Description

The Lovecraft Coven by Donald Tyson

Trade Paperback – Hippocampus Press – Dec 2014 – 218 pages

In recent years Donald Tyson has emerged as a leading author of Lovecraftian fiction, his novels and tales drawing upon his deep knowledge of esoteric and occult philosophy and infused with his powerful imagination. In this volume, two substantial novellas are presented.

In “The Lovecraft Coven,” Lovecraft wakes up in an insane asylum at Providence almost eighty years after his own death, trapped in the body of a man he never knew and hunted by shadow walkers determined to destroy him. His sole hope is to enter the fictional world he created for his short stories and find the Necronomicon, which has been stolen from Miskatonic University. Clues to the book’s location are hidden in Arkham, Dunwich, Innsmouth, and Kingsport. Only by tracking the book across the fantastic landscape of his own imagination can he free himself from the prison of the future.

“Iron Chain” tells of a survivalist prepper who abandons the big city for a farm in rural Nova Scotia, where he plans to wait out the chaotic events of the Great Alignment foretold in ancient prophecies. The farm is not quite what it seems. There is something odd about his neighbor, and the ravens never stop watching him. Why has a heavy anchor chain of black iron been buried beneath the field by the house? Why is the barn attached to a windmill so ancient, its origins have been forgotten? He begins to suspect that his presence on the farm is not chance, but part of some larger cosmic pattern, and that he may have a predestined role to play in the coming cataclysm.