Creature From The Black Lagoon: Times Black Lagoon

by Paul Di Filippo

In 1954, an expedition found what seemed to be a missing link in the evolutionary an ancient, immensely powerful amphibian creature. Scientists tried to tame it, break its will, and even change its very being with surgery and torture, but the beast rebelled, killing nearly all in its way. But was the creature truly a throwback, a freak survivor of some prehistoric era-or was it something more? Six decades later, one scientist attempts to find out, using a time machine to journey into the past. What he finds not only shatters his vision of what the Creature might be, but could change the history of the human race forever. Paul Di Filippo reinvents the Creature with a tale of time travel, horror, and mystery that blends Cold War science fiction with today's cutting edge cyberpunk.

Genres: Science Fiction, Horror, Fiction, Novels, Adventure

276 pages, Paperback

First published September 6, 2006

About the author

Paul Di Filippo is the author of hundreds of short stories, some of which have been collected in these widely-praised collections: The Steampunk Trilogy, Ribofunk, Fractal Paisleys, Lost Pages, Little Doors, Strange Trades, Babylon Sisters, and his multiple-award-nominated novella, A Year in the Linear City. Another earlier collection, Destroy All Brains, was published by Pirate Writings, but is quite rare because of the extremely short print run (if you see one, buy it!).

The popularity of Di Filippo’s short stories sometimes distracts from the impact of his mindbending, utterly unclassifiable novels: Ciphers, Joe’s Liver, Fuzzy Dice, A Mouthful of Tongues, and Spondulix. Paul’s offbeat sensibility, soulful characterizations, exquisite-yet-compact prose, and laugh-out-loud dialogue give his work a charmingly unique voice that is both compelling and addictive. He has been a finalist for the Hugo, Nebula, BSFA, Philip K. Dick, Wired Magazine, and World Fantasy awards.

Despite his dilatory ways, Paul affirms that the sequel to A Year in the Linear City, to be titled A Princess of the Linear Jungle, will get written in 2008. He has two books forthcoming from PS Publications: the collection entitled Harsh Oases and the novel titled Roadside Bodhisattva. His 2008 novel Cosmocopia is graced by Jim Woodring illustrations.

Paul lives in Providence, Rhode Island.

Reviews

[Brad · Rating 1 out of 5]

The Coolness—

• The cover art by Stephen Youll is killer in a cheesy old movie way. So killer that it made me buy this book against my better judgement. The Gill-man on the cover, looking like he’s just risen from the swamp, dripping water from his forearms with some aquatic flora hanging loose from his chitinous armour, is a hoot, and coupled with old B-movie, Creature font, it is impossible to resist.

• Cody and Brice are nude. A lot! That’s what happens, I guess, when you’re back in the Devonian with the one that you love and no society is around to tell you to keep your clothes on.

• Zombie Gill-men!

• There’s this kick ass burial ritual for the “civilized” Gill-men where they liquefy their dead and return them to The Mother. I would love to have seen this used better in a different context. But it’s pretty cool nonetheless.

The Meh!-ness—

• You can’t have a good novel without an issue to revolve around, or at least that’s what I imagine Hackosaurid di Filippo’s creative writing teacher telling him. So di Filippo does the responsible thing and throws in some environmentalism for us. The world’s a mess in 2015 because of of our destruction of the environment, so good ol’ boy Brice wants to splice us together with a Gill-man to save our species from the eventual destruction our industrialization has wrought. Don’t worry, though, there’s no crisis or craziness happening when Brice goes back. Just an increase in temperatures and air conditioning. This could have been an excellent addition if it had been handled with some subtlety, but Hackosaurids are not known for their subtlety. They’re more like T-Rexes trying to be stealthy.

• The stupidity of Cody and Brice was sorta funny to begin with, but then it just gets annoying. What a pair of idiots. Still, it’s really easy to buy their stupidity, so they deserve everything they get. But then the super-genius who created the time machine adds his stupidity to the mix, and the Gill-People are just as stupid as all of them, so the stupidity is interminable and painful.

