Review: Winter Tide

Winter Tide by Ruthanna Emrys
My rating: 3 of 5 stars

I know there continues to be a bit of a Lovecraftian renaissance happening in terms of some of the fantasy books coming out. Winter Tide takes a historical fiction bent to the proceedings and gives a good, but far from great, attempt at expanding out the Mythos.

The story takes place a while after the eradication of the people and place of Innsmouth. The government effectively destroyed Innsmouth following an attack, and only two people have survived. Now there's concerns that information from Miskatonic University is falling into the wrong hands, and it's now up to the few survivors of the Innsmouth situation to solve the problem.

There's a clear post-internment attitude to this, which is a nice twist for the Mythos itself as well as a cool take on the story. There's a lot of time spent on the research and in the libraries, and that might be the book's downfall - it takes a lot of time in this area, and for questionable benefit. I spent a good deal of time hoping they'd get on with it to the point where the ending of the story was both fulfilling while also being frustrating in its climax.

I have not read "The Litany of Earth," a short story that has some of the same characters, so I may have missed some key points along the way, but overall, I liked but didn't love this story. There have not been any lack of Lovecraft-style tales of late, so I wouldn't bump this to the top of the list, but I would say that it's worth a look for a different style of story. I feel like I might want to read a story like this that focuses more on research aspects, but perhaps without some of the baggage that comes with this sort of tale.

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