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stone monkey, on 17 February 2010 - 11:34 PM, said:
And because I'm all about the giving, there's a couple more books and short stories you might want to glance over for your spy fiction/Cthulhu mashup needs...
The Spiraling Worm by David Conyers & John Sunseri - which was apparently originally planned to be a tie-in to the Call of Cthulhu: Delta Green RPG campaign setting but eventually went on its own not-so-merry way. It's less clever than the Stross (but few things are as clever imo) but it's pretty much the same kind of deal only with slightly more conventional protagonists. Coincidentally enough, my copy of this was left on my doorstep by the Amazon Fairy this morning; I was just reading the part where a bunch of terrorists are trying to destroy the Vatican by summoning Cthugha, the Elder God of Fire who was responsible for the Tunguska Incident (who's from August Derleth's Cthulhu Mythos continuations, if you're interested). There's also a part about Nyarlathotep showing up during the Vietnam War; it's quite fun.
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The Spiraling Worm by David Conyers & John Sunseri - which was apparently originally planned to be a tie-in to the Call of Cthulhu: Delta Green RPG campaign setting but eventually went on its own not-so-merry way. It's less clever than the Stross (but few things are as clever imo) but it's pretty much the same kind of deal only with slightly more conventional protagonists. Coincidentally enough, my copy of this was left on my doorstep by the Amazon Fairy this morning; I was just reading the part where a bunch of terrorists are trying to destroy the Vatican by summoning Cthugha, the Elder God of Fire who was responsible for the Tunguska Incident (who's from August Derleth's Cthulhu Mythos continuations, if you're interested). There's also a part about Nyarlathotep showing up during the Vietnam War; it's quite fun.
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Once upon a time, HP Lovecraft and a bunch of his drinking buddies wrote a series of loosely connected short stories and novellas that revolved around otherworldly beings beyond our frail mortal conception, the instances where they touched our world, and the people who worshipped or encountered them. In later years a bunch of other authors took bits and pieces of those stories and did weird things with them - it's all on wikipedia if you're curious but the short version is sex with fish people and giant extra-dimensional squid penises driving people to madness, as one would expect.
A few years later, Gary Gygax and those wild and crazy guys at TSR wrote an Advanced Dungeons & Dragons supplement called Deities & Demigods. It included a section called 'Cthulhu Mythos' under the mistaken belief that Lovecraft's beasties were in the public domain (thank you again Wikipedia) . The neat thing about the Cthulhu section was that it codified and clarified all the mess of beasties and godfuckers that Lovecraft and friends had created. If you've ever read the Cthulhu stories and mostly wondered WTF was going on, track down a copy of the D&D section... it's wonderfully clarifying, even if it does take certain liberties (Hastur is 666 ft tall... riiIIiight...).
I suspect (not the least because of the Chaosium link) that Conyers and Sunseri have read those pages, but to their credit they don't dwell on it too much beyond the basic concepts that are given a bit more form in WORM than Lovecraft & co's no-doubt opiate influenced scribblings.
THE SPIRALLING WORM is a set of sequential and connected short stories involving the same American, Australian and Brit characters coming up against the Cthulhu mythos. The core concept is awesome... humanity has been facing the Outer/Old/Elder/Icky Gods for centuries and this is the latest conflict in the modern age. And they aren't afraid to up the ante from 'in the shadows' to 'holyfuck that thing is going to eat Sydney!!!', which is a nice touch from the typical 'it was a gas explosion over a terrorist attack during a random mass hysteria episode move along nothing to see here' cover-stories one might expect. The characters are in the know and on the front line and we don't have to waste much time with the clueless public except when they are occassionally devoured. They are also prone to recognize they are utterly outgunned and out of their depth and just trying not to die, which is as it should be. The two protagonists, an American CIA-guy and an Australian special forces dude, are well developped, written fairly consistently between authors, and the sort of characters you cheer for, sometimes in spite of yourself.
Core concept aside, some of the stories are way way better than others. The authors write themselves into a corner a few times, where they clearly had great fun getting to a point but didn't know how to workably resolve it, leading to some leaps of logic, random acts of useless character sacrifice and/or wtf just happened moments that, if not quite ruin, really drag down some of the stories. The actual writing is inconsistent as well. Sometimes the authors show a deft hand at narrating an action scene and other times... well... they don't so much. But there's a great story about an artifact found in a ruined city that may or may not actually exist, a thoroughly enjoyable race to stop a Shoggoth, and some fun guerilla war action. I'm reminded of any number of Hollywood movies where the ending is weak but getting there was fun.
In fact, the greatest bits are where they are describing some Cthulian bit of ruin or beastie or meance, moreso than when the threat in question actually materializes. I mean, with all riches they had to play with, did we really need three stories about Shoggoths? But on the other hand, hey, three stories about Shoggoths! And one of them is weaponzied! No, really. Weaponized shoggoths... that alone merits the read... (tho Stross's A COLDER WAR did it better, tho briefer).
The book could have used some tighter editting too. Typos and name-switches show up, sometimes way too often.
I can't comfortably say this would be worth hb prices, but since it's available in mmpb, it's not bad dollar value. If you're a fan of the mythos, or perhaps Charlie Stross' LAUNDRY series, you'll enjoy most of it. Without at least some grounding in the background material, I can't say the casual reader is likely to enjoy most of the book, but perhaps some of it.
If Chaosium did another one of these collections, i would eventually buy it.
- Abyss, notes the many-angled ones brew great beer.
