Reviews and Comments

So overall I really liked this book. It recast the standard Lovecraft mythos in Jim Crow America, with the protagonists various members of the same African-American family who get pulled into the various machinations of groups of cultists. The fact that this was already a group of people that were pretty much at the mercy of whatever white America chose for them makes them ideal fodder for a group that can capitalize on that to use them as pawns in their own games.

Probably my biggest gripe in these was that there was very little of Elder God-like beings in these books. There was one instance where some very non-human creature made an appearance, plus a couple of instances of ghosts/spirits, but by and large this was focused on the people and there wasn't a lot to distinguish the sorcerors as being particularly Lovecraftian. In some ways this was almost more of a spin on a detective noir trope, but with spells and sorcery instead.

So, sadly I am yet again reminded that I am old. I'm no longer able to keep details of these series in my mind so that I can read the next installment a year or more later, and also don't have the free time to take a week and just plow through all the previous books as a refresher (how much time did I lose to rereading all the Robert Jordan books all those years ago....?).

That having been said, I did not do a bad job at recalling what had gone before here. Still a fair bit of "Wait, who was that character again?" but overall I was able to follow the plot and know what was going on relatively well. Still a puzzle/mystery to figure out what was going on in this book, but also got some good backstory to help fill in some of the bigger picture stuff.

I definitely have "re-read all three books" on my early 2023 list, which will help in really wrapping my head around the plot and what's going on.

My path to this was more than a little roundabout. After watching the "Time Stand Still" documentary, I found myself thinking of the documentary before this, when they talked about the events that became this book. As I was in enthusiastic about what I had to read, I decided to give this book a try to see if there was some fresh content from the band to consume.

The book details the events that took Neil's daughter and then his wife, and his multi-year struggle to reconstruct his identity and life after his loss. Written as a part travelogue, part memoir, it covers his travelling and his attempts to put the pieces back together.

The look into his process of painfully going back to see who he is now is raw, fascinating and unflinching. It takes him a solid two years to pick up a pair of drumsticks again (and a few years after that to rejoin the band and move forward musically), and he freely admits his flashes of bitterness at seeing couples and families that remind him of what he's lost.

Equally interesting are his observations while on the road. He skewers a lot of the fellow travelers as fat and incurious, and displays a grasp of Western environmental issues (water rights) that many Americans don't have.

His reading rate is equally impressive, he devours books (and writes in his journal and letters to friends and family) at an amazing rate.

My path to this was more than a little roundabout. After watching the "Time Stand Still" documentary, I found myself thinking of the documentary before this, when they talked about the events that became this book. As I was in enthusiastic about what I had to read, I decided to give this book a try to see if there was some fresh content from the band to consume.

The book details the events that took Neil's daughter and then his wife, and his multi-year struggle to reconstruct his identity and life after his loss. Written as a part travelogue, part memoir, it covers his travelling and his attempts to put the pieces back together.

The look into his process of painfully going back to see who he is now is raw, fascinating and unflinching. It takes him a solid two years to pick up a pair of drumsticks again (and a few years after that to rejoin the band and move forward musically), and he freely admits his flashes of bitterness at seeing couples and families that remind him of what he's lost.

Equally interesting are his observations while on the road. He skewers a lot of the fellow travelers as fat and incurious, and displays a grasp of Western environmental issues (water rights) that many Americans don't have.

His reading rate is equally impressive, he devours books (and writes in his journal and letters to friends and family) at an amazing rate.