Beneath the Moors

by Brian Lumley

Prof. Ewart Masters spends his convalescence, following a car accident, at the home of his nephew Jason Masters, pursuing his studies of ancient civilizations, during which he makes startling discoveries about the hidden city beneath the Yorkshire moors. His search to unravel the mystery of the green figurines, his efforts to assess the implications of Robert Krug's manuscript, lead ultimately to Devil's Pool and the surviving world of Lh'yib, culminating in a series of dream-like adventures as he wanders through the nightmare corridors of his new environment. Beneath the Moors is primarily Gothic in atmosphere, its brooding mystery and stark terror occasionally relieved by bits of quiet charm and subtle humor. And the author's straightforward "autobiographical" technique possesses an element of immediacy seldom achieved in this type of narrative. –from the dust jacket

Genres: Horror, Fantasy, Fiction, Cthulhu Mythos, Novella, Audiobook

145 pages, Hardcover

Published January 1, 1974

About the author

Brian Lumley was born near Newcastle. In 22 years as a Military Policeman he served in many of the Cold War hotspots, including Berlin, as well as Cyprus in partition days. He reached the rank of Sergeant-Major before retiring to Devon to write full-time, and his work was first published in 1970. The vampire series, 'Necroscope', has been translated into ten languages and sold over a million copies worldwide.

He was awarded the World Fantasy Life Achievement Award in 2010.

Reviews

[Jamie · Rating 2 out of 5]

I'd like to thank ChatGPT for lying its (metaphorical) ass off to trick me into reading this novel. I needed “a book that an AI chatbot recommends based on your favorite book” for a reading challenge and ChatGPT recommended this one. And, sure, this and Neil Gaiman's Neverwhere are both set mostly underground and somewhere in England, but that is absolutely where the similarities end. To be fair, I did keep asking for new recommendations because I'd already read everything it initially suggested, but this is basically the equivalent of saying your favorite book is Stephen King's It and ChatGPT suggesting The Fault in Our Stars because they both include a bridge.

This book is 145 pages and it took me 20 days to finish it. I don't know how Brian Lumley made a book about reptilian creatures living under the Yorkshire Moors so incredibly boring but somehow he managed it. I feel kind of bad because Lumley seemed very passionate about his writing in the foreword to this book, but fortunately he's dead and will never read this review. (I mean, it's not fortunate that he's dead, but you all know what I mean …) There's a very good reason why only two library copies of this book exist in my state and they're both the original 1974 first edition.

Anyway, if you generally enjoy books where the main character stumbles around a cave system for 100-ish pages while denying that he's actually in a cave and occasionally pissing off some unremarkable Lovecraftian creatures, definitely consider giving this one a read. 🤷🏻‍♀️

2.4 stars, rounded down.

[Marc *Dark Reader with a Thousand Young! Iä!* · Rating 4 out of 5]

A fine Lovecraft pastiche in Lumley's own decidedly British style. This was Lumley's first novel and second book published by Arkham House. The kernel of the story was previously published by August Derleth and Arkham House as "The Sister City". Lumley first submitted that as a 14,000-word story, then cut it down to 5,000 words as required for publication, and later expanded it further to become this novel, perhaps 40,000 words by my estimate. The endpaper indicates that only 4,00o copies were printed. Despite the rarity, it's generally affordable through second-hand bookseller, even more so in a reprinted e-book (2019 by Crossroads Press) and re-collected with other stories in Beneath the Moors and Darker Places. I'm glad to own the original little hardback. I first encountered a copy over a decade ago in the Alameda County Public Library in California and thought it unusual that they had such a rare volume in their collection. It no longer appears in their catalogue.

The story is told from multiple epistolary viewpoints but primarily the first-hand account of the main character, a man recovering from a head injury following a motor vehicle collision who becomes intrigued by an ancient statue of a reptilian figure found washed out from nearby moors. His researches into its provenance eventually lead him into said moors where through accident he discovers a hidden city. It takes a couple of chapters to become truly engaging but it gets there. Some of the core of the story felt episodic and thus slightly disjointed, but this experience later becomes part of the narrative. It has a satisfying conclusion.

