When last we saw rare-book dealer Matthew Hunter and the beautiful, dauntless Chantal Stevens they were searching for the lost testament of James, a much-rumored scripture by the brother of Jesus, a document powerful forces would kill to suppress.That was in Vin’s first Hunter-Stevens novel.
Now they’re back. Back at their shop, Books on Benefit in Providence, Rhode Island. Back with their distinctly motley crew of friends and associates (including a writer of vampire tales who may take his role just a little too seriously and a small person named Skeezix whose uncanny affinity with cats makes me wonder about his genetic heritage).
And of course they’re back to searching for another rare manuscript. This time there’s nothing biblical about it — unless you worship at the altar of H.P. Lovecraft, whose work the lost document is. Some of the characters in The Miskatonic Manuscript literally do worship at that altar, being members of the Church of Cthulu.Their religion has gotten one of their leaders in trouble with the DEA, which disapproves of the church’s sacraments. The imprisoned man’s brother wants Matthew to find the manuscript because it might, just might, contain the key to locating and updating a real-world device that will enable Cthulians to fight back against the war on drugs — by hopping between dimensions to launch surprise attacks against unrepentant drug warriors.
This time the manuscript is easily found, the dimension-hopping device is located — and the story roars into action.
This isn’t just a story of fighting drug warriors (though that, too). When something goes awry between dimensions and a rescue operation is needed, The Miskatonic Manuscript rapidly expands to encompass even more inter-dimensional travel, dinosaurs, nekkid women, .50 BMGs and RPGs, entheogenic drugs, and … well, you should really read to find out.The characters are well-drawn and likeable. The world of used book dealers is depicted in charming detail. Matthew and Chatal have fantastic chemistry (if you can say that about characters on a page, rather than onscreen). Their knowledge (and Vin’s) of entheogens is impressive. And all this is presented within a story that’ll keep you up late at night, turning pages long after you thought you’d turn in.
Are there flaws? Sure. A friend who also got a review copy commented that this book is like three and a half different novels strung together. Just when you think the story is going to go one way it goes another. Some of those about-faces take us in fascinating directions; some not so much. I found one segment a bit too John Carter of Mars-ish for my taste. OTOH, that might be your favorite episode (particularly if you’re fond of those abovementioned nekkid women).The one thing that’s consistent from page one to the dramatic climax is that Vin can really, truly spin an imaginative tale. This isn’t a novel you’ll read because the author is a freedomista (though that, too). This is one you’ll read because it’s a rip-roaring good time. . . .
The Miskatonic Manuscript is a novel of science fiction and fantasy and mystery and passion and drugs and big guns and scary creatures. It’s a story with great characters, beautiful writing, and plenty of action that moves most entertainingly along from start to finish. . . .
The author is a veteran newspaperman and was arguably the most libertarian writer in the mainstream media during his long career with the Las Vegas Review-Journal (a collection of his essays has been published as Send In The Waco Killers). He earlier turned his hand to fiction in 2005's The Black Arrow (May 2005), a delightful libertarian superhero fantasy. In The Testament of James (February 2015) we met Matthew Hunter, owner of a used book shop in Providence, Rhode Island, and Chantal Stevens, a woman with military combat experience who has come to help out in the shop and, over time, becomes romantically involved with Matthew. . . .
The present book begins with the sentencing of Windsor Annesley, scion of a prominent Providence family and president of the Church of Cthulhu, which regards the use of consciousness-expanding plant substances as its sacraments, who has been railroaded in a “War on Drugs” prosecution, to three consecutive life sentences without possibility of parole. Annesley, unbowed and defiant, responds:
"You are at war with us? Then we are at war with you. A condition of war has existed, and will continue to exist, until you surrender without condition, or until every drug judge, including you, … and every drug prosecutor, and every drug cop is dead. So have I said it. So shall it be."
Shortly after the sentencing, Windsor Annesley's younger brother, Worthington (“Worthy”) meets with Matthew and the bookstore crew (including, of course, the feline contingent) to discuss a rumoured H. P. Lovecraft notebook, “The Miskatonic Manuscript”, which Lovecraft alluded to in correspondence but which has never been found. At the time, Lovecraft was visiting Worthy's great-uncle, Henry Annesley, who was conducting curious experiments aimed at seeing things beyond the range of human perception. It was right after this period that Lovecraft wrote his breakthrough story “From Beyond”. Worthy suspects that the story was based upon Henry Annesley's experiments, which may have opened a technological path to the other worlds described in Lovecraft's fiction and explored by Church of Cthulhu members through their sacraments. . . .
