study in Emerald,” these two modes of analysis dovetail perfectly: I adore the story without reservation. It’s my favorite Lovecraftian tale, the perfect distillation of Mythosian mood.
“Emerald” was written for the 2003 Shadows Over Baker Street anthology. The appeal of the Holmes/Mythos theme was obvious; the implementation turned out to be challenging. In theory, mystery and horror should be compatible, since mystery is all about the plot and horror is all about invoking emotion. But Holmes is something else. Though ostensibly realist, Doyle’s stories make just as many assumptions about the nature of the universe as Lovecraft’s do, and the two are diametrically opposed. Sherlock Holmes lives in a world that is ultimately knowable—an alternative universe, in fact, far more knowable than the one in which we find ourselves. It has no place for butterfly-induced hurricanes, let alone R’lyeh. Phrenology works, ashes point directly to favored cigarette brands, and professions leave unmistakable marks on skin and posture.
Most of the Shadows Over Baker Street contributors chose to resolve this impossible conflict, answering the eternal question “Who’d win?” Either Holmes goes mad when deduction leads to unnameable horror, or Cthulhu cultists prove just as tractable as anyone else in the face of proper forensic methodology. Gaiman takes a different tack. In a world where the Great Old Ones not only exist, but triumph, the Great Detective is not himself at all. Instead, our heroes prove to be Doyle’s villains: the wickedly rational Moriarty and his second Moran. Moriarty is Holmes’s perfect foil, perfect enough to fool the reader right up until the end. (Or, for those up on their Holmes trivia, until the name Vernet is mentioned.)
The pitch perfect Holmes pastiche gets at everything I love about those stories. There’s the comforting rhythm of the perfect deduction, starting with M.’s analysis of his roommate-to-be, neatly paralleling the analysis of Watson in “A Study in Scarlet.” (Most housemates would get along better if they started with Holmes-style confessions of their most irritating quirks.) There’s the uncomfortable, but symbiotic, relationship between the consulting detective and the authorities. There’s the central, scribal friendship between a man who loves to show off and a man who loves to be shown off to.
The Lovecraft pastiche is both more overt and subtler. This is the sort of Holmes tale Doyle might tell, in style and content, but it’s not at all the sort of Mythos tale that Lovecraft would. The story begins long after the worst terrors embedded in the Mythos have come true—and become commonplace. The cultists have taken over, answering to their unholy overlords. Royalty exudes both fear and fascination, and leaders who give prosperity with one hand (limb) can carry out dreadful deeds behind closed doors. The world isn’t entirely like ours, though; the moon is a different color.
What Emerald pastiches isn’t the actual content of a Lovecraft story—no hoary tomes, no detailed descriptions of the inhuman anatomy. Instead, it mirrors the eerie fascination and joy of the Mythos reader. Victoria is an eldritch horror, but her subjects take real comfort in her awe-inspiring presence. Anyone here who seeks out Cthulhu and Shub-Niggurath in safer form, and comes away both comforted and unsettled, can relate.
Anne’s Commentary
I was a perfect victim, er, subject, er, reader for this story since somehow I’d never read it before. From the title, I deduced I’d be dealing with Sherlock Holmes, who made his first appearance in A Study in Scarlet. From the first faux-Victorian ad, I saw that the Cthulhu Mythos would play a part, for “The Great Old Ones Come.” Okay, great! A tasty mash-up of Conan Doyle and Lovecraft!
And so, first read-through, I zipped blithely along, noting that the first-person narrator was unnamed but thinking nothing of it. As for his new roommate, the consulting detective, I didn’t notice he was never named either until about halfway through. Kudos to Mr. Gaiman, for playing so surely on my assumptions: of course the narrator must be Watson and the detective Holmes, even in a parallel universe in which the advent of the Old Ones, not the Norman invasion, is the pivotal event in English (and world) history. Augh, I feel like Watson at his densest. You know, like the sweet but bumbling Nigel Bruce, Basil Rathbone’s sidekick.