One chapter is titled, "The Sister City," and I wonder if this is how the story appeared. I am unlikely to acquire a copy of The Arkham Reader from the 1960s that it was printed in. It certainly works as a short story on its own, one reminiscent of "The Shadow over Innsmouth," told by a different narrator from the rest of this book. Another chapter is titled, "Singers of Strange Songs," which thanks to my current Lumley reading project I realize is the source of a later tribute anthology by the same name (Singers of Strange Songs: A Celebration of Brian Lumley).

The book opens with an extended preface which provided Lumley the opportunity to share his journey of discovery of the Cthulhu Mythos, which started at age 12 and carried into adulthood. It goes long but it's unprepossessing and charming, and much appreciated now following his death a few months ago. It continues to relate his experience corresponding with August Derleth and coming to be published, including an account of his extended pestering of Derleth leading to this novel's acceptance for publication, with the knowledge that it would not appear for several years, which was quite good enough for the eager author. (It was accepted in 1970, Derleth died in 1971, and the book was not published until 1974.) This preface is preserved in the e-book version.

I've had cause to consider the life of the man, often in context of my own 25 year relationship with his books, and it seems like a good life. From this book's preface, Lumley wrote:

People have mentioned such silly things as reincarnation [referring to his own birth 9 months after Lovecraft's death]; frankly I wouldn't care to be a Lovecraft, even if I had his skill as a writer. No, I am distinctly an insider, I like my own time and get along fairly well with my fellow men, whatever their colours or creeds, and as far as "adventurous expectancy" goes, well, in my job there's no shortage of that!

No, I'm pretty happy with things. I've seen the first men on the moon (and watched them come back); I will see the first men on Mars; despite the energy crisis, pollution, and ICBMs, things look good to me. I mean, there's some damn good brandy around! A man can always curl up with a good book or a bad woman—or, seeing as she'll doubtless read this, with his wife!

I think he had cause to be satisfied with his life. He served his country as a young man, and this service took him to foreign places that, based on their frequent reappearance in his books, had a lasting impact on him. He had an inarguably successful career as an author, following his passion from an early age. He ended up receiving multiple lifetime recognition awards for his work, and there were fan conventions dedicated to him in England that he attended with his wife as guests of honour. He lived to a good age. It looks like a fine life to me, aside from the Mars disappointment, and the output of that life continues to bring joy to my own beyond his passing.

[Chuck Knight · Rating 5 out of 5]

Great novella following in H.P. Lovecraft’s footsteps while adding his own ideas and Mythos creatures. If you haven’t read any of Lumley’s Cthulhu Mythos stories and don’t care for the writings of Lovecraft, this is a fabulous story to start with.

[Elle]

Not bad! A pretty by-the-numbers Lovecraft story but it was well-written and I enjoy the nested style, where more and more people are pulled in through reading past accounts

[Christopher · Rating 4 out of 5]

Lumley never disappoints. A bit heavy on the cliche Lovecraftian tripped, but a good read.

[Sylri · Rating 4 out of 5]

The concept of this novel can be found in the short story “The Sister City”. Lumley states that his original plan had been to release a novel, but editing constraints forced him to trim things down to short story level. When he finally had the ability to publish it as a standalone novel, he went back and expanded on his original concepts to get what you now have before you.

In this case I think I might side with Derleth’s original thoughts on if this should be a short story vs novel, as I found the middle part of this book dragged a bit. This was Lumley’s first novel, if I’m not mistaken, and I think it shows in terms of the pacing.

This book definitely benefits from having read Lovecraft’s “The Doom That Came to Sarnath”. It’s basically summed up in the course of this story, but I still think you’d get the maximum effect reading the story for yourself.

