Free Download Memories of Yuggoth

Six months ago. I published my first book, Memories of Yuggoth, on Amazon. To celebrate I am providing the eBook as a free download for the next five days, from June 2 to June 6, inclusive.

The Whisperer in Darkness introduced what I think are one of Lovecraft’s most iconic alien races, the Mi-Go. For me Mi-Go are an extraordinary cosmic horror device. First, their physiology and morphology are such that we cannot really find an earthly analog. It is difficult to understand their morphology making it even more difficult to understand their motives. Whisperer also introduced the Mi-Go brain cylinder. Now a disembodied brain could travel through space and see things a normal human could never hope for. I think it was implicit in Whisperer that the trip to the brain cylinder was one way—there’s no going back to the body. Why the Mi-Go would want to share the universe with human brains is one of those mysteries known only to the Mi-Go. On my first reading of the story there was some part of me that wanted Akeley to accept the brain cylinder and explore space with the Mi-Go.

I think Whisperer profited from the technologies of its epoch. That is, exciting new emerging technologies against a backdrop of isolated, forgotten backwaters. Casting many of the Mi-Go’s abilities into the modern world is more complex. How do they survive the vacuum of space to fly to other planets? Could we photograph a Mi-Go with a digital camera? Can we build a believable alien when it has such a strange form? I think these challenges have meant the Mi-Go have been largely ignored by stores set in the modern era.

I do think the Mi-Go are an excellent foe because of their alienness, their advanced technologies and their inscrutable motives. In addition, they are formidable, but it is entirely plausible that a heroic human could survive an encounter with the Mi-Go (which cannot be said about a lot of Lovecraftian beings, where death and madness come far too easily).

In my new book “Memories of Yuggoth” I have tried to present a story that brings the Mi-Go and their human allies into the modern world. In the story I have tried to use a classic interpretation of the Mi-Go as race (with all its complexities) without ignoring modern scientific advancements.