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Dr. Stuart Hartwell #2
The Weird Company: The Secret History of H.P. Lovecraft's Twentieth Century
Shoggoths attack in this adrenaline-pumping novel set in the world of H. P. Lovecraft, where the horrors of the cosmos know no limits . . .
It was in a way humanoid, as it stood on two legs and possessed two arms that ended in delicate digits that I would dare to call hands. Its skin was a pale blue, like the eggs of a robin, and curiously dry looking. The head was massive with a huge bulbous cranium, a large lipless mouth, and three blood red eyes that stared out at the world with nothing but hate.When it opened its mouth to speak it issued forth the most horrendous of sounds, something empty and hollow, like the wind blowing through a dead tree, and it made me cringe to hear it . . .
The story of Dr. Hartwell (Reanimators) continues, but now he has company. Weird company: a witch, a changeling, a mad scientist, and a poet trapped in the form of a beast. These are not heroes but monsters . . . monsters to fight monsters. Their adventures rage across the globe, from the mountains and long-forgotten caves of Antarctica to the dimly lit backstreets of Innsmouth that still hold terrifying secrets. The unholy creatures released upon the world via the ill-fated Lake expedition to Antarctica must be stopped. And only the weird company stands in their way.
Continuing in the fashion of Reanimators, The Weird Company finds Lovecraft expert Pete Rawlik taking some of the most well-known of H. P. Lovecraft’s creations and creating a true Frankenstein monster of a story—a tale more horrific than anything Lovecraft could have imagined . . .
It was in a way humanoid, as it stood on two legs and possessed two arms that ended in delicate digits that I would dare to call hands. Its skin was a pale blue, like the eggs of a robin, and curiously dry looking. The head was massive with a huge bulbous cranium, a large lipless mouth, and three blood red eyes that stared out at the world with nothing but hate.When it opened its mouth to speak it issued forth the most horrendous of sounds, something empty and hollow, like the wind blowing through a dead tree, and it made me cringe to hear it . . .
The story of Dr. Hartwell (Reanimators) continues, but now he has company. Weird company: a witch, a changeling, a mad scientist, and a poet trapped in the form of a beast. These are not heroes but monsters . . . monsters to fight monsters. Their adventures rage across the globe, from the mountains and long-forgotten caves of Antarctica to the dimly lit backstreets of Innsmouth that still hold terrifying secrets. The unholy creatures released upon the world via the ill-fated Lake expedition to Antarctica must be stopped. And only the weird company stands in their way.
Continuing in the fashion of Reanimators, The Weird Company finds Lovecraft expert Pete Rawlik taking some of the most well-known of H. P. Lovecraft’s creations and creating a true Frankenstein monster of a story—a tale more horrific than anything Lovecraft could have imagined . . .
286 pages, Paperback
First published September 2, 2014
27 people are currently reading
554 people want to read
About the author
Pete Rawlik
93 books51 followersPete Rawlik is a frequent contributor to the Lovecraft ezine and the New York Review of Science Fiction
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Displaying 1 - 30 of 30 reviews
April 16, 2019
3.5
The Weird Company: The Secret History of H. P. Lovecraft's Twentieth Century is chock-full of Lovecraft's ideas. On the one hand it is pretty neat to revisit some of the more interesting places and creatures. On the other, though, the book couldn't hold this many. At times it reads as a Lovecraftian lexicon.
The author couldn't decide to leave out anything. You get the Antarctic and its madness, the Dreamlands, the cats (you know which ones), the rats in the walls, the witches and the haunted houses, soul and mind switching, reanimation of the flesh and so much more.
The book is written as a series of diary entries written by one of the members of the Weird Company founded by Asenath Waite. If you remember the ending of one of my favourite Lovecraft's stories The Shadow Over Innsmouth, you'll recognize him right away. He owes the people of Innsmouth because his report had sent the government there. He is the most human member of them all. As one of them notes: 'What strange players you have chosen, tkrt and what strange parts you have given us in this drama. A witch, a changeling, a mad scientist, even a poet imprisoned in a form that is not his own.' Each of them gets a piece of their history told through various sources Robert Olmstead finds.
The thing is, whatever you write about this book and you've read Lovecraft before, you can't spoil anything. You know all these characters, their flaws and what they'd done in the past. Still, some of the new takes are kinds of interesting - the shoggoths, for instance. The origins are the same, just the way they act isn't.
The author used deus ex machina to get the group out of their predicament. I don't know what to think about that. Plus, after it's done, you get an additional entries written by someone else. It was not necessary.
Overall, I did enjoy parts of it. It would be better if less is more was used, but it's still good.
The Weird Company: The Secret History of H. P. Lovecraft's Twentieth Century is chock-full of Lovecraft's ideas. On the one hand it is pretty neat to revisit some of the more interesting places and creatures. On the other, though, the book couldn't hold this many. At times it reads as a Lovecraftian lexicon.
The author couldn't decide to leave out anything. You get the Antarctic and its madness, the Dreamlands, the cats (you know which ones), the rats in the walls, the witches and the haunted houses, soul and mind switching, reanimation of the flesh and so much more.
The book is written as a series of diary entries written by one of the members of the Weird Company founded by Asenath Waite. If you remember the ending of one of my favourite Lovecraft's stories The Shadow Over Innsmouth, you'll recognize him right away. He owes the people of Innsmouth because his report had sent the government there. He is the most human member of them all. As one of them notes: 'What strange players you have chosen, tkrt and what strange parts you have given us in this drama. A witch, a changeling, a mad scientist, even a poet imprisoned in a form that is not his own.' Each of them gets a piece of their history told through various sources Robert Olmstead finds.
The thing is, whatever you write about this book and you've read Lovecraft before, you can't spoil anything. You know all these characters, their flaws and what they'd done in the past. Still, some of the new takes are kinds of interesting - the shoggoths, for instance. The origins are the same, just the way they act isn't.
The author used deus ex machina to get the group out of their predicament. I don't know what to think about that. Plus, after it's done, you get an additional entries written by someone else. It was not necessary.
Overall, I did enjoy parts of it. It would be better if less is more was used, but it's still good.
June 1, 2016
OK, so I thought that once we got past the "How I became a Lovecraftian horror" portion of the Reanimator rewrite, we might get some original content. Well, that was a mistake. There was nothing original here. The author rips off "At the Mountains of Madness," "The Thing on the Doorstep" and even John Carpenter's The Thing. You might say, "But it's pastiche, it's meant to be a copy of form, a loving homage. And John Carpenter's The Thing really rips off 'Mountains'." Technically, The Thing is a rather faithful adaptation of a short story or novella called "Who Goes There" by John W. Campbell, and while it has a lot of similarities to Lovecraft. It's more a study of paranoia, almost a "Red Scare" type of story. The point is there are a lot of ideas here and none of them really belong to the author.
The other issue is that "everything's an X". That is, the author boils the entire pantheon and bestiary of Lovecraft's fiction to one of two types of "monsters". In order to explain why the universe is the way it is, the author oversimplifies... everything. The reason that Lovecraft is frightening is because it's mysterious. The creatures and alien gods are beyond what we as humans comprehend. They are bigger, stranger and they are literally beyond what we know. Not only do these stories label these creatures, define them, it homogenizes them, makes them all the same. Not a varied, mysterious, unknowable, extra-dimensional entities. Ya wanna know how to create mystery? Try not explaining everything!
April 25, 2017
Review of THE WEIRD COMPANY
by Pete Rawlik
THE WEIRD COMPANY (title becomes apparent during the story) is a very literate, well-crafted homage to H. P. Lovecraft and an excellent addition to the ever-expanding Lovecraft Mythos. HPL's aficionados will well recognize references as events throughout the story play both on the reader's mental stage and on the cosmic backdrop itself. Commencing with a 1931 Miskatonic University expedition to the vast frozen reaches of the Antarctic, continuing with the Federal Occupation of Innsmouth, Massachusetts, and on again to Antarctica, this horror/mystery/supernatural thriller weaves in many events, participants, and places from Lovecraft's own seminal work. Author Pete Rawlik seamless interweaves these multiple anecdotes and keeps readers' attention throughout, leaving us with the impetus to reread again the master himself: H. P. Lovecraft.
by Pete Rawlik
THE WEIRD COMPANY (title becomes apparent during the story) is a very literate, well-crafted homage to H. P. Lovecraft and an excellent addition to the ever-expanding Lovecraft Mythos. HPL's aficionados will well recognize references as events throughout the story play both on the reader's mental stage and on the cosmic backdrop itself. Commencing with a 1931 Miskatonic University expedition to the vast frozen reaches of the Antarctic, continuing with the Federal Occupation of Innsmouth, Massachusetts, and on again to Antarctica, this horror/mystery/supernatural thriller weaves in many events, participants, and places from Lovecraft's own seminal work. Author Pete Rawlik seamless interweaves these multiple anecdotes and keeps readers' attention throughout, leaving us with the impetus to reread again the master himself: H. P. Lovecraft.
July 21, 2016
I honestly don't know where to start. I'd give this a 2.5 if I could because I wasn't bored, but I also wasn't impressed. After reading the end notes on the release of individual chapters from the book as stand-alone publications, I believe that those chapters should have been left as just that: stand-alone publications. But instead, the author chose to hamfistedly cobble together a pseudo-Lovecraftian narrative with relatively flat characters and a contrived romance with the sole female lead to boot.
The action sequences border on too-difficult-to-follow to too-ridiculous-to-care and there is several places where the dialogue of characters are nearly indiscernable from one another partly because characters are not named and partly because there is hardly any character chemistry to set individuals apart. In the end, I would recommend the reader find the individual publications of the short narratives that were crammed in here instead of reading the full book.
The action sequences border on too-difficult-to-follow to too-ridiculous-to-care and there is several places where the dialogue of characters are nearly indiscernable from one another partly because characters are not named and partly because there is hardly any character chemistry to set individuals apart. In the end, I would recommend the reader find the individual publications of the short narratives that were crammed in here instead of reading the full book.
April 9, 2015
First point: This book desperately needed another pass by a good copy-editor -- there were way, way too many run-on sentences (commas that should have been either semicolons or periods) and more word-choice errors than I was entirely comfortable with.
Second point: Rawlik seems to hew to the Lumley branch of the Derlethian Heresy; or at least have taken that as his starting point.
Third point: I really enjoyed this book.
This is similar in structure to its predecessor, Reanimators -- it kind of pokes around the margins of Lovecraft's stories (and those of others in his circle, plus shout-outs to other literary figures, fictitious characters, etc., of the period -- I'm certain there were all manner of references that went right over my head) to construct a larger narrative. In this case, the primary stories are At the Mountains of Madness, Shadow Over Innsmouth and Thing on the Doorstep, with an admixture of Dreams in the Witch-House, Gates of the Silver Key and even some Dreamlands stories. The narrative itself is much grander in scope than in Reanimators -- an assortment of characters, primarily from the stories in question, team up to form the eponymous Weird Company to battle (surprise!) forces of ultra-cosmic Horror! In the course of events we do get surprisingly sympathetic portrayals of some characters who were unalloyed villains in the original Lovecraft stories; we also find out more about the history of the Earth and the cosmos at large.
Rawlik does a few things that I'm not entirely comfortable with -- he ties things together perhaps a bit too neatly, and I'm not entirely sold on all of his insertions into canon -- but this is definitely one of the better Lovecraft-inspired works I've read in a while. In some ways it reminded me of what Brian Lumley was trying to do in Elysia: The Coming of Cthulhu, but I thought Rawlik's treatment was more successful.
Second point: Rawlik seems to hew to the Lumley branch of the Derlethian Heresy; or at least have taken that as his starting point.
Third point: I really enjoyed this book.
This is similar in structure to its predecessor, Reanimators -- it kind of pokes around the margins of Lovecraft's stories (and those of others in his circle, plus shout-outs to other literary figures, fictitious characters, etc., of the period -- I'm certain there were all manner of references that went right over my head) to construct a larger narrative. In this case, the primary stories are At the Mountains of Madness, Shadow Over Innsmouth and Thing on the Doorstep, with an admixture of Dreams in the Witch-House, Gates of the Silver Key and even some Dreamlands stories. The narrative itself is much grander in scope than in Reanimators -- an assortment of characters, primarily from the stories in question, team up to form the eponymous Weird Company to battle (surprise!) forces of ultra-cosmic Horror! In the course of events we do get surprisingly sympathetic portrayals of some characters who were unalloyed villains in the original Lovecraft stories; we also find out more about the history of the Earth and the cosmos at large.
Rawlik does a few things that I'm not entirely comfortable with -- he ties things together perhaps a bit too neatly, and I'm not entirely sold on all of his insertions into canon -- but this is definitely one of the better Lovecraft-inspired works I've read in a while. In some ways it reminded me of what Brian Lumley was trying to do in Elysia: The Coming of Cthulhu, but I thought Rawlik's treatment was more successful.
June 10, 2016
I received a copy of this book through Goodreads First Reads program.
This was my first introduction to the author. While Pete Rawlik writes within the mythos inspired by Lovecraft, stylistically his writing is very different. Instead of utilizing verbose description and attempting to convey an unknowable horror, this author emphasizes relentless action and gory combat between the characters and an unending barrage of Lovecraftian monsters. The book seemed to get a little muddled when it strayed from it's action sequences, and the character's motivations and relationships to each other switched back and forth unpredictably in order to reach the next violent plot point as quickly as possible. It was difficult to take the book seriously given the frequent reversals in motivation, the monotonous resurrection of dead characters and monsters, and the frequent logical inconsistencies throughout the book. However, I did enjoy the book albeit through a rigorous exercise of suspension of disbelief.
If you are looking for an action-oriented adventure novel involving Shoggoths, Q'Hrell and myriad other Lovecraftian nightmares, and you aren't concerned whether or not the characters involved demonstrate consistent or logical motivations, this might be just what you are looking for.
This was my first introduction to the author. While Pete Rawlik writes within the mythos inspired by Lovecraft, stylistically his writing is very different. Instead of utilizing verbose description and attempting to convey an unknowable horror, this author emphasizes relentless action and gory combat between the characters and an unending barrage of Lovecraftian monsters. The book seemed to get a little muddled when it strayed from it's action sequences, and the character's motivations and relationships to each other switched back and forth unpredictably in order to reach the next violent plot point as quickly as possible. It was difficult to take the book seriously given the frequent reversals in motivation, the monotonous resurrection of dead characters and monsters, and the frequent logical inconsistencies throughout the book. However, I did enjoy the book albeit through a rigorous exercise of suspension of disbelief.
If you are looking for an action-oriented adventure novel involving Shoggoths, Q'Hrell and myriad other Lovecraftian nightmares, and you aren't concerned whether or not the characters involved demonstrate consistent or logical motivations, this might be just what you are looking for.
November 7, 2015
While I really liked Rawlik's REANIMATORS, this 2nd journey into revisionist Lovecraft didn't work as well for me. There are some good moments here, especially the one section where we get to learn more of what happened to Dr. Hartwell after the end of REANIMATORS, but it falls apart by becoming more of a sci-fi adventure story. I've played the Call of Cthulhu RPG since the late 80's when I first picked up the 3rd edition hardback, and this reads more like one of those poorly executed session that forgets its inspiration and becomes nothing but a Dungeons & Dragons adventure full of combat. I'm not saying this is a bad read, I liked it, but not nearly as much as REANIMATORS.
July 18, 2016
Peter Rawlik actually improved on Lovecraft with one of the ideas contained in this.
I love this book.
I love this book.
February 3, 2015
Some people are purists when it comes to Lovecraft. I’m not one of them. I love all the crazy additions to the Cthulhu Mythos, love all the extra side stories, the new characters and monsters, backstories to Outer Gods, children that suddenly popped up, all of it. (C’mon, I have a giant stuffed Cthulhu.) So when I read THE WEIRD COMPANY, I pretty much had a grin on my face the entire time.
Imagine “Extraordinary League Of Gentlemen,” but for the Mythos gang. That’s basically what you’ve got going on here. Through a series of journal entries and letters, characters we’ve come to know through Lovecraft’s work are reassembled. Not only do we discover what has occurred after their own particular tales were told, but in some cases, what happened before. It’s a fascinating story, these players all coming together in the now government controlled city of Innsmouth, especially as you come to realize who some of them are. Secrets are revealed, and from there the team is off to Antarctica, The Mountains Of Madness awoken in earlier events by a clueless Miskatonic University team. More revelations and more individuals get involved. The fate of the world is at stake, and it’s up to The Weird Company (not heroes but monsters) to save it: a witch, a changeling, a mad scientist, and a poet trapped in the form of a beast.
Rawlik’s book is not only brilliant, but it’s loads of fun. It name-drops characters, has others interact like you always hoped they would, takes surprise turns, stays wonderfully atmospheric, yet can gets downright bloody. Some people might balk at what he’s done with some of the charters (I can think of one in particular), but you can tell this was a labor of love. The book is a big fun, horrific, eldritch adventure, and fans of the Mythos should go along.
Imagine “Extraordinary League Of Gentlemen,” but for the Mythos gang. That’s basically what you’ve got going on here. Through a series of journal entries and letters, characters we’ve come to know through Lovecraft’s work are reassembled. Not only do we discover what has occurred after their own particular tales were told, but in some cases, what happened before. It’s a fascinating story, these players all coming together in the now government controlled city of Innsmouth, especially as you come to realize who some of them are. Secrets are revealed, and from there the team is off to Antarctica, The Mountains Of Madness awoken in earlier events by a clueless Miskatonic University team. More revelations and more individuals get involved. The fate of the world is at stake, and it’s up to The Weird Company (not heroes but monsters) to save it: a witch, a changeling, a mad scientist, and a poet trapped in the form of a beast.
Rawlik’s book is not only brilliant, but it’s loads of fun. It name-drops characters, has others interact like you always hoped they would, takes surprise turns, stays wonderfully atmospheric, yet can gets downright bloody. Some people might balk at what he’s done with some of the charters (I can think of one in particular), but you can tell this was a labor of love. The book is a big fun, horrific, eldritch adventure, and fans of the Mythos should go along.
January 20, 2015
Rawlik's "Weird Company" is an excellent follow-up to his first book "Reanimators". Imagine a cross between Alan Moore's "A League of Extraordinary Gentlemen" and John Carpenter's "The Thing" and you have a good starting reference for what you're getting into. Rawlik does a seamless job of bringing together the people, places, and mythos of H.P. Lovecraft and tying them together in a way that creates a storyline that has both adventure and horror in equal parts. While I enjoyed "Reanimators" a great deal, I have to say that I think Rawlik really found a superior pace with "Weird Company". Excellent work.
February 18, 2015
Fun. In the true tradition of HPL, the author brings to life a host odd beings with questionable morals, motivations and subjective humanity. In moments of raw homage, the author pours on the superfluous adjectives, the classic, "cyclopean monolith," et al. The clever linkage of and to classic HPL stories is charming and brings back the thrill of reading HPL for the first time. More importantly, the book offers the oddness and strange with a linear coherency never managed by HPL in his shorter works.
November 3, 2015
won on goodreads
wow! great writing, excellent story
a must read for Lovecraft fans
wow! great writing, excellent story
a must read for Lovecraft fans
July 24, 2024
I’ll start off by saying that I listened to the Audible production of The Weird Company rather than reading the book, which was a mistake, but more on that later. T
Looking at the blurb on this, I wasn’t overly enthused about the idea of a Lovecraftian super-team, but I decided to give it a shot as the book which came before, Reanimators, was great. The basic story behind The Weird Company was okay (nothing special, but alright), but the execution was lacking. When the main story does finally get going - around half-way through the book - it feels awkward, with lots of things happening just because, and the main characters seemingly having little or no say in how things go down.
One problem is the indestructible plot armour which every character seems to possess, with the protagonists dying with concerning regularity, only to be resurrected in some highly-contrived manner only a few pages later. Another is the threat of the Shoggoths, who are nigh-indestructible superbeings when first introduced, only to be quickly reduced to the equivalent of Putties in an episode of Power Rangers.
One nice interlude was a chapter in which Mr. Rawlik names a host of minor characters and extras after other authors, and that mini-story was actually quite good. However, it just wasn’t enough by itself to raise the level of the story in my opinion.
At the beginning of this review, I mentioned that I listened to this as an Audible production. This was most definitely not the best way to consume The Weird Company. This book is told primarily (around 80%, I’d guess) from the point of view of Robert Olmstead. Narrator Oliver Wyman, who did an amazing job in Reanimators, here gives Olmstead a perpetually pleading whine, whether the situation warrants this tone or not, and this absolutely wrecks any enjoyment I may have gotten from the chapters related from his pov. Why Audible chose this route I’ll never know.
Overall, I think 2 stars is maybe a little generous, but I can’t quite bring myself to give only 1. It’s a shame, because I usually really enjoy Peter Rawlik's stories.
Looking at the blurb on this, I wasn’t overly enthused about the idea of a Lovecraftian super-team, but I decided to give it a shot as the book which came before, Reanimators, was great. The basic story behind The Weird Company was okay (nothing special, but alright), but the execution was lacking. When the main story does finally get going - around half-way through the book - it feels awkward, with lots of things happening just because, and the main characters seemingly having little or no say in how things go down.
One problem is the indestructible plot armour which every character seems to possess, with the protagonists dying with concerning regularity, only to be resurrected in some highly-contrived manner only a few pages later. Another is the threat of the Shoggoths, who are nigh-indestructible superbeings when first introduced, only to be quickly reduced to the equivalent of Putties in an episode of Power Rangers.
One nice interlude was a chapter in which Mr. Rawlik names a host of minor characters and extras after other authors, and that mini-story was actually quite good. However, it just wasn’t enough by itself to raise the level of the story in my opinion.
At the beginning of this review, I mentioned that I listened to this as an Audible production. This was most definitely not the best way to consume The Weird Company. This book is told primarily (around 80%, I’d guess) from the point of view of Robert Olmstead. Narrator Oliver Wyman, who did an amazing job in Reanimators, here gives Olmstead a perpetually pleading whine, whether the situation warrants this tone or not, and this absolutely wrecks any enjoyment I may have gotten from the chapters related from his pov. Why Audible chose this route I’ll never know.
Overall, I think 2 stars is maybe a little generous, but I can’t quite bring myself to give only 1. It’s a shame, because I usually really enjoy Peter Rawlik's stories.
This entire review has been hidden because of spoilers.
June 15, 2018
The Weird Company is an interesting take on the Lovecraft universe which takes many of the characters from Lovecraft turns them into a sort of Anti-Hero. While, I did not fully enjoy this book (see below), if you enjoy the expanded Lovecraftian Universe this book is definitely fun to read.
This book took me much longer to read then I expected in part because I was busy, but mostly due to Mr. Rawlik's writing. I started this novel with high hopes. I like the other novel of his that I had just read, and I was looking forward to something similar. However, unlike the Reanimatrix, The Weird Company suffers from two main flaws. The first, which is Mr. Rawlik's writing style which lacks that atmospheric style of Lovecraft, can be overcome through the story and I was perfectly happy to continue reading when the story was fascinating. The second issue stem's from the continuous interjection of sub-stories into the main plot-line.
During the Reanimatrix Mr. Rawlik had followed the main character, and while the stories were varied and he did switch narrator's partway through the change always moved the entire plot forward. However, in The Weird Company, while the sub-stories are always relevant to the book, they don't really move the story forward. In fact, they are interjected so as to explain plot points that will occur later in the narrative. Unfortunately, this has a dual effect of puling you out of the main story line, and also taking the concept of foreshadowing and removing all subtlety (it's very annoying), almost like saying see this brick that I'm going to hit you in the face with? And then reading how the brick hit you in the face.
Having said all that, I would recommend this book for either fans of Mr. Rawlik or hardcore Lovecraftian's. Just don't plan on being scared by anything in the novel. Oh, and if you like the novel (or John Carpenter's adaptation of) The Thing, you'll get a good chuckle.
This book took me much longer to read then I expected in part because I was busy, but mostly due to Mr. Rawlik's writing. I started this novel with high hopes. I like the other novel of his that I had just read, and I was looking forward to something similar. However, unlike the Reanimatrix, The Weird Company suffers from two main flaws. The first, which is Mr. Rawlik's writing style which lacks that atmospheric style of Lovecraft, can be overcome through the story and I was perfectly happy to continue reading when the story was fascinating. The second issue stem's from the continuous interjection of sub-stories into the main plot-line.
During the Reanimatrix Mr. Rawlik had followed the main character, and while the stories were varied and he did switch narrator's partway through the change always moved the entire plot forward. However, in The Weird Company, while the sub-stories are always relevant to the book, they don't really move the story forward. In fact, they are interjected so as to explain plot points that will occur later in the narrative. Unfortunately, this has a dual effect of puling you out of the main story line, and also taking the concept of foreshadowing and removing all subtlety (it's very annoying), almost like saying see this brick that I'm going to hit you in the face with? And then reading how the brick hit you in the face.
Having said all that, I would recommend this book for either fans of Mr. Rawlik or hardcore Lovecraftian's. Just don't plan on being scared by anything in the novel. Oh, and if you like the novel (or John Carpenter's adaptation of) The Thing, you'll get a good chuckle.
August 19, 2025
A solid continuation of what was begun in Reanimators, but branching out to bring in far more characters from the Lovecraft mythos. Leaning into the Lumley idea of conflicts among and between factions of the various forces in the Lovecraft universe, a number of our monsters become heroes in an attempt to save the world and their own factions from imminent destruction. I really enjoy the continued development of Hartwell, though he is not what I would call our main protagonist. And as my secret shame is that the Dreamlands stories have always been my favorite of Lovecrafts, the return of Carter and the visit to Ulthar was certainly a high point for me personally. Ephraim Waite cum Asenath I had trouble with as a sympathetic or heroic protagonist, and I would have liked more context for Elwood (who is among the most interesting of our 'new' characters). There's some wild stuff going on here with the Shoggoth, Elder Things, Yithians, and etc....I don't know that the sort of unifying theory of 'everything is kind of sort of an Elder Thing' is my favorite spin on the mythos, but I do love the idea of the Yithians as a sort of confederation of races as well as a race themselves.
I think my favorite parts of the book are actually the Prologue, which is fabulously done as a Mountains of Madness prequel in the same sort of way we got a Thing prequel, and the Epilogue which feels like a Uzumaki influenced really disturbing bit of small town horror.
I think my favorite parts of the book are actually the Prologue, which is fabulously done as a Mountains of Madness prequel in the same sort of way we got a Thing prequel, and the Epilogue which feels like a Uzumaki influenced really disturbing bit of small town horror.
June 8, 2021
Some writers can be really skilled at a certain part of the writing process, while having a book suffer from a lack of skill in other aspects. Rawlik excels at description and atmosphere, even the pacing of a scene. But he suffers from 'kitchen sink' writing when it comes to plotting and concept. He takes the strange world of Lovecraftian horror and all of its monstrosities and tries to weave a single narrative between the events of HPL's original stories. But the story gets lost in Rawlik's attempts to include as many things as possible from this fictional universe. This often happens for writers playing around in the sandbox of a larger shared fictional landscape (especially rpg book writers). I would love to see more from this writer outside of writing HPL pastiche. There is some real skill there, but perhaps it needs a stricter editor or a chance to play around in his own universe. The end result is a bit muddied.
April 4, 2021
The second volume in Rawlik’s effort to craft a single narrative from Lovecraft’s disparate stories. This one finds various reimagined Lovecraftian characters joining up with characters of Rawlik’s creation to form a sort of League of Extraordinary Gentlemen in order to battle the newly revived Shoggoth menace in the Antarctic. I actually think the story holds together more organically from a plot perspective than the first novel (though that one was looking to reimagine Lovecraft’s Herb West, Reanimator which was an episodic story by nature). 3.5 stars rounded up to 4 for reporting purposes.
January 3, 2019
I listened to the audio book. And the voice the narrator had for the main character was way off. It really took me out of the action, and made it a bit difficult to engage in the story (when that voice was used). Otherwise I liked it. As always with these Lovecraftian stories, the names of the creatures are a *bit* difficult. But I've liked Lovecraftian stories a long time, and this book had a lot of potential.
January 1, 2018
Nicely done
A quality Lovecraft pastiche. The reader does,however, need a scorecard to keep track of the numerous characters. If you enjoyed the first installment, you'll most likely groove on this one.
A quality Lovecraft pastiche. The reader does,however, need a scorecard to keep track of the numerous characters. If you enjoyed the first installment, you'll most likely groove on this one.
May 4, 2024
My review of the audiobook The Weird Company, The Secret History of H. P. Lovecraft’s Twentieth Century, by Peter Rawlik and narrated by Oliver Wyman.
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https://tinyurl.com/2jfphdph
My other reviews at Goodreads: https://tinyurl.com/3f2ru7n6
October 6, 2021
To read my full review, please visit http://www.jeremiahdylancook.com/the-....
January 31, 2024
Mythos continuity porn. It's puzzling how the copyediting/proofreading became steadily worse as the book progresses.
June 11, 2024
Cats ... I just shouted f*** off to myself out loud! Should have quit but I was a couple of hours in. The first one is decent but this though! Borderline 1 ⭐ TBH
January 10, 2025
Written in the style of Lovecraft, but better
Reading the prologue of this novel was like reading Lovecraft’s Mountains of Madness, but without all the long, drawn out boring parts. The style, the descriptiveness, and the tone has a lot in common with Lovecraft’s writings, more so than most anything else I’ve read that was written in modern times.
Although the novel is a cohesive whole, it seems like a series of short stories that were retroactively tied together in book form. That may actually be the case, because a number of the stories were published separately, but I don’t know.
I really enjoyed this book. I highly recommend it. I give it 5/5 stars.
Reading the prologue of this novel was like reading Lovecraft’s Mountains of Madness, but without all the long, drawn out boring parts. The style, the descriptiveness, and the tone has a lot in common with Lovecraft’s writings, more so than most anything else I’ve read that was written in modern times.
Although the novel is a cohesive whole, it seems like a series of short stories that were retroactively tied together in book form. That may actually be the case, because a number of the stories were published separately, but I don’t know.
I really enjoyed this book. I highly recommend it. I give it 5/5 stars.
April 5, 2016
This is the best modern Lovecraft book I have read (and I've been reading some really good ones lately).
Rawlik retells from different perspectives several well-known Lovecraft stories, melding them into a single amazing super-hero story of monsters saving the planet Earth, all preserving the 1930s language found in the old classic tales. He further offers explanations for the epic events that unfolds skillfully blending in more modern science concepts into the mix. The result is remarkable. A must-read for anyone with even a passing interest in this genre.
Rawlik retells from different perspectives several well-known Lovecraft stories, melding them into a single amazing super-hero story of monsters saving the planet Earth, all preserving the 1930s language found in the old classic tales. He further offers explanations for the epic events that unfolds skillfully blending in more modern science concepts into the mix. The result is remarkable. A must-read for anyone with even a passing interest in this genre.
September 20, 2016
I've given it 3 stars and that's generous. ..Interesting premise and I liked the characters but it was poorly executed. Too much time spent desperately trying to cram in elements from as many Lovecraftian stories as possible (and more besides) that it just made it ridiculous. And just when I thought it was finally over there was an enormous pointless epilogue!
May 26, 2016
An intriguing spin on a good idea that has some excellent moments, but ultimately didn't hold my attention as well as I would've liked. I really enjoyed several of the vignettes that ran parallel to the main story- they were the real highlight, in my opinion.
November 2, 2014
Fun seeing some of the old characters coming back in new and interesting ways. The parallels to the League of Extraordinary Gentlemen was kind of fun also.
February 4, 2015
I haven't read anything about Lovecraft's mythos in a long time. Creepy as ever.
December 25, 2018
I bought this because it was narrated by Robert Olmstead and has Asenath Waite as another main character, and I just love all things Innsmouth. Otherwise, the story was silly and convoluted.
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