I was riveted; couldn't put this book down...

Hive lives up to its claim to be a contemporary sequel to Lovecraft's Mountains of Madness, and involves the same eldritch villains (Old Ones and Shoggoths)and cosmic horror (Mankind's insignificance and lack of power over its own terrible destiny). The story also includes plenty of revelations about the unpleasant demise of several other arctic expeditions, as well as further exploration within and below the arctic environment. With this book Curran walks a fine line between holding true to Lovecraft's original and charting creatively into new territory. Some readers may find there are not enough original twists and horrors. The characters here are fairly well developed and believable; most have blue-collar sensibilities as compared to Lovecraft's more erudite protagonists. Readers who enjoy Lovecraft's slow simmer of unknowable terror and Curran's knack for describing the grotesque and terrible will enjoy this novel; I enjoyed it immensely. ( )

"Nothing stays buried forever at the Pole."

Hive is the first in a series of two books, followed by The Spawning, which I haven't yet read. I own both books in their original paperback editions; a good thing since the prices of these two books have gone way up since their original publication dates. Billed as a sequel to HP Lovecraft's At the Mountains of Madness, Hive takes its readers back to Antarctica decades after the original Pabodie expedition; if you've read Lovecraft's work, you'll remember that at the end (without giving away the show if you haven't) of that story, the narrator and expedition leader William Dyer clearly warned any future expeditions to stay away from Antarctica. Obviously, the warning went unheeded. While I liked the overall story, the premise and especially the claustrophobic Antarctic setting, in truth, this was a book I could read a while, put down, and wait to come back to. In the realm of weird fiction, that's unheard of for me.

Kharkov research station is the setting for this story -- Antarctica is in its winter which means total darkness, storms and for the crew at the station, isolation. As the novel opens, paleobiologist and professor Gates is returning to Kharkov after his team discovered some frozen, mummified corpses buried in the ice. He deposits his finds in Hut #6 where the mummies are definite objects of curiosity for the station's crew, creatures unlike anything anyone has ever seen before. While Lind, the plumber is first in awe over how famous Gates' discovery is going to make everyone at Kharkov Station once the spring comes, Hayes, the mechanic is less enthused. After seeing the mummies up close though, Lind has second thoughts, warning everyone not to stay alone with these creatures. The sense of dread and bizarre events that follow aren't helped by NSF administrator Dennis LaHune, who makes everything worse by cutting off the crew's contact with the outside world, setting himself up as an enemy to Hayes and eventually to Sharkey, station doctor. Lind's sense of danger will turn out to be prophetic; it isn't long until the strange effects of having these creepy corpses at the station are experienced by all. But what are these things and what is the strange power they hold over everyone?

There is a very highly-developed atmosphere of isolation, darkness, and utter hopelessness that runs throughout this novel, and at times when that feeling of dread set in, it was all I could do sometimes to prevent myself from turning to the back to see if the main characters were still there at the end. Sadly, the hackle-raising sense of fear that exists in spots was overpowered by how many times the characters stop to expound on the nature of these creatures, often the same things over and over again. For me, this need to analyze things to death, along with the often-stereotypical characters, is what prevented this novel from being the gut puncher it could have been. To his credit though, Curran has his own voice, unlike some authors who've taken Lovecraft's work and tried to turn it into theirs, all too often unsuccessfully.

Reader response varies -- some found it absolutely stunning, while others have kind of a middle-of-the-road reaction, and still others didn't care for it at all. I am going to read the second book, and as a rule, I like Curran's fiction so despite my fault finding with Hive, I have no plans to stop reading his work. I'd say read it, keeping in mind the caveats I've listed above. ( )

Hive is a new publication by Elder Signs Press, just released about a month ago. The author is Tim Curran. Even though we are unpacking, as usual most of my mythos books are in a box somewhere and I can't say how many stories by Mr. Curran I may have read. I never read his other novel, Skin Medicine. He has written two short stories I saw recently, "The Eyes of Howard Curlix" (from Horrors Beyond) and "The Chattering of Tiny Teeth" (from Warfear). Both were well crafted and enjoyable. The limited edition hardcover of Hive is sold out (I was lucky enough to get a copy) but the trade paperback is available for only $10.85, and eligible for free shipping if the total order is more than $25. My copy was rather more expensive, but it is a high quality hardback that upholds the high standards set by Elder Signs, and I imagine the paperback is good quality as well. Page count was 269. I must mention that the cover art by Dave Carson is phenomenally gorgeous, a shoggoth-like creature arising from the icy depths in an ancient ruined city. However I would mildly contend whether it represented any actual scene from the book or was more just a terrific Lovecraftian painting. Editing was tight with minimal typos (especially compared to the disastrous HP Lovecraft Institute).

