THE DEEP ONES: "The Big Fish" by Kim Newman

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THE DEEP ONES: "The Big Fish" by Kim Newman

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2RandyStafford
Dec 12, 2015, 1:44 pm

3housefulofpaper
Dec 13, 2015, 6:07 pm

Cthulhu 2000 for me.

4paradoxosalpha
Edited: Dec 16, 2015, 11:26 am

So, as predicted ("homage to Raymond Chandler"), this one was WWII-era detective noir. I guess that Winthrop, Genevieve, and Finlay were the "Diogenes Club" members? And I didn't catch the name of our protagonist.

In many ways, this seemed to be a typical fan-sequel to "The Shadow over Innsmouth." In several, it reminded me of "Pickman's Other Model". (I prefer the Kiernan story, if it comes to that.)

The one preternatural plot element that struck me as somewhat original was "Every generation must have a Cap'n." Possessed babies are funny and creepy, which seems to fit this story as a whole.

5housefulofpaper
Dec 16, 2015, 5:24 pm

>4 paradoxosalpha:

The Diogenes club is the favoured Gentleman's club of Mycroft Holmes (Sherlock's brother). I think it was the Billy Wilder film The Secret Life of Sherlock Holmes (with Christopher Lee playing Mycroft) that established the Diogenes as, in actual fact, a branch of the British Secret Service.

Kim Newman has gone a step further than say, Phllip Jose Farmer or Alan Moore in that, in his mash-ups of classic fictional characters, his own characters, and popular references, his own characters appear in slightly different guises in discrete parallel universes. I'm familiar with Winthrop and Genevieve from the "Anno Dracula" series, where the story stretches over about a century, but the vampire characters are present and active throughout.

I'm pretty certain that Genevieve is also a vampire in the Diogenes Club series proper, but this is the only one I've read set in the 40's (and obviously, they are purposely kept in the background here).

The narrator is Philip Marlowe...even if the wisecracking and drinking are generic now, there's the "Bay City" location and the mention of chess problems to identify him (working through chess problems and drinking alone are things Chandler has his lonely hero do...)

Finlay is not a Diogenes Club member but, as the story mentions, a member of its US equivalent.

6housefulofpaper
Dec 16, 2015, 5:38 pm

This was a welcome re-read for me. I thought the Raymond Chandler pastiche was well done (as far as my ear for mid-20th Century US dialogue could tell) and I enjoyed the Mythos elements. I thought it was more semiotically thick (Is that right?) than fan fiction, what with the background of B-movie Hollywood and East Coast religious cults AND the threat of the Japanese, and tying it all in the Deep Ones,

7RandyStafford
Dec 16, 2015, 6:54 pm

This was also a welcome re-read for me. I forgot some of the humor like the pseudonym "H. W. Lovecraft", and I liked the strange erotic attraction the narrator admits he feels for Jean Marsh.

Like the first time I read this, I thought the Japanese bits were so extensive they took on a moralizing flavor. If Newman was trying to make some ironic point (Hey, we're worried about this Japanese fifth column when we've had a real Deep One subversive group we haven't been paying attention to! Or, "Hey let's lock the Japanese up like we did with those Innsmouthians!") it didn't really work.

>5 housefulofpaper: Genevieve is also a character in some Jack Yeovel (aka Kim Newman, this story is credited to Yeovil inShadows Over Innsmouth work in the Warhammer universe.

8paradoxosalpha
Dec 16, 2015, 7:05 pm

>5 housefulofpaper:

Thanks for the clarifications! I think I got all the HPL allusions, but not the Chandler ones or the Newman ones.

9elenchus
Dec 16, 2015, 9:44 pm

>4 paradoxosalpha: Possessed babies are funny and creepy, which seems to fit this story as a whole.

I also appreciated the deadpan, hardboiled substitute for comedy, the opening line setting the stage: "The Bay City cops were rousting enemy aliens." I also liked especially the roustabouts thinking "something's fishy" and Janice's snarky, "He's out of his depth". I can see how it might be too over the top for some, but it never quite tipped that way for me.

I second my appreciation for clarifying it's Marlowe. I could tell it was meant to be someone like him or Spade, but didn't get it was him precisely. And the references to Japanese and the corrupt police force put me in mind of James Ellroy and Chinatown, a nice layer atop the 40s noir setting. Yes, definitely thicker semiotically than typical fan fiction.

I think I'll be voting for the sequel, as nominated for the Winter DEEP ONES.

10RandyStafford
Dec 16, 2015, 9:56 pm

>9 elenchus: I'll definitely be voting for "Another Fish Story" having read it once already.

11housefulofpaper
Dec 17, 2015, 3:34 pm

>7 RandyStafford:

Genevieve is also a character in some Jack Yeovil work in the Warhammer universe.

I understand, probably from reading a pre-internet interview back in the '90s, that that was where the character was invented. I haven't (yet) read any of the Warhammer material, but this original version of Genevieve would be another subtly different iteration of the character.

12RandyStafford
Dec 17, 2015, 7:23 pm

>11 housefulofpaper: I've read most of the Anno Dracula books, but I also haven't read the Warhammer stuff.