Titus Crow, Volume 3: In The Moons of Borea, Elysia
Third double-volume, after The Clock of Dreams and Spawn of the Winds (p. 668), ending the Titus Crow sextette, the first hardcover reprint of a series based on Lumley's borrowings from H.P. Lovecraft. Best known for his gigantic and still-growing Harry Keogh Necroscope vampire cycle, Lumley's youthful occult detective Titus Crow series is more Edgar Rice Burroughsstyled heroic fantasy than Lovecraftian horror. Deep under the magma of our planet are imprisoned the immensely huge and hideous plasmal telepaths known as Cthulhu, Yog-Sothoth, Shub-Niggurath, and Nyarlathotep, who want to destroy mankind. Far back in the abysses of time, Cthulhu and the Great Gods rose up against the Elder Gods of Elysia and eventually destroyed Elysia, an event that gets repeated in cyclical time. The Elder Gods, however, drove Cthulhu's horde under Earth's mantle. As Cthulhu visited various disasters upon mankind, the Elder Gods empowered Titus Crow and his chronicler Henri- Laurent de Marigny with a grandfather clocklike time machine that can pierce the extradimensional lairs of Cthulhu. Spawn of the Winds (in volume two) left off with brawny, telepathic Texan Hank Silberhutte battling Ithaqua, the abominable Force of Evil known as ``Wind Walker in the Arctic.'' Here, In the Moons of Borea returns us to Borea (the Arctic), Silberhutte, and Wind Walker, with Titus and Henri joining the battle. Elysia, a variation on Lovecraft's The Dream Quest of the Unknown Kadath, is more sword-and-sorcery than occult tale. Lumley's lively but adolescent gouache is complete, but, unlike Lovecraft's miasmic oils, it lacks a style you'd revisit for the glow alone. --Copyright ©1997, Kirkus Associates, LP. All rights reserved.--This text refers to an out of print or unavailable edition of this title.