I’d say there are around 3 different parts to this book:
1) Our character Evan Masters’ backstory, his discovery of a mysterious statue that begins his delving into the Mythos and occult. Very cool and I was definitely invested in our main character and his discoveries. There’s a bit where he’s found the documents of a previous character who had also searched for answers to this mystery that I quite liked.
2) His medical condition combined with his unhealthy delving into mysterious lore leads him to discover a mysterious underground realm. This section was where I thought the book started to drag. I wonder if this was where he had really expanded things out, as there’s quite a few chapters dedicated to meandering around. It works in something like Lovecraft’s “A Dream-Quest of Unknown Kadath”, because the different locations were quite varied, as well as being good world-building. Rather than something like the excellent “The Mound”, it’s a lot of Masters being by himself and checking out weird mushrooms and stuff. I do really appreciate Lumley expanding on the Bokrug as a species and their slave race, the Thuum’ha. Singers of strange songs indeed. It’s something I’m quite fond of in Lumley’s Mythos writing in general. Also shoggoth..
3) The third part switches POV’s entirely, and resumes the pacing of the first section. Our new POV character resumes his uncle’s research and things lead up to an appropriate climax. I quite enjoyed how things came together for this.

So overall, some really cool ideas and scenes but the pacing towards the middle is a bit off and completely changes tone from the first and last third of the book. You can tell this is an early effort by Lumley at writing a novel- his short stories at this time were already very good, but having read some of his later longer stuff this one doesn’t quite hold up all the way through.

Definitely still worth checking out for the Lumley Mythos fan!

[Arthur B · Rating 3 out of 5]

Rough early novel. Lumley doesn't quite stick the landing here, but it is at least a better attempt at Lovecraftian cosmic horror than The Burrowers Beneath, written at around the same time but taking a much pulpier approach. Full review: https://fakegeekboy.wordpress.com/201...

[Kamil · Rating 2 out of 5]

Bardzo mało kreatywne opowiadania. Dosłownie 2 wyróżniały się dla mnie tematyką, reszta to czerpanie całymi garściami od Lovecrafta i do tego w nieudolny sposób. Pierwsze opowiadania nawet mnie zaintrygowały, ale duża większość jest absurdalnie wręcz podobna. Wynudziłem się okrutnie i wolę jednak wrócić do Zgrozy w Dunwitch niż czytać tak słabe wykorzystanie materiału źródłowego.

[Jim · Rating 4 out of 5]

A short novel from early in the writing career of Brian Lumley. Good, escapist fare.

[Justin Greer · Rating 5 out of 5]

Excellent addition to Lumley’s Cthulhu oeuvre. I really enjoyed the addition to the mythos and the harrowing depictions of the world beneath the moors. Another favorite.

[Geoff · Rating 3 out of 5]

This is a Cthulhu Mythos book. It tells the story of a man trying to find out what happened when his uncle disappeared for a year, and came back, but was a certified lunatic. The uncle's story, is that he found an ancient underground civilization, under the Yorkshire Moors. He was was free to wander the underground tunnels, and caves at will. And where he found all sorts of horrors. It is written in the style of Lovecraft, but it's just not as exciting. There were a few situations, that were interesting, but for the most part the horrors were not as interesting as horrors created by Lovecraft. Nevertheless, it was still an entertaining read. I give it a C grade.

[Ryan Pascall · Rating 5 out of 5]

Disclaimer I was provided a copy of this audiobook free of charge in exchange for an honest review.

With big C on the cover of this book, I admit, I expected this to be all about the great sleeper and at no point did I consider how this would make no sense on a moor..

Interestingly enough, this is about a seldom explored race (who I shall not spoil) which was very interesting but, also, a little boring at times.

I don't want to spoil anything but this read a lot like the tale of changelings and so it was hard to consider it a Mythos tale besides the name-drops and races involved but it was interesting although lacked a sense of suspense but Joshua did a great job with the narration and, while not have a whole lot to work with, did a brilliant job of added a sense of trepidation and mystery along with interesting and identifiable character voices.

In all, I did enjoy the story but found it less exciting than the cover bad suggested and almost feel a change of image would help the book sell.