"The Horror on the Beach" is a Cthulhu Mythos story written by prolific science fiction author Alan Dean Foster. It was first published as a chapbook in 1978.
Synopsis[]
When a family moves into an old house on the California coast, it triggers a series of manifestations by the entity Cthulhu.
Setting[]
The story is set at Casa de Rodrigo de Lima, an old Spanish house at Cabrillo Cove, part of the "wild Pacific coast" near Santa Barbara, California.
Characters[]
- David Corfu, a "slightly undersize" oil engineer.
- Julie Corfu, David's wife.
- Flip Corfu, David and Julie's eight-year-old son, fond of miniature dinosaurs.
- General Lee, the Corfus' cat, a "mutated Siamese."
- Martin and Evelyn Birch, the Corfus' nearest neighbors, fond of bridge. They have two young twin daughters.
- Joshua Whipple, an old beachcomber who warns the Corfus about Cthulhu. He comes from "somewhere on the coast" in Massachusetts.
- Bascomb, a real estate agent who fails to tell the Corfus the history of Casa de Rodrigo de Lima before selling it to them.
- Pedro Armendariz, a biochemist, and a friend of David's at the University. He has learned about Mythos horrors from "certain forbidden and well-sequestered tomes, such as the De Vermis Mysteriis of Ludvig Prinn, and even worse, the Necronomicon of the mad Arab, Alhazred”--as well as from associates at Yale and Miskatonic.
- Rosa Armendariz, Pedro's wife, "a plump but still vivