May
25–September
23, 1882
MERKABAH
RIDER: ONCE UPON A TIME IN THE WEIRD WEST
The
Merkabah Rider and his allies set forth to at long last prevent the
Hour of Incursion, in which the Great Old Ones will be unleashed upon
the world. Appearing or mentioned are: the Dreamlands; the Liber
Damnatus Damnationum;
Delirium Tremens; the Scroll
of Thoth;
Misquamacus; Azathoth; Faustus Montague; an African witch-doctor; a
Christian adventurer; the Drucker and Dobbs Mining Company; Professor
Spates; Miskatonic University; Arkham; Warren Rice; the Tsath-yo
language; New Valusia; Yoth; Yig; Tsathoggua; the Elder Sign;
Nyarlathotep (aka the Abhorred Dread); Ossadagowah; Stallions’
Gate; the Book
of Zylac;
the Cold Ones; Shub-Niggurath; the Star Stones of Mnar; Pnakotus; the
flying polyps; the Aklo language; Picaro Jake Gonnoff; the
Hyperboreans; the Black Lotus; a barefoot man, possibly a Chinaman,
playing a bamboo flute; Dunn & Duffy; the Flying Graysons; Cooger
& Dark’s Pandemonium Shadow Show; Noah Whateley; Yog-Sothoth;
Dunwich; the shoggoth; Zorro; Gallo del Cielo; Slim Reezer; Jesse
McLaughlin; Oscar Diggs; Richard Wilkins III; Lin McAdams; High
Spade; Freddie Sykes; Dog Kelly; John Russell; an “electricista
y aventurero”;
Danny Caine; a masked gunman; the Pnakotic
Manuscripts;
the Seven
Books of Hsan;
the History
of G’harne;
the Naacal language; and the Elder Script.
Novel
by Edward M. Erdelac, Damnation Books, 2013. The Great Old Ones, the
Dreamlands, Azathoth, Miskatonic University, Arkham, Warren Rice,
Yig, the Elder Sign, Shub-Niggurath, Pnakotus, the Great Race of
Yith, the flying polyps, Yog-Sothoth, Dunwich, the shoggoth, the
Pnakotic
Manuscripts,
and the Seven
Cryptical Books of Hsan
are from the Cthulhu Mythos of H. P. Lovecraft. Nyarlathotep is also
from Lovecraft’s Mythos; Erdelac conflates him with Sauron (aka the
Abhorred Dread) from J. R. R. Tolkien’s epic fantasy trilogy The
Lord of the Rings.
The Tsath-yo and Naacal languages are from Lovecraft and E. Hoffmann
Price’s “Through the Gates of the Silver Key.” Yoth is from
Lovecraft and Zealia Bishop’s “The Mound.” The Aklo language
originally appeared in Arthur Machen’s “The White People,” and
was also used by Lovecraft in his stories “The Dunwich Horror”
and “The Haunter of the Dark.” Noah Whateley is meant to be Old
Whateley from “The Dunwich Horror”; his first name was given as
Noah in the role-playing game Call
of Cthulhu.
The Liber
Damnatus Damnationum is
from Richard L. Tierney’s Mythos novel The
House of the Toad.
The Scroll
of Thoth is
from Tierney’s tales of Simon of Gitta. The town of Delirium
Tremens appears in several works by Erdelac, including the film
Meaner
Than Hell.
Picaro Jake Gonnoff is also from Meaner
Than Hell.
Misquamacus, Ossadagowah, and the Star Stones of Mnar are from August
Derleth’s short novel The
Lurker at the Threshold;
here, Misquamacus is conflated with the Blue Wizard Rómestámo from
The
Lord of the Rings.
Faustus Montague is meant to be Rómestámo’s fellow Blue Wizard
Morinehtar. The Christian adventurer is Robert E. Howard’s Solomon
Kane, while the African witch-doctor is Kane’s ally N’Longa. New
Valusia is named after the kingdom of Valusia from Howard’s King
Kull stories. The Black Lotus is from Howard’s stories of the
barbarian Conan and police detective Steve Harrison. The Drucker and
Dobbs Mining Company alludes to gold prospector Fred C. Dobbs from B.
Traven’s novel The
Treasure of the Sierra Madre and
its film adaptation; since both versions of the story take place in
the 1920s, the Dobbs who co-owns the mining company must be a
relative of Fred’s. Professor Spates is based on a reference to
“Spates’ catalog” in the movie Ghostbusters.
Tsathoggua, Zylac, the Cold Ones, the Hyperboreans, and the Elder
Script appear in fiction by Clark Ashton Smith. Stallions’ Gate,
New Mexico is from the television series Quantum
Leap.
The Book of Zylac (aka The
Wisdom and Sacred Magic of Zylac the Mage)
appears in Cthulhu Mythos fiction by Joseph S. Pulver. The barefoot
Chinaman is Kwai Chang Caine from the television series Kung
Fu;
Danny Caine is his older half-brother. The Dunn & Duffy Combined
Circus is from the film Indiana
Jones and the Last Crusade.
The Flying Graysons are a family of acrobats that died out in the
1940s when young Dick Grayson’s parents were murdered, resulting in
his adoption by Batman and becoming the first Robin. Cooger &
Dark’s Pandemonium Shadow Show is from Ray Bradbury’s novel
Something Wicked This Way Comes.
It is worth noting Green Town, Illinois, the setting of Something
Wicked This Way Comes,
is also the town in which Bradbury’s books Dandelion
Wine,
Farewell
Summer,
and Summer
Morning, Summer Night take
place. Gallo del Cielo is from Tom Russell’s song of the same name,
as is Zorro. Both are roosters, and therefore this Zorro is no
relation to any of the many heroes that have used that name. Slim
Reezer and Jesse McLaughlin are from the movie House
II: The Second Story.
“Electricista
y aventurero”
is Spanish for “electrician and adventurer,” which is how the
character Bill Towner describes himself in House
II.
Oscar Diggs is better known as the Wizard of Oz. The immortal Richard
Wilkins III is the Mayor of Sunnydale, California on the television
series Buffy
the Vampire Slayer.
Lin McAdams and High Spade are from the film Winchester
’73.
Freddie Sykes is from the film The
Wild Bunch.
Dog Kelly is from Sam Raimi’s Western The
Quick and the Dead.
John Russell is from the film Hombre.
The masked gunman is the Lone Ranger.
The
History
of G’Harne (aka
the G’harne
Fragments)
appears in Cthulhu Mythos fiction by Brian Lumley.
