The Dream-Quest of Vellitt Boe

I adore this book about a woman who must undertake a perilous journey to save her beloved town - and the Lovecraftian worlds that lie beneath ours (or at least in some parallel state). I loved Vellitt Boe and the cat, and I loved the journey. I could have read a book five times as long about this character, but I know that this novella is meant to mirror, update, improve upon, speak to, etc., a Lovecraft story that is also not book-length. As in N.K. Jemisin's Fifth Season and Obelisk Gate, the protagonist is not a young woman, but someone who is important to the fate of the world. That's a fine new trend that I hope continues for a good long time. I did laugh about "Wisconsin." Wonderful.

The short novel The Dream-Quest of Vellitt Boe is Kij Johnson's 21st-century rejoinder to The Dream-Quest of Unknown Kadath by H.P. Lovecraft. Johnson's story features a college professor who is tasked with a quest in which she must journey to the "waking world," so-called by its natives like Randolph Carter, who consider Kadath, Ulthar and its environs, Hatheg-Kla, Serranian, and the like to be "the lands of dream." The story titles are not perfectly parallel: Unknown Kadath is a place, but Vellitt Boe is a protagonist.

Although far from uncritical of Lovecraft's dreamlands, this story is also a fond homage to them, fully congruent with the narrative continuity established in Grandpa Cthulhu's own tales, although taking place in a later show more period. By making her protagonist a native of the otherworld in quest of our own, Johnson put me a little in mind of Katherine Valente's The Boy Who Lost Fairyland, but while that book offers its sojourn in the mundane quite early, Johnson's takes almost the whole book to achieve it for Vellitt Boe.

There are a couple of subtle digs at Lovecraft's racism, but the main conundrum of this Dream-Quest is gender: "Did women have dream lands? In all her far travelling, she had never seen a woman of the waking world nor heard of one" (50). Randolph Carter is supposed to have said it was on account of the "tiny," domesticated dreams of women. But again, this book is not picking a fight with Lovecraft, so much as collaborating with his shade to build a framework that can open onto "another dream land, built from the imaginings of more powerful women dreamers" (72).

And it holds to the love for crystal cliffs and luminous sea-deeps, zoogs and gugs, subtle priests and sapient cats. show less

Weird, Magical - and Hella Feminist

(Full disclosure: I received a free ebook for review through NetGalley.)

"When were women ever anything but footnotes to men’s tales?"

"Some people change the world. And some people change the people who change the world, and that’s you.”

-- 4.5 stars --

When third-year student Clarie Jurat goes missing from Ulthar's Women’s College, her Mathematics professor Vellitt Boe sets out to retrieve her. Clarie's father is one of the College’s Trustees, and it's well within his power to shut the college down in the face of such scandal. This would prove a devastating loss, as the Women's College - the newest and humblest of the Seven Colleges of Ulthar’s University - is a sanctuary of sorts for "women show more who don’t fit anywhere else" in the Six Kingdoms.

Vellitt lives in the dream world, a universe crafted from the minds of dreamers in our own world, the waking world. For whatever reason, all of the dreamers seem to be men - and they have dreamed into existence a world that is mostly absent of women, deeply entrenched in sexism, and ruled by gods that are as petty as they are numerous. The Women's College is a beacon of light in an unkind world - and Vellitt, for one, is determined to keep the flame burning.

In her younger days, Vellitt - then known as Veline - was a far-traveller; she walked the lands of the Six Kingdoms, traversed its seas like her mother the sailor, and fell into and escaped from the under-realms. She has evaded zoogs, battled ghouls, rescued gugs, and marveled at krakens. She's seen flying cities and passed over vast undersea civilizations. She knows all ninety-seven stars in the dream-realms sky, and can name the six constellations. Now she must call upon these dusty skills - and a few old connections - to find Clarie before she crosses into the waking world with the charismatic dreamer Stephan Heller.

Her quest will take her from the temple at Hatheg-Kla to the distant kingdom of Ilek-Vad; from the caverns carved deep beneath the ruined silver mines of Eight Peaks to a church in Wisconsin, present day. Along the way she'll learn that Clarie Jurat isn't who she claims to be - or not just, anyway - and it's not only the fate of Ulthar's Women's College that's at stake.

The Dream-Quest of Vellitt Boe is the sort of book I hate reviewing, on account of my words could not possibly do it justice. This is a magical and imaginative tale, one that's subversive and thoughtful but also damn entertaining. Johnson immerses you in the dream world, giving you just enough information to stoke your imagination, but not nearly enough to sate your appetite. She leaves you wanting more, but it's a good hurt.

Vellitt's world is weird and kind of wonderful (albeit in a horrifying way), and populated by all manner of unusual creatures. (This would make an amazing movie, okay.) I especially loved the story about Veline and the infant grog, and how her random act of kindness paid off all those years later. And the 1971 Buick Riviera was a great touch. It kind of reminded me of Dean's ‎'67 Chevrolet Impala; specifically, how Gabriel stuck Sammy inside of it, Knight Rider styley, in "Changing Channels."

This is the sort of book an e-reader was made for, and I took frequent advantage of my Kindle's built-in dictionary and internet access. It seems like every page had at least a few unfamiliar words; some of French, Roman, or Greek origin, others made up entirely. There are geological terms, seafaring terms, and a boatload of botanical terms. Yet it doesn't feel stuffy or pretentious, but rather befitting the surreal and enchanting tone of the story. Some sentences sound almost like word salad, but in the best, most bewitching way.

Inspired by Lovecraft's The Dream-Quest of Unknown Kadath, Johnson playfully explores the absence of women as a function of the creator's own imagination (or lack thereof)...or perhaps as a deliberate omission, fueled by sexism. In Vellitt's world, women are the minority, and they are predictably marginalized as such. (In fact, the whole vibe brought to mind Lyra's Oxford in His Dark Materials; retro in ways both good [Victorian steampunk] and bad [policing of women].) While visitors from the waking world are rare, every single one she's met has been male. Yet Vellitt herself dreams, and dreams big; perhaps there is another dream world, one made by the dreamers in the dream world? And maybe those dreamers dream still others into existence?

Once she asked Carter about it. “Women don’t dream large dreams,” he had said, dismissively. “It is all babies and housework. Tiny dreams.” Men said stupid things all the time, and it was perhaps no surprise that men of the waking world might do so as well, yet she was disappointed in Carter. Her dreams were large, of trains a mile long and ships that climbed to the stars, of learning the languages of squids and slime-molds, of crossing a chessboard the size of a city. That night and for years afterward, she had envisioned another dream land, built from the imaginings of powerful women dreamers. Perhaps it would have fewer gods, she thought as she watched the moon vanish over the horizon, leaving her in the darkness of the ninety-seven stars.

A whole 'verse created by unconscious makers - how shiny would that be?

Johnson also addresses Lovecraft's racism through Vellitt who, with her coppery skin and silver-and-black cords, is arguably a woman of color. (Saving the Six Kingdoms for total annihilation? #BlackWomenDidThat)

Honestly, there's just so much great stuff in here I can't even. I hope Johnson returns to Vellitt's world in the future; there are so very many avenues of exploration. I'd love to see the flip side of this, a world made true by women dreamers. Or I'd love to learn more about the grogs and ghouls; maybe a short story told from their perspectives? I'll take anything, really!

http://www.easyvegan.info/2016/08/26/the-dream-quest-of-vellitt-boe-by-kij-johns... show less

Like The Ballad of Black Tom, this novella is a response to H.P. Lovecraft, his genius and his deficiencies--in this case, his erasure of women from his work. I have not read the Lovecraft novella that inspired this work, but I didn't feel it was necessary. Johnson tells a wonderful quest story about an independent, older woman who must travel through the Dreamlands in pursuit her student, the granddaughter of one of the Old Ones, who has absconded to the Waking World. The writing is really fantastic (much less muddy and confounding than Lovecraft himself), and the female characters are inspiring. A good read.

The Dream-Quest of Vellitt Boe is a feminist sequel to H. P. Lovecraft’s The Dream-Quest of Unknown Kadath. A teacher from dreamland goes looking for one of her students who has eloped with a guy from the waking world. Of course, along the way, she runs into Randolph Carter. My favorite bit occurs when a creature from dreamland turns into a Buick when it enters the waking world. I always thought there was something strange about my 1965 Gran Sport.

Kij Johnson’s take on the dream-quest has more wit and better characters and plotting than Lovecraft’s version.

I loved this and I want more of it which I guess is the best compliment I can construct right now. This book is everything I've been looking for and for once--FOR ONCE--centers women in their own stories! So many books with a woman as a main character, with a charming and dangerous assassin, with a princess or a commoner or a warrior and yet still they were never the center of the story, never the pivot. Instead they existed surrounded by men and love and what man they would choose and what man they should choose and the endless debates and for once, here, a woman and a story that dispelled immediately with love and the need for love--

I would read hundreds of books set in this place. I would read thousands. The writing show more itself--Lovecraftian but without the weak-chinned pretentiousness, Lovecraftian without the fastidious disgust of Lovecraft himself--a Lovecraft WITHOUT GODS. I would read thousands of books about brave women and foolish women and fierce women and older women and reluctant women who moved through worlds without the burden of love or men or anything but themselves. I'm so glad this was the first fiction I read in 2017 because even if everything else is awful I will at least know that books like this ARE POSSIBLE. And that will keep me moving. show less

This novella is a real delight! I love all things Lovecraftian, with or without the inherent racism of the original, but fortunately, almost EVERY hand put to the task of building upon the mythos has recreated it into something egalitarian and deep while still retaining the rich, rich imaginings.

This continues the quest within the Dreamland but from the point of view of a middle-aged teacher of mathematics from *within* this other world, helping out a student from our world who had fallen in love with a man in the Dreamland who, if allowed to continue, would set all the gods of creation on a tear to destroy everything because the two SHALL NOT mix.

My favorite bits are the fact that this woman doesn't have any special skills. She settled show more down from her wandering days to become a prof but still dropped it all to go on a long and wonderful quest filled with monsters and demons and whatnot with nothing more than her perseverance. :)

Imaginative. So imaginative. This continues Lovecraft's original, sure, but Kij Johnson flows deep within these rivers that are at once familiar and very unfamiliar, evoking a blase attitude to things that are richly disturbing and strange, evoking awe with simple concepts like the number Pi that *doesn't* change its value, and so many other cool bits with Ghasts and Gouls and Gaunts.

After reading this I'm thrilled and pretty well amazed and totally on-board with reading anything else this woman has ever written. Anything that can evoke awe in this old reader has got to be cherished.

This one might make my top pick for the Hugo Novella category for this year. It's either that or [b:Every Heart a Doorway|25526296|Every Heart a Doorway (Wayward Children, #1)|Seanan McGuire|https://images.gr-assets.com/books/1431438555s/25526296.jpg|45313140] show less