Status Updates From The Citadel of Fear (Sci-Fi...

The Mayan adventure wraps up abruptly with Kennedy encountering a Dark Eidolon and Boots exiled to the desert. Flash forward 15 years and we are out of the weird adventure and into the weird horror as Boots’s sister, Cliona, is home alone with her bulldog Snookums. Yes, really. Right now it’s illustrating the paranoia of being home alone at night for the first time, but the reader knows that something’s amiss.

Like REH, GBB has a fascination with Irish strong men. There’s also the admiration of the citadel warriors for Colin’s fighting prowess. Unlike Cerberus, however, Boots’s comrade—Kennedy—is a villain in ascent. It’s interesting because the Weird is reflected in Kennedy’s reaction to Tlallopan far more than the easygoing, gregarious Colin/Boots.

This book’s introduction attempts to enshrine Gertrude Barrows Bennett in the grand lineage of weird fiction as a contemporary of (if not crony of) H.P. Lovecraft, historically significant as a female author, as well as an author of science fiction. It’s an interesting essay and has me excited to get around to her Nightmare collection of dark fantasy stories.

Boots is a ginger Irishman *wink wink*