On Safari in R'lyeh and Carcosa with Gun and Camera by Elizabeth Bear.

  I have, I believe, remarked about how coincidence plays a large part in my life and my reading. Lately, I have been reading non-fiction from the library. As normal, the topics reflect my choice of fiction; the Sirens of Mars by Johnson discusses the search for life on Mars, Ancient Bones by Bohme, the evolution of apes and hominids in Europe and Kindred by Sykes provided an overview of the current research on Neanderthal's. The last two works that I discussed on my blog Jagged Orbit, Simak's "The Whispering Well," and Bradbury's The Halloween Tree touched on evolution and early man. Obviously, something is going on. Perhaps deros are shooting rays into my brain to direct my reading (see Richard Sharpe Shaver), or maybe stuff just happens.

Early this morning, Bear's story appeared on the Tor.com banner and, well, it had both R'lyeh and Carcosa in the title. I was up with insomnia anyway, so here was a gift. I just discussed three of Bear's mythos stories, and this did not disappoint. It starts in true pulp fashion with the protagonist and her companion reloading their weapons as they shelter behind a flimsy barricade. A tentacle has just smashed her GoPro, so we are in reasonably familiar territory. Then Bear proceeds to tell us how we got here. "My name is not Greer Griswold. I’m approximately fifty-two years old. I don’t know who my birth parents were, and my adoptive parents are dead. I have never married; I have no children; I have very few close friends. I’m a physicist at a notable northeastern US institution you would have heard of if I named it." 

Spoilers ahead, I suggest you read the story first, then see if you agree/disagree with me.

And while your there I recommend Lavie Tidhar's stories "Judge Dee and the Limits of the Law" and "In Xanadu".

  

Greer decides to take a DNA test; she is nearly one-twentieth Neanderthal (yeah!!), but 10.2% is undetermined. Luckily one of her few friends is Michael Roberts, a geneticist at the same institution. Roberts initially dismisses her results as contamination in the sample. But after additional research, he finds similar results appeared in a thesis that eventually was rejected. This leads them to the author Albert Gilman a recluse living on Cape Ann. I will stop the summary; the story is available on the Tor website. Why did I like it. Bear is a fine writer; I loved this line, "Unless his peculiar transformation had been more than merely cosmetic and he’d returned to the deeps like a hatchling sea turtle." She is also very inventive. Her story Dolly is a lovely discussion of the rise of sentience in a robot.

https://ajaggedorbit.blogspot.com/2017/03/dolly-by-elizabeth-bear.html

I fully intend to discuss her story 'The Deeps of the Sky', a brilliant first contact story that can be read here. 

http://clarkesworldmagazine.com/bear_06_18_reprint/

How inventive since Lovecraft's "The Call of Cthulhu", writers have struggled with describing his concept of non-Euclidean geometry. Bear does not struggle, she nails it 

“Octagons,” I said. “Traditionally, they don’t interlock without small squares to make up the corners.”

“But honeycomb?”

“Hexagons,” I said. “Like the basalt pillar we were on. Your bathroom tiles, those are octagons. With the little black squares between the corners, because that’s how topology works.”

Well, that was how topology worked where we came from. Here, apparently octagons interlocked." 

I love good mythos tales, I love prehistory, and I am interested in DNA and evolutionary science and increasingly, I love Elizabeth Bear's sf short stories and mythos tales. 

Photos

Detail from "Moving to New Hunting Grounds" by Zdenek Burian, I received my first book in the Augusta/Burian series on prehistoric life, Prehistoric Sea Monsters (they aren't) as a child and the die was cast.

Kindred, I borrowed this from the library and realized I would want to reread it and make notes in the text. So I returned it so the next in line could enjoy it and got my own copy from a local bookstore who delivered it and some Jeff Vandermeer books. 

On my next visit to my local library branch I found three more books on Neanderthals on the shelf. I had to request Almost Human on Homo naledi from another branch but I was able to get it before the library closes again until the new year and I thought it made a nice addition to the photo. 

Be careful out there.

The Boojum universe of Elizabeth Bear and Sarah Monette (dedicated to Gardner Dozois, 1947-2018)

  This site serves, I think, as ample evidence that I am a dedicated Lovecraftian.  If you doubt me ask our resident couch potato Whateley.

I have indicated in earlier posts that I am aware of Howard's shortcomings both as an author and as a person. That said, I am obviously not alone in my appreciation of his work. A vast number of authors have incorporated some aspects of the mythos into their work. And some of it is wondrous. One can swim in vast seas of mythos fiction without ever reading Howard's work, although one would be the poorer for it. Some authors even can make something out of the thin gruel of (to my mind) Howard's most flawed stories like "Herbert West Reanimator" or "The Horror at Red Hook." 

 In these stories Elizabeth Bear and Sarah Monette have beautifully combined the mythos' vast apparatus with elements from Lewis Carroll, Kenneth Graham, Rudyard Kipling, and too many other authors to list. They have written three short stories, "Boojum" (2008), "Mongoose" (2009) and "The Wreck of the "Charles Dexter Ward" (2012) in a series I am referring to here as the Boojum universe. These stores can be read individually, although events that occur in one story may be referenced in the next. I would however suggest reading them in publication order. All three stories occur in the same universe; when a strangely altered/organized humanity has begun to explore the solar system. The authors do not provide great blocks of narrative exposition. Instead, terms or descriptions offer hints, leaving the reader to draw their own connections or conclusions. Names are particularly evocative in these stories and refer not just to Howard's work but also to current authors of genre literature. I love this sort of thing. 

These stories have been reprinted in numerous anthologies. I have provided full text links to two below. I read them in Gardner Dozois, The Year's Best Science Fiction. Boy do I miss buying these every year. 

