Second hardcover volume of three, this one reprinting two ``adventure horror'' novels written in Lumley's Lovecraft-struck youth. Titus Crow: Vol. One (published in January of this year) describes Titus Crow's discovery of the Cthulhu monsters, who have been exiled to Earth by the Elder Gods of Elysia and who swim in molten stone below the mantle and have spread nests about the planet. Titus joins with Henri de Marigny to fight these telepathic subterranean horrors, and the two speed about in a grandfather clockshaped time machine created by the Elder Gods. Crow journeys to far-off Elysia, where he is rebuilt as an android, his human mind lodged in a body with perfect synthetic organs. Now, in The Clock of Dreams, the first of the two novels collected here, de Marigny, contacted by Kthanid the Elder in Elysia by dream telepathy, learns that Titus and his beloved Tiania are prisoners of Earth's dreamworld, trapped by their enemies in hideous nightmares. Through mental communication with the time-clock, de Marigny leaves the waking world and contacts Grant Enderby of Ulthar, who alone knows where in the dreamworld of Dyleth-Leen Titus and Tiania have been imprisoned. Thanks to de Marigny's efforts, Titus is finally freed to stand up to some ectoplasmal, abyss-spawned horrors. In Spawn of the Winds, it falls upon the telepathic Texan Hank Silberhutte to track and battle the Cthulhu Cycle Deities. Silberhutte knows that Ithaqua, the abominable Force of Evil also known as the Wind-Walker, has been exiled to the Arctic region. He goes in search of him only to have Ithaqua appear as a great smoke-like blot in the sky that assaults and downs his plane over the McKenzie Mountains. Hank disappears but later begins telepathic transmissions to the medium Juanita Alvarez, telling her of his battle with Ithaqua. Carmine prose from the very pits of hell as Lumley blends Lovecraft's demons and gods with Edgar Rice Burroughs's wild sense of adventure.
Pub Date: July 1, 1997
ISBN: 0-312-86347-0
Page Count: 352
Publisher: Tor
Review Posted Online: May 19, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: May 1, 1997
Will simultaneously intrigue both romantics and skeptics. The science might oversimplify, but it’s gripping enough to read...
Marrs’ debut novel traces the stories of five people who find their soul mates—or do they?
Imagine if you could submit to a simple DNA test and then receive your Match in your email. Not just an online date who might be geographically compatible, but a true and unique genetically destined partner. While the potential long-term benefits may seem to outweigh the negative consequences, the system is far from infallible; as any science-fiction fan could tell you, if it sounds too good to be true, there’s usually a catastrophe lurking at the other end. Marrs’ novel traces five individuals who meet their Matches under varying circumstances and with widely conflicting outcomes. During the course of their romantic adventures (and misadventures), the entire DNA matching algorithm will prove to be susceptible to hacking, also proving that (gasp!) just because something may be driven by science doesn’t mean that it’s free from the world of human error. The philosophy posed by the novel speaks not just to the power of love and the laws of attraction, but also serves as a commentary on today’s world of genetic exploration. Do these breakthroughs simplify our lives, or do they make us lazy, replacing the idea of “destiny” or “fate” with “science” as a larger power that we don’t need to question? These ideas keep the novel moving along and create a deeper level of interest, since most of the narrative threads are fairly predictable. The two exceptions are the psychopathic serial killer who meets his Match and begins to lose interest in killing and the heterosexual man matched with another man, both of whom must then redefine sexuality and love, commitment and family.
Will simultaneously intrigue both romantics and skeptics. The science might oversimplify, but it’s gripping enough to read all in one sitting.Pub Date: Feb. 20, 2018
ISBN: 978-1-335-00510-6
Page Count: 416
Publisher: Hanover Square Press
Review Posted Online: Dec. 6, 2017
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Jan. 1, 2018
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK TO SCREEN
This brilliant bit of nihilism succeeds where so many self-described transgressive novels do not: It's dangerous because...
Brutal and relentless debut fiction takes anarcho-S&M chic to a whole new level—in a creepy, dystopic, confrontational novel that's also cynically smart and sharply written.
Palahniuk's insomniac narrator, a drone who works as a product recall coordinator, spends his free time crashing support groups for the dying. But his after-hours life changes for the weirder when he hooks up with Tyler Durden, a waiter and projectionist with plans to screw up the world—he's a "guerilla terrorist of the service industry." "Project Mayhem" seems taken from a page in The Anarchist Cookbook and starts small: Durden splices subliminal scenes of porno into family films and he spits into customers' soup. Things take off, though, when he begins the fight club—a gruesome late-night sport in which men beat each other up as partial initiation into Durden's bigger scheme: a supersecret strike group to carry out his wilder ideas. Durden finances his scheme with a soap-making business that secretly steals its main ingredient—the fat sucked from liposuction. Durden's cultlike groups spread like wildfire, his followers recognizable by their open wounds and scars. Seeking oblivion and self-destruction, the leader preaches anarchist fundamentalism: "Losing all hope was freedom," and "Everything is falling apart"—all of which is just his desperate attempt to get God's attention. As the narrator begins to reject Durden's revolution, he starts to realize that the legendary lunatic is just himself, or the part of himself that takes over when he falls asleep. Though he lands in heaven, which closely resembles a psycho ward, the narrator/Durden lives on in his flourishing clubs.
This brilliant bit of nihilism succeeds where so many self-described transgressive novels do not: It's dangerous because it's so compelling.Pub Date: Aug. 1, 1996
ISBN: 0-393-03976-5
Page Count: 192
Publisher: Norton
Review Posted Online: May 19, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: June 1, 1996
BOOK TO SCREEN
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