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A supernatural murder mystery! It doesn’t quite feel like it’s one of the other houses given the powers on display but rather that some of the houses are being judged for something that either happened in the past or is concealed within the conduct of the house representatives. I feel bad for the fourth house… but I’m also dreading a seemingly inevitable revealed ulterior motive.

Interesting stuff with the cooperation and the developing bond between Gideon and Harrow (and the Gideon note) but we are now in the part where pretty much every other house could be written to be the betrayer of the others, so it’s hard to get invested in the interpersonal relationships of these blue bloods given how they care more about being the ONLY lyctor, except the sixth, who has figured out what that means.

I would have loved a more high magic novel full of interstellar politics while Harrow and Gideon warmed to each other and the various houses bickered but it seems that we have a bit of a murder mystery. It’s too bad, because the person friendliest to Gideon (not flirtatiously) is now dead. I can’t say he was my favorite character, but it’s too bad to see a crumbling support network. Unless they were baddies…?

The action scenes with Gideon sparring and figuring stuff out and the entry into ThE bAsEmEnT are great. The latter is also the first hint at deeper mysteries around House Canaan, though characters like Teacher make this really bizarre. Like, what exactly is going on here? The old lab feels like the focal point of a revelation in current day that’s now 9,000 years past.

It’s great, it’s like the enormous, decaying Necromantic holds that Clark Ashton Smith wrote about with the implied gothic enormity but the teenage necromancers that are thumping about are—apparently—all girls and none of them have any reverence for this manse whatsoever, like someone strutting through the most self-important Gothic Horror of the 1930s and flipping the bird with both hands

In the olden days, I watched a movie called The Chronicles of Riddick which had an alien race called the Necromongers. It wasn’t a necromancer culture but it was as close as it could be without animating the dead. This is great because the central character gives zero fucks about the horrible society she was reared in and savages at every opportunity, unlike the deadly serious necromongers.

Umm at this point the ear woman is gone, and we are confronted with the Sheep Man, a man dressed in a sheep costume who speaks in sentences compressed into single words. It’s a fun moment, and what the sheep says calls everything about the MC’s relationship with the ear woman into question. Like, what is going on here???

We finally get to the root of the weird fiction concept. This isn’t just a sheep but a sheep spirit that blesses people, working out its own agenda while it dwells inside people, then leaving them when their usefulness has been eclipsed. You get the feeling that The Rat may be the current vessel for the sheep since it left the leader of the shadow government.

I’m glad that the MC’s GF got to come along. Granted, she’s a sort of walking deus ex machina, but this story is so glib about the stakes of them not finding the sheep that I’m not put off. The rigmarole about the cat is a fun aside. I’m not exactly sure about the comparison between ear girl and the dead coffee shop girl with the picnic reference.

So we are now in the meat of the “why”. The picture of the sheep is the spitting image of what is effectively the motivating force behind a Japanese shadow government, but there is a curious gap between the leader and the man executing what he assumes is the leader’s will as the former is in a terminal coma. Doubtless we would be better enlightened if the Boss could speak to the photograph of the sheep himself.

The novel starts to stray into a more tense angle with the bizarre drama surrounding the sheep, and then we are blasted with the story of how the MC ended up with the picture of the sheep: it was sent by The Rat, a friend in the previous two novels, and we get two of his letters as well as his quest to touch base with two other people, one of whom is the bar owner, J, from the past two novels.

We are already three women deep into the novel and the third, like a fairy tale, is the Magical Woman who, like the twins, is capable of intuiting what the main character is really thinking about beyond his standoffishness. The difference is, she is more direct in engaging his emotional self. The book beats us over the head with this as she is an EAR model. This isn’t necessarily meant to be erotic.

So, I had planned to read Gravity’s Rainbow, but I would rather not read another Pynchon novel right now—his most critically acclaimed one, too—and Murakami feels like it is going to hit what I want right now from modern lit. I just don’t think that I’m ready to face Gravity’s Rainbow down right after House of Leaves.

“Solomon Kane’s Homecoming (Variant)”

This is much the same poem as the first one, but it’s short some lines that alter the tone. The passages about Africa are less detailed and he doesn’t wish that Grenville had succeeded in arguing that they should have blown up their boat rather than be captured. We still get a sense of Solomon’s intense lonesomeness.

“Solomon Kane’s Homecoming”

A poem that details Solomon finally returning from Africa to Devon, recounting the death of Sir Richard Grenville, hearing news of his lover’s passing, telling tales of some of his adventures, and vowing to remain in Devon until he feels the pull of wanderlust before he even lays down to sleep. So he vanishes, like Ambrose Bierce, into a sort of immortality.

“The Children of Asshur (Fragment)”

More of an unfinished story, ending right in the middle of some political intrigue. In this case it’s the Mesopotamians that the Aryans drove out of the middle-east, another “ancient evil” that has settled in Africa. The battle overview shows Howard starting to have fun with his military historical fiction, which would be more important in Conan.

