Forty years ago (on Halloween), American game company Chaosium released the Call of Cthulhu roleplaying game, which was inspired by and based on H. P. Lovecraft1 et al’s tales of Cosmic Horror.
Now in its seventh edition, Call of Cthulhu is the second most popular roleplaying game on Roll20. It reportedly dominates the roleplaying market in Japan. That’s interesting, because unlike most RPGs, Call of Cthulhu (or CoC for short) is set in a universe where humans are not top dog, where there are vast, incomprehensible entities who refrain from snuffing us out mainly because they’ve never noticed us, where First Contact is often Last Contact. Characters in CoC generally spend the adventure or campaign coming to grips with how out of their depth they are—before going mad. If they are very lucky, they’re eaten first.
Why is it so popular? Perhaps it’s because most people squander their lives catering to the whim of vast indifferent corporations operating according to an alien logic that most of us are happier not contemplating in a world where the main reason people’s pineal glands aren’t scooped out of their living brains is because no company has concluded there might be a profit in it. (Yet.)
Or perhaps it’s just the fun of trying to survive no-win scenarios. Whatever the reason, this genre and mythos has entertained a lot of role-players and inspired many writers over the years. Take these five relatively recent examples of writers drawing from the eldritch well of Cosmic Horror…
“Boojum” by Elizabeth Bear and Sarah Monette (2008)
Good news! Humans have populated space! Less good news: They have done so in a milieu populated by Lovecraftian horrors, one in which hard-working space pirates like Captain Song and Black Alice Bradley tend their living ship Lavinia Whateley2 while hunting prey that will not eat them first. Only the boldest—or most foolish—space pirates would commandeer a seemingly derelict shipment of canned brains from the easily irritated Mi-Go. The crew of the Lavinia Whateley are just that bold. Or foolish. And it’s just the sort of courageous business plan that could earn the entire crew their own place in a Mi-Go brain cannister.
(First published in the Fast Ships, Black Sails anthology.)
***
Winter Tide by Ruthanna Emrys (2017)
Written as they were by the easily perturbed Lovecraft, the original Mythos stories tended to take a very unsympathetic view of the intelligent non-humans with whom humanity unknowingly shared the Earth—excellent fodder for authors curious about such things from a non-human perspective. In Emrys’ tale, the American authorities were disenchanted at the discovery of a Deep One community. In the same generous spirit that fueled the Indian Wars and the Repatriation of 1929–1936, the US consigned the Deep Ones to a desert concentration camp of such remarkable hospitality that by the 1940s, only Aphra and Caleb March survive.
Inadvertently lost amid survivors of WWII-era Japanese internment camps, the Marshes were freed to rebuild their shattered community. Their resources are beyond meagre, however, which makes the American offer to trade access to stolen Deep One texts in exchange for assistance with a troublesome research challenge tempting. But should the Deep Ones trust the government that did its best to exterminate the Deep Ones?
***
Hammers on Bone by Cassandra Khaw (2018)
To quote Chandler, “Down these mean streets a man must go who is not himself mean, who is neither tarnished nor afraid. He is the hero; he is everything. He must be a complete man and a common man and yet an unusual man.” Whether John Persons is a man, exactly, is open to question. He’s certainly unusual.
The thing wearing John Persons like a rumpled overcoat has a simple dream: Live undetected amidst the unwitting humans, playing the role of private detective. Despite the unpleasant mutters of certain Providence-based authors concerning the habits of the Yith, Persons isn’t a killer. Or really, all that monstrous. Nevertheless, young Abel is determined to hire Persons to knock off his step-dad McKinsey before McKinsey can kill Abel and his brother James.
Clearly something is very wrong in Abel’s household. Persons has the unique perspective needed to determine precisely what it might be.
***
Mexican Gothic by Silvia Moreno-Garcia (2020)
Catalina Taboada, recently married to Virgil Doyle, contacts her uncle, patriarch of the Taboada clan. What she has to say alarms her uncle. He sends his socialite daughter Noemí Taboada to check on Catalina’s well-being. The secluded Doyle estate in seemingly bucolic El Triunfo is a far cry from Noemí’s native Mexico City, but Noemí dutifully accepts the assignment.
Thanks to the Revolution and the closing of the Silver Mine on which their fortune depended, the reclusive Doyles live in genteel poverty. A cynic might conclude that Virgil’s motive for marrying wealthy Catalina was purely financial. Such a cynic would prove woefully optimistic. The Doyles have a use for Catalina that is in no way as mundane as mere finance. Now that Noemí has barged into their closed little world, perhaps they will find one for her as well.