The Crapness—

• There is some really, and I mean REALLY, crappy wish fulfillment going on in this book. Case in point: “You own every part of me now, Brice, whether you ever wanted to or not. Don’t ever forget that.” You see, Cody was almost eaten by a seventy foot, prehistoric shark, but her geeky, marine biologist boyfriend, Brice just happen to nuke it from his kayak with a kick ass automatic rifle, saving her life. Then we get this little vow of personal enslavement, just before a crazy tumble in the bog between the two randy lovers, and all so Brice can daydream about the amazing foreplay that is a near death experience. Gill-man alive!

• AND there is some seriously shitty dialogue. Just consider this gem from Hackosaurid di Filippo when his heroes (and I use the term loosely), lose their iPod time machine and discover they’re stuck in the Devonian: “Brice showed Cody the empty holster on his hip. He tried to be light about their devastating loss. ‘Our ticket home’s been punched already. No mileage left.’” Umm ... need I say more?

• The Gill-folk are telepaths and water shapers and earth shapers and air shapers and aliens! Wow! Don’t you just love sci-fantasy? It’s like the cheesiest X-Men story ever.

• Gill-Folk = Noble Savages = Devonian Utopia. Then the Gill Zombies come and screw it all up. But the “base-line” Gill-People remain so nice and so understanding and soooooo peaceful. Oh joy, oh Devonian bliss. Silly assed foolishness.

• Most of the book. But at least it is better than The Spell of Zalanon. Barely. I better get a good pulpy fix soon our my head is going to explode. Trash is good, but vomit is unacceptable.

[Quentin Wallace · Rating 4 out of 5]

This wasn't at all what I expected, but was still very entertaining. If anything, the author tried to make it exceed expectations, but whether he succeeded or not is entirely up to the reader.

I was expecting a straight ahead monster story, but instead this is a pretty involved science fiction tale. Not what I'd call "Hard Sci-fi", but still as much science fiction as horror. This story serves as an origin tale for the creature, of sorts.

You have a scientist and his girlfriend travel backwards in time to a prehistoric era in order to determine what makes the Gillman tick. The idea is the Earth is being destroyed by global warming, so they want to find something in the creature's DNA they may be able to use so humans can survive in the new, possible aquatic, post-apocalyptic Earth. But as is usually the case, things go wrong. Horribly wrong. (I will warn readers the ending is...well, you'll probably either love it or hate it, but it's a bit of an open ending.)

Overall this is was a good read. I'm a big fan of the old Universal Monsters, although really this was only loosely related to the original character. If you like the Creature, you'll probably enjoy the novel.

By the way, the origin of the creature is both a surprise, and also obvious in a way. I won't spoil it here, so pick this one up.

[Craig · Rating 3 out of 5]

I sought this one out after reading some comments from Harlan Ellison, who raved about it. It was pretty well-done, but not what I was expecting. The plot and pacing did capture the spirit of the 1950's Universal films fairly well, but I thought the narrative and dialog suffered a little from overly convoluted syntax. Also, I had to refer to a dictionary on several occasions due to the use of some very obscure vocabulary; while that isn't a bad thing at all, it still kind of detracted from the flow of the narrative. Still and all, the creature from the black lagoon is one of the coolest movie monsters ever, and this novel offered some fascinating explanations as to his origin.

[Travis · Rating 3 out of 5]

An interesting attempt to capture the feel of the 'Creature' movie while updating it to a modern setting and give some explanation to the Creature.

Unfortunately, the modern setting has too many modern references and attempted clever bits that I found distracting and the explanation of the Creature fell a bit flat and kind of took some of the fun out of him.
While the main characters are interesting and sympathetic, it takes them too long to find the Creature and once they do the book gets a bit too 'MIcheal Crichton/ Planet of the apes for my tastes and the ending felt really rushed.

A good idea that just didn't quite work for me.

[Jim · Rating 4 out of 5]

I enjoyed this story about the Amazonian Gill-Man by Paul Di Filippo, although I think it's a take on the Creature that many of his fans wouldn't like. But I have long been a fan of the amphibian man and only wish that there had been more than three films made about him. At least, he gets this book. And I like the idea of people going back in time to the Devonian Period to discover the origin of The Creature from the Black Lagoon.
Come on, can't anyone do a reboot of the original 1954 film--with CGI?
Anyway, I give the book 4/5 stars.