Yeah, I was a little uneasy when “Watson” described himself as a soldier and marksman rather than as a surgeon. Momentum swept me on. I paused again when “Holmes” gave vague feelings as his reason for trusting “Watson” on short acquaintance. That didn’t sound very Holmesian. But the kickers didn’t come until late in the story. First “Holmes” deduced that a “Limping Doctor” was Franz’s actual executioner. A doctor? Limping? Second, the “Tall Man” wrote that he’d read “Holmes’s” paper on the Dynamics of an Asteroid. Wait a minute! Holmes didn’t write that, Moriarty did! But this is all messed up, or is it? What about the narrator’s signature, S____ M____?
Don’t assume. Deduce. In a universe where Old Ones rule Earth circa 1886, it makes sense for Moriarty and his chief henchman Sebastian Moran to be the “good guys,” while Holmes and Watson are the seditious criminals. As this version of Moriarty says, it’s all morally relative: “If our positions were reversed, it is what I would do.” Could the Holmes of Conan Doyle’s England, transported to Gaiman’s Albion, serve rulers who demand the price of minds (souls) for their general benevolence? No way. Could Conan Doyle’s Moriarty countenance such a price and thrive under Old One dominion? Sure.
Excellently done, Mr. Gaiman! You turned my mind inside out, and I enjoyed it.
The other great fun of “A Study in Emerald” is trying to figure the Old Ones out. Who’s who? We’re told they return to humanity from R’lyeh and Carcosa and Leng. Some of them, by name and description, are fairly obvious. The Black One of Egypt, who looks human, must be Nyarlathotep. The Ancient Goat, Parent to a Thousand, must be Shub-Niggurath. I’m thinking the Czar Unanswerable is Hastur the Unspeakable. The White Lady of the Antarctic Fastness? Ithaqua would be the one most likely to enjoy that chilly climate, and it could be a “Lady” as well as a “Lord,” right? What to make of the more cryptic rulers, the Queen of Albion and He Who Presides over the New World? Well, since we still need someone from R’lyeh, one of them should be Cthulhu. I vote the huge Queen, even though “she’s” not said to be octopoid. What about the “Presider” (President)? Yog-Sothoth? Tsathoggua? Somebody/Something else?
This is your essay question, students. You have one hour to respond.
The other Mythosian of great interest is the lake creature who attacks Moran. Even more interesting is the implication that (as Lovecraft himself would have it), the Old Ones are not the only political party in the cosmos, nor are they necessarily all perfectly united. The gods of Afghanistan are rebellious, refusing to be ruled by Albion or Berlin or Moscow. Victoria (Cthulhu?) sends troops against them and their human worshippers, with little apparent success. Moran notes apprehensively that trouble brews in Russia, where the Czar (Hastur?) reigns.
Most humans seem to accept Old One rule, as evidenced by applause for the play about their coming. Moreover, they can do good. We’re told they’ve saved mankind from its barbarism. They provide prosperity, prevent war [RE: How can you have battle-scarred veterans if you’ve prevented war? Maybe they just call it something else…]. The Queen heals Moran’s withered shoulder with one touch. Yet they do demand terrible sacrifices (Franz’s little diversions being the example), and rebels like Holmes and Watson can’t accept this. Self-rule, whatever the odds and the price!
One lovely example of Gaiman’s craft before we go. Moran gazes at his healing scar and hopes it’s not just the moonlight that makes it look pink rather than frog-white. Pink? From moonlight? Later we learn from the Old One play that their coming changed our nastily yellow moon to a comforting crimson. Stellar detail. Stellar staying within Moran’s POV, for he’d never explain to us or himself why the moonlight was pink-tinted and pink-tinting. We the readers have to wait for that revelation until it can be elegantly introduced.
That’s how one builds worlds that convince.
Next week, we meet one Lovecraft’s pulp collaborators, A. Merritt, for “The Woman of the Wood.”
Ruthanna Emrys’s neo-Lovecraftian novelette “The Litany of Earth” is available on Tor.com, along with the more recent but distinctly non-Lovecraftian “Seven Commentaries on an Imperfect Land” and “The Deepest Rift.” Winter Tide, a novel continuing Aphra Marsh’s story from “Litany,” will be available from the Tor.com imprint in April 2017. Ruthanna can frequently be found online on Twitter and Livejournal, and offline in a mysterious manor house with her large, chaotic household—mostly mammalian—outside Washington DC.