***
These Lifeless Things by Premee Mohamed (2021)
When They arrived from wherever They live, humanity died by the billions. When They eventually relinquished Their hold on our world, scant millions of humans remained. Half a century after the Setback, the work to rebuild human civilization is well underway. Preventing another Setback should be priority number one…but the people who lived through Their manifestation are uniformly closed-mouthed about the experience. No one is quite sure what happened during the Setback.
In the ruins of a shattered city, academic Emerson finds a treasure: a diary. Half a century ago, Eve documented the early days of the Setback, and the resulting diary offers researcher Emerson an unparalleled glimpse into the events that shaped her world. A glimpse into horror.
***
Obviously, there are lots and lots and lots of examples I could have used (starting with Charles Stross’ Laundry series). Feel free to mention them in comments below.
In the words of Wikipedia editor TexasAndroid, prolific book reviewer and perennial Darwin Award nominee James Davis Nicoll is of “questionable notability.” His work has appeared in Publishers Weekly and Romantic Times as well as on his own websites, James Nicoll Reviews and Young People Read Old SFF(where he is assisted by editor Karen Lofstrom and web person Adrienne L. Travis). He is a four-time finalist for the Best Fan Writer Hugo Award and is surprisingly flammable.
[1]To acknowledge the elephant in the room: some of you may have a faint recollection that H. P. Lovecraft was a bit prejudiced. This was true only in the technical sense that he was *extremely* racist. No, worse than that. It is not entirely unfair to say Lovecraft’s fiction was inspired in part by his horror at discovering Italians exist. That said, we are not here to discuss Lovecraft's bigotry or even his fiction—this is a conversation about new takes on Cosmic Horror.
[2]“Boojum” is part of a Bear and Monette sequence, along with “Mongoose” (2009) and “The Wreck of the ‘Charles Dexter Ward’” (2012). As far as I know, they’ve never been collected together (or if they have, either ISFDB has failed me or I’ve misread it.). Pity, because inspiration goes both ways and I want to reread them for a little project I like to call “adapting ‘Beyond the Mountains of Madness’ to a near-future version of ‘Traveller.’” Just imagine how modern carceral states could adapt to the lucrative Mi-Go brain market!
Odd: the Facebook share button gives me this message:
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I don’t know if they’ve been collected in text anywhere, but the Boojumverse stories are all available on Drabblecast.
2: Thank you!
The HP Lovecraft Society “Dagon: War of the Worlds” audio drama which uses the story Dagon and marries it to a WAr of the Worlds template, is a lot of fun.
At the top of this list I would put Caitlin R. Kernan’s Tinfoil Dossier trilogy: Black Helicopters, Agents of Dreamland, and The Tindalos Asset.
I’d be tempted to go with 2300 CE instead, as the setting already has a whiff of cosmic horror in it.
Leave us not forget The Ballad of Black Tom, which specifically revaluates “The Horror of Red Hook” – or any of the four novellas in Tor’s “Reimagining Lovecraft” antho.
I’ve read Boojum and enjoyed it . I have the Mexican Gothic and Winter Tide on tbr pile but I keep putting it off because I’m not really crazy about Lovecraftian horror. I’d don’t think I could get into an rpg session where the best you can hope for is make it home alive. I’m more into the haunted house big scary monster is gonna eat you like Alien. I did enjoy Neil Gaiman’s short story I, Cthulhu. The story is a Sherlock Holmes mash-up.
Have I got a game for you!
It has a delightful stress mechanic. Also, PCs are spared the burden of excessive hit points.
James:
I want to thank you for sparing me the need to beat your readers about the head with Cassandra Khaw’s Hammers on Bone, as I so often find myself doing in comment sections! When I saw ‘no win scenarios’ in your intro, the first which occurred to me was her A Song for Quiet, but Hammers on Bone is a better introduction to John Persons IMO.
I also read These Lifeless Things recently, as soon as it came out, and found it stunning. I’ve been reading Premee Mohamed’s writing ever since I came across one of her other mythos revisits, the short story ‘The Adventurer’s Wife’ – which I also highly recommend as a deconstruction of mythos conventions and in- and out-genre racism – but this novella/novelette seems to me where she levels up to the next stage as a writer. I woke up the morning after reading it thinking that it was like an Ursula Le Guin story, if Le Guin had written in the mythos, and I can only really compare it to Ursula Le Guin in the clear character and vivid interior life of both her central characters .
Daniel @7:
Seconding you there. I have been recommending The Ballad of Black Tom for a while to anyone who will hold still long enough. It is red hot and should be at the top or near the top of any such list.
I’m a little surprised not to see it here, but there is so much good work in this area now, I can see the wisdom of pointing people to some of the more recent work – for one thing, it has a big impact on the authors’ lives and future writing.
