6.6 /10 1 Votes
3.1/5 ManyBooks Publication date 15 May 2004 Originally published 15 May 2004 Genre Horror fiction Publisher Night Shade Books | 3.6/5 Goodreads Language English OCLC 55647282 ISBN 1-892389-91-6 Country United States of America | |||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
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Media type Print (Hardback & Paperback) Pages 191 pp (first edition, hardback) Similar Works by Nick Mamatas, Fantasy books | ||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
Nick mamatas move under ground
Move Under Ground is a horror novel mashup by Nick Mamatas which combines the Beat style of Jack Kerouac with the cosmic horror of H. P. Lovecraft's Cthulhu Mythos. It is available as a free download via a Creative Commons license.
Contents
Plot summary
Jack Kerouac witnesses the rising of R'lyeh off the California coast. With Neal Cassady and William S. Burroughs, Jack takes to the road, crossing America to save the world from a Lovecraftian cult.
Characters
Awards and nominations
Release details
Limited edition
The limited edition hardcover includes the short story "Jitterbuggin'", an afterword, a bound-in ribbon bookmark, and a unique Lovecraftian senryū written by Mamatas. 100 copies of the limited edition were produced, and the senryū were collected as Cthulhu Senryū (Prime Books, 2006)
Reception
Move Under Ground was widely and positively reviewed, by trade, genre, and non-genre publications. In addition to reviews in Publishers Weekly and Booklist, the book received positive notices from Fangoria, Locus, Green Man Review, Bookslut, and other genre-themed publications and columns. More unusually for a first horror novel from an independent press, Move Under Ground was reviewed by publications more widely known for reviewing avant-garde and literary fiction, including The Believer, Village Voice, and the American Book Review.
Positive word of mouth continued long after the releases of the hardcover and paperback releases. As recently as 2009, major genre publications such as Tor.com published an article on the book by novelist Jon Evans. In September 2010, Kenneth Hite declared the book one of the best Cthulhu Mythos stories not written by Lovecraft, in his book Cthulhu 101. Hite also declared the book one of the top five Mythos novels of all time via Twitter. In an October 2010 podcast and interview, author Nick Mamatas explained that his goal in writing Move Under Ground was to write a novel that would still be discussed ten years after its initial publication, referencing The Enemies of Promise by Cyril Connolly.
Foreign-language editions
A German-language edition was published in 2005 by Edition Phantasia A Greek-language edition is forthcoming in 2011 from Jemma Press.