Anne M. Pillsworth’s short story. “The Madonna of the Abattoir” appears on Tor.com. Her first novel, Summoned, is available from Tor Teen along with the recently released sequel Fathomless. She lives in Edgewood, a Victorian trolley car suburb of Providence, Rhode Island, uncomfortably near Joseph Curwen’s underground laboratory.
What an absolutely fantastic story. The early parallels with “A Study in Scarlet” are perfectly done, from “I perceive you have been in Afghanistan” to RACHE and Lestrade’s interpretation of the word. This isn’t just the sort of story one expects from Neil Gaiman, it’s one of his best.
The only guess I can offer for the identity of Victory is Mother Hydra. The number of mythos deities who identify as female is terribly small, but at least she has something of a maritime connection for Albion. I have no real guesses for the Antarctic ruler; maybe Rhan-Tegoth, who seems to like cold climes?
I keep forgetting to get down my monster dictionary from 1928 to look up “rache”. I know the word “brach” or “brachet” for a hunting hound, but not rache. I can’t imagine Gaiman getting that wrong, though, so I’m sure the definition is real. I’m going to have to wait for the cat to get off the windowsill, though, because it’s the only surface close to where the dictionary is that I can put it on.
“A Study in Emerald” is a fine and audacious pastiche (and inversion) of the worlds of two classic cult authors.
Gaiman on Lovecraft and Doyle: in batrachian conversation with Leslie Klinger:
Klinger: I’m sure everyone in the audience knows about my favorite Lovecraft crossover piece that you wrote, the award-winning, incredible “A Study in Emerald,” in which Holmes meets Cthulhu.
Gaiman: That was a grownup one. As an adult, I wrote two Lovecraftian pieces; one was a story called “Only the End of the World Again,” and then some years later Michael Reaves called me up, and said, “I’m doing an anthology of Sherlock Holmes meets Cthulhu stories. Can you do something for me?” That seemed like the most fundamentally stupid premise for an anthology I’d ever heard, because everything about Holmes is about rationality, everything about Holmes is the idea that things can be understood, that you can look at somebody and deduce that they are a thirty-five year old Latvian housepainter with a deaf left ear and an incontinent cocker spaniel. And everything about Lovecraft is about looking at somebody and not understanding that they are a remnant of a dead god from a formless cosmos whose very real appearance will drive you into madness and beyond. Trying to crossbreed these things is like trying to crossbreed a greyhound with Gibbon’s The History of the Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire . . . they don’t breed.
And then I thought, “Well, hang on. What if I actually made my entire world Lovecraftian and set a Holmes figure in there with the forces of rationality? What would happen then?” There are very few stories that write themselves, but that was one of those lovely occasions where the story kind of did all the work for me. And then I went on to collect Hugo Awards and things for it, and look very smart, and feel very awkward, because I had no idea how I’d done it.
@1: Rache seems to be a rather antique and obsolete term in our world: here’s the obligatory Wiki page.
@2: The one Internet source I didn’t check. I didn’t even think to try Wikipedia, just Google and various online dictionaries.
But as it was just dinnertime for the cats, I was able to (quite literally) look it up in my Funk and Wagnall’s. They gave the primary spelling as “rach”, but noted “rache” as acceptable.
This was actually the first Holmes story I’d read since “speckled band” in high school many (many) years ago, and it inspired me to download and read the entire Holmes canon (free e-books). Gaiman definitely wrote the story the Doyle would have written it if the Old Ones had taken over 700 years ago.
The claim that the Old One ended war and barbarism should probably be read with reference to the year 1200 or so, which was a pretty barbaric time from the lens of a man of rationality in 1914. The idea that humanity might have lifted itself up without the Old Ones seems not to be considered, or to be suppressed.
And what to make of the reference to the speed of light and troubles in Russia. Is Holmes this world’s Einstein? Is a proletariat Russian Revolution brewing (against the Czar Unanswerable?) Or is this a reference to a coming World War and maybe using atomic weapons against the Old Ones. Hmm…
Gaiman’s story is great. For those who love to further immerse themselves in this take on the Cthulhu mythos, I suggest checking out Martin Wallace’s board game based on this story. You can get an overview of the game here: http://www.treefroggames.com/emerald
*grins* I read this one in Gaiman’s anthology Fragile Things. It inspired me to start reading the original Sherlock Holmes stories, which didn’t hold my interest for long. Not enough eldritch wildlife.
