The Weird Company

The Weird Company: The Secret History of H. P. Lovecraft's Twentieth Century is a novel by Pete Rawlik, a follow-up to his 2013 book Reanimators. It features characters from various Lovecraft stories working together to defeat eldritch forces. It was published by Night Shade Books in 2014, with an audiobook version also receiving a release.
The novel is episodic, with several chapters having been previously published as short stories. The bulk of the novel takes the form of an account written by Robert Martin Olmstead, the narrator of The Shadow Over Innsmouth, but individual chapters are written from the points of view of other characters, including Asenath Waite from "The Thing on the Doorstep," Thomas Gedney from At the Mountains of Madness, Swami Chandraputra from "Through the Gates of the Silver Key," and others.
==The Weird Company==
The novel's main narrative involves characters from Lovecraft forming a sort of superteam to deal with a threat unwittingly unleashed by the Pabodie Expedition to Antarctica. The team, who call themselves the Weird Company, is led by Asenath Waite and includes Olmstead, Chandraputra, Frank Elwood from "The Dreams in the Witch-House," and Dr. Stuart Hartwell, a character created by Rawlik to replace Herbert West, whose story had diverged from the narrative the author wanted to tell in his books.Amazon.com, "Peter Rawlik: About the Author." They are later joined by the Yithian who possessed Wingate Peaslee in "The Shadow Out of Time," now inhabiting the body of Thomas Gedney, who goes by the name of Mister Ys.
==Easter Eggs ==
The Weird Company features a number of quiet nods to other properties, as well as some in-jokes. These include:
*A member of an Antarctic expeditionary team named MacReady, MacReady being the main protagonist in John Carpenter's 1982 science fiction horror film The Thing.
*A chapter set in Kingsport mentions a sailing vessel named the Elizabeth Dane, also the name of a ship in one of Carpenter's earlier films, the 1980 supernatural horror The Fog.
*Chapter 6 features an interlude in a mental health facility. There are many characters who appear only in this chapter, and all are named for Cthulhu Mythos contemporaries of Peter Rawlik. These include a Dr. Willis Lynn (Lynn Willis), patients Mrs. Tanzer and Mr. Meikle (Molly Tanzer and William Meikle, respectively; Tanzer was described as "mad", while Meikle was merely "infirm"), orderlies Sammons, Davis, and Barrass (Brian M. Sammons, Mike Davis, and Glynn Owen Barrass), and a local hunter named Grau (T. E. Grau). A unfortunately-fated cat named Doc was possibly named for Keith "Doc" Herber.
==References==
Category:Peter Rawlik works
Category:Expanded Mythos Works
Category:Novels