Hammers on Bone is a 2016 novella by Cassandra Khaw, the first of two works in their Persons Non Grata series that combine the Cthulhu Mythos with the hard-boiled detective genre. Published by Tor.com, it was a finalist for best novella in the 2017 Locus Awards[1] and British Fantasy Awards.[2]
The novella features John Persons, a private detective working in London who is an alien entity wearing a human form. He is hired by an eleven-year-old boy to kill his stepfather: "You’re the only one who can help,” the boy Abel says: “Because you’re a monster too.”
The stepfather, McKinsey, turns out to be a shoggoth, as evidenced by his cry of “Tekeli-li” during a final confrontation. Persons is a Yithian who failed to make the mind-leap into the bodies of the Coleopterans: "I don’t like bugs,” he says. "I can’t imagine existing in a world of endless darkness, dirt, and Yithian academics."
Persons has an ambivalent relationship with a waitress, Sasha, who has reasons of her own to want Persons to confront McKinsey. She is revealed to be a cultist of Shub-Niggurath, who makes a brief appearance speaking through Sasha's body--described as "the All-Mother, black as pitch and bigger than worlds, Her Many Eyes blinking like headlamps between the tree line."
Hammers on Bone was included in the Tor omnibus Reimagining Lovecraft. It was followed by A Song for Quiet.
References[]
- ↑ Locus, "2017 Locus Awards Winners", June 24, 2017.
- ↑ Locus, "2017 British Fantasy Awards", September 2, 2017.