I would choose Dagon for Lovecraftian New World President, but he probably wasn’t.
What, nothing about the ads? Victor’s Vitae, Jekyll’s powder, Țepeș’s exsanguination and Jack’s boots? By the way, since there is no link this time, the story can be found on Gaiman’s website.
I always thought the story was interesting and was very glad I got the audio book read by author at a reasonable price.
I recognize that I’m in a tiny minority, but I bounced very hard off of “A Study In Emerald” — coming, admittedly, from being very well-versed in Holmesian canon and pastiche but at best very lightly versed in canonical Lovecraft.
The problem for me was that I didn’t find the twist of Moriarty and Moran as protagonists to be either innovative or well-justified. I had already seen John Gardner’s and Michael Kurland’s series of Moriarty novels (I particularly recommend the Kurland books) and encountered Kim Newman’s shorter Moriarty-centric stories, so the gimmick wasn’t new to me, and I caught onto it almost at once. I had also read Esther Friesner’s Druid’s Blood, which — while not at all traditional in tone from a Lovecraftian standpoint — I thought had done a very credible job of working out the dynamics of injecting eldritch horrors into a Holmesian framework.
The present reviewers make a good case for “Emerald” being an excellent Lovecraft pastiche, but I’m less convinced when they assert that it’s a good Holmesian one. It seems to me that Druid’s Blood easily and effectively shows how a shadow-Holmes can function in a Lovecraftian nightmare (contrary to Ruthanne’s sentiments), and there are a number of excellent pastiches — some more obscure than others — that introduce Holmes to other overt supernatural phenomena. I’m especially fond of Fred Saberhagen’s The Holmes-Dracula File, not least for one of the best lines of dialogue in any Holmes pastiche ever: “My congratulations on thinking of wooden bullets.”
I also find Anne’s reference to “Conan Doyle’s Moriarty” unconvincing, as the Moriarty character appears only very minimally in Conan Doyle’s own works. Indeed, many respected Sherlockians argue persuasively that either the Professor, his status as the Napoleon of Crime, or both are products of Holmes’ imagination. From a strict canonical standpoint, every faux Moriarty is pretty much wholly invented by the author of the relevant pastiche, up to and including the one who turns out to be Holmes himself. (If you’ve read that particular book, you know which one I mean; if you haven’t, I won’t spoil that author’s twist by revealing the title here. But I assure you, it’s been done.)
So while the story may well be superior Lovecraft, and certainly contains some skillful wordcraft, I’ve never found it credible as Holmes-craft.
My first thought about humans being ruled by eldritch abominations was that it reminded me of the Megatherians of Gene Wolfe’s New Sun series. The “White Lady of the Antarctic Fastness” could certainly apply to Erebus. Of course, the big difference is that it’s strongly hinted that the Megatherians are, in some messed up way, human.
@9: I am unfamiliar with Druid’s Blood (though I have read her much-less-serious “Love’s Eldritch Ichor”) but in terms of novels that feature both “The Great Detective” and Lovecraftian horrors, I enjoyed Roger Zelazny’s A Night in the Lonesome October. (Having also missed The Holmes-Dracula File, I have to ask how the wooden bullets work…)
I’ve heard the imaginary Moriarty theory and don’t subscribe to it, though it is a little odd that Watson never gets a face-to-face meeting with Moriarty in the canon (Anthony Horowitz fixes that in The House of Silk). I would recommend Ben Macintyre’s The Napoleon of Crime: The Life and Times of Adam Worth, Master Thief as a biography of the real criminal mastermind whose exploits inspired the character.
This is only tangentially related: but I found Hard Case Crime’s pulpy version of The Valley of Fear amusing. (The biography of “A. C. Doyle” is here.)
every word in this story is perfect.
Beg to differ. “The hero beat the priest to death with his own crucifer”. A crucifer is a person, not a cross — it gives a very cartoon-physics image of the confrontation.
