Lovecraft Country
I heard about lovecraft country on the Imagined Worlds podcast, Episode 148: Inverting lovecraft. They discuss what a reader might make of captivating stories, from a viciously racist author. Saying you can separate the two, or explaining it away as a work of it’s time, seems suspect to me.
They discuss an intimate link in Lovecraft, in his fear of the alien. The fear that something higher up “the order” could emerge out of places unknown. What a terror it would be if “we” could be swept away, or enslaved by monsters.
Imagined worlds spends time with authors who’ve chosen to use the mythos for something new. Using Lovecraft’s language of terror, madness and fear to tell new stories whilst challenging who we should fear for, and which this book does well.
A collection of linked stories of cosmic outings it echoes thumbing through an anthology of Lovecraft short stories, but with the satisfying payoff of an overall arc. The imagery is fantastic too. Should I ever see an observatory at night, my imagination will run with the extraordinary horrors that could be within.
An exciting, entertaining read that puts black experience front and centre, I’d highly recommend it.
After "Lovecraft Country" I read: The Word for World is Forest
Before "Lovecraft Country" I read: Vesper Flights