Shadows Bend

by David Barbour and Richard Raleigh

Ace Books, 2000

308 pages plus Authors' Note

Review by Christopher Peck

        Shadows Bend is the sort of book that really pisses me off. The kind where the idea is so perfect, elegant, and tuned into my obsessions that the fact I didn’t think of it first makes me cold and heavy with rage. The fact that one of the authors, Richard Raleigh, has always reminded me of a hipper, smarter, more talented and accomplished version of myself just gives the knife that extra little twist.
        Here’s the stinking premise: Howard Phillips Lovecraft, King of the Weird, and Robert E. Howard, creator of the now wildly popular Conan, meet as they never did in “real” life, then save the world from destruction by the Minions of Cthulhu.
        This is both a tribute to Weird Fiction and some damn fine Weird Fiction in its own right. For those not into Weird Fiction, it is a specific genre of pulp fiction particularly popular in the 20's and 30's. Arthur Machen and Edward John Moreton Drax Plunkett (Lord Dunsany) are two of the 19th century pioneers of the Weird, writing about forgotten cities and heathen Gods whose time had long past–or so modern man had thought! Lovecraft's fiction in particular defines Weird Fiction, with his hideous beings from "beyond the stars" wreaking havok with the minds of mortal men. Much of Howard's lesser known fiction, especially the Soloman Kane stories (and, of course, his fiction about the Cthulhu Mythos) is strongly Weird, although Conan himself would more properly be called "Fantasy" these days.
        In the strictest sense, I would call this tale more Lovecraftian than Hyperborean–and not just because the threat is Cthulhuvian–although the authorial team manages a superb hybrid of elements from the fiction of Lovecraft and Howard, liberally mixed with more contemporary spirituality such as Hopi-inspired mysticism. They have updated the purposefully archaic prose of Howard and Lovecraft in a way that uniquely suits their purpose in telling this fiction based on our “real” world. Don’t ask me how they managed to cram such disparate themes and styles into one 308-page book without extreme hokiness. Apparently they are geniuses, which just gives me one more reason to despise them.
        Perhaps my favorite trick from Barbour/Raleigh’s medicine bag is the identification of each author with his typical narrator. Lovecraft acts and speaks every bit the bookish, retiring, slightly snooty dreamer from one of his stories. Howard is often as brash, brutish, sulking, and physically powerful as his legendary Conan. The Lovecraft and Howard characters almost invariably refer to Clark Ashton Smith, a popular Weird-attuned poet contemporary of the two, by his barbarian/dream name “Klarkash-Ton” a beautiful touch sure to send lovers of Weird fiction swooning.