The Burrowers Beneath

December 30, 1996
Although horror writer Lumley is best-known in the U.S. for his Necroscope series, he first achieved international attention for his Titus Crow saga, modeled on H.P. Lovecraft's seminal Cthulhu mythos. This volume, containing the short novels The Burrowers Beneath and The Transition of Titus Crow, is the first of three Titus Crow volumes to be published by Tor, each of which will contain two novels. Lumley's style here is straight out of the classic pulp era, fast-paced and full of eerie landscapes and sinister plots. Titus Crow and his Watsonian sidekick, Henri Laurent de Marigny, face one danger after another with a mix of horrified fascination and grim determination. In The Burrowers Beneath, research into a series of underground disturbances leads the duo into a deadly encounter with the evil minions of Cthulhu. A cliffhanger ending segues directly into The Transition of Titus Crow, in which an antique grandfather clock turns out to be a vehicle for traveling through space and time. Lumley's settings are worthy of H.G. Wells as well as Lovecraft. The ornate style retains the distinctive tone of Lovecraft's work without being excessive, offering a refreshing change of pace from the usual, hard-driving modern horror novel.

September 29, 1997
With this third two-novel volume (after Titus Crow, Vol. One and Titus Crow, Vol. Two ), Lumley brings two interconnected fantasy series published as paperback originals over a decade ago to a thrill-packed conclusion. In the Moons of Borea sends Hank Silberhutte and Henri-Laurent de Marigny, both of whom have transmigrated from Earth to realms beyond space and time, on a mission to thwart the evil wind elemental Ithaqua. Elysia: The Coming of Chthulu reunites the duo with their mentor, psychic adept Titus Crow, for a final showdown with Cthulhu, the demigod who schemes eternally to overthrow the Earth. Aiding the good guys are David Hero and Eldin the Wanderer, swashbuckling rogues from the author's Hero of Dreams sword-and-sorcery saga. Both books, which take their cue from H.P. Lovecraft's dreamworld fantasies, are full-throttle quest adventures that challenge their hard-working heroes with increasingly bizarre labors before rewarding them with the love of fair heroines. Lumley shows his usual panache for pitting earthly protagonists against unearthly horrors and for inventing such outrageous life forms as a sentient cloud of interstellar gas, zombies that pilot galleons of the air and a cult of malevolent wizards frozen in blocks of ice. The over-the-top finales are as powerful as explosions in a special-effects factory and catapult Lumley's fiction into a category all its own.