For most pulp fans, we know Will Murray for his many scholarly articles on pulp heroes like The Shadow and Doc Savage. Or perhaps his many new Doc Savage novels, as well as new Tarzan and The Spider novels.
What many may not be aware of has been his involvement with H.P. Lovecraft‘s Cthulhu mythos, writing both non-fiction works but also fiction works. Some of these have recently been collected under his Wild Adventures line as The Wild Adventures of Cthulhu. It’s published by his own Odyssey Publications.
This volume collects 10 stories written over a 20-year period for various fanzines and anthologies. All are centered around a secret government group, the Cryptic Events Evaluation Section (CEES) of the Department of Defense’s National Reconnaissance Office. The agents of this group, like U.N.C.L.E. or S.H.I.E.L.D., are working to stop or at least hold back, the dark forces of the mythos.
The stories are organized by a loose internal evolution of the stories, rather than a strict chronology. Four stories toward the end are tied together. I also liked the world map, showing the locations of all the stories.
The first story, part of a pair with the last one, has a CEES agent head to the South Pole. His mission is to investigate a strange object, something known as the “Furnace of Yeb,” that has appeared on the ice. Can he prevent it from destroying us?
Next, a group of agents works to stop the gathering of the Eldridge Collection, a group of paintings made by a madman for the purpose of a new and powerful Tarot card deck. The one having possession of it could do great harm. Can they succeed?
A scientist is working on a plan to send sonic waves across the Pacific Ocean to study global warming. After finally getting court approval, the scientist starts. But the location picked for the waves to pass through happen to be over R’lyeh. Hope this doesn’t awaken a certain someone (or is it something?).
Someone at Miskatonic University gets the bright idea of scanning the Latin edition of the Necronomicon into a computer file. After a series of bad decisions, the file gets posted to the Library’s website for anyone to read or access. And it seems the file is itself a computer virus, replicating around the world and somehow translating itself into several languages, enabling a large portion of people to be able to read it. And then it seems to have progressed beyond just being an electronic virus.
We are back in Antarctica again, as archaeologists are digging in a city of the Elder Things. There they find a structure with a carved mural, but with sections missing, so they can’t interpret it. An expert for CEES is sent in who should be able to do so, with his remote-view skills. Will he succeed, and if so, will that be a good thing?
The next story is one that has three sequels. The first one takes us to Arkham and Miskatonic University, in particular the observatory, which was actually seized by the U.S. government in the late 1800s. They need it to look for a unique astronomical event that may spell doom for us.
The following one takes us to a CEES remote-viewing station. There has been a strange incident, and in looking into it, the full understanding of Nyarlathotep comes about. It’s tied to the astronomical event. Things take a terrible turn.
The next story follows directly from that one, as things get worse. Much worse. Our remote viewer is trying to figure out the purpose of the strange not-clouds floating over the Earth. He will finally learn at the end.
And in the last story in the sequence, we witness the final end.
And the final story, mirrored with the first, takes us to the Arctic and the Torch of Neb. What threat does it present?
Now there are different types of mythos stories. Some are just borderline horror tossing in some mythos elements. Others are like most Lovecraft stories where mythos concepts are exposed and the horrors are confronted and defeated, even if just for a while, and often at a high price. But these are the rarer ones that have us just before a “mythos end times” or a little past it.
Per the afterward, he has further mythos stories. Some use the CEES, some don’t. Just before the end of 2022, we got volume 2 with 10 more stories. I’ll be reading and reviewing that one soon. I’m not sure when we’ll see a third volume.
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