THE DEEP ONES: "Jeroboam Henley's Debt" by Charles R. Saunders

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THE DEEP ONES: "Jeroboam Henley's Debt" by Charles R. Saunders

2semdetenebre
Editado: Jun 1, 2022, 3:04 pm

I was expecting some kind of Lovecraftian link since innsmouthfreepress.com published it online, but the name-dropping of Shub-Niggurath is merely incidental. Even so, it still helps to coax out an interesting juxtaposition between "the true magic of Africa" powerfully wielded by Nedeau and the chaotic Louisiana cultists of "The Call of Cthulhu", both of which superficially resemble some aspects of voodoo, but are actually something else altoghter. Gbomi/Nedeau is really interesting, and might have made a very unique cursed (anti) hero for a series. I'm going to have to check out Imaro sometime.

3paradoxosalpha
Editado: Jun 1, 2022, 4:40 pm

I liked this one, on the whole. It was good to see an intersection of indigenous African religion and Yog-Sothothery where the former wasn't simply taken as a mask for the latter.

I also appreciated the constrained dramatis personae, with just the two characters immediately present, despite the later intrusion of personified curses and undead spirits.

Some of the historical exposition was a little like remedial US history, although that was happily left behind as greater detail emerged.

4AndreasJ
Jun 2, 2022, 4:33 am

I liked it less, mostly because I thought the telling was uninspired. I guess the remedial US history was more forgivable in 1982 when one couldn't look up the Underground Railway in the Intertubes if needed, though.

Nedeau is an interesting character, appearing first as a stereotypical taciturn violent black man, before we learn that he's a college professor - and then we learn he's a witch-doctor.

I can't on a very brief look tell whether "Gbomi" is indeed Yoruba for "born of the water", but it's a tad strange a Yoruba magician should have been sold into slavery by a man from the Gold Coast, west of Yorubaland. Maybe Saunders messed up his West African geography? That "Nedeau" is Creole French for the same sounds plausible, the standard French would be né de l'eau.

5housefulofpaper
Jun 3, 2022, 6:40 pm

I enjoyed this story a lot. In many ways it's a regular pulp adventure story and there's no harm, and no shame, in that. I had a different initial impression of Neaeau, I thought he was the obvious hero of the story - a kind of African-American John Thunstone, perhaps - so the story twist took me by surprise (just as was intended!).