"The Horror At Red Hook"

by H.P. Lovecraft
originally published Weird Tales January 1927

Poor New York Detective Thomas F. Malone.  He's convalescing in rural Rhode Island from a terrible experience during a raid in NYC, that's left him phobic about cramped urban areas with large buildings.

It seems Malone was investigating occult activities in Red Hook, Brooklyn, a place full of crime, violence, gangs and (gasp) foreigners.

A series of kidnappings leads Malone to the trail of Robert Suydam, a fat old recluse who suddenly gets thinner, younger, and socially active.  Suydam and his new bride are murdered on their wedding night, aboard an outbound ship, and Suydam's body and apparently large quantities of his wife's blood are stolen by some mysterious men.

Malone is investigating Suydam's flat, and finds a door in the basement that leads to a secret chamber, where he encounters a weird, never-fully-described thing that crawls out of an underground lake, an altar, and witnesses a ritual involving human sacrifice and the reanimation of Suydam's corpse. Somewhat inexplicably, the building collapses and the chamber caves in, and the revelers are either killed or drowned.  Malone survives, a shattered man.

"The Horror At Red Hook" is one of HPL's most controversial stories, in part because of its inherent racism, in part because it isn't that great a story.  S.T. Joshi hates it - which, frankly, only makes me like it more.  Actually, I do like the buildup - the whole thing coming together like a particularly sinister Law and Order SVU episode.

The bigger problem is the climax.  While the ritual, especially the weird, ambiguous creature that emerges from the lake and oversees the whole thing, is pretty effective, the whole story then collapses as thoroughly as the building.  What exactly is supposed to have happened? And why?

As to the stories infamous racism; well, there's no denying that HPL had repulsive racial views, and no amount of whitewashing from Derleth can erase that - HPL made them very clear in letters and essays, and his ex-wife gives vivid testimony to it.  However, I have always believed in trusting the art not the artist, and HPL's despicable racial pronouncements have never diminished my enjoyment of his fiction.  As to the racism of "Horror At Red Hook" in particular: well, it's certainly true that Lovecraft paints an unflattering picture of Red Hook, and that the non-white inhabitants and their inherent ignorance, lawlessness and corruption are big part of Lovecraft's hang-up.  I personally don't find it as overbearing as some readers have.  Maybe I'm just inured to it, knowing already how awful the old guy's opinions were.  In any case, I find "Horror At Red Hook" a good but not great HPL story.

 

"Nightmare in Wax"

by Simon Clark
originally published Shadows Over Baker Street, Del Rey, 2002

Dr. Watson is brought a wax cylinder recording, apparently made by Prof. Moriarty.

On the recording, Moriarty crows about his latest scheme, while riding a train.  He has drained off the water from a sunken, ancient village that contains even more ancient temples to the Old Ones.   He has in his possession a copy of the Necronomicon. 

Weird chanting is heard from the village.  The train passes into another dimension, possibly the Dreamlands.  Then it turns into a nightmare vision of some Cthulu-ian otherworld.  The chief engineer, Hatherly, turns out to be Holmes in disguise.  He hurls the Necronomicon out the train window.  The train comes back to our world.  Moriarty tosses himself out the window as well.

A rather minor plot, but a clever gimmick and good writing - the description of the Dreamlands/Otherworld is very evocative - raise this story up the charts a bit.

"Wentworth's Day"

by August Derleth
originally published The Survivor and Others, Arkham House, 1957

Fred Hadley, from Boston, is on his way through Dunwich, one summer night in 1927, when a storm hits.  He pulls into a rundown, empty barn and knocks on the door of the run-down house, which isn't so empty.  Amos Stark, a crazy old coot, lives there.  He's friendly enough to let Fred camp out till the storm runs out.  No big deal that he has a big book on black magic ("The Seventh Book of Moses") or that he keeps rattling on about someone named Wentworth, from whom he borrowed the book and, apparently, $5,000, and who's dead, but might be coming back for it.  And might have been murdered by Stark. Hadley is, needless to say, a little baffled.  But he curls up on the old sofa for a nap.  He's awoken by a knock on the door and Stark's screaming.  He finds Stark being strangled by the skeletal remains of (one assumes) Wentworth.  He passes out.

When he comes to, he rushes to check on Stark.  He finds he is indeed dead, and, to prove it wasn't a hallucination, there are still some finger bones lodged in Stark's neck.  The finger bones jump out of the neck and go dancing out the door, and Fred runs off screaming into the night.

Had Derleth been reading EC comics?  This reads more like something from that line than HPL.  Fun, funny story (incidentally, Creepy comics did do an adaptation in the 60's).  Nothing special though.

"The Adventure of the Arab's Manuscript"

by Michael Reaves

originally published Shadows Over Baker Street, Del Rey, 2002

Holmes and Watson are visited by Miriam Shah, an Afghan noblewoman whom Watson had something of an affair with back in his military days.  It seems an unexpurgated manuscript of Kitab Al-Azif has turned up in Afghanistan, and made it's way to London.  She needs Holmes and Watson to help her track it down before it gets put to nefarious use!

They quickly trace the book to the home of one Prof. Coombs.  When confronted, Coombs is at first evasive, then defensive, but when Coombs' butler tries to shoot Miriam, Wason breaks his arm.  Too bad - cuz Miriam then puts a fatal magical spell on Coombs and runs off with the MS!

Holmes and Watson chase her to a cromlech and interrupt her evil ceremony, but not before some bloodshed and her own demise.  Holmes destroys the MS.

A very well-written story, but as with many others in this collection, the denouement seems disappointing after a very effective build-up.

"Innsmouth Gold"

by David Sutton
originally published Shadows Over Innsmouth, 1994

George, a teacher and wildlife photographer, borrows some equipment and a truck from a friend and journeys to the marshes around Innsmouth, where he's convinced the feds buried gold confiscated in the 1928 raids.

The marshes turn out to be spooky as hell.  George eventually makes his way into town, where he's accosted by Deep One hybrids.  He escapes and clears out.  Good thing, too! Those hybrids were female, and --- omg what they would have done to him!!!!

A quite stupid story despite some nice buildup.  There's no rationale for George's belief that there would be gold buried in the swamps (why would the feds do that, rather than simply take it), and Sutton can't even keep up a consistent narrative voice - one minute George sounds like a Lovecraftian intellectual, the next a reg'lar Joe.  

"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.

"Deepnet"

by David Langford

originally published Shadows Over Innsmouth, 1994

The unnamed narrator (I need to find an acronym for this, since so many Lovecrafters use it) is a software guy who lost his wife during childbirth a few years back.  He blames radiation from the VDU, which is an old-school term for a monitor (I had to look it up).  Their living daughter is plain, or ugly, and deformed (she was born with gills).  Of course, his wife was also descended from Innsmouth stock...

His daughter likes to play a game from a software company based in Innsmouth, that depicts a friendly Innsmouth full of friendly frog-people.  The narrator also uses software from that company.  He thinks there's some link between the software and birth defects.  And now he wants to make it with his daughter.

Besides being painfully dumb, the incest angle is just plain distasteful.  This is a bad story.