[145]

The Lovecraft Squad: Waiting (2017)

Created by Stephen Jones
(a) Pegasus Books, USA • hc • $25.95
ISBN 978-1-68177-525-8
(b) Pegasus Books, USA (2018) • tp • $19.95
ISBN 978-1-68177-896-9
The Lovecraft Squad: Waiting
Cover Design by Douglas Klauba

The new book in the groundbreaking series that reveals the origins of The Lovecraft Squad, a super-secret worldwide organization dedicated to battling the eldritch monstrosities given form in H.P. Lovecraft’s fevered imagination. In April 1936, Lovecraft’s novella The Shadow Over Innsmouth was first published. Written five years earlier, but oddly rejected by every magazine it was ever submitted to, it accurately described a series of events that actually happened in February 1928, when Federal government agents raided the ancient Massachusetts seaport of Innsmouth and attempted to eradicate a deviant race of ichthyoid creatures which had been inter-breeding with the human population for decades, if not centuries. There was no way that the reclusive pulp writer could have known so much about a case where the details had been withheld for fear of creating a panic among the public. Following these startling revelations, the FBI went back and investigated more closely into the stories that Lovecraft was publishing as “fiction.” Incredibly, it soon began to emerge that the events in Innsmouth were not a solitary event—the monstrosities the author described really did exist. To combat these cosmic horrors, the Human Protection League (HPL) was established to investigate and combat these otherworldly invaders. Down through the decades since, the only defense that has stood between humanity and these creatures of chaos are the agents of the HPL—or, as they are sometimes known to those few who are aware of their existence: The Lovecraft Squad.

PROLOGUE: HOWARD’S WAY Angela Slatter
ONE: SHADOWS OVER INNSMOUTH Brian Hodge
TWO: EC’H-PI-EL Reggie Oliver
THREE: THE ARMIES OF THE NIGHT Reggie Oliver
FOUR: THE OLDE FELLOWES Michael Marshall Smith
FIVE: RANDOLPH CARTER, SECRET AGENT Steve Rasnic Tem
SIX: THE STUFF THAT DREAMS ARE MADE OF . . . Peter Atkins
SEVEN: JUNIOR G-MEN VS. THE WHISPERS IN DARKNESS Richard Gavin
EIGHT: AT THE HILLS OF HOLLYWOOD Jay Russell
NINE: ARKHAM HOUSE ON HAUNTED HILL Thana Niveau
TEN: THE COLOR OUT IN SPACE Stephen Baxter
EPILOGUE: THE SHADOW ACROSS 110TH STREET Kim Newman
ACKNOWLEDGMENTS  

Reviews

  • “An enjoyable glimpse into a diverse alternative world . . . the authors incorporate just enough creepiness to keep the reader looking over their shoulder.”
    —Marissa Harwood
    SCIFI MOVIE PAGE, April 11, 2018
  • “Noted horror maven Jones lines up a stellar group of authors with 12 all-new stories set in his world of the Lovecraft Squad.”
    —LOCUS, November 2017
  • “The Lovecraft Squad: Waiting is the brainchild of esteemed editor Stephen Jones.”
    —Sheila M. Merritt
    SCREAM, October 5, 2017
  • “For the second book in the Lovecraft Squad series, following the novel All Hallows Horror, Jones has rounded up a host of science fiction, fantasy, and horror writers to contribute to a hard-boiled, shared-world riff on the writings of H.P. Lovecraft, master of eldritch horror . . . This book can best be appreciated by those already familiar with the Cthulhu mythos, but newbies will still enjoy the pulpy adventures of the League.”
    —PUBLISHERS WEEKLY,
    September 14, 2017