The Crossover UniverseTM is a companion blog to the books Crossovers: A Secret Chronology of the World Volumes 1-2 by Win Scott Eckert, and the forthcoming Crossovers Expanded Volumes 1-2 by Sean Levin. Material excerpted from Crossovers Volumes 1 & 2 is © copyright 2010-2014 by Win Scott Eckert. All rights reserved. Material excerpted from Crossovers Expanded Volumes 1 & 2 is © copyright 2014-present by Sean Levin. All rights reserved.
Thursday, March 10, 2016
Crossover Cover: World War Cthulhu
This anthology contains two stories with crossovers, both written by authors with no little experience at same. One is "The Yoth Protocols" by Josh Reynolds. An
FBI agent named Sarlowe thinks of centers of eldritch activity, such
as the Warren site in the Big Cypress, the Martense molehills, and "certain secret cellars where a certain artist had painted certain
pictures and almost certainly been eaten." He also thinks of
Inspector Craig and his Special Detail in the subway tunnels beneath
New York, as well as worms in the earth. Sarlowe’s partner Indrid
Cold is described as having a wax-like face. It is stated there are
worse things in Heaven and Earth than dreamt of in Alhazred’s
philosophy. The local "old ones" include the Shonokins and the
K’n-Yani.
Sarlowe reminds Cold of the Yoth protocols. A circular stone covering
the stairs leading to the mound where the K’n-Yani
live
was placed there after the Zamacona Cylinder was unearthed. "The
batrachian hillbillies in Massachusetts" and N’Kai are mentioned.
Cold is the only person who ever used the Voormithadreth Corridor and
hadn’t rotted from the inside out. Cold identified Valusian
spectrum radiation within the mound. The Russian necromancer Grigori
Petrov refers to the Zann Concerto and the maw of Leng. Cold asks
Petrov if he was planning to let Tsathoggua’s children loose to do
his dirty work. Sarlowe quotes, "Evil the mind that is held by no
head." Sarlowe
is a relative of occult detective Baxter Sarlowe from Reynolds’
novel Wake
the Dead.
The Warren site in the Big Cypress is from H. P. Lovecraft’s story "The Statement of Randolph Carter." The Martense molehills are
from Lovecraft’s "The Lurking Fear." The secret cellars where
an artist painted pictures and was eaten are from Lovecraft’s story "Pickman’s Model." Inspector Craig and his Special Detail are
from Robert Barbour Johnson’s story "Far Below." The worms in
the earth are from Robert E. Howard’s Bran Mak Morn story "Worms
of the Earth." Indrid Cold is an allegedly real person connected to
the supposed Mothman sightings in 1966. His wax-like face implies
Cold is a member of the wax-masked race of creatures seen in
Lovecraft’s "The Festival," which is the source of the quote, "Evil the mind that is held by no head." Abdul Alhazred, the mad
Arab, is the author of the Necronomicon
in
Lovecraft’s Cthulhu Mythos. The Shonokins are from Manly Wade
Wellman’s John Thunstone stories. The K’n-Yani, Yoth, the
Zamacona Cylinder, and N’Kai are from Lovecraft’s revision of
Zealia Bishop’s story "The Mound." "The batrachian
hillbillies in Massachusetts" are a reference to Lovecraft’s "The
Shadow over Innsmouth." The Voormithadreth Corridor is connected to
Mount Voormithadreth from Cthulhu Mythos stories by Clark Ashton
Smith. Tsathoggua is also from Smith’s Mythos tales. Valusian
spectrum radiation is a reference to the kingdom of Valusia in Robert
E. Howard’s Kull stories. The Zann Concerto is from Lovecraft’s "The Music of Erich Zann." The plateau of Leng appears in a
number of Lovecraft’s stories. The other story that I will include is "Cold War, Yellow Fever" by Pete Rawlik. Mitchell
Peel is an operative of the Joint Advisory Committee on Korea (JACK),
receiving orders from Colonel Doctor Wingate Peaslee, aka the
Terrible Old Man. Peaslee tells Peel and other JACK agents Esteban
Zamarano was sent to Banes, Cuba as part of Operation Mongoose to
enlist his family’s aid. The Zamaranos bought six volumes from the
sale of the Church of the Starry Wisdom Library, including what
appears to be a Spanish-language edition of The
King in Yellow.
After contact was lost with Zamarano, another agent traveled to
Banes, and disappeared himself, though not before sending the
message, "Where is the Yellow Sign?" The Soviets are willing to
neutralize the threat, but Peaslee says Washington does not want to
see another Gizhinsk, particularly so close to the U.S. borders. Peel
and company work with Major Romero of the Cuban Security Forces and
Agent Tanya Romanova of Soviet Army Intelligence to deal with the
situation. Romanova refers to documented cases of childrens’ minds
being stimulated to see the universe in ways adults cannot, such as
the Paradine children and "that village in Winshire." After the
mission, a traumatized and disfigured Peaslee is retired to a minimum
security facility near Arkham, Massachusetts. Mitchell
Peel is related to David Conyers’ series character Major Harrison
Peel, an NSA consultant who appears in stories set in the milieu of
the Mythos. Wingate Peaslee is from
Lovecraft’s story "The Shadow Out of Time"; his nickname of "the Terrible Old Man" is an homage to Lovecraft’s story of the
same name. The Church of the Starry Wisdom is from Lovecraft’s "The
Haunter of the Dark." Arkham, Massachusetts is the setting of a
number of Mythos tales. The
King in Yellow is
from Robert W. Chambers’ short story collection of the same name,
and was incorporated into the Cthulhu Mythos by Lovecraft in his
story "The Whisperer in Darkness." The Yellow Sign is also from
Chambers’ book. Gizhinsk and "that village in Winshire" are
from John Wyndham’s novel The
Midwich Cuckoos.
Agent Tanya (or Tatiana) Romanova is from Ian Fleming’s James Bond
novel From
Russia, with Love.
The Paradine children are from the short story "Mimsy Were the
Borogroves" by "Lewis Padgett" (Henry Kuttner and C. L. Moore).
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I read "Far Below" by Barbour awhile ago in my library's copy of the anthology The Weird (after you posted on Reynolds Jim Anthony novel "Death's Head Cloud" which reference it.) It's a good anthology with a lot of over looked classics of Weird Fiction. Some of them like "The Night Wire" and Jean Ray's stories "The Mainz Psalter" and "The Shadowy Street." I wish I knew some kind of link to the CU.
ReplyDeleteIs this the first reference to "Mimsey" by Kuttner and Moore.
I'll have to check out that anthology.
ReplyDeleteThis is the first reference to Kuttner and Moore's story that I'm aware of.
It's a good anthology. It's about as thick as a phone book so you can't really read it straight through. It contains a lot of authors that are not really well known because either they were foreign or worked long ago. It also contains more famous authors like Franz Kafka, H. P. Lovecraft, and Stephen King.
ReplyDelete"Far Below" is one of my favorite stories (also my second-favorite episode of the television show,'Monsters'). I tend to sneak in references to it whenever I can.
ReplyDeleteYeah, it's a good story.
DeleteThe story itself references Pickman's Model with references to the sewers of Boston and a writer who is obviously Lovecraft doing research on it.