From the Publisher
"Ruff’s sequel to 2016’s Lovecraft Country delivers another virtuoso blend of horror, action, and humor. . . . Fans will find this a worthy sequel." — Publishers Weekly
"Immensely entertaining. The pacing is on point, the action set pieces are thrilling, and the stakes are high." — Locus
“A spectacular follow-up to Lovecraft Country . . . Few writers can manage a cast of characters this large with Ruff’s deft hand—they are likeable, individual, and we root for all of them . . . It makes for an extremely fast-paced, high-stakes read as we ping-pong around the Jim Crow south and all the way to the end of the universe.” — Cory Doctorow
“Another ‘only Matt Ruff could do this’ production. Lovecraft Country takes the unlikeliest of premises and spins it into a funny, fast, exciting and affecting read." — Neal Stephenson on LOVECRAFT COUNTRY
“Lovecraft Country rubs the pervasive, eldritch dread of Lovecraft’s universe against the very real, historical dread of Jim Crow America and sparks fly. . . . Ruff renders a very high-concept, imaginary world with such vividness that you can’t help but feel it’s disturbingly real.” — Christopher Moore on LOVECRAFT COUNTRY
“Nonstop adventure that includes time-shifting, shape-shifting, and Lovecraft-like horrors. . . . Ruff, a cult favorite for his mind-bending fiction, vividly portrays racism as a horror worse than anything conceived by Lovecraft in this provocative, chimerical novel.” — Booklist (starred review) on LOVECRAFT COUNTRY
Kirkus Reviews
2022-12-14
Be warned: This is a follow-up to Lovecraft Country, the 2016 novel, not the HBO adaptation, so what you saw on TV won’t help much here. But there’s still outrageous trickery, sharp period detail, and chilling perils.
The year 1957 finds Chicago’s roving Turner and Dandridge families once again pursued by and in pursuit of mystic forces, some of which mean to do them serious harm. Atticus Turner and his father, Montrose, are in Virginia looking for evidence of their Black slave ancestors when they’re suddenly under attack by a White antagonist they’d previously faced several hundred miles north in Massachusetts. Meanwhile, Hippolyta Berry, Atticus’ aunt and the most scientifically minded family member, is way out west in Las Vegas with her 15-year-old son, Horace, and good friend Letitia Dandridge, ostensibly to gather research for her husband George’s The Safe Negro Travel Guide while also meeting with a sinister pawnbroker who carries the keys to a device able to transport people from Earth to any far-flung place in the galaxy. Meanwhile, George Berry, who has been diagnosed with terminal cancer, makes a Faustian bargain with the ghost of Hiram Winthrop, the brilliant, malevolent scientist from Lovecraft Country who promises to provide George with a cure if George can find a cadaver for Winthrop to—what is the word?—reanimate. And then there’s Ruby Dandridge, Letitia’s sister, still leading a double life as a redheaded White woman named Hillary Hyde, whose supply of potions enabling her transformation is running dangerously low. And those are just some of the complications of what now seems an ongoing series of phantasmagoric adventures of these intrepid warriors fighting a two-front battle in mid-20th century America against White supremacy and dark magic. Where its predecessor was constructed of separate stories focusing on different family members, this book operates with more interwoven narratives that Ruff manages to yoke together into one ripping yarn with shocks and surprises at every turn. This sequel may lack some of the demented grandeur that the TV series cheekily borrowed from its namesake, but it’s still lots of fun—and, at times, historically enlightening.
The best news this book delivers is that we’ll likely be seeing more from its vivid cast.