This book is billed as a sequel to "At the Mountains of Madness."

Sequel: n.
1. Something that follows; a continuation.
2. A literary, dramatic, or cinematic work whose narrative continues that of a preexisting work.
3. A result or consequence.

In the sense that it is set in the same environment of the Pabodie expedition, it is a sequel...relying on definition #1. But I would dispute the aptness of definition #2. I'll come back to that. Be advised that some spoilers may follow.

The plot is set in the modern era at a scientific research station in Antarctica. The cast is a collection of scientists, technicians and other misfits who are spending the Antarctic winter doing research, basically cut off from the rest of the world and living in a small oasis in the midst of a harsh and unforgiving landscape. Some of them are investigating areas previously searched by the Pabodie expedition in ATMOM and the unearth some frozen/mummified Old One cadavers...or are they really cadavers?

I really really wanted to like this book. And I did like the basic conception of the plot and how it was carried out. Otherwise I had some difficulties with it. This may read a little like stream of consciousness, alas. First of all, although Curran used the same setting as ATMOM, and the machinations of the Old Ones were central to the story, it wasn't really a sequel. I haven't read ATMOM in a few years, but as I recall were not the shoggoths ascendant in the ruins of the Old Ones' city? Shoggoths did not make an appearance in the book. But that's OK. I think we would all rather an author followed his own muse and not just slap together another Lovecraftian pastiche.

Part of my indelible response to any Antarctic horror story is informed by John Carpenter's "The Thing" (no, he's not a relative, the John Carpenter I'm related to is a commercial artist). I think this movie is brilliant: frightening, creepy, hysterically funny in parts, with great acting performances and very very Lovecraftian sensibility. I view it as the best ever Lovecraftian film. And so I can't help but look for similarities, and I can't help but find them. Curran himself makes a tributary mention of "The Thing" near the end of his text. Having seen this and Alien, I must say there were no highly original plot twists in Hive to sustain tension. But on the other hand, as it is set in the same frame of reference as ATMOM we already knew about the bogeymen, so I wasn't put off by this either.

And now we come to my greatest issue with Hive, the writing itself. The prose just did not knock my socks off. I should note that the idiom made no effort to mimic HPL's prose (which is not a bad thing!). ATMOM is one of my all time favorite HPL works and it was only about a hundred pages or so. Word count in ATMOM runs about 41,000 and we know that HPL did not use the most economical prose. Hive was just too long. For the most part I think the mythos has been best served by the short story. The mythos type novels that have really grabbed me have been few: Radiant Dawn and Ravenous Dusk by Goodfellow, Rules of Engagement by Tynes and Balak by Rainey. Most of the others have not been as good for whatever reason. In Hive I often felt the whole book should have been edited down to novella length to remove excess verbiage. For example, there were often, for me, excessive adjectives in oddly structured usage. Back when I was a teen I actually read about 5 or 6 John Norman Gor novels, you know, the ones before he degenerated into soft core bondage porn, and he would structure sentences like *and too, to me it seemed bold* instead of the more direct *it seemed bold to me*. Of course Yoda type sentence structure (beautifully lampooned in George Lucas in Love) is even more annoying. I'm getting off track, there was nothing that bad here, but if something is red, blue and green I'd rather say that than it was red and blue and green. Doing so once is for effect, more is for affectation. And bloody vexing when if goes on page after page. Using 4 to 6 adjectives to describe things in the same sentence also just bogs things down. Also I think the author just tried a little too hard. The descriptions are arduous, effortful, and for me did not evoke the intended horror, otherness whatever. I found the characters lacked life and were frankly not distinctive enough for me to try to keep them straight, or care about their fates. And the dialogue just didn't ring true, profanity for effect but just sort of falling flat like, well, profanity for effect. When I compare that to Radiant Dawn where the characters jump off the page, develop and become people I cared about, and where the dialogue bristles, sparkles, keeping me reading at a break neck pace...Hive suffers by comparison. I set it down a few times and read some other books in between attempts at finishing it. On the other hand I did not punt on it like I did Nightmare's Disciple and A Darkness Inbred.

So a mixed bag here. The book in paperback is very reasonable priced, eligible for free shipping. And it was a noble effort. I did care about the plot and wanted to see where Curran ended the story, and I did think the ending was satisfying (if anticipated by "the Thing" again). I'll give it 3 stars. I await other opinions with interest. I certainly will not shy away from Curran's future mythos offerings. ( )

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