Michael Shea (1938-2009)

May 10 marks the noted U.S. fantasy and horror writer's 85th birthday

May 10, 2023

....He knew this being into whose view he'd come! Knew this monster was the King of a vast migration of titans across the eons of the countless Space-Times! Over the gale-swept universe they moved, these Great Old Ones. Across the cracked continents they trawled, they plundered! Worlds were the pastures that they grazed, and the broken bodies of whole races were the pavement that they trod!

"Copping Squid"

Michael Shea (1938-2009) was born 85 years ago. As a horror reader, I came to him late, inspired by several podcast episodes featuring Shea reader Patton Oswalt.

Looking back to my initial post, about Shea's novel The Color Out Of Time (1984), the air of smart-assery is embarrassing:

All the sins of Lovecraft pastiche by Lovecraft's epigones are on display. An alien force that in "The Colour Out of Space" was completely indifferent to mankind and earth becomes for Shea an occasion for good versus evil combat. Can plucky humans thwart the alien menace?

Some human monsters have walk-on roles, as they did in J.G. Ballard's early apocalypse novels. Other horrific anatomic consequences foreshadow the rural body-horror of Stephen King's Dreamcatcher.

Reading this novel may sound like a chore. But Shea played a large role in the literature of Lovecraftismo in the post-1970 period. It is of historical interest for completists to check it off their lists.

The remainder of my posts, written after reading Shea’s superb short stories, are more enthusiastic. They can be found with these links:

An uproarious piece of supernatural revenge slapstick, recounting one of those days when nothing goes right and we wonder whose side the gods are really on. Here they are on the side of the wronged, though the laborer through whom they act probably has a different opinion now.

An audio version of Uncle Tuggs can be heard here.

Morgan Scorpion’s performance of Shea’s “The Autopsy” is available here.

Jay

10 May 2023