“The Footfalls Within”

This story explores more of the origins of Kane’s curious ju-ju staff and doubles down on the concept of Africa as the continent where all of the Earth’s ancient evils have been driven to. Solomon comes to the defense of a train of slaves and then is enslaved by the Muslims until they take an ill-advised detour to an ancient mausoleum marked by Hebrew characters.

“Wings in the Night”

Any of the ambiguity of what Howard may have thought of Africans is out the window with what he has to say about Saxon barbarians at the end of this story. The link that the akaana are the harpies that Jason and the Argonauts fought is kind of wild. I could have done without all the unilateral “Solomon is a white god to the beleaguered Africans” though.

“The Return of Sir Richard Grenville”

A narrative poem, again with Solomon intersecting with a famous historical figure. In this case, it’s Sir Richard Grenville, apparently an explorer and colonial. Grenville helps Solomon fight off a troupe of what I assume are native Africans… as a ghost!! I thought that Kane took place, uh, later than he actually did. This story dates it to a bit at least after 1591.

“Hawk of Basti (fragment)”

Solomon continues on from the vampire fight and runs across an old acquaintance who lures him into helping him regain his white man throne. Hawk is a jerk but unfortunately this story ends before he can get his comeuppance. There’s an interesting glimpse into Solomon’s backstory, this time having spent some time as a seaman.

“The Hills of the Dead”

The shaman that saved Solomon in the first big story returns to give his aid to Kane with a voodoo fetish and then helps him cleanse Africa of a territory full of ancient vampires. N’Longa is an interesting character and, even as a Puritan, there is some sort of respectful friendship, even if all Solomon did in “Red Shadows” was slay the white Le Loup.

“The Blue Flame of Vengeance”

Solomon vs. pirates, cross-connecting with a grisly local drama in England where a young and impetuous lord is attempting to r—- a young woman and get his revenge on her boyfriend for striking him in a duel. It’s a fun piece but Solomon starts to settle into superhero territory with his speech at the end. Never was a Howard hero so self-important, lol.

“The One Black Stain”

A narrative poem where Howard describes Francis Drake executing one of his friends over some sort of argument. Solomon dissents and is imprisoned for speaking against Drake and the execution goes on. When Solomon escapes and goes to avenge the fallen man, we see that he is suffering from immense guilt and regret, and it appears that Solomon stays his hand.

“The Moon of Skulls”

Solomon goes deep into the heart of Africa to find a lost girl and happens upon a remnant of the Atlantean people. Or, well, mostly the descendants of an Atlantean slave-revolt, who have become embodied with a blood lust over the last few thousand years by continuing to worship the Atlantean god of death. Nakari could have been an interesting character but this story is too racially charged.

“Death’s Black Riders (Fragment)”

This very short sketch has Kane meet a ghostly rider in a very narrow road in the forest. He shoots the rider when he gets a sense of it being a malicious spirit, only for him and his horse to get blasted by a burst of freezing air. Neither one is harmed but it’s a great hook for a story. Too bad Howard didn’t develop it into an adventure where Kane rocked it!

“The Castle of the Devil (Fragment)”

Some dude named John Silent (an homage to John Silence?) comes across Kane in France. Kane has just saved a child from being hung and has a mind to slay the Baron responsible, and Silent finds himself drawn along with Kane leading the way, but this ends before we get anything more than a sense of their budding camaraderie.

“Rattle of Bones”

This is less Kane the badass as the bumbling Puritan manages to get himself in a serendipitous fix of fates. In a roundabout way he sort of avenges wrongdoings but he is basically just a catalyst for a tidy twist ending. I admire the plotting, anyway. Gaston the Butcher gets his head split, but the skeleton that he frees gets its vengeance on the innkeeper, avenging Gaston.

“Red Shadows”

Kane runs across a young woman in what is presumably Spain and who has just been raped and is dying and swears to hunt down the man who raped her. This is a fast-moving adventure novel with two confrontations, one in the gang’s hideout and one in the jungles of Africa, where Solomon sees some pretty wild necromancy before making his mark.

“The Right Hand of Doom”

This is a short sketch where Solomon points out that the necromancer’s best friend, who sold out the necromancer for some gold and is laughing about it, is pretty contemptible, and then around the time of dawn sees this dude get his neck crushed by a big, hairy spider that turns out to be a five-fingered death grip.

“Skulls in the Stars”

Solomon is still a Howard hero but his stoicism at meeting evil and actually wresting a ghost into a physical being that he can talk to is a step beyond. He makes a puritan hero pretty fun. The dude literally sets the murderer to be executed by the ghost of the man that he killed, though in such a way that he can work himself free as it is “better to face death free and unshackled”.