The last few posts have been about books published years ago – volumes that have been waiting patiently in my library for me to pick them up. I thought I’d spend time on something new tonight – likely something that most haven’t yet had the chance to read. This is the second in a series by Jonathan L. Howard – a new author for me who’s writing his way into an old and familiar and favorite mythos. The first of these two books – “Carter & Lovecraft” – was mentioned in my Holiday Reading List post on 12/11/2017 as something new that I really enjoyed. “After The End Of The World” is the second in a series that uses the stories of the H.P. Lovecraft as a foundation in a really novel and fun way.
Quick upfront note – I’ve always really enjoyed H.P. Lovecraft. I first found him during my Middle School – early High School Years. The paperback editions of his stories were always on the shelf in the Science Fiction / Fantasy sections of every book store and for a young guy who had spent most of his time reading Heinlein, Asimov, Pournelle, Tolkein, Howard, Burroughs, Lieber and other pretty mainstream authors – they really didn’t seem like my thing. I probably picked those books up a hundred times – read the back covers – and put them back on the shelves. At the time, I was not a horror fan – I’m still not – books or movies – but there was something about the creepy cover art that kept bringing me back.
It was just a matter of time until I took the plunge and bought one. Once I finally did, I was hooked. The stories seem a little dusty and kind of quaint today but at the time, 12 years old me decided it was revelatory and magical stuff. It was the edgiest stuff I’d ever read and I felt like I was striking out in a whole new and more adult direction.
As much as I came to enjoy the stories, I absolutely fell in love with the language. I learned a whole new vocabulary reading Lovecraft’s stories – noisome vapors, cenotaphs, necropolis, charnel, miasmal, nacreous – words that I really wanted to use. For a time, all of my creative writing was styled after Lovecraft – it was atrocious stuff but different enough to make me stand out to a series of English teachers and trick them into believing that I might actually have some talent.
I can’t say that my love of the mythos has faded to any significant degree over time. I continue to look for modern authors that use elements of Lovecraft’s work as a basis for their stories – one great example being Charles Stross’ Laundry Files novels. If you haven’t read these – make it a priority. They are funny and fun and creepy all at the same time. I have to wonder if the success of the Laundry Files has brought people back to Lovecraft – given that I’ve seen and read a lot of new releases based on his work recently – two in particular being “The Ballad Of Black Tom” – a retelling of Lovecraft’s story “The Horror At Red Hook” and “Lovecraft Country” – both really worth a read.
All of that was just a round about way of explaining why it was inevitable that I’d eventually buy and read these books. When I saw the “Carter & Lovecraft” title, I had to have it and I wasn’t disappointed. The stories are tight and well-written, the characters are well developed and the author manages to weave H.P. Lovecraft himself into the books and finds a way to pull his mythos into the modern world. There’s all sorts of neat stuff in the first two books – Fomorians – the Innsmouth kind, Old Gods, Thule Society Nazis, British commandos and an alternate future where the Germans won WWII and became a respectable world power. I’ve probably had more fun with these books than with anything I’ve read since the last Laundry Files novel or the last of Jim Butcher’s Harry Dresden novels. These are two that I’d highly recommend and I can’t wait to see what happens next.
One final note – now that I’ve finished Howard’s first two books – I actually have two novels written by another author – new to me – named James Lovegrove. They’re the first two volumes in a series called the Chtulhu Casebooks. The first is titled “Sherlock Holmes And The Shadwell Shadows” and the second is titled “Sherlock Holmes And The Miskatonic Monstrosities”. I don’t know how you could fail by putting one of my favorite literary characters of all time together with Lovecraft’s mythos – couldn’t be happier about the prospect of digging into these. I’ll be starting these two tonight and I’ll let you know how it goes.