“Crucifer” is also a word for plants in the family now known as Brassicaceae. Now I’m picturing someone getting beaten with a horseradish root. Or with broccoli, for a truly cartoonish image.
@12 & 13: I can’t say it was one of the better Monty Python sketches…
I should mention that Shadows Over Baker Street is also notable for containing Elizabeth Bear’s debut, “Tiger, Tiger.”
DemetriosX@@@@@1: It would be hubristic to suggest that the Mythos deities “identify as” having human genders–even Nyarlathotep may simply be taking a human form (when it bothers to do so) associated with authority. My guess for Victoria is still Cthulhu, but yeah, could be Hydra too.
StrongDreams @@@@@ 4: I would absolutely read a story about the Russian Revolution Against the Great Old Ones, even though it would probably be about as life-affirming as “A Colder War.”
Athreeren @@@@@ 7: Word count limits prohibited. But the ads really are an amusing and fascinating bit of worldbuilding. Does the actual existence of vampires, Frankensteinian monsters, etc., depend on Great Old Ones in the background? Or is it simply that with the GOO running the show, they can flourish publicly?
Also, thank you for sharing the link, which I forgot to add before posting. It’s a really beautiful version visually, too.
John & Aerona: And “crucifer” doesn’t appear to have evolved from the Latin until the 1500s in any case, at which point we come to the question of why the story isn’t written in some sort of uncleftish conlang. But you never want your gorgeous Lovecraftian imagery interrupted by horseradish attacks, so I’m forced to revise my claim: every word in this story is perfect except “crucifer.”
I imagine altar boys carrying long staffs capped with broccoli. Hero seizes the foremost boy and whirls him by his heels and brains the priest with the broccoli, which is gilded lead, hence a fine bludgeon. Ouch.
As for Moriarty, I myself like the holodeck version who’s quite convinced he’s “real.”
The World Fantasy Award design competition is up: they are looking to replace the Howie with something “simple and elegant, representing both fantasy and horror, without bearing physical resemblance to any person, living or dead.” Oh, and the terms for artists are still far from great but have improved slightly: https://www.facebook.com/johnpicacio/posts/10154151934708115
@12/15: Regarding crucifers, don’t forget that the people of this world aren’t necessarily going to be 100% accurate in their terminology about the obscure practices of an ancient dead religion.
I really and truly hope that this story’s inclusion means you’re also going to get around to Stephen King’s two contributions, and if you weren’t previously planning on doing so, please please please?
The two are “Jerusalem’s Lot” (the short story, not ‘Salem’s Lot, the novel), which is a more overt homage, aping Lovecraft’s style as well as subject matter, and “Crouch End”, which is stronger in the Mythos but rendered in King’s normal tone (and, for my money, the better of the two; it is terrifying).
Pretty please?
It might not be a good idea to believe everything you are told by the rulers of a world governed by Lovecraftian horrors.
I enjoyed the craft in this story a great deal – but suspect that what will stick in memory is the depressing moral perspective. In a world where Great Old Ones exist, those who would be heroes of a different environment are doomed to become anarchists? It is left uncertain what events are under way in this alternate history – but the actual events in Russia in 1881 go nicely with that earlier quote (“If there’s one thing that a study of history has taught us, it is that things can always get worse”). Somehow I can’t pin much hope on atom bombs redeeming their world (if that sort of thing were effective, well, they wouldn’t have lasted long enough to be Old Ones…).
@19: I should really make a list of recommended stories. Thus far, I can think of
“The Damned Thing”, Ambrose Bierce, 1893
The remainder of the “King In Yellow” cycle, Robert W. Chambers, 1895
“The White People”, Arthur Machen, 1904
“The Willows”, Algernon Blackwood, 1907
Something from the pre-war collections of Lord Dunsany
Assorted authors from “Supernatural Horror in Literature” (F. Marion Crawford, Mary Wilkins Freeman, etc.)
