Alex Easton is never going to get a break. First, it’s childhood friends of theirs getting slowly consumed by sentient mushrooms. Then it was nearly being killed by something that haunted dreams. And now, it’s America.
They never wanted to visit America, especially an abandoned West Virginian coal mine that very well may be haunted.
But when Dr. Denton, old friend and fellow survivor of the mushroom horror of Usher House, asks them to help find his cousin―who went missing in that very mine―well, what sworn soldier would turn them down?
So the first book was Edgar Allan Poe’s The Fall of the House of Usher, the second was Polish/Ukranian folktales; now we have H.P. Lovecraft’s At the Mountains of Madness? This was another creepy yet interesting read in the series. Certainly solidified my claustrophobia and lack of desire to go anywhere near a coal mine, no matter how many of my maternal relatives used to earn a living doing so back in the day.
Interesting to finally figure out what exactly the deal is with Alex’s gender and the sworn soldier pronouns; makes no change whatsoever in my enjoyment, but still interesting to finally have an answer to. Dr. Denton (and unfortunately my mind finally remembered the old Erma Bombeck joke, so now every time I think of him, I think of pajamas) continues to join Alex in being part of the “eventually we will have those nervous breakdowns we’re entitled to” club, while Angus of the no known other name just stays the long-suffering one who tries to keep Alex alive as long as possible. Unfortunately this book we are deprived the joys of the mycologist Eugenia Potter, but we gain Denton’s assistant Kent (Angus’ American counterpart) and the chemist John Ingolds, a half First-Nation friend and neighbor of Denton’s. Seeing as this book is set at the immediate end of the American-Spanish War, I wonder how hard Ingolds’ life is (America was not exactly the most enlightened place for anyone who wasn’t peelie-wally at the time) with his background, never mind his “friendship” with Denton.
Having just finished Silver and Lead, I am struck how much Kingfisher and McGuire have very similar writing styles. When there is humor, it’s done in a very dry, tongue-slightly-in-cheek kind of way.
Land of opportunity, they say, which presumably includes the opportunity not to hold a baby.
Skin and stone changes, but not much else. There are always children pelting around and harried-looking men moving cargo into wagons and a few extremely worried men who do not have cargo and don’t know why and a dozen horses looking bored and one horse looking like it is about to go on a rampage and a couple of lost passengers huddled together like a clutch of baby chicks. Inevitably, a vendor is trying to sell something to one or more of these groups, except possibly the horses.
What I continue to love about this series is that the horror, while fantastical, is also all so horrifying real; I would not be the least bit surprised if one day I read something like what occurs in this book happening. Mostly because Kingfisher coaches everything very much into reality and real fears; something unknown stalking you in the dark, being caught in a small space underneath tons of rock, the uncanny valley of an animal. It preys on your mind because it’s all so close to being true. (I love it).
Happily, the ending of the book hints that this may not be the last, because I want to know how T. Kingfisher is going to traumatize me next.
Warning: there is a lot of gore, and blood, and guts. And sadly, the dog dies.