that which should not be by brett j talley

Thayerson, to take up a position at an isolated insane asylum located in the rural wilderness of Massachussetts. Talley’s protagonist, Carter Weston, a young graduate student at fabled Miskatonic University in Lovecraft’s fictional Arkham, Massachusetts, is encouraged by his mentor and teacher, Dr. However, at some point in the distant past these malignant deities, extraterrestrial travellers from “the spaces between the stars” were challenged and ultimately bested in a war fought by other comparatively more benign beings of at least equal power, beings from which the humans seemingly borrowed their concept of and ideal of the one God of the various Bibles, Korans, and other human sacred texts, that Lovecraft referred to as the “Elder Gods.” The defeated Great Old Ones were placed in a kind of deep slumber akin to suspended animation, and flung both into the far reaches of the cosmos, and some, buried deep in hidden pre-human cities, such as the vast sunken city of R’lyeh which rests deep in the Pacific ocean where Cthulhu lies dreaming.Īuthor Talley has done his research well and brings into his novel many of the classic tropes that are either central to or even secondary to what’s become known as the Lovecraftian “Cthulhu Mythos.” Indeed it is both author Talley’s strength and his weakness that he has been extremely faithful to both the mythos and to Lovecraft’s writing style. These beings were so much more advanced and powerful than mankind that if and when they deigned to notice humanity at all it was in the same way that a busy corporate CEO might view an ant crawling around his desk – as a bug to be indiscriminately crushed without a second’s thought. Lovecraft posited a reality in which extremely powerful demi-gods, known as the “Great Old Ones,” at least partially led by an aquatic-based, huge and powerful tentacled horror named Cthulhu, ruled before humanity’s forebears ever climbed out of the ancient, antediluvian mud and slime of a young planet earth. Lovecraft’s atmospheric styling and to the sub-genre and author-created, fictional universe Lovecraft began and is famous for. TWSNB is a ( if one is allowed to use the word to describe a horror novel) ‘loving’ and faithful homage to H. The novel lives up to its hype in that it is, for those fond of very traditional Lovecraftian horror, an extended work that fully achieves such purpose. Brett Talley’s first novel, That Which Should Not Be (TWSNB), comes with a sterling pedigree, having won its publisher’s 2011 JournalStone horror writing contest, having been named a 2011 GoodReads Choice Awards Semi-Finalist, and also having been named as a 2011 Finalist for the Horror Writers Association Bram Stoker Awards™ in the “Best First Novel” category.

That which should not be by brett j talley