The Magnificent Seven versus Cthulhu. That was perhaps the best or worst idea for a book I’d had in years. It was, of course, one of the many ideas I’d pondered while thinking about whether I should write a sequel to Cthulhu Armageddon. Response was excellent to that not-so-eldritch tome about a cursed soldier and his companions versus the cosmic horrors of a post-apocalypse world. The question was whether I should write a sequel.
The best Lovecraftian fiction, except for maybe Titus Crow’s adventures, has all been standalone material. This is because most protagonists go insane, die, or become unimaginable horrors who are in no position to continue their journey down the Chthonian hole to the Nameless City.
Then I realized that Jessica, John, and Mercury’s story wasn’t quite done yet.
I also needed Cthulhu to show up.
When I last left them, John had just learned that he had something unmentionable in his lineage that was destined to turn him into a monster, Mercury had discovered a talent for witchcraft, and Jessica was trapped in a dream from which she might never wake up. It was suitable as a downer ending, but I wanted to know what happened next, and since I, the author, was interested, I decided I might as well share it with you. I ended up sketching out a veritable cornucopia of ideas related to the post-apocalypse mythos Weird West. I also wanted to write about those other anti-heroes and protagonists the world might have produced. As for Cthulhu showing up, that was more a specialized preference of mine. Old Bat Wings was a presence in Cthulhu Armageddon but never actually made an appearance. Instead, like Sauron in The Lord of the Rings, he just loomed as a figure symbolizing everything that had gone wrong on Earth.
Screw that.
I admit, part of my desire for the Dreamer in R’lyeh to show up spawned from the archetypal tabletop Call of Cthulhu campaign. In the Shadows of Yog-Sothoth, The Masks of Nyarlathotep, and a few others, preventing the rise of a Lovecraftian horror is the goal of the protagonists. It’s a classic task that has been duplicated by the Ghostbusters, Buffy the Vampire Slayer, and the Justice League. I wanted to give that sort of quest to my characters and see how they dealt with it since H.P. Lovecraft himself had penned it as the basis for The Dunwich Horror (ironically, NOT, the literary Call of Cthulhu).
There was just one small problem. In the world of Cthulhu Armageddon, the Great Old Ones are already awake. That was sort of the premise of my world, that they’d gotten free and wrecked the place. What was my hypothetical Great Old One going to do? Burn the ashes? Knock over what few ruined skyscrapers remained?
But what if the cultists had a different reason for wanting to awaken the last of the sleeping Great Old Ones? What if that reason was a good one? To find out what that is, I give you The Tower of Zhaal. Cthulhu will show up in it.
Just don’t expect him on the first page.