Well, here is a quick review for the evening. Hope your week is going well.
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| Source: Amazon.com |
Ok folks, it’s a short story so let’s keep it to a short review. Whadya say? Sound good to you?
A Colder War, by Charles Stross, is a short novellete audiobook selection that I listened to recently, and was fairly impressed by. The tale is simple but full of portent. The caveat is that in order to understand the ramifications of the story, you have to appreciate two different genres. One: Tom Clancy-esque spy Cold War-era thrillers. Ok, got that one? Two: H.P. Lovecraft’s Mythos of Cthulu. How’s that for a cross-up?
A Colder War supposes that the events told in H.P. Lovecraft’s At the Mountains of Madness are real. So too are the rest of Lovecraft’s Cthulhu mythos. The author also supposes that during World War II, part of the race to beat the Nazis was to stop them from exploiting recent discoveries of ancient elder god-like creatures that are at the bottom of the Barents Sea. I wasn’t real clear on that part, so you’ll have to “read” the book yourself to get it. It’s not light stuff either (in either tone or complexity), so you’ll probably need to listen to it more than once to catch all the nuances. Sadly, I don’t have time to do so myself.
Back to the story. So there are these ancient creatures of alien origin on Earth, vast and powerful and well... godlike is the description Lovecraft gives in his various stories, though he was an avowed atheist, so take that for what it’s worth. Just imagine alien beings who are practically beyond our human comprehension. Tough request, I know, but stretch a bit. Just picture big tentacles monstrosities that seem to belong in the deepest depths of ocean and have huge fangs and other nasty things. And they are smart like humans, but of a entirely different bent in thinking. There you go. You’ve got it now.
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| Charles Stross / Source: Wikipedia.com |
Anyway, the Nazi’s are not able to exploit what they learn about these big bad critters during WWII, but the Soviets acquire the remnants of their research after the war is over. They capture several low grade versions of these creatures, and weaponize them. These baddies are up there with nuclear weapons in the scale of the balance of power between the superpowers during the Cold War. And the U.S. doesn’t have any. Now the Ruskies have a strategic advantage. Gulp.
So in the early 1980s, probably 1984 since that was when the actual “oops” happened, there was an accidental “hot mic” incident in which Ronald Reagan actually said over the air that we were bombing the Russians in five minutes (he was joking during that late Cold War SNAFU, but those who got wind of it weren’t impressed back then). Well in this version of history, this sparks off the Third World War. And then things get worse.
There is a lot more going on in this tale than I have told. For instance, the Iranians and the Israelis corroborate to nuke Iraq, which has a portal in the city of Basra to the alien beings universe and those despicable Iraqis are trying to bring something through. And the U.S. has a special nuclear powered bomber that flies round the clock with gigantic nukes onboard to strike a special Soviet bunker that goes deep into the earth and is supposedly the home of some of the ancient deep ones who, when awoken, eat the minds of anyone within a hundred mile radius and are the embodiment of human hell on earth. When the balloon goes up, the Soviets wake up these big baddies and all hell really breaks loose. The American nukes don’t even slow ‘em down.
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| Mixing Cthulu with Nuclear weapons... what could go wrong? / Source: Grim Reviews/blogspot.com |
A scary story, to be sure. And some of the people in Washington are evacuated to a underground shelter that has a portal to a distant world where the U.S. plots to stay alive and outlast the Soviets in the aftermath of global nuclear world war that is now both a complete global apocalypse of ancient, deathless evils and an intergalactic conflict as well. It's a depressing ending that Lovecraft himself would have appreciated.
The story was good, and quite short. Good grim sci-fi, and recommended for those who like the Cthulhu mythos and wouldn’t be offended seeing it modernized and mish-mashed with the Cold War. There is some adult language and the theme is quite mature, so it isn’t for young and impressionable types. But otherwise, I’d recommend it to those whose interest was piqued by this review. A decent little tale of elder gods and thermonuclear holocaust. For what that’s worth.
To learn more about A Colder War by Charles Stross, visit Amazon.com
To get the story behind the story of A Colder War, straight from the horses mouth as it were, visit this article by the author Charles Stross.
Ok, the photos aren't exactly as I want them, but they'll have to do. At least until I can figure out what is wrong with this stupid thing. The more sophisticated I try to be with my posts, the more clunky blogger seems to be to me. Not that I'm at all sophisticated when it comes to my writing. It's cornball all the way here, folks.
The parting comment:
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| Source: Dice of Doom.com |
Yes, you have to kinda be "in" on the whole Lovecraftian thing to get this joke, but if you are, it is pretty good. Not a knee-slapper, but still worth a chuckle. I could envision another version of this one where the caption was: "Wrong number Call of Cthulhu," and the phone was saying: "...if you'd like to make a call, please hang up and dial again... for more assistance, dial '0' for the operator..."
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