Hive

I liked this novel and will reread it after SPAWN comes out, which is the sequel. True, there are no shoggoths in Hive, which I thought might be due to two books (Radiant Dawn and Ravenous Dusk) - and Curran's possibly not wanting to step on feet. The view of the Old Ones of Antartica was already elaborated upon by Brian Lumley in his story about the last city of Alanhati. I think the tale is called The Outpost, but I don't recall. It was good. I should reread that one too :) Of course Hive would incorporate elements of "The Thing" because that story has been officially incorporated into the mythos (Chaosium Books). We never found out what the Thing was, remember. One could easily merge that into At the Mountains of Madness. Combine then, the Lumley story, which further elaborates on those Old Ones - and keep in mind another author (whom Curran probably knows) writing two books that feature shoggoths - and bingo - the Hive. Now that it's ALL published, I await Spawn.

This is a sequel to Lovecraft's "The Mountains of Madness" (written in 1931) set in the present day, written by Tim Curran. Initially i was very skeptical of an author being presumptuous enough to claim that his work is worthy to be called a continuation of HPL's original. The premise of the book revolvces around an intrepid group of Scientists, engineers and layman that must weather the long cold Antarctic winter as they uncover long forgotten mysteries and encounter strange phenomenon nearly that have layed untouched by man since the days of Lake and Dyers discoveries. My doubts were quickly put to rest in the very first chapter; discarded into a shallow grave deep within a blasted heath of my mind and forgotten. I must say that Tim Curran is one of the best modern authors of Cthulhu Mythos fiction. He brings vivid characters and modern perspective to the works of HP Lovecraft. He has a very 'real' writing style and grasp of language and is not afraid to break convention in a way that makes his work a fresh and engaging macabre thrill ride with a certain level of validity injected into it by the underlying premise set by HPL almost a hundred years ago. This is an excellent book and I would recommend it to fans of HPL and lovers of good books in general. I was happily surprised to see a brief reference to John Carpenter's The Thing. I would also recommend Tim Curran's Dead Sea. And perhaps the best compliment that I can give this work is this: In my mind I now consider "The Hive" to be an authenticate part of The Cthulhu Mythos.

The cover blurb of Curran's book calls it a sequel to Lovecraft's immortal "At the Mountains of Madness," but, as several reviewers have commented, it owes at least as much to John Carpenter's 1987 ugh-fest "The Thing." The description of bearded hero Jimmy Hayes even sounds like Kurt Russell's portrayal (and also parallels him in using foul language that would undoubtedly have the Old Gentleman of Providence rotating rapidly in his grave -- assuming he's still there). Moreover, the climactic moment, where Hayes and girlfriend take on a by-now grossly-deformed co-worker who has been taken over by alien forces, sounds like a direct crib from Russell's final confrontation with the many-headed monster that was once his co-worker. I confess that in spite of the deficiences others have pointed out, I did rather enjoy this novel, especially the descriptions of the abandoned ruins of the Elder Things, while his description of the expedition's attempt to drill down to a lake under the Antarctic icecap, in which said Elder Things have set up shop, could come right out of today's science headlines (in fact, I believe a similar project is under way right now -- although they haven't found any life forms on its bottom so far higher than mats of cyano-bacteria). In the end, my major complaint with "The Hive" is with its central theme, the portrayal of the Elder Things. In ATMOM, the narrator begins by regarding them with horror but eventually comes to see them with sympathy as the last few intelligent (albeit far beyond human understanding) beings of their race, trapped in an unfamiliar time but doing the best they can with the tools they are given. This concept, of Elder Things who are unquestionably alien but essentially benign, carried over into Chaosium's "Beyond the Mountains of Madness" gaming system. Curran, however, has blended the worst features of Elder Things and shoggoths (with the additional ability, familiar from "Scanners," of blowing up human heads by remote control) to make the Elder Things a slavering menace to man's survival, much less his dominion over the Earth. It makes for an interesting page-turner, but if you're looking for a Lovecraft sequel, go elsewhere (and keep this book out of the hands of impressionable children who might get nightmares from it).

Those folks at Elder Signs Press are doing their best to keep original Cthulhu Mythos fiction alive, and HIVE is the most recent example of their endeavor. And it never even mentions the name "Cthulhu." HIVE by Tim Curran is an original novel and a "sequel" to H. P. Lovecraft's short novel "At the Mountains of Madness." Set in the modern day at an Antarctic research station, and populated with scientists of various disciplines and maintenance crew members, everything seems fine until the scientists discover something they can only call "mummies" -- frozen and long dead life forms unlike anything they have ever seen; tentacles for feet, twig like arms, fan-like wings, and heads like starfish. Except maybe they aren't dead, at least not dead like scientist understand the term. Soon, the station populace suffers from an outbreak or really bad dreams, dreams about ancient cities and star-born journeys. Meanwhile, a drilling team sends a probe into a geo-thermally warmed underground lake, and discovers what might be the ruins of pre-human hive-like city. But the images from the probe show what might be still living versions of those mummies. Suddenly, the dreams become a lot more vivid and induce insanity before they cause some minds to physically and psychically meltdown, literally. But is all of this really going on, or is it just a breakout of stress from being at the South Pole for so long? A crew member and the station doctor know it is real, and they set out to prevent the citizens of that hive city from encroaching onto the rest of the world, assuming, of course, they don't go crazy themselves and die on their mission. Inevitably, Curran's novel will be compared to "At the Mountain of Madness" and tales like John W. Campbell's "Who Goes There?" For the most part, HIVE will be compared favorably. There are two things in HIVE that Curran does that make this book very good as compared to other Mythos fiction. First, he makes the Old Ones a true, menacing threat to his characters. They actually come across as scary, not just as props in a long list of Mythos baddies. That leads seamlessly right into the second thing Curran does right in this book; he does not have any other Mythos creatures/myths get entangled in the plot to slow down the action with a byzantine litany of Mythos particulars. Curran focused on just enough of the Old Ones history (journeyed from other stars long ago, trapped in Antarctica, somehow horribly connected to humanity) to give the characters an operational understanding of their threat. That is not to say there aren't some connections, because there are, especially to the first explorers in Lovecaft's short novel, a Miskatonic University reference, and a very brief cameo by one other Mythos creature that works in conjunction with, not against, the Old Ones and their infinite menace. Other pluses for this novel are that Curran obviously did some research on realistic life at the South Pole, as well as other scientific

A worthy sequel to ATMOM by Lovecraft. Curran does vary a bit from the usual opinion of how a Lovecraft story should go, but it actually makes the story stronger. Very well done.