“The Horror from the Hills” (combined with H. P. Lovecraft’s “The Very Old Folk”), Frank Belknap Long, 1931
“Black God’s Kiss”, C. L. Moore, 1934
Something by Henry Kuttner from The Book of Iod
“The Survivor”, August Derleth, 1954
Something by Fritz Leiber: perhaps “A Bit of the Dark World” (1962) or, less seriously, “To Arkham and the Stars” (1966)
“Sticks”, Karl Edward Wagner, 1974
“My Boat”, Joanna Russ, 1976
“Jerusalem’s Lot”, Stephen King, 1978
The contents of New Tales of the Cthulhu Mythos, ed. Ramsey Campbell, 1980 (includes “Crouch End”)
“The Last Feast of Harlequin”, Thomas Ligotti, 1979/1990
“A Colder War”, Charles Stross, 2000 (preferably with “The Unthinkable”, Bruce Sterling, 1991)
It has also occurred to me that we haven’t had a post dedicated solely to a Robert Bloch story. (Why yes, I have just ordered Mysteries of the Worm.)
@JeanTheSquare (18)
While that’s a perfectly reasonable Watsonian explanation, the image remains stupidly distracting if you know what a crucifer is…. (And actually, the meaning is moderately obvious from the form of the word. Perhaps classical scholarship has suffered since the Old Ones came, though).
CapnAndy @@@@@ 19 I love both the King stories mentioned. Could we also count the wonderful “Mrs. Todd’s Shortcut,” with its eerie yet seductive parallel world? Maybe even “The Jaunt,” which deals with the madness that lurks in in-between spaces.
SchuylerH @@@@@ 22 We’ve been thinking lately about Russ’s “Boat.” And thanks for noting again the anthology by Campbell, which I need to order.
@24: There’s an Arkham House second edition on Abebooks for $15.00 + shipping.
If you do “The Jaunt”, there is a real danger I will take up a lot of the comments thread enthusing about Alfred Bester’s early work. Just a warning.
15: Mmm… no, that’s not actually the case.
Per ISFDB, it isn’t her debut short story. Same per Wiki, although I realize Wikipedia is dubious (but Bear’s own site is down, that being my preference on sources).
I really liked Bear’s Irene Adler story. That antho… argh, I’ve serious issues with it. Neil and Bear stood out; one story was major in that it was an example of bad writing on multiple levels.
Cap’n Andy @@@@@ 19:I haven’t read either of the King suggestions, and would certainly be up for that. I haven’t read any King in years. Things that were comfort reads in high school… tend to remind me of high school. But there’s still much of his oevre I haven’t explored.
SchuylerH @@@@@ 22: Thank you. This time I’m going to go ahead and make a spreadsheet.
Anne Zanoni @@@@@ 26: I stand corrected. I could have sworn that her two earlier-written stories didn’t appear until The Chains That You Refused, but apparently one showed up in a British anthology in 2000. So Shadows was just *my* intro to her work. Still notable.
And yeah, once I had the relevant Gaiman and Bear short story collections, Shadows went into the swap box.
@26/27: Good to know that the collection isn’t all that great. I came very close to getting it a couple of days ago, but hesitated at the €12 price for the e-version.
BTW, since I’m not all that well-versed in the Holmes universe (I have problems with a lot of Doyle’s stories and so haven’t reread them in many, many years), could somebody explain the Vernet reference?
@28: In “The Adventure of the Greek Interpreter”, Holmes claims that his grandmother was the sister of the French artist Vernet, without stating which Vernet he meant.
I made a map for this story a while back: http://quantumbranching.deviantart.com/art/A-Study-in-Emerald-the-World-1881-354993098
It’s a gem (hah) of a story. It’s hard to say what’s happening at the end: did Russian Revolutionaries set off a nuke under the Czar Unspeakable’s Throne, [1] or has some sort of inter-Elder Abomination conflict broken out in Russia? If the peaceful division of the world between various Great Old Ones is now ending in an Eldritch *WWI, it’s unclear how much of the human race will survive.
@21: clubs and pointed sticks can kill humans, yet their existence did not prevent Adolph Hitler and Joseph Stalin. Similarly, the existence of GOOs over aeons and their conquests of worlds does not require them to stand still and take it while people with the capacity to do so lob nuclear weapons at them. (That being said, power levels and invulnerability vary widely depending on writer. Perhaps atomic weapons can destroy them, perhaps they can just make the world not worth ruling over any longer: part-Old Ones such as Franz certainly go down easily enough to conventional weaponry. Or was the Lame Doctor packing five-pointed Elder Thing talismans as well as surgical tools?)
