Elizabeth Bear, "Shoggoths in Bloom"

***edit, see note at end***

On the even of WWII. a black professor is in search of tenure and fame when he goes to the isolated coast of Maine to the annual November shoggoth beachings. The shoggoths surface and lay about in the chill air to ... well know one really knows why or that much about them.

Through a series of progressions, the professor bonds with one part of a shoggoth and learns the incredible truth.

More than that I can't say, but Bear does give us insights to a black man in the 1930's wrestling between the philosophies of W.E.B. duBois and Booker T. Washington *- a debate that continues to be played out whether you're Bill Cosby, Jesse Jackson, or just a man in the street.

Lovecraft is not mentioned at all. Miskatonic University is. She takes a bit of literary license and introduces some anachronisms. Bear takes the shoggoth idea in a new and interesting path which energizes the Mythos. A solid contribution, but perhaps a slightly controversial method to understanding the nature shoggoths.

It's short, so if you don't want to buy March's Asimov's, it's a quick bookstore read.

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Original Message ----From: "georgewagner" Saturday, February 2, 2008

"....a black man in the 1930's wrestling between the philosophies of W.E.B. duBois and Washington Carver - a debate that continues to be played out whether you're Bill Cosby, Jesse Jackson, or just a man in the street."

Pardon, but don't you mean Booker T. Washington rather than Dr. Carver?

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And I, chagrined, replied:

Indeed, George.

Beard's quote is, "His Ph.D. work at Yale, the first school in America to have awarded a doctorate to a Negro, taught him two things other than natural history. One was that Booker T. Washington was right, and white men were afraid of a smart colored. The other was that W.E.B. DuBois was right, and sometimes people were scared of what was needful."

With watchful eyes such as yours, sir, I shall always be in good hands.

Bless you.