Footnotes to the Human Species (re)Begins with "City of Pillars"

January 31st, 2008

Footnotes to the Human Species has returned with an brand-new website and a brand-new story, “City of Pillars”!

For those of you who were enjoying “Trois Freres” on the previous, “beta-test” version of Footnotes–fear not: that story will return in a much-improved, edited, and greatly revised version shortly. The official launch of Footnotes to the Human Species begins with “City of Pillars”, however, simply because “City of Pillars” sets up characters, concepts, and major worldbuilding events that explain more about what is happening in “Trois Freres” and related tales. In other words, “City of Pillars” is the starting point from which all other tales in the milieu, whether they come before or after the events of “Pillars”, originate.

“City of Pillars” begins my re-telling of the history of the Twentieth and early Twenty-First Centuries from a Lovecraftian standpoint by supposing one simple thing: What if the terrorists who attacked New York City on 9/11/2001 were Cthulhu cultists armed with an authentic copy of the original Al-Azif of Abdul Alhazred? What if the attack on the World Trade Center was not a goal in itself, but merely a means toward achieving a goal–namely, opening a gateway to unhallowed dimensions of whirling chaos so that the Other Gods and their minions could begin again their colonization of our universe?

All of the stories in the Footnotes milieu are derived entirely from the works of H. P. Lovecraft himself. Readers don’t need to be familiar with Lovecraft’s works to enjoy them, but it sure does help! “City of Pillars”, for instance, features appearances by or mentions of the fungi from Yuggoth, the Great Race of Yith, and Yog-Sothoth, as well as Nyarlathotep, the Crawling Chaos and, of course, Cthulhu itself. In some fashion, “Pillars” is a sort of “sequel” to Lovecraft’s “The Dunwich Horror”, “The Whisperer in Darkness”, “The Shadow Out of Time”, and “The Call of Cthulhu”–but you needn’t read all of these original tales to understand what’s going on in “City of Pillars”. Lovecraft fans will find hundreds of references to all things…well, Lovecraftian–but even readers completely unfamiliar with Grandpa Theobald’s works will be able to enjoy the stories!

So do have a look at the new tale and the new site. Subscribe to the RSS feed and have new material delivered right to your doorstep. And most of all, feel free to leave comments!

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