Worthy offers a handsome finder's fee to Matthew for the notebook. Matthew accepts. The game, on the leisurely time scale of the rare book world, is afoot. And finally, the manuscript is located.
And now things start to get weird—very weird—Lovecraft weird. A mysterious gadget arrives with instructions to plug it into a computer. Impossible crimes. Glowing orbs. Secret laboratories. Native American shamans. Vortices. Big hungry things with sharp teeth. Matthew and Chantal find themselves on an adventure as risky and lurid as those on the Golden Age pulp science fiction shelves of the bookstore.
Along with the adventure (in which a hero cat, Tabbyhunter, plays a key part), there are insightful quotes about the millennia humans have explored alternative realities through the use of plants placed on the Earth for that purpose by Nature's God, and the folly of those who would try to criminalise that human right through a coercive War on Drugs. The book concludes with a teaser for the next adventure, which I eagerly await. The full text of H. P. Lovecraft's “From Beyond” is included; if you've read the story before, you'll look at it an another light after reading this superb novel. End notes provide citations to items you might think fictional until you discover the extent to which we're living in the Crazy Years.
Drug warriors, law 'n order fundamentalists, prudes, and those whose consciousness has never dared to broach the terrifying “what if” there's something more than we usually see out there may find this novel offensive or even dangerous. Libertarians, the adventurous, and lovers of a great yarn will delight in it. The cover art is racy, even by the standards of pulp, but completely faithful to the story.
"The Miskatonic Manuscript" has printed; the next adventure of Matthew Hunter and Chantal Stevens is now set for general release Dec. 11, 2015.
Inevitably, some few readers of The Miskatonic Manuscript have objected to certain themes in the book. It seems only right to give Vin the opportunity to respond to them, to expand on his thinking — and to remind readers that, in Vin’s words (below), “Miskatonic Manuscript is science fiction, and science fiction traditionally has been more cautionary than prescriptive."
This is the first part of a planned series of a Q&A with Vin. If you have questions or comments you’d like to see addressed in future installments, please post them in the comment section below. . . .
Q: Some readers may object to the violence in The Miskatonic Manuscript. Would you like to address their concerns?
A: Hundreds of thousands of people in this country are engaged in the commerce in alcohol, which is by far our most harmful drug, both to people’s health and the welfare of our families. Yet essentially none of them ever shoot or kill each other in disputes over distribution territories, or overdue bills, or adulterated product. Why? Because we gave up on alcohol Prohibition 80 years ago; it’s legal. Yet among those who engage in the commerce in banned plant extracts, an estimated 6,000 young black Americans – I’m only counting the young black Americans, now — shoot and kill each other in our inner cities every year in just such disputes. Six thousand. . . .
That’s before we talk about the hundreds of thousands of Americans locked up for half their lives in our perverse and dehumanizing prison system, for no other reason than because they bought or sold or possessed certain plants which were given to mankind by God for our use, and which were used without any big problem for thousands of years before 1933, but which were banned by politicians trying to create jobs for former alcohol Prohibition agents because those plants were traditionally favored by blacks or Hispanics or Asians. . . .
That’s not violence? I wrote about that wave of violence for 20 years in my nationally syndicated newspaper columns – violence created by government, by the War on Drugs that’s turned our inner cities and large parts of Mexico and Venezuela and Colombia into lawless living hells, and the general response was “(Yawn) Ho-hum, what’s new?” . . .
Yet now I write about a fictional church whose fictional leaders are locked up for multiple life terms for using plant sacraments that work, and the members of this fictional church finally get tired of turning the other cheek and instead they fight back, killing maybe 15 or 20 of their fictional oppressors, drug cops and drug judges, in a work of fiction, and that’s somehow way out of bounds? People would have been satisfied that “Miskatonic” had a sufficiently dramatic conclusion if I’d instead had all these church members get together at the end of the book and write a really pointed letter to their congressman? . . .
Thomas Mitchell’s review of TMM is here: https://4thst8.wordpress.com/2015/12/11/check-out-the-second-installment-in-the-exciting-adventures-of-a-used-book-dealer/ — Thanks, Mitch! Oh, and he also includes TMM in his column here: https://4thst8.wordpress.com/2015/12/11/newspaper-column-give-a-gift-that-warms-the-heart-and-fills-the-head/ — along with several other books, including one from Range Magazine that sounds gorgeous.
John Walker, who surprised us with a lovely review of The Testament of James last year, reviews The Miskatonic Manuscript here: http://www.fourmilab.ch/documents/reading_list/?book=1029 — John, thanks again.
