My FrightFall journey into Lovecraft Country w/ a fierce Firestarter at my side

Welcome to week two in my progress reports during the Seasons of Reading scary reading challenge(known as FrightFall) for the month of October.

I'm happy to say that I did complete Picnic at Hanging Rock last weekend, letting me check off two books on my list, with two more in the works as we speak:

LOVECRAFT COUNTRY(Still reading-nearly halfway through): Matt Ruff's 2016 novel of fantastical horror has gotten a lot of attention lately, due to it being adapted as an upcoming HBO series with Jordan Peele(the director of Get Out) as executive producer.

All of that attention is well deserved and then some, as this story seamlessly blends racism in the 1950s with the terrors that H.P. Lovecraft, a bigoted fellow himself, dreamed up. Our leading man is Atticus Turner, a black Korean War vet with a love of science fiction/fantasy books, who finds himself and his family becoming the targets of a bizarre cult.

When Atticus returns home to 1954 Chicago, he learns that his father,Montrose, was whisked away by a strange young white man to a rather isolated town with a name that sounds suspiciously like Arkham(the original publisher of Lovecraft's works). No one has seen or heard from Montrose in a while,which is very much not like him.

 Joined by his uncle George and Letitia, a childhood friend, Atticus heads out to rescue his father, who is being held captive by father and son Samuel and Caleb Braithwhite. The Braithwhites are the leaders of The Order of the Ancient Dawn, a cabal devoted to capturing the power of otherworldly forces and Atticus is crucial to their plans.

This is only one of the adventures that Atticus and friends face here,with one of my favorite characters being Letitia, a smart and strong willed woman who can think on her feet and deal with whatever obstacle is thrown her way, human or otherwise:

 One of the most terrifying aspects of the book is the constant threat of racial violence, from various encounters with the police in both the North and South to vicious home invaders trying to drive out their new African American neighbors. The story may be set in the 50s but it does feel frighteningly relevant in this day and age but it's more than just an allegory.

 Ruff creates sharply toned tensions and well developed characters that make this book hard to put down. I'll probably finish it by this weekend and highly recommend LCC to anyone interested in writing that weaves reality and fantasy so chillingly well:

FIRESTARTER(STILL REREADING,MORE THAN HALFWAY THROUGH): I chose this particular Stephan King novel to reread for this challenge due to watching the lackluster film adaptation over the summer.

While that movie is pretty faithful to the book, it's a dull,miscast affair that will hopefully benefit from the proposed remake being planned. Meanwhile, the story of pyrokinetic Charlene "Charlie" McGee is strangely reminding me of Game of Thrones.

Granted, they're in completely different universes but what Charlie goes through as she and her father are forced to flee from the government sanctioned agents of The Shop is no different than what Stark sisters Arya and Sansa are faced with as their family is hunted down by their regal enemies. From falling prey to dubious allies to giving into the lure of violence dealt by her own hands, Charlie is a bit of both Stark girls and like them, has to find her own way to survive.

You could even argue that John Rainbird,the Shop assassin who works his way into Charlie's trust, has a lot in common with Littlefinger. Both are way too obsessed with their female charges and very willing to use that emotional bond for their own personal ends. A main difference between the two is that Rainbird has the cunning confidence to let his chosen prey come to him, rather than openly court her affections like Littlefinger does with Sansa. Rainbird has the deadly flair of an X-Men villain in that regard:

However, the GOT character that Charlie would be most able to identify with is Danearys Targaryen, who like her was marked at birth for great and terrible things.

Both are pursued once their powers manifest themselves and at one point, captured with their loved ones threatened. While their quests are truly worlds apart, what Charlie and Dany truly want is to find safety and love despite their extraordinary abilities, goals not easily obtainable yet that doesn't stop them for long.

In the end, their captors realize much too late that they don't have the power to hold these powerful females for very long and that presumption will seal their fate with fire. Granted, Charlie is her own dragon(not to mention far younger than Dany when her journey begins) but I do think that the Mother of Dragons would have some good advice for this princess of power indeed:

With any luck, I should have both books finished by or before Monday. I hope to take up another Stephen King book next week(the newest one, co-written with his son Owen) and a set of Agatha Christie short stories featuring the incomparable Miss Marple. Poirot is all well and good but I can't help adoring that feisty little old lady and her clever ways: