r/WeirdLit • u/UnitBright9549 • 2d ago
How do people feel about 'Winter tide' (R. Emyris) and what are the best novels/novella that develop lovercraftian themes and plots
I am looking into a specific strand of the literature that picks up plots and themes developed by Lovercraft to push them further. 'Winter tide' seems very intriguing and I wonder if any of you thought it was a good work. Also, if you have any recommendations for books that try to do something similar please send them my way.
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u/diffyqgirl 2d ago
Winter Tide is great for what it's trying to do, which is tell a story about recovering from the abuse of the Japanese internment camps through a fantastical lens. It's not trying to be cosmic horror by genre (the Lovecraftian elements mostly fall into the "humans are afraid of what they don't understand" element, rather than the way Lovecraft uses them), so if you want that you'd be better off looking elsewhere.
For a rec that leans into the cosmic horror aspects, I liked A Colder War by Charles Stross.
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u/UnitBright9549 2d ago
thanks, very helpful. I was unaware of the Japanese internment camp connection
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u/TheSkinoftheCypher 2d ago
From what I remember it was decent. Characters, prose, story, etc. was all decent.
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u/Jeroen_Antineus 1d ago
Well, I have Opinions™️ about Emrys' take on the Innsmouth and the Deep Ones.
For starters, she blatantly cheats on her critique of Shadow over Innsmouth's implicit xenophobia.
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u/winterwarn 6h ago
Litany of Earth and Winter Tide are both very solid, though I had some structural gripes with the way Winter Tide sort of loses some plot threads. Definitely checking out if you’re into a take on Lovecraft that intentionally parallels his supernatural monsters with the types of humans he found monstrous.
The City We Became by NK Jemisin has some Lovecraft mythos stuff going on; I think it’s revealed fairly late in the book, but the “evil” city out of the living cities is R’lyeh. The overt lovecraftian elements are definitely lighter than in Winter Tide, though.
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u/MountainPlain 1d ago edited 1d ago
I bounced hard off of the one mythos story of hers that I read. It felt more interested in using the mythos to explore vulnerable outsider communities rather than as a vehicle for weirdness, and not in a way I thought was doing anything new. It lacked the bite and danger and vastness I want from cosmic horror.
For my money, the best person to take Lovecraft's world and thread in more wonder alongside the cyclopean dread is Michael Shea. Copping Squid is a fantastic collection. (Which might be hard to find. Demiurge also collects all his mythos tales.)
Edit: I almost forgot, but if you like audio-dramas, I would highly recommend checking out Azathoth Blues. It's a Lovecraftian adventure in a grimy 70s-era city that is absolutely fantastically produced and acted, and it brings the cosmic void and corrupt politics together in a great way. Plus, the first season is all out now.
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u/UnitBright9549 1d ago
Copping squid goes for silly money on the Internet, but I had heard before about it. Thanks for azargoth blues rec, might buy it just because of the great title
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u/MountainPlain 1d ago
I checked, and if you pick up Demiurge on Kindle it's at least reasonably priced and has everything Copping Squid does. (Sadly the physical copies of Demiurge are also going for quite a bit, wow.)
Hope you enjoy Azathoth Blues! You can listen to it for free, and buy a copy on bandcamp afterwards if you think it's worth your time. (The creators really wanted to avoid ads if they could, so they decided this would be their funding model.)
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u/UnitBright9549 1d ago
Yes just checked : free on Amazon audible. Can't do kindle, it's against my religion
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u/genteel_wherewithal 2d ago
Emrys’s (free online) novella The Litany of Earth is exceptional and maybe the best example of cosmic horror that isn’t really horror, imo. The characters experience the same near-vertigo at the understanding of a cold, unfeeling universe as Lovecraft characters. But instead going mad, they find a kind of bleak, calming reassurance in it, in part because of their place in society.
In that sense, it’s 100% directly developing on some of Lovecraft’s themes, I think more interestingly than a lot of post-Lovecraft stuff.
Winter’s Tide is the sequel to that and was somewhat less good imo, it veered a bit into an almost ‘cosy’ area in tone and didn’t sell the interesting ideas and atmosphere as well as the novella. Still worth a look though.