Like R'lyeh, man

And it was pretty good. Most of the guests were human or almost-human toadfolk who slobbered into their own beers (they brought their own keg too; I passed on an offered mug) or Monglod giants who peered into the apartment through a glass transom and smiled till I wandered over to open the door for them. They just sheepishly went to the corners of the living room and watched A mugwump named Doc appeared and played poker with himself, a winning hand clutched in each of ten spindly spider arms. A few of the old drunks who knew Neal back when he was a little kid ("I was a real rugrat!" Neal announced as he shoved an old feller named Howie at me, and Howie smiled and showed off a gap in his teeth big enough for a harmonica) joined in the game, foolishly forgetting the old rule never to play cards with anyone who called himself Doc.

That's a brief excerpt from Move Under Ground, a novel that's pretty brief in itself. It's about the Elder Gods of the Cthulhu Mythos making themselves known to Jack Kerouac and other Beats during Kerouac's Big Sur period. So, you know, it's out there.

Actually I get the feeling that Nick Mamatas, the author, is being quite critical of the Beats, finding them self-indulgent and more provincial than they thought. While Mamatas is a lefty, I think that racism aside* he may sympathize more with the Lovecraft side than the Kerouac side.

* I know. Aside from that how did you like the play, Mrs. Lincoln?