![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
cimoreneI mentioned a while ago reading and loving Michael Shea's first two Nifft the Lean books, so I poked around a bit looking for other stuff of his to read. I tried this Cthulhumythos story without recognizing the title (it's a direct sequel to a Lovecraft story called "The Colour Out of Space", but I read the complete Lovecraft in like 2007 and most of it has blended together in my head), not that it would necessarily have stopped me. In fact, I've read more Cthulhumythos things - or watched them, I guess - than the total wordcount of that complete Lovecraft compilation probably. My dad has been fond of the mythos his whole life and has written in it several times, as well as talking about it, so I'd consumed a fair bit of it before I actually read any actual Lovecraft. (My favorite of these is still "Maureen Birnbaum and the Looming Awfulness" in Maureen Birnbaum, Barbarian Swordsperson.)
Well, I enjoyed this novel, but I have to say that it did not age well at all, because Shea made the decision to make Lovecraft a character in his universe. I suppose others have probably written Lovecraft into Cthulhumythos before as a guy who witnessed terrible stuff but then just wrote fantasy about it with some names changed to protect the innocent - I doubt he came up with the conceit - but he introduces a main character who talks about the dearly-departed Lovecraft as the wonderful and kind mentor who opened her mind and spiritually prepared her for monster-killing, and there are a bunch of speeches about what a nice and wonderful guy he was as well as his other admirable qualities that just look fantastically unfortunate and comically foot-in-mouth now, after the extended debate in the genre that resulted in the bust of Lovecraft being retired as the World Fantasy Award. HPL didn't make any appearance onscreen, and the mentions of him were confined to a couple of scenes past the midway point, so the result was just YIKES! and not an inability to finish the book.
Well, I enjoyed this novel, but I have to say that it did not age well at all, because Shea made the decision to make Lovecraft a character in his universe. I suppose others have probably written Lovecraft into Cthulhumythos before as a guy who witnessed terrible stuff but then just wrote fantasy about it with some names changed to protect the innocent - I doubt he came up with the conceit - but he introduces a main character who talks about the dearly-departed Lovecraft as the wonderful and kind mentor who opened her mind and spiritually prepared her for monster-killing, and there are a bunch of speeches about what a nice and wonderful guy he was as well as his other admirable qualities that just look fantastically unfortunate and comically foot-in-mouth now, after the extended debate in the genre that resulted in the bust of Lovecraft being retired as the World Fantasy Award. HPL didn't make any appearance onscreen, and the mentions of him were confined to a couple of scenes past the midway point, so the result was just YIKES! and not an inability to finish the book.
