Lovecraft Country by Matt RuffMy rating: 5 of 5 stars
Lovecraft Country is a collection of inter-connected stories about an extended African American family in the mid to late 1940's and their encounters with things not of this world, notably sorcerers, a gateway to another world, and a haunted house.
Holy. Shit. Lovecraft Country is an early front-runner for the best book I've read in 2016. Here's how it all went down.
Lovecraft Country is the story of the Green/Turner family, an African American family trying to make ends meet in the Jim Crow era. Matt Ruff does a great job of contrasting the cosmic horror of the Lovecraft mythos with the everyday horrors of racism and ignorance. I loved how each story used Lovecraft staples as a starting point and interjected a member or two of the Turner family.
The ages-long connection between the Turners and the Braithwaites was very well done. For an evil mastermind, Caleb Braithwaite was a well-drawn character, far from the scene chewing villain he could have been. The magic system was well done and true to the tale's Lovecraftian roots. The Turners were capable but not superhuman by any means.
Honestly, I can't think of anything bad to say about this book. It hit all the right buttons for me. It has the momentum of a collection of pulp yarns but the writing is far superior to most stories of this kind and the Jim Crow era setting and the well drawn characters set it several notches above most books of this type.
Five out of five stars. Good luck impressing me after this, next book.
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