James Nicoll Reviews

Matt Ruff’s 2023 The Destroyer of Worlds: A Return to Lovecraft Country is the second in the Lovecraft Country historical cosmic-horror series.

African American Atticus Turner, his family, and his friends, might have hoped that with Caleb Braithwhite’s banishment, their occult adventures had come to an end. To quote Doctor Jon Osterman, ​“Nothing ever ends.” Their adventures were only beginning!

Adventure is, of course, someone other than the reader having a terrible time.

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2016’s¹ Lovecraft Country is the first volume in Matt Ruff’s Lovecraft Country series.

Atticus Turner heads north from Florida to Chicago, summoned by a concerning letter from his estranged father Montrose. Atticus isn’t unhappy to leave the South behind. Atticus is many things (including an SF fan) but the thing that has the greatest impact on his personal safety is that he is African American.

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A note about the title: this book is the whole of the Public Works Trilogy. As much fun as it would be to encourage you to button hole the author to demand the next two volumes, Sewer, Gas and Electric is a standalone novel with a misleading subtitle. 

I remembered liking 1997’s satirical Sewer, Gas & Electric almost 20 years ago so I was looking forward to rereading it. That may sound ominous and it should. I suspect the issue is not the book so much as it is me but unfortunately I seem to be stuck with being me 24/7.

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