Friday, May 26, 2017

Matt Ruff, Lovecraft Country (2016)

Jim Crow meets Lovecraftian horror! It's hard not to be beguiled by such an audacious premise. As, I suppose, everyone knows at this point, Lovecraft was a huge, virulent racist even by the standards of his times, so it's kind of a brilliant idea, unfortunately given an extra bit of piquancy by the fact that we now have a government of unreconstructed white supremacists. Also, Ruff is the author of Sewer, Gas, and Electric, a book that I enjoyed the hell out of.
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Ahmad Faris Shidyaq, Leg Over Leg or The Turtle in the Tree concerning The Fariyaq What Manner of Creature Might He Be otherwise entitled Days, Months, and Years spent in Critical Examination of The Arabs and Their Non-Arab Peers by The Humble Dependent on His Lord the Provider, Faris ibn Yusuf al-Shidyaq (1855)

That title SHOULD include a number of macrons (straight lines over vowels), but I cannot for the life of me figure out how to type them, so just DEAL with it.  This also applies to the bits of the novel I quote.
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