[Elysa · Rating 2 out of 5]

I was really excited to read a Creature from the Black Lagoon story, but I didn't love it. It went in many directions I didn't expect, and I think there was maybe one element too many. The comments between the love interests (and the fact that they were constantly being called "the lovers" and the phrase "her/my man" came up so often) made it feel like a much older novel, but it was published in 2006. The pacing was sometimes fast but mostly slow, so it was hard to get into it and stay in it. Overall, it was okay, and I was happy to read more about the creature since I love the original movie.

[AC Bauer · Rating 1 out of 5]

The Creature from the Black Lagoon is my favorite Universal Classic monster, and wow, did this book do a number on it.

SPOILERS:
This book turns this classic creature into a telepathic amphibious alien (which feels lame to me). And involves time travel using an iPod. This book is basically that Will Ferrell movie Land of the Lost. Neither are very good… but at least Land of the Lost has some laughs in it.

Besides the story, the characters are flat. None of them are interesting. They try to be philosophical and scientific with some long droning speeches, but they just come across as unbelievable. It doesn’t sound like a how a person would actually talk.

Overall definitely not for me.

[Harold Pridemore · Rating 2 out of 5]

Creature has been one of my favorite monsters since I was a kid. The book has some good parts to it but when the make them aliens it blows the whole thing for me. They drugged it out so long I had felt I had to finish it major disappointment.

[Eric]

Full review: https://monsterbookclub.com/2022/09/2...

[Jeff Jellets · Rating 2 out of 5]

Do yourself a favor and just go watch the original movie again.

I remember 1954’s Creature from the Black Lagoon as one my favorite monster movies and , as a kid, shedding tears when the titular creature seemingly sinks dead into the deep. I had high hopes that Di Filippo’s Time’s Black Lagoon would evoke some of that classic horror movie nostalgia – after all the Universal Monsters imprint is on the book’s back cover – and thrill us with some classic Gill-Man chills.

Unfortunately, this one doesn’t go there, and is, in my opinion, a disappointment.

The plot is simply overwrought, needlessly convoluted, and stretches believability even for a monster book. Essentially, planet Earth is succumbing to global warming, leading the book’s main character to – and this is quite a jump -- determine that humanity’s best hope of survival lies in genetically engineering humans into mermen so they can live in the rising seas. Luckily for our leading scientist, Professor Tarquin Hasselrude just happens to be in the lecture hall audience to hear his proposal and suggests using the fabled Gill-Man from the Black Lagoon as a “much-needed” template for the gene splicing. But alas, that Gill-Man is long dead.

Not to worry! Because the lead character’s best friend has just developed a time machine – using, of all things, an ipod -- so said scientist and his girlfriend can go back in time 350 million years to snag a living Gill-Man from the Devonian age. Further tangling the story, there are now two off-shoots of Gill-Men: good, intelligent ones – who conveniently have mental powers, like telepathy, so we can avoid all that messy ‘how-in-the-world’ would 350 million-year old aquamen communicate with two time-travelling hipsters – and the bad, mutated, Coarsened Ones, (i.e. the Gill-Man from the movie I loved). Outside the Prologue, the first group doesn’t appear ‘til the 100 page mark and the actual bad ones – not until after page 200.

So it takes a while to get this far …

In contrast to the plot, the characters are vapid. Our scientist, Brice, is about as brave and clever as milquetoast and whiney. When he learns that the Gill-Men are not ancestral humans – but aliens (from outer space mind you!) – he throws a hissy fit because “alien” DNA somehow won’t fit into his scheme to give people gills. BUT YOU DISCOVERED ALIENS FOR GOODNESS SAKE! (And time travel, too, a few pages back). Seriously … that’s like two sci-fi ‘Holy Grails’ … check … and check. If I find outer-space aliens … boom! … speech at Smithsonian … then drop the mike.