RobinM @8:
I’d recommend you maybe give Mexican Gothic a try if you’re not into Lovecraftian horror. It’s really written more in the 20th-century gothic horror form – marriage into a family with sinister history, young woman in sinister house full of suspicious characters, etc. – shading into cosmic horror, but like others in this list it uses that genre setting in a fresh way, including turning it as a lens on the ugliness of real history. Silvia Moreno-Garcia is an unusually versatile writer in genre conventions; within the space of one year she had books out in the form of modern fantasy in Gods of Jade and Shadow, mid-century American noir in Untamed Shore, and 20th-gothic in Mexican Gothic, and every one was absolutely top-notch.
BTW, the Gaiman story you’re thinking of is ‘A Study in Emerald’, which I would have said was one of the best things ever done with the Mythos before I’d read some of James’ selections above. Also – hopefully not saying too much – one of the best non-canon Holmes stories in how it messes with your expectations of the narrator and protagonist. ‘I, Cthulhu’ is Gaiman’s satire on ‘I, Claudius’ and very funny, but completely different.
Added 2 to my reading list. Thanks!
Cosmic horror is becoming very mainstream these days, and I for one am enjoying it. From Dresden to The Laundry to The Libreomancer; urban fantasy is going old school Olde Ones and Horrors From Beyond.
I would have mentioned Deep Roots, the sequel to Winter Tide.
Alan Moore’s “Neonomicon” and “Providence” are very interesting reinterpretations of Lovecraftian lore, although basically every trigger warning you could imagine re: violence and sexual violence applies (especially one particularly disturbing scene in the second volume of “Providence”–if you’ve read it, you probably know the one I mean).
Cordwainer Smith’s short, “The Game of Rat and Dragon”, comes to mind also.
Big second for “The Ballad of Black Tom”, an amazing read.
There’s also Carter and Lovecraft and After the End of the World by Jonathan L. Howard. Very cosmic, very horrific, and very weird. Does anyone know if a third book is in the works?
It was an odd experience to read those after Emrys’ Winter Tide. In that, the Deep Ones are a persecuted minority with a serious religion. In the Howard books, the Deep Ones are scary not-quite-humans with some very spooky sexual issues.
Back in the last century I had a lot of fun imagining what Lovecraft would have written if he’d lived in the Space 1889 universe, which ended up as a short article in GDW’s Challenge Magazine, Cthulhu 1889. Sounds like Boojum might be a similar universe. The article is on line here if anyone is interested:
http://www.heliograph.com/trmgs/trmgs4/cthulhu1889.shtml
While not specifically Lovecraftian, The Magnus Archives podcast stakes out its own corner of the cosmic horror playground. In what begins as an (apparently) straightforward anthology format, we’re introduced to the Archivist and research staff of The Magnus Institue – a British foundation for collection of and research into accounts of the paranormal. As the story becomes less strictly episodic and more arc-driven (around the end of the first season), it delves into the myriad ways humanity responds to being confronted with the unknown — do we placate it in some attempt to gain power from it? deny it and do our best to hide? or do we, like the Archivist, poke and prod at the edges of the mystery to see what kind of understanding we can wrench from it?
Similarly to what was said above, I’d definitely want to recommend The Magnus Archives. The podcast is nearing its end in March of 2021 after 200 episodes of exploring a world, and it’s an amazingly rich and large world that the writer, Jonathan/Jonny Sims has created for us to enjoy.
Also! I would recommend an album of music for some delightful cosmic horror. It’s a conceptual album by the band The Mechanisms, and while all of their music is amazing, their fourth proper album, “The Bifrost Incident,” touches on cosmic horror in a really amazing way. Basically, it’s Norse mythology, except in space, except with a train, and very queer. Highly recommend it, Jonny Sims is the lead voice on that album and one of the writers, so you can see his influence and how it’s reflected on The Magnus Archives as well.
Big third for The Ballad of Black Tom. It remains my favorite Victor Lavalle, and that’s a tough call, because Lavalle is just an incredible writer.
I find telling, however, that the people who tend to fixate on Lovecraft’s racism are mostly white. Besides Lavalle –whose aforementioned novella is both tribute and critique–, the foremost Lovecraft scholar happens to be an Indian American, the amazing S. T. Joshi.
I would heartily recommend adding China Mieville’s Kraken to this list. From the back of the book:
In the Darwin Centre at London’s Natural History Museum, Billy Harrow, a cephalopod specialist, is conducting a tour whose climax is meant to be the Centre’s prize specimen of a rare Architeuthis dux—better known as the Giant Squid. But Billy’s tour takes an unexpected turn when the squid suddenly and impossibly vanishes into thin air.
As Billy soon discovers, this is the precipitating act in a struggle to the death between mysterious but powerful forces in a London whose existence he has been blissfully ignorant of until now, a city whose denizens—human and otherwise—are adept in magic and murder.