I actually find the adverts a bit distracting, because they make it an “everything but the kitchen sink” setting where Dracula, Dr. Jeckyll, Frankenstein, etc. all co-exist with Lovecraftian monsters: it’s fun, but makes the story, well, goofier.
[1] Where did they get it? Why, the ruler of Egypt showed them how, just for shits and giggles.That’s just how Nyarly rolls.
Austrian artist and cartographer Robert Altbauer has created some medieval-style illustrations of Crusaders fighting Lovecraftian monsters in the Holy Land. The captions are in a sort of Middle High German, though I’m not entirely sure about some of his word choices (hardly my area, I’m probably wrong). You can see them here. Article on io9 here.
Gaah, that second link keeps getting screwed up by the system. Try copy & paste: io9.gizmodo.com/lovecrafts-creatures-would-have-made-excellent-opponent-1768666924
@31: I feel sorry for the Elder Thing in the first image whose attempt to explain the heliocentric theory seems to have gone badly wrong.
I kind of love the guys with the Mi-Go. “Thanks so much, no. We’re fine, honest.”
@24:
You know, I’ve never thought of either of them as Mythos contenders. “Mrs. Todd’s Shortcut” I really can’t see; it’s a seductive parallel world, yeah, but if I had to pick a word to describe it, it’d be primal. Lovecraft’s reaction to primal, animalistic things (and urges) that predate civilization was repulsion, not seduction. “The Jaunt” is a stronger case, but I dunno. It plays as a Twilight Zone spec script more than anything to me. Yeah, there’s a some unnamable horrors that drive people mad, but the whole thing is so de-emphasized and presented as a mystery, and it only comes in at the last moments for the telegraphed twist ending. “What did that kid see” is fun to discuss, but an answer of “Great Old Ones” rests on exactly as much textual evidence as “Rick Astley music videos, on repeat”, y’know?
@27:
You really, really should. “Crouch End” in particular will amply repay you in nightmares.
@34 – I thought “The Jaunt” made it clear that the problem wasn’t seeing things, but the fact of existing as a disembodied mind with no outside sensory input for, oh, vigintillions of years. If there are any Elder Abominations in the story, it’s the kid when he comes out the other end.
Another mythos-inspired tale worth a look: Nethescurial by Thomas Ligotti, available online here http://www.ligotti.net/tlo/online.html in various formats.
SchuylerH @17: may I suggest a stylized Elder Thing?
I can’t help thinking that the cultists in Lovecraft’s original “Call of Cthulhu” would have been really disappointed…
Yeah, right. It’s seven hundred years after the Coming, and the mouldy old laws and rules and hierarchies are still firm in place, with the eldritch “liberators” inside the system and doing little that the humans couldn’t do for and to themselves. Even the cruelties and predations that Vernet described… well, let’s face it, it’s not just tentacled abominations that get their jollies off other beings’ torment.
I’m curious about the GOOs’ side of it. How did the lords of the great void end up playing kings and queens among the creepy-crawlies of a little blue rock? Maybe the toxic telepathy went both ways and they ended up as screwed up by human minds as vice versa, trapped in the roles the humans dreamed for them. Maybe Victoria’s tower is as much a prison for its occupant as Cthulhu’s tomb.
OneRatNoWall @37: Typical politicians. Promise to change things while you’re campaigning, then you get into office and it’s the same old, same old.
Meet the new Dark Overlord, same as the old Dark Overlord.
@35: “Nethescurial” is excellent and I hope we get round to it (I think it was Darrell Schweitzer who said it was Ligotti’s answer to “The Call of Cthulhu”), however, I think we should probably do “The Last Feast of Harlequin” first as it’s the story Ligotti recommended as an introduction to his work. (After “Nethescurial”, here’s hoping for “The Sect of the Idiot” and “Vastarien”. Oh, I have a special plan for this reread…)
Bruce Munro @@@@@ 35: Oh, right, now I remember “The Jaunt.” That story creeped the hell out of me as a teenager.
OneRatNoWall @@@@@ 37: More proof that the British Empire is a force of nature, a fixed point that exists across timelines and regardless of the severity of other changes to reality. As a wise entity once said, “Lots of planets have a North.”