"Boojum" 

This story is set on the live ship Lavinia Whateley. Vinnie, as the crew calls her, is an immature deep space swimmer that evolved in the high-temperature envelopes surrounding gas giants. Boojums look similar to spiny lionfish and seem to have lots of tentacles (naturally). Vinnie is crewed by pirates led by Captain Song, a leader feared even by her crew. Our protagonist is Black Alice Bradley, a junior member of the engineering team. The story begins when the Song orders an attack on the steel ship Josephine Baker. The attack succeeds, and Black Alice and her friend Dogcollar are part of the landing party. They encounter two gillies who fearfully agree to join the crew. The alternative is to remain aboard the Josephine Baker when Vinnie eaters her. They also find a cargo hold full of Mi-Go cylinders. I will not go into more detail, but we already see that Bear and Monette have created a fictional universe rich in reference and textuality. Readers familiar with mythos or general genre fiction may find more parse within the story, but it is quite enjoyable either way. The joy is that the authors are not filling in the blanks for you. It is evident that the solar system has become a very unusual place. Just how unusual it is up to the reader to find out. 

You can read Boojum here.

https://www.wired.com/images_blogs/geekdad/files/boojum.pdf

Boojum was reviewed at the Great Lovecraft reread here. (I have not yet read the review)

https://www.tor.com/2017/06/07/yo-ho-ho-and-a-bottle-of-um-elizabeth-bear-and-sarah-monettes-boojum/

"Mongoose"

Mongoose is my favourite of the three stories. Izrael Irizarry and his chesire Mongoose have come to Kadath station to deal with an infestation of insect-like tove. Toves are pests that enter stations or ships through tears in space-time. Once there, they widen the tears, which allow larger creatures, raths and eventually bandersnatch "Pseudocanis tindalosi" to enter. Once babdersnatch appear, the ship or station is doomed. The cheshire are breed by the Arkhamers, one of the several groups expanding through the solar system. Cheshires have four simple and 12 compound eyes and numerous tentacles and barbels. They are deaf but respond to vibrations and can alter their phase, appearing and disappearing at will. The relationship between Mongoose and Izrael indicates that cheshires are intelligent. They communicate reasonably well, and Mongoose can absorb the information from the stories Izreal reads her. She is currently obsessed with Tigger from Winnie the Pooh. Izrael also read her Alice in Wonderland so that she would understand the origin of the term cheshire. It becomes evident that "Rikki Tikki Tavi" also made a big impression. In this story, we learn a bit more about the Boojum universe. "People did double-takes as he passed, even the heavily-modded Christian cultists with their telescoping limbs and biolin eyes. You found them on every station and steelships too, though mostly they wouldn’t work the boojums. Nobody liked Christians much, but they could work in situations that would kill an unmodded human or even a gilly, so captains and station masters tolerated them."

There are other stations, Providence, Leng, Dunwich as well as Kadath.

Israel obtained Mongoose when he intervened to help an Arkhamer girl on another station. It seems other space-faring groups distrust Arkhamers. The infestation on Kadath is larger than expected. Eventually, Izrael, Mongoose, and the station's Political officer Intelligence Colonel Sadhi Sanderson must join forces to deal with it.

You can read Mongoose here

http://clarkesworldmagazine.com/bear_monette_06_13_reprint/

Deep Cuts in Lovecraftian Fiction discussed these stores here. This discussion led me to the stories.

https://deepcuts.blog/2019/01/05/boojum-2008-by-elizabeth-bear-sarah-monette/

https://deepcuts.blog/2019/01/12/mongoose-2009-by-elizabeth-bear-sarah-monette/

https://deepcuts.blog/2019/01/19/the-wreck-of-the-charles-dexter-ward-2012-by-elizabeth-bear-sarah-monette/

"The Wreck of the "Charles Dexter Ward""

Dr. Cynthia Feuerwerker is a medical doctor currently living on Faraday Station. She has been abandoned there by the captain of the boojum ship Richard Trevithick. Feuerwerker was left behind for illegal experimentation. Her reputation has also prevented her from finding a berth on another ship. Now her oxygen tax is coming due, and if she is unable to pay, she will be spaced. Then Feuerwerker is offered a berth on the Jarmulowicz Astronomica, an Arkhamer ship about to leave on a salvage mission to the boojum medical ship Charles Dexter Ward. The doctor on the Jarmulowicz Astronomica has died, and they want to leave immediately. So Arkhamer professor Wandrei recruits Feuerwerker. Feuerwerker learns later that this was not a popular decision. 

The Arkhamer crews typically do not enlist outsiders. Extended families crew Arkhamer ships and crew members are exchanged between ships as need. The ships are run like a university overseen by a President and faculty counsel with senior members having tenure. This practice makes it hard for Feuerwerker to fit in, although the cheshires always numerous on Arkhamer ships, are quite cat-like and insist on sleeping with her. Eventually, one of Wandrei's students, Hester Ayabo Jarmulowicz, somewhat aggressively befriends her, much to Feuerwerker's surprise. Hester is both a pilot and an astrobiologist. The crew on Arkahmer ships have a role in running the ship but also an academic specialty. Both Hester and Feuerwerker are part of the initial away team that accompanies Wandrei to the wreck of the Charles Dexter Ward. In a lovely touch, the ship they use is named the Caitlín R. Kiernan. Once on board, the women learn this is not a simple salvage operation. 

I love science fiction that deals with the concept of posthuman societies. I am not sure whether these stories qualify in an academic sense, but they certainly had that feel for me. These stories provided a new, exciting and unexpected exploration of the solar system through a Lovecraftian lens, and I really enjoyed them. One quote summed up the mythos quality of the universe Bear and Monette have created, "Galileo, and Derleth and Chen sought forbidden knowledge, too, that got us this far."