There is the Congregation of God Kraken, a sect of squid worshippers whose roots go back to the dawn of humanity—and beyond. There is the criminal mastermind known as the Tattoo, a merciless maniac inked onto the flesh of a hapless victim. There is the FSRC—the Fundamentalist and Sect-Related Crime Unit—a branch of London’s finest that fights sorcery with sorcery. There is Wati, a spirit from ancient Egypt who leads a ragtag union of magical familiars. There are the Londonmancers, who read the future in the city’s entrails. There is Grisamentum, London’s greatest wizard, whose shadow lingers long after his death. And then there is Goss and Subby, an ageless old man and a cretinous boy who, together, constitute a terrifying—yet darkly charismatic—demonic duo.
All of them—and others—are in pursuit of Billy, who inadvertently holds the key to the missing squid, an embryonic god whose powers, properly harnessed, can destroy all that is, was, and ever shall be.
I recommend the short stories of C. L. Moore for fast grues. Her two heroic characters, Northwest Smith (for fans of space opera) and Jirel of Joiry (for medieval chops) have repeated encounters with Things From Beyond.
I absolutely love Khaw’s Hammers on Bone series. The prose just washed over me and ensnared me. Just a fantastic experience.
One series of titles that I would recommend, especially considering the introduction that mentions the popularity of Call of Cthulhu in Japan, is ‘Otherside Picnic’ by Iori Miyazawa where the two main characters, 2 female university students, explore a world they call the Otherside inhabited by entities shaped by Japanese folklore and urban legends with glimpses of some larger force behind these entities. At one point Toriko, one of the main characters talks of the role of fear and these entities:
“That is why they use fear to access us. They are so utterly foreign, so completely beyond our comprehension, fear is the only channel through which they can interact with us. Fear is the means of contact, and also their goal.”
The novels are illustrated and many of the images do an excellent job of evoking the sense of the Otherside.
Also N. K. Jemisin’s The City We Became.
19. Remi_Wolf
Thanks for the lead on the music – very enjoyable. If you (or anyone else) want another dose, of a rather more whimsical sort, check out Paul Shapera’s “Cthulhu, The Funksical” – also on YouTube – literally a funky musical starring all HP’s big bads ;-) Tongue firmly in cheek, and lots of surprises.
As for me, I can see I have a lot of catch-up reading to do! I own several of the suggestions so far, but haven’t read them yet, and of course I am taking notes for how to spend most of my next paycheck ;-)
I recently read The Outside by Ada Hoffman, which has its own take on cosmic horror worming its way into reality, and comparing its merits to those of the AI that controls all of humanity. Lots of delightful problems. :3
In the Shadow of Spindrift House, by Mira Grant, is another recent Lovecraftian fiction.
NancyLebovitz @16
Jonathan L. Howard has mentioned on Twitter that he’d happily write more in the Carter and Lovecraft world, if the rights holders would commission it. My recollection is that the two novels were works for hire, and he’s legally constrained from using the characters/etc without permission.
(Howard’s Johannes Cabal series takes a couple of detours into the Dreamlands, most notably in the third installment, The Fear Institute.)
@8 I’m not crazy about Lovecraftian horror either, but I loved both Mexican Gothic and Winter Tide. They were both so well-written, even if they were outside my normal genre preferences.
@16 OK that makes sense. But those books are too good, that world(s) is too rich to just abandon. Shirley he can cleverly circumvent that limitation? Maybe use “The Booksellers Formerly Known As…” until the rights holders lift the restraint. :)
teg @29
Thanks. I’m surprised the Carter and Lovecraft books are works for hire– are they related to a game or something.
Who hired Howard to write them? I could send them an email asking for more and encourage other people to do so.
Zelazny’s A Night in the Lonesome October deserves a mention, I think.
My reading these days is audiobooks, and having worn out my Laundry Files and Rivers of London series I discovered the delightful Oddjobs series by Heide Goody and Iain Grant. Lovecraftian horror with some laughs as well.
Really loved Mexican Gothic, great listen.
RobinM – I strongly recommend Winter Tide, but if you want a shorter intro to decide if you like Ruthanna Emrys’s writing, her short story The Litany Of Earth introduces the world and some of the core characters. [Insert raving here. It’s really good.]
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Litany_of_Earth
Or link directly to the story: https://www.tor.com/2014/05/14/the-litany-of-earth-ruthanna-emrys/
There’s an interesting shift between “Litany of Earth” and Winter Tides. “Litany” presented the Deep Ones simply as a persecuted minority, while the novel has it that no one/no race has clean hands.
“Racism is wrong!
…unless it’s the K’n-yan. Those guys are monsters.”