On the subject of the relative scariness of human versus eldritch horror, I’ve been reading Matt Ruff’s Lovecraft Country. And having nightmares about the Jim Crow south. Highly recommended, with the caveat that the author does not appear to have actually been to Chicago.
@40: “More proof that the British Empire is a force of nature, a fixed point that exists across timelines and regardless of the severity of other changes to reality.”: I don’t see why anyone would have reason to doubt this.
Ruthanna: I’ve heard great things about The Ballad of Black Tom as well, which is told from the perspective of a black man who ends up as one of the “Red Hook” cultists.
Maybe you and Anne can tackle it and Lovecraft Country back-to-back as a multi-part entry?
@42: Ruthanna reviewed The Ballad of Black Tom for Tor.com but it would be interesting to get Anne’s perspective and a full reread breakdown (What’s Cyclopean &c.) somewhere down the line. (It really is an excellent deconstruction of “The Horror at Red Hook”, with great cosmic horror sections and that scene with the straight razor…)
DOuthier @@@@@ 42 & SchuylerH @@@@@ 43: I’d love to, but it’ll have to wait until neither of us is neck-deep in novel edits. (“Novel edits” are also the explanation for why this week’s reread is “Woman of the Wood,” a short story, and not “The Moon Pool,” a novelette. I’m proofreading the Necronomicon and Anne is negotiating a treaty with the shoggoths.)
Oh, absolutely. I understand that people have schedules, and I’m willing to wait (dead but dreaming) until time permits.
I just think it’d be fascinating to get Reread reviews of these two novels in succession given that they have the common element of an African-American protagonist’s perspective on the Lovecraft mythology.
It might also be interesting at some point down the road to start mixing in adaptations of Lovecraftiana, from Howard Hawks’ Thing from Another World to Dreams in the Witch House: A Lovecraftian Rock Opera (which is a thing that exists and is all kinds of awesome and can be checked out for free on YouTube and Spotify.)
One advantage of such reviews would be that, provided the original piece in question has already been reviewed and the adaptation is pretty faithful, there might not be any need to write a recap – just limknthe original review and tell us what the adaptation changed.
@44: “I’m proofreading the Necronomicon and Anne is negotiating a treaty with the shoggoths.”
Somehow, that’s the less disturbing way round, the one that doesn’t end with people in small towns across the East Coast waking up to discover there’s something curiously batrachian about their new neighbours and Nyarlathotep acquiring forbidden knowledge about new media in exchange for a hutch of plot bunnies…
Great reviews of this amazing story. My favorite Gaiman story. It was interesting, though, that the image you guys used at the start (showing the Rache in background) actually is the box cover art for a board game made by Martin Wallace based on the story. Yes, the game does the story justice!
Maybe Benedict & Neil should simply try, what Sherlock & Moriarty did on that rooftop. Tongues, not handgun & hopping. ;-)
Every word may be.
But one number, I must cavil, is not:
the date, “1881,” given at the very end, is obviously CE (or, in the parlance of that age, “AD”).
But if, 700 or so years previous to the story, the “Roman God” was overthrown by the arrival of the Great Old Ones,
then surely the dating system associated therewith would have gone by the wayside as well?
The date should thus be “700-something.”
Otherwise, story and analysis here are both brilliant.
> It’s hard to say what’s happening at the end: did Russian Revolutionaries set off a nuke under the Czar Unspeakable’s Throne…?
We’re 33 years too soon for World War I and the Russian Revolution. In the story’s stated year of 1881, on March 1 (Old Style), Alexander II of Russia was assassinated by anarchists. While vague, Gaiman’s implication certainly seems to be that “the recent events in Russia” involve the assassination or attempted assassination of the inhuman Czar by Russian anarchists, and Moran is expecting some sort of retaliation whose effects have at least *some* chance of reaching as far as Albion.
The reference to e=mc^2 in relation to “The Dynamics of an Asteroid” could be nuclear-bomb-related, yes. I’m biased by early exposure to Isaac Asimov’s short story “The Ultimate Crime,” which theorizes that Moriarty’s suppressed dissertation was on the subject of how one might blow up a planetoid to create an asteroid belt.