As I’ve said before, I hate writing negative reviews so I’ll just stop here. As a Georgia native, I did appreciate Di Filippo’s inclusion of a number of local haunts – including Georgia Tech and Pine Mountain – and the book does pick-up quite a bit in the last three chapters (which honestly should have been the heart of the novel). But even the end is missed opportunity. The scientists seem to cure the syndrome that created the Coarsened Ones … so if the Coarsened Ones were all cured, then how did the Creature from the Black Lagoon emerge in the Amazon in 1954? The book has spent more than one page worrying over nature of time paradoxes, but then skips the one that could have hit the finale with a bang … and tied the tale back to its namesake movie?

Ugh … so disappointing.

[Jeffrey Doten · Rating 1 out of 5]

I gave it 1 star because I enjoyed the scene where they were watching old footage of the captured gillman . I thought it would interesting after that, but no. You know how some books are 'just the good parts' ? This should have been, then it would probably be a novella. There's far more padding than substance. "They had breakfast then they packed and drove down the interstate were they turned left and saw some ducks - " and on and on. Attempts at character involve johnnycakes and grits - Stephen King can do it, not Filippo. I'm pretty sure that's what he's trying to do, but it gets down to. It's plodding in an attempt at realism and hitting the page count. Frankly, I'm rather offended that Fillipo actually was paid for this. Thankfully it was cheap at the used bookstore . I won't even try to get money back on this one, it went in the recycling bin.

[Ed Dexter · Rating 2 out of 5]

Let me start by saying the Creature is my favorite of the classic Universal monsters...

The premise of the book sounded interesting...time-travelling back to the prehistoric period to learn about the Gill Man in his natural habitat. But once you meet the monsters, so to speak, it removes the mystery of the Creature seen in the films. It's like being in Disney and seeing Mickey behind the castle with his head off smoking a cigarette.

The ending very much reminded me of a classic monster movie where there's an epic world-threatening crisis that is very quickly resolved to finish the story up all nice and tidy so the credits can roll.

[David · Rating 4 out of 5]

Heh. A Creature from the Black Lagoon novel? I picked this up on impulse and found it be rather enjoyable. It's a bit slow getting started, but the pace keeps picking up all the way to the end. The story is not a retread of the old movie, but a SciFi/pulpy tale sequel of sorts. I'm not usually a fan of liscenced properties, but this book has me interested in this new series from Dark Horse, and am looking forward the Elizabeth Hand's Bride of Frankenstein novel.

[Erik · Rating 1 out of 5]

I love Creature from the Black Lagoon. This is not it. This takes everything cool and mysterious about the creature and throws it out, only to replace it with an absolutely ridiculous origin for the creature as an alien from another planet. On top of destroying the creature myth, it's also just very poorly written. I probably disliked this book more than anything else I've ever read.

[Jonathan · Rating 4 out of 5]

Of all the Universal Monsters The Creature from The Black Lagoon may be my favorite. This seems to me a well thought out book about how the creature got to be The Creature. Di Filippo knows what he wants to do, and gets there, in a easy manner. Worth reading.

[Walter · Rating 1 out of 5]

False characterization and misplaced emphasis on science sink what could have been a gripping adventure. Dialogue between lovers resembles what one imagines would appear in an over zealous college pamphlet's suggestions for appropriate exchanges between the genders. Empty useless junk.

[Fishface · Rating 4 out of 5]

Delightful extension of the story in the Universal monster picture. Captures some of the Fifties feel of the original story while adding in -- very believably! -- time travel, interspecies communication, and most importantly, MANY MORE GILL MEN. I'll read this again with pleasure.

[Ron · Rating 2 out of 5]

Oh, the creature is the good guy? Grendel, anyone?

[Larry Jones · Rating 4 out of 5]

Very cool play on the Creature mythos.
This books explains the cretures origins as well as their demise.
Highly reccommended.

[Chip · Rating 4 out of 5]

I actually liked this book more than I thought I would. Even with some of the heavy handed hippie crap, it was a fun read.

[Larry]

Easily... EASILY the worst book I have ever read. Had me alternately angry (several "are you blanking kidding me?!" moments) and actually laughing out loud at the absurdity. I read this on my commute to and from work and would have to put it down from being astounded at how bad it was sometimes. My coworkers and family got a weeks worth of "you won't believe what happened today!" stories. My god this was bad. Fan fiction never looked worse. It's been several years since I read it and I STILL think about how bad it was sometimes.