"The Return of the Lloigor"

 by Colin Wilson 

originally published Tales of the Cthulhu Mythos, Arkham House, 1969

Out story starts out in a very typical Cthulhuoid fashion.  Our narrator starts to tell us about the events he's going to relate.  But wait!  There's a big difference!! This narrator actually has a name!!!  

He is Paul Lang, a University of Virginia Literature Prof and Poe scholar.  And he's 72 years old, just so's ya know, and he doesn't give a shoggoth's ass what he's colleagues think about him now, so here goes his tale...

After meeting a colleague in Moscow, Lang becomes interested in The Voynich Manuscript, a medieval text attributed to Roger Bacon, which is either a treatise on magic, or impossibly advanced science for the 13th century (in which it was supposedly wrought), or both - since it's all written in code or cipher.

Lang gets his hands on the book - it gives off an unpleasant aura of "nastiness" that only Lang seems to experience.  He has photostats made, then high definition photos which allow him to translate the book - which is not in cipher but simply Arabic characters which had faded over time - so it's written in both Greek and Latin using Arabic script!

After a lot of work and probably downing many Excedrin, Lang is able to translate the book, which is indeed a complete scientific account of the universe, its origin, history, geography…mathematical structure and hidden depths.  He also learns that the book has a name:  Necronomicon.

It ain't too long before Paul finds out about the fiction of Mssr. H.P. Lovecraft, and starts binge-reading.  He also catches references from Arthur Machen's work in HPL that tie in with reference in the Necronomicon.  He makes a trip out to Machen country (that's Wales, kiddies), which turn out to be one dreary place.  A few well-placed questions guide him to one Col. Urquart, who has no chin but knows a lot about Welsh legends and the mythic lost continent of Mu.  Among the things he knows is that Wales and Providence, RI are the best places to pick up Muvian artifacts (Ebay having not been invented yet). Urquart shows him a relic or two and talks to him of Ghatanothoa, chief god of Mu, and its rulers, an alien race called the Lloigor, who held the Muvians as slaves.  The Lloigor, though driven underground and deep into the ocaen by the earth's subatomic processes - all tied in with the concept of optism vs pessimism - i.e. man's eternal striving for hope vs the Lloigor's inability to even understand such a concept.  The Lloigor also have a hard-on against humans, and occasionally have struck back - c.f. the sinkings of Mu and Atlantis.

Urquart further points to the high rate of violent crime, insanity, and human perversion around this part of Wales, as proof of Lloigor infestation. A little research demonstrartes that Lang is probably onto something.  Lang also finds himself nearly sucked into some kind of robbery scam by a lecherous hotel maid and an unsettling encounter with a local inbred youth. Urquart takes a bad fall in his cellar, and blames it on the Lloigor.  He also warns Lang about Chickno, a local gypsy and head of a clan of inbred turds suspected of any number of icky crimes.

Lang soons spots Chickno in town and decides to take the bull by the horns - by taking him to a pub and getting him drunk.  Chickno warns him that "they" are only really interested in Urquart, and tells him he should get his ass back to America.  Chickno keeps blabbing about how powerful "they" are until he drinks himself into a stupor.  

The next day a mysterious explosion blows up Chickno and his whole gypsy camp.  Afterwards, the entire nearby village, and Lang and Urq, feel worn-out and under-the-weather.  They surmise that (a) the Lloigor killed Chickno for talking too much and (b) the Lloigor draw their energy, vampire-like, from handy nearby humans.

Urq and Lang head to London.  Further research suggests the Lloigor are active worldwide, and causing natural disasters and mass outbreaks of unnatural behavior.  They try to alert the scientific community, but are jeered at. They try to bring their message to the US, and catch the attention of the Secretary of Defense, but their flight to Washington disappears without a trace.

A final note in the story is an epilogue written by Lang's nephew, who outlines his conviction that Urquart was a charlatan and a phony who either conned Lang, or that the two of them were working together on an elaborate hoax.

A wild ride that recalls Wilson's fascinating books on the occult.  Structurally, its very similar to The Philiosopher's Stone in that not so much action actually takes place.  The narrator learns things ... and then learns more things.  Until a disturbing picture emerges...

For such an intellectual sort of tale, Lloigor is gripping all the way and the various references - am ix of fact, fiction, and fictionalized fact - are enough to send a curious soul off on a research binge of his own.  

Not only is it gripping, its also scary.  The last portion is an exercise in paranoia. The Lloigor, who, lets face it, are never established as other than a theoretical opponent, are definitely dangerous.  You're not supposed to even know about them.  And even their alleged allies are subject to elimination if they reveal much of anything.  Unnerving stuff.  

The legend goes that Wilson came to write this story after Aug Derleth challenged him to write an effective Lovecraftian tale (following some less-than-flattering remarks Wilson had made re: HPL's literary talents).  I'd say ol' Colin rose to the challenge.

"The Barrens"

by F. Paul Wilson
originally published Lovecraft's Legacy, Tor, 1990

Kathy McElston, aka "Mac" (at least the narrator isn't nameless for a change) is born and raised in the ultra-rural, ultra-redneck Pine Barrens of NJ, but ends up graduating from Rutgers and starting up her own accounting firm.  She's left that world behind her until one day, her one-time college boyfriend, Jon Creighton calls her out of the blue.

Jon, a drifter, seeker, and all-around flake, wants her help.  It seems he ended up at Miskatonic U., and now he has several grants to write a book tracing the origins of certain Amurrican folk legends, including the Jersey Devil.  He wants Mac to be his guide and liaison to the Pineys.  Divorced and at loose ends, she agrees.

Mac and Jon make their way into the Barrens in a fully-outfitted Wrangler, where they first meet Jasper Mulliner, a distant relative of Mac's, who sends them on to Gus Sooy, a moonshiner who lives in an intensely remote part of the Barrens.

Sooy is helpful at first, but when Jon asks too many questions about the "pine lights" - will-o-wisp-like apparitions known to the locals, Sooy turns hostile.  Things get more complicated when Mac and Jon get lost trying to get back to civilization, and their jeep gets stuck in a sand pit.  That night, a bizarre encounter with the "pine lights" leaves Jon with a badly burned arm.  But its also clear that Jon knows more than he's letting on and has a hidden agenda.

The next morning a band of deformed, inbred pineys helps free the jeep, and shows Jon their ghastly village.  More importantly, they show him "the place where nothing grows", a barren patch of sand in the middle of the woods, with no vegetation and no sign of animal presence.  Jon is enraptured.

Back in civilization, Mac does her best to avoid Jon.  But when a state trooper comes looking for him, and it turns out he's stolen something from the MU "restricted" collection, and that there are no grants, Mac goes looking for him.

She finds him holed up in a motel and looking sick.  She also learns that Mac has been researching "nexus points", places where, at the equinoxes, the veil between our illusory reality and the true reality is thinned, and where seekers may be able to look behind the curtain into the true nature of reality.

And it's just about time for the fall equinox. 

Mac arrives in time to find Jon in the middle of the barren patch, slowly transforming into a tentacled potato-thing.  She has a glimpse of the true reality before he shoves her off into the woods.

Creighton is gone.  Mac returns home, shoots her answering machine, loses all interest in her business and makes plans to visit the nexus point next equinox.

This is overall a superior story, with very effective atmosphere and buildup.  It's a truly Lovecraftian story that doesn't read anything like HPL, yet clearly follows his ideas about structure and orchestration.  And very successfully so.

On the downside, I found Mac's final confrontation with Jon to be distinctly unimaginative and a letdown. Perhaps an author with a more surreal imagination could have come up with something more potent.

A very good story with a superb buildup, but a slightly disappointing climax.

"Death Did Not Become Him"

by David Niall Wilson and Patricia Lee Macomber
originally published Shadows Over Baker Street, Del Rey, 2002

Watson gets a surprise when visited by two gentlemen - one of whom he had pronounced dead only a few days before!

Holmes' investigation leads him to an abandoned former insane asylum, where the mysterious Aaron Silverman is keeping the reanimated corpse under lock and key - since it isn't a very cooperative zombie. it seems that Silverman has studied both The Necronomicon, and the work of Caresco Surhomme.  But Holmes soon makes short work of his ill deeds.

A pretty forgettable tale despite some effective, pulp-horror writing, and an unusual theme.

"The Philosopher's Stone"

by Colin Wilson
originally published Arthur Barker Ltd, 1969

Howard Lester is a young intellectual living in small-town England.  In the 1950's, when he is a teen, he befriends Sir Alastair Lyell, a noted scientist, and becomes his sort of unofficially adopted son.  Some years later, when Lyell dies, he leaves Howard a small fortune.

Young and now wealthy, Howard does what young suddenly-rich guy would do: spend his life in intellectual pursuits! Particularly of interest are issues of human consciousness, ESP, and longevity (why do some people seem to live longer than others for no apparent physical reason).  His researches and writings bring him into contact with Sir Henry Littleway, an older scientist also engaged in similar research.  They travel to the countryside, where they meet Henry's pervy brother Roger and study a local farm worker who, thanks to a brain injury, has become psychic.  They experiment with the farm worker for a period of time, until a brain tumor does him in.  They believe that somehow their experiments, and his psychic gifts, are a root cause of the brain tumor.

Howard and Littleway press on with their studies.  They devise a simple brain implant (a tiny length of wire) that produces remarkable, but slightly different, effects in a local wino and a local artsy-suicidal girl.  Finally, they decide to take the plunge and put the brain implants into themselves.

The result is greatly expanded consciousness, intellect, awareness, and learning capacity.  They pursue their studies even more doggedly.  Howard (especially, and then he leads Littleway into it) develop psychic abilities.  They can mentally travel through time, receiving vivid waking dreams of past eras.  They develop forms of telekinesis and psychometry.  They continue to learn.  But there are oddities.  At Stonehenge, Howard perceives not only the ancientness and some of the uses of the megaliths, but also a powerful presence of menace and evil.   Similarly, when Littleway hands him a small stone idol thought to be of Hittite origin, Howard perceives that it is actually far older - pre-human, in fact.  And again, that there is a powerful and menacing presence connected with it.  

Sometime later, a picture of a similar item leads Howard and Littleway to an investigation of ancient Mayan culture.  And a bizarre experience on Silbury Hill in which they perceive the presence of a great, very ancient, and alien power that has the ability to block their psychic perceptions.

Their investigations now lead them to the metaphysical theories of Rene Guenon and the works of H.P.L.  They also learn that the presence from Silbury has the power to mentally attack minds, causing them to become distracted, and causing weaker minds to snap completely.  Thus the people around Littleway become difficult, either acting as nuisances or, in some cases, genuine menaces.  In time, these situations ease, but Howard believes the presence (or presences) are attacking him in other ways - leading him down blind alleys or false trails in his research, his falling in love and marrying (thus making him more vulnerable).  He begins to search for the Necronomicon - or rather, the actual works Lovecraft's fictional grimoire might be based upon.  They learn of the origins of man (created by the Ancient or Old Ones, as Howard names this presence), and the fate of the Old Ones, who still live beneath the earth, in a state akin to sleep.  Howard comes to believe the development of the brain as in the operation he and Littleway have undergone, is the key to meeting the Old Ones on their own terms, when they revive.  If there is enough time...

In his introduction, Wilson describes The Philosopher's Stone as a novel of ideas.  And that is an accurate description.  There is not a lot of action.  Not much happens.  Howard learns about things, then theorizes on them, then discusses them with Littleway or some other character.

In fact, The Philosopher's Stone reads very much like Wilson's books about the occult The Occult: A History, Mysteries, Beyond the Occult and Alien Dawn (there are others), with Wilson theorizing and speculating in a breezy, logical and highly readable manner about ESP, ancient civilizations, art, philosophy, science and history - occasionally interrupting it with some narrative events. 

Now, you either find this engaging or boring.  Me, I love those aforementioned occult books and I thoroughly enjoyed this one as well.  But it is not a thriller nor even a horror novel - I had expected Wilson's Old Ones to turn out to be more malevolent, but in the end, Wilson perceives them merely as a challenge (albeit a monumental one) for future man to overcome.

Similarly, Wilson is not interested in perpetuating Lovecraft's mythos.  Essentially, his discoveries about the Old Ones and the ancient world are the proposed inspiration for Lovecraft's writings, the truth behind the Lovecraftian metaphors.

Those looking for chilling cosmic horror, anti-Cthulhu action, or anything remotely "canonical" are going to be let down.  But let it be known that I found The Philosopher's Stone a thoroughly enjoyable read.