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The Lovecraft Squad #4
Rising
From its new headquarters, the Human Protection League (colloquially known as “The Lovecraft Squad”) must regroup against the rising tide of supernatural threats from such clandestine cults as The Olde Fellowes and The Esoteric Order of Dagon, who worship a group of ancient deities known as the Great Old Ones. As their unholy acolytes prepare to resurrect these multi-dimensional gods from their imprisonment beneath the earth and beyond the stars, the universe hovers on the brink of an Eldritch War such as it has never known before. The only thing that may stand between victory or the enslavement and eventual destruction of the human race itself is a man out of his own time—a writer, a visionary, a dreamer on the night-side . . .
With contributions by: Peter Atkins, Stephen Baxter, Mike Chinn, Adrian Cole, Brian Hodge, Lisa Morton, Thana Niveau, Reggie Oliver, John Llewellyn Probert, Angela Slatter, Michael Marshall Smith, Steve Rasnic Tem, and Jo Fletcher.
With contributions by: Peter Atkins, Stephen Baxter, Mike Chinn, Adrian Cole, Brian Hodge, Lisa Morton, Thana Niveau, Reggie Oliver, John Llewellyn Probert, Angela Slatter, Michael Marshall Smith, Steve Rasnic Tem, and Jo Fletcher.
- GenresHorror
384 pages, Paperback
First published January 7, 2020
1 person is currently reading
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About the author
Stephen Jones
277 books344 followersStephen Jones is an eighteen-time winner of the British Fantasy Award.
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March 26, 2020
Review of THE LOVECRAFT SQUAD: RISING created by Stephen Jones.
Review by Trevor Kennedy for PHANTASMAGORIA SPECIAL EDITION SERIES #2: THE LOVECRAFT SQUAD.
“Very little of what you’ve been told, all your life, is true.”
(Stephen Baxter, The Lovecraft Squad: Waiting)
IMAGINE A WORLD where the writings of famous pulp horror author H. P. Lovecraft are not actually fiction, but real. Prophecies even. In this world, those nefarious cosmic gods known as the Great Old Ones are attempting to break back into our reality after many millennia of ancient slumber, waiting patiently for the correct time, when the stars are right. When they inevitably return, death, destruction and insanity await the entirety of the human race and not a single soul will be spared from their terrifying, unfathomable madness. There is some hope out there, however…
Please meet The Lovecraft Squad, or as they’re more officially known, the Human Protection League (HPL). They’re the good guys (well, for the most part anyhow), set up by J. Edgar Hoover and Agent Nathan Brady in the 1930s, their secret legacy leaving a vital footprint on the history of the twentieth century and beyond, an alternate history, one that you won’t hear talked about much in media circles or ordinary day-to-day life. But some of us, those of us in the know, have heard of their adventures and can only gasp in awe at their bravery as the final Eldritch War approaches…
Created by maverick editor/anthologist Stephen Jones, The Lovecraft Squad series is an epic, era-hopping collection of connected Mythos tales that I firmly believe Howard Phillips Lovecraft himself would be very proud of.
The Story So Far… by Stephen Jones
The series creator recaps on what has gone before, setting up what is still to come…
Prologue: The Devil in the White City by Reggie Oliver
1892. Sir Thomas Moreby is, let’s just say, a rather sinister character around the streets of old London town, gov’ner. He’s planning a trip to Chicago via New York to conduct some unsavoury business (naturally), but the brave young Mabel and Lady Markby are on the case and following him across the Atlantic Ocean, assigned by none other than Mycroft “brother of Sherlock” Holmes himself…
Ah, this is a wonderful opener, a Gothic adventure brimming with atmosphere and good old Victorian era scares and lore.
The Outsider and Others by Lisa Morton
In 1976, newly appointed director of the HPL, Miracle Brady, finds herself embroiled in a high school massacre where her name has been scrawled on the walls in one of the victim’s blood. In the meantime, we catch up with Randolph Carter in the Dreamlands, while strange disturbances are reported in the South Pacific, close to where the ancient city of R’lyeh is believed to be located, home to the Great Dreamer himself, Cthulhu…
Written with a touch of class from Morton, this is an expertly penned story, raising the stakes in the overall arc and ending on quite a poignant, human note.
The Thing About Cats by Peter Atkins
Continuing on from the prologue in the previous book, author Atkins goes full-on crazy in a fast-paced, quick-witted and gory tale of dismembered heads, their mutated bodies and talking cats, one which put me in mind of a cross between John Carpenter’s The Thing and Sam Raimi’s Evil Dead sequels.
Superbly deranged with a fantastic lead narrating character in Tabitha.
The Four Churches by John Llewellyn Probert
Jonathan Mount and Miss Emilia Shaver, of the UK’s branch of the HPL, return, in case involving the member of parliament for Avon South, Sir Alexander McIntyre, being murdered by a ten foot monster, no less. The former MP also just happened to be the owner of a very unusual model church…
Another terrifically enjoyable madcap “very British” yarn from Llewellyn Probert which will be continued, in a way, when the mysterious All Hallows Church gets a well-deserved full novel later on in the series.
Hastur La Vista, Baby! by Adrian Cole and Mike Chinn
In more contemporary times, tough guy private dick Nick Nightmare comes into possession of a notebook of sorts from 1937, chronicling a mission quasi-immortal Damian Paladin and his sexy, kickass sidekick Leigh Oswin undertook to a lake beside La Vista, Florida, one that also involved a murderous cult, the ancient city of Carcosa, a recently risen sorcerer, and the lost continent of Atlantis.
After a visit from a member of the HPL, Mr. Nightmare wastes no time in heading to La Vista for himself - armed with his twin Berettas and a knife or two, of course - to get to the bottom of the mystery once and for all. And the flesh-eating alligators there are only going to be a small part of his problems…
If you like good, old-fashioned “Boys’ Own”-style adventures, mixed with some pulp action and Lovecraftian Mythos, then this is definitely the one for you. A HUGE amount of fun from Cole and Chinn!
The House of the Crystal Staircase by Thana Niveau
In the mid-to-late 1980s, eighteen-year-old American girl Daisy Singer is on her first proper mission for the Lovecraft Squad, assigned to a strange private school in Rome, where one of its students has recently been brutally murdered. The school’s interior architecture warps the laws of natural physics, and the residents there aren’t the most pleasant either. Daisy’s odd dreams, however, might just provide a clue as to what lies ahead for her…
The Lovecraft Squad does Dario Argento in a creepy, psychedelic, witchcraft-related tale. Extra kudos to Niveau for the cool ‘80s references which I totally “got”.
A Fun Guy From Yuggoth by Michael Marshall Smith
1987, Santa Cruz, USA. “The Murder Capital of the World”. When a couple of cops arrest a man behaving suspiciously in and around his car, they discover the severed head of his mother hidden on his lap. Cannibalism is soon suspected. The horror-comedy film The Lost Boys is also involved. This is no random act of extreme violence, however. There is indeed a pattern - and cycle - connected to the case.
F*cking hell! When I first saw the title for this story I thought it was going to be a somewhat lighter, comedic contribution to the series. How very deceiving it is. Some very dark, real-life horrors (always the most terrifying!) mixed in with the supernatural. The writing style chosen for this by the author - matter of fact, police procedural - makes it all the more powerful and unsettling, akin to the work of William Peter Blatty, perhaps. I may have only read so far a fraction of his overall work, but Michael Marshall Smith is now definitely one of my favourite writers out there today. Profound, philosophical, sublime.
The Ninth Planet by Stephen Baxter
It’s 1988, and the astronaut Jocelyn Peabody is deep in space, in orbit near Jupiter, waking up after around 9 years of cyrosleep. She’s the niece of Mabel, who appeared in Baxter’s first story in the series, “The Color Out in Space”, and who also just happened to get herself killed by Magnolia Jones after becoming possessed by an entity on the Russian space station Zarya, back in ‘63. Jupiter is the least of Jocelyn’s mounting problems, however, as Peabody is soon sent on a mission to the odd planet of Yuggoth, the one Lovecraft prophesied about. She plans to go there with a little help from a Colour Out of Space…
This concluding chapter of Stephen Baxter’s trilogy series-within-a-series is some seriously good science/speculative/horror fiction. Yuggoth and its insectoid denizens are a sight to behold in the reader’s mind’s eye. And that Back to the Future reference is just the icing on this interstellar cake.
The Haunters of the Dark Affair by Steve Rasnic Tem
Alaska, the Arctic Circle. Now in his sixties, twenty years on from his encounter at Innsbruck, the returned Agent Claude LeGoff reluctantly heads out to a snowbound village in the region to investigate a case that relates to monstrous body parts recently discovered and something very old residing beneath the ice…
Perhaps it was due, in some part, to my frame of mind when reading it, alone, late at night, but the ending of this story actually got me quite emotional, in a poignant, reflective sort of way. Not an easy thing to do with me. Respect to the author.
Out of Time by Angela Slatter
In the Dreamlands, a great war is raging. The fallen city of Kadath must be rebuilt. The legions of the Blind God Azathoth face down against those of Nyarlathotep, his son, who oft takes the form, amongst others, of Brown Jenkin, the large rat/man creature. The Cats of Ulthar are involved, as is Richard Upton Pickman, himself now some sort of strange ghoul-creature. So are the night-gaunts, the cannibalistic ghouls and many other monstrosities not of our world. Randolph Carter is there too. The dreaded Cthulhu and the Armies of the Night are rising in the waking realm, the sanctity of both worlds now under extreme threat. The Sunset City must be reimagined, but great sacrifices must be paid if this is to be happen.
Meanwhile, in the waking world, Ward Kindred comes face-to-face (literally!) with one of the other characters in a shocking realisation.
This is some seriously intense, elaborate, imaginative, descriptive dark fantasy from Angela Slatter. A totally immersive experience.
The Final Sacrifice by Brian Hodge
Iraqi-occupied Kuwait, Operation Desert Storm, 1991. It’s not what we have been led to believe about it, however - Saddam Hussein is just the cover story for the real war, The Eldritch War. Abdul Alhazred - author of the Necronomicon, dead for over twelve centuries - has been reborn, his essential salts having been located by the Olde Fellowes. Agents Sondra and Tucker of the HPL rendezvous with a team of Navy SEALs in the desert to locate the long lost Nameless City and defeat the “Mad Arab” once and for all.
Meanwhile at HPL headquarters, Director Miracle Brady discovers a physically rejuvenated Agent Randolph Carter, finally back after two decades in the Dreamscape, bringing with him the sad news that a tragic, final sacrifice must be made…
Okay, here’s the thing: horror, in any of its varying forms, very rarely gets me emotional. Yes, it always plays with certain emotions within me, but it hardly ever gets me properly emotional, in that “pull-on-your-heartstrings” manner. But this story did.
The segments with towards the end are beautifully written and genuinely choked me up a bit. The reason for this is because it blends so well together with certain real-life tragedies (no spoilers!) and this fictional world. It’s kind of genius in that way. I don’t want to give too much away for those of you who haven’t read it yet, but when I came to the references to the other real-life writers Robert E. Howard, Robert Bloch and Frank Belknap Long, and the city of Providence, Rhode Island, it was very powerful indeed.
The other half of story - concerning the team in the desert, Abdul Alhazred, the Necronomicon and Cthulhu - combines perfectly to create a grand culmination of everything that has gone before in the three books so far - stories spanning almost the entirety of the twentieth century within this fictionalised universe.
Epic.
Epilogue: Out of the Eons by John Llewellyn Probert
England, 1994. At a building site where a supermarket is being erected on the location of the house where H. G. Wells used to live, a couple of teenage boys run into some trouble…
An extract from the opening of John Llewellyn Probert’s novel, The Lovecraft Squad: All Hallows Horror…
Lost Boys by Jo Fletcher
United Kingdom, 1993. A newspaper report detailing the strange case of two missing teenage boys, one now reappeared, although amnesic, the other still nowhere to be seen. The lads vanished from around the graveyard of the reportedly “haunted” All Hallows Church. Whatever could it all mean?…
Overall, The Lovecraft Squad is a superb literary epic that creator Stephen Jones and every single author involved should be very proud of.
It works on several levels, the rich variety of connected tales contained crossing most, if not all, of the sub-sections within the whole of the Dark Fantasy genre and beyond (horror, fantasy, science fiction, haunted houses, ghosts, witchcraft, zombies, voodoo, conspiracy theories, aliens, cyborgs, pulp fiction, gun-toting gangsters and their glamorous molls, Nazis, classic adventure serials, body horror, tentacled monsters, mutants, serial killers, cannibals, urban legends, evil cults, angry gods, mysticism, crazy wizards, ancient curses, mad scientists, small town secrets, social commentary, et cetera, et cetera - you name it and you’ll find it in there somewhere!) while at the same time keeping its feet firmly planted in the Mythos created by Lovecraft. An updated version of the work of the author perhaps, while at the same time honouring it, and appealing to fans of HPL and non-fans together. Twentieth century history like you’ve never seen (or read) it before (and the history of the last century is always something that has fascinated me since I was a young boy).
There’s an emotional core to it as well, a love and respect for the stories of Lovecraft, and the writers are clearly having a great time too.
In my opinion, I feel it would also make an exceptional - and unique - television/streaming service series if done correctly and creative control remained with Jones and co.
Also worthy of mention are the extraordinarily lifelike pulp-style front cover paintings by Douglas Klauba.
But how, I hear you ask, would the man himself feel about the series if he were alive today? I honestly believe Howard Phillips Lovecraft would be profoundly flattered and bowled over by it all. Go check it out for yourselves and see what you think. The dreaded Cthulhu demands it.
The Lovecraft Squad series is published by Pegasus Books and is available to purchase from Amazon and many other outlets throughout the world.
Review by Trevor Kennedy for PHANTASMAGORIA SPECIAL EDITION SERIES #2: THE LOVECRAFT SQUAD.
“Very little of what you’ve been told, all your life, is true.”
(Stephen Baxter, The Lovecraft Squad: Waiting)
IMAGINE A WORLD where the writings of famous pulp horror author H. P. Lovecraft are not actually fiction, but real. Prophecies even. In this world, those nefarious cosmic gods known as the Great Old Ones are attempting to break back into our reality after many millennia of ancient slumber, waiting patiently for the correct time, when the stars are right. When they inevitably return, death, destruction and insanity await the entirety of the human race and not a single soul will be spared from their terrifying, unfathomable madness. There is some hope out there, however…
Please meet The Lovecraft Squad, or as they’re more officially known, the Human Protection League (HPL). They’re the good guys (well, for the most part anyhow), set up by J. Edgar Hoover and Agent Nathan Brady in the 1930s, their secret legacy leaving a vital footprint on the history of the twentieth century and beyond, an alternate history, one that you won’t hear talked about much in media circles or ordinary day-to-day life. But some of us, those of us in the know, have heard of their adventures and can only gasp in awe at their bravery as the final Eldritch War approaches…
Created by maverick editor/anthologist Stephen Jones, The Lovecraft Squad series is an epic, era-hopping collection of connected Mythos tales that I firmly believe Howard Phillips Lovecraft himself would be very proud of.
The Story So Far… by Stephen Jones
The series creator recaps on what has gone before, setting up what is still to come…
Prologue: The Devil in the White City by Reggie Oliver
1892. Sir Thomas Moreby is, let’s just say, a rather sinister character around the streets of old London town, gov’ner. He’s planning a trip to Chicago via New York to conduct some unsavoury business (naturally), but the brave young Mabel and Lady Markby are on the case and following him across the Atlantic Ocean, assigned by none other than Mycroft “brother of Sherlock” Holmes himself…
Ah, this is a wonderful opener, a Gothic adventure brimming with atmosphere and good old Victorian era scares and lore.
The Outsider and Others by Lisa Morton
In 1976, newly appointed director of the HPL, Miracle Brady, finds herself embroiled in a high school massacre where her name has been scrawled on the walls in one of the victim’s blood. In the meantime, we catch up with Randolph Carter in the Dreamlands, while strange disturbances are reported in the South Pacific, close to where the ancient city of R’lyeh is believed to be located, home to the Great Dreamer himself, Cthulhu…
Written with a touch of class from Morton, this is an expertly penned story, raising the stakes in the overall arc and ending on quite a poignant, human note.
The Thing About Cats by Peter Atkins
Continuing on from the prologue in the previous book, author Atkins goes full-on crazy in a fast-paced, quick-witted and gory tale of dismembered heads, their mutated bodies and talking cats, one which put me in mind of a cross between John Carpenter’s The Thing and Sam Raimi’s Evil Dead sequels.
Superbly deranged with a fantastic lead narrating character in Tabitha.
The Four Churches by John Llewellyn Probert
Jonathan Mount and Miss Emilia Shaver, of the UK’s branch of the HPL, return, in case involving the member of parliament for Avon South, Sir Alexander McIntyre, being murdered by a ten foot monster, no less. The former MP also just happened to be the owner of a very unusual model church…
Another terrifically enjoyable madcap “very British” yarn from Llewellyn Probert which will be continued, in a way, when the mysterious All Hallows Church gets a well-deserved full novel later on in the series.
Hastur La Vista, Baby! by Adrian Cole and Mike Chinn
In more contemporary times, tough guy private dick Nick Nightmare comes into possession of a notebook of sorts from 1937, chronicling a mission quasi-immortal Damian Paladin and his sexy, kickass sidekick Leigh Oswin undertook to a lake beside La Vista, Florida, one that also involved a murderous cult, the ancient city of Carcosa, a recently risen sorcerer, and the lost continent of Atlantis.
After a visit from a member of the HPL, Mr. Nightmare wastes no time in heading to La Vista for himself - armed with his twin Berettas and a knife or two, of course - to get to the bottom of the mystery once and for all. And the flesh-eating alligators there are only going to be a small part of his problems…
If you like good, old-fashioned “Boys’ Own”-style adventures, mixed with some pulp action and Lovecraftian Mythos, then this is definitely the one for you. A HUGE amount of fun from Cole and Chinn!
The House of the Crystal Staircase by Thana Niveau
In the mid-to-late 1980s, eighteen-year-old American girl Daisy Singer is on her first proper mission for the Lovecraft Squad, assigned to a strange private school in Rome, where one of its students has recently been brutally murdered. The school’s interior architecture warps the laws of natural physics, and the residents there aren’t the most pleasant either. Daisy’s odd dreams, however, might just provide a clue as to what lies ahead for her…
The Lovecraft Squad does Dario Argento in a creepy, psychedelic, witchcraft-related tale. Extra kudos to Niveau for the cool ‘80s references which I totally “got”.
A Fun Guy From Yuggoth by Michael Marshall Smith
1987, Santa Cruz, USA. “The Murder Capital of the World”. When a couple of cops arrest a man behaving suspiciously in and around his car, they discover the severed head of his mother hidden on his lap. Cannibalism is soon suspected. The horror-comedy film The Lost Boys is also involved. This is no random act of extreme violence, however. There is indeed a pattern - and cycle - connected to the case.
F*cking hell! When I first saw the title for this story I thought it was going to be a somewhat lighter, comedic contribution to the series. How very deceiving it is. Some very dark, real-life horrors (always the most terrifying!) mixed in with the supernatural. The writing style chosen for this by the author - matter of fact, police procedural - makes it all the more powerful and unsettling, akin to the work of William Peter Blatty, perhaps. I may have only read so far a fraction of his overall work, but Michael Marshall Smith is now definitely one of my favourite writers out there today. Profound, philosophical, sublime.
The Ninth Planet by Stephen Baxter
It’s 1988, and the astronaut Jocelyn Peabody is deep in space, in orbit near Jupiter, waking up after around 9 years of cyrosleep. She’s the niece of Mabel, who appeared in Baxter’s first story in the series, “The Color Out in Space”, and who also just happened to get herself killed by Magnolia Jones after becoming possessed by an entity on the Russian space station Zarya, back in ‘63. Jupiter is the least of Jocelyn’s mounting problems, however, as Peabody is soon sent on a mission to the odd planet of Yuggoth, the one Lovecraft prophesied about. She plans to go there with a little help from a Colour Out of Space…
This concluding chapter of Stephen Baxter’s trilogy series-within-a-series is some seriously good science/speculative/horror fiction. Yuggoth and its insectoid denizens are a sight to behold in the reader’s mind’s eye. And that Back to the Future reference is just the icing on this interstellar cake.
The Haunters of the Dark Affair by Steve Rasnic Tem
Alaska, the Arctic Circle. Now in his sixties, twenty years on from his encounter at Innsbruck, the returned Agent Claude LeGoff reluctantly heads out to a snowbound village in the region to investigate a case that relates to monstrous body parts recently discovered and something very old residing beneath the ice…
Perhaps it was due, in some part, to my frame of mind when reading it, alone, late at night, but the ending of this story actually got me quite emotional, in a poignant, reflective sort of way. Not an easy thing to do with me. Respect to the author.
Out of Time by Angela Slatter
In the Dreamlands, a great war is raging. The fallen city of Kadath must be rebuilt. The legions of the Blind God Azathoth face down against those of Nyarlathotep, his son, who oft takes the form, amongst others, of Brown Jenkin, the large rat/man creature. The Cats of Ulthar are involved, as is Richard Upton Pickman, himself now some sort of strange ghoul-creature. So are the night-gaunts, the cannibalistic ghouls and many other monstrosities not of our world. Randolph Carter is there too. The dreaded Cthulhu and the Armies of the Night are rising in the waking realm, the sanctity of both worlds now under extreme threat. The Sunset City must be reimagined, but great sacrifices must be paid if this is to be happen.
Meanwhile, in the waking world, Ward Kindred comes face-to-face (literally!) with one of the other characters in a shocking realisation.
This is some seriously intense, elaborate, imaginative, descriptive dark fantasy from Angela Slatter. A totally immersive experience.
The Final Sacrifice by Brian Hodge
Iraqi-occupied Kuwait, Operation Desert Storm, 1991. It’s not what we have been led to believe about it, however - Saddam Hussein is just the cover story for the real war, The Eldritch War. Abdul Alhazred - author of the Necronomicon, dead for over twelve centuries - has been reborn, his essential salts having been located by the Olde Fellowes. Agents Sondra and Tucker of the HPL rendezvous with a team of Navy SEALs in the desert to locate the long lost Nameless City and defeat the “Mad Arab” once and for all.
Meanwhile at HPL headquarters, Director Miracle Brady discovers a physically rejuvenated Agent Randolph Carter, finally back after two decades in the Dreamscape, bringing with him the sad news that a tragic, final sacrifice must be made…
Okay, here’s the thing: horror, in any of its varying forms, very rarely gets me emotional. Yes, it always plays with certain emotions within me, but it hardly ever gets me properly emotional, in that “pull-on-your-heartstrings” manner. But this story did.
The segments with towards the end are beautifully written and genuinely choked me up a bit. The reason for this is because it blends so well together with certain real-life tragedies (no spoilers!) and this fictional world. It’s kind of genius in that way. I don’t want to give too much away for those of you who haven’t read it yet, but when I came to the references to the other real-life writers Robert E. Howard, Robert Bloch and Frank Belknap Long, and the city of Providence, Rhode Island, it was very powerful indeed.
The other half of story - concerning the team in the desert, Abdul Alhazred, the Necronomicon and Cthulhu - combines perfectly to create a grand culmination of everything that has gone before in the three books so far - stories spanning almost the entirety of the twentieth century within this fictionalised universe.
Epic.
Epilogue: Out of the Eons by John Llewellyn Probert
England, 1994. At a building site where a supermarket is being erected on the location of the house where H. G. Wells used to live, a couple of teenage boys run into some trouble…
An extract from the opening of John Llewellyn Probert’s novel, The Lovecraft Squad: All Hallows Horror…
Lost Boys by Jo Fletcher
United Kingdom, 1993. A newspaper report detailing the strange case of two missing teenage boys, one now reappeared, although amnesic, the other still nowhere to be seen. The lads vanished from around the graveyard of the reportedly “haunted” All Hallows Church. Whatever could it all mean?…
Overall, The Lovecraft Squad is a superb literary epic that creator Stephen Jones and every single author involved should be very proud of.
It works on several levels, the rich variety of connected tales contained crossing most, if not all, of the sub-sections within the whole of the Dark Fantasy genre and beyond (horror, fantasy, science fiction, haunted houses, ghosts, witchcraft, zombies, voodoo, conspiracy theories, aliens, cyborgs, pulp fiction, gun-toting gangsters and their glamorous molls, Nazis, classic adventure serials, body horror, tentacled monsters, mutants, serial killers, cannibals, urban legends, evil cults, angry gods, mysticism, crazy wizards, ancient curses, mad scientists, small town secrets, social commentary, et cetera, et cetera - you name it and you’ll find it in there somewhere!) while at the same time keeping its feet firmly planted in the Mythos created by Lovecraft. An updated version of the work of the author perhaps, while at the same time honouring it, and appealing to fans of HPL and non-fans together. Twentieth century history like you’ve never seen (or read) it before (and the history of the last century is always something that has fascinated me since I was a young boy).
There’s an emotional core to it as well, a love and respect for the stories of Lovecraft, and the writers are clearly having a great time too.
In my opinion, I feel it would also make an exceptional - and unique - television/streaming service series if done correctly and creative control remained with Jones and co.
Also worthy of mention are the extraordinarily lifelike pulp-style front cover paintings by Douglas Klauba.
But how, I hear you ask, would the man himself feel about the series if he were alive today? I honestly believe Howard Phillips Lovecraft would be profoundly flattered and bowled over by it all. Go check it out for yourselves and see what you think. The dreaded Cthulhu demands it.
The Lovecraft Squad series is published by Pegasus Books and is available to purchase from Amazon and many other outlets throughout the world.
June 3, 2020
This review originally published in Looking For a Good Book. Rated 4.25 of 5
There are people (and creatures) in the known universe who are bent on bringing about chaos. The most dangerous of these are cultists known as The Olde Fellowes and The Esoteric Order of Dagon who, with supernatural help, will do whatever they can to disrupt order. To combat this, a covert group of professionals known as the Human Protection League (HPL) - affectionately dubbed "The Lovecraft Squad" - was created. Think of them as sort of an 'X-Files" team, but with more subtlety and power.
The battle has not been going well and the HPL team have collected at a new headquarters to regroup. The cultists are preparing the way for ancient, powerful gods to be resurrected and freed from imprisonment and restore their power. An Eldritch War is brewing and the best hope that the HPL have just might be a man out of his own time.
The book is a collection of short stories but it is put together as if it were a larger, cohesive novel with a lot of sub-plots. It's kind of a strange arrangement. If you don't know that these are short stories - there is no table of contents and while each chapter has a title, there is no author associated with it - then you might get really confused (as I was when I first read the previous book in the series).
The authors behind these stories are all talented. There weren't any stories/chapters that I did not enjoy. One story definitely stood out as being exceptionally powerful - 'The Haunters of the Dark Affair" by Steve Rasnic Tem. This story felt very current and I definitely felt as though I were invested in what was happening. It was quite moving.
The darkness of the impending Eldritch War and the supernatural aspects of the ancient, dark gods certainly suggests that this is not a book for everyone, but if you pause to look at this book because the word 'Lovecraft' caught your eye, then I highly recommend it. "The Story So Far..." at the start will get you caught up with all you need to know to start reading immediately.
This book contains the following (authors listed are those credited with being the copyright holders at the back of the book):
"The Story So Fr..." - Stephen Jones
"Prologue: The Devil in the White City" - Reggie Oliver
"The Outsider and Others" - Lisa Morton
"The Thing About Cats" - Peter Atkins
"The Four Churches" - John Llewellyn Probert
"Hastur La Vista, Baby!" - Adrian Cole and Mike Chinn
"The House of the Crustal Staircase" - Thana Niveau
"A Fun Guy from Yuggoth" - Michael Marshall Smith
"The Ninth Planet" - Stephen Baxter
"The Haunters of the Dark Affair" - Steve Rasnic Tem
"Out of Time" - Angela Slatter
"The Final Sacrifice" - Brian Hodge
"Epilogue: Out of the Eons" - John Llewellyn Probert
"Lost Boys" - Jo Fletcher
I mentioned it in my review of the previous Lovecraft Squad book, but I'll say it again ... the cover by Douglas Klauba really captures the old pulp adventure feel.
Looking for a good book? The Lovecraft Squad: Rising by Stephen Jones (et al) is thrilling dark adventure fiction in the classic pulp style.
I received a digital copy of this book from the publisher, through Edelweiss, in exchange for an honest review.
There are people (and creatures) in the known universe who are bent on bringing about chaos. The most dangerous of these are cultists known as The Olde Fellowes and The Esoteric Order of Dagon who, with supernatural help, will do whatever they can to disrupt order. To combat this, a covert group of professionals known as the Human Protection League (HPL) - affectionately dubbed "The Lovecraft Squad" - was created. Think of them as sort of an 'X-Files" team, but with more subtlety and power.
The battle has not been going well and the HPL team have collected at a new headquarters to regroup. The cultists are preparing the way for ancient, powerful gods to be resurrected and freed from imprisonment and restore their power. An Eldritch War is brewing and the best hope that the HPL have just might be a man out of his own time.
The book is a collection of short stories but it is put together as if it were a larger, cohesive novel with a lot of sub-plots. It's kind of a strange arrangement. If you don't know that these are short stories - there is no table of contents and while each chapter has a title, there is no author associated with it - then you might get really confused (as I was when I first read the previous book in the series).
The authors behind these stories are all talented. There weren't any stories/chapters that I did not enjoy. One story definitely stood out as being exceptionally powerful - 'The Haunters of the Dark Affair" by Steve Rasnic Tem. This story felt very current and I definitely felt as though I were invested in what was happening. It was quite moving.
The darkness of the impending Eldritch War and the supernatural aspects of the ancient, dark gods certainly suggests that this is not a book for everyone, but if you pause to look at this book because the word 'Lovecraft' caught your eye, then I highly recommend it. "The Story So Far..." at the start will get you caught up with all you need to know to start reading immediately.
This book contains the following (authors listed are those credited with being the copyright holders at the back of the book):
"The Story So Fr..." - Stephen Jones
"Prologue: The Devil in the White City" - Reggie Oliver
"The Outsider and Others" - Lisa Morton
"The Thing About Cats" - Peter Atkins
"The Four Churches" - John Llewellyn Probert
"Hastur La Vista, Baby!" - Adrian Cole and Mike Chinn
"The House of the Crustal Staircase" - Thana Niveau
"A Fun Guy from Yuggoth" - Michael Marshall Smith
"The Ninth Planet" - Stephen Baxter
"The Haunters of the Dark Affair" - Steve Rasnic Tem
"Out of Time" - Angela Slatter
"The Final Sacrifice" - Brian Hodge
"Epilogue: Out of the Eons" - John Llewellyn Probert
"Lost Boys" - Jo Fletcher
I mentioned it in my review of the previous Lovecraft Squad book, but I'll say it again ... the cover by Douglas Klauba really captures the old pulp adventure feel.
Looking for a good book? The Lovecraft Squad: Rising by Stephen Jones (et al) is thrilling dark adventure fiction in the classic pulp style.
I received a digital copy of this book from the publisher, through Edelweiss, in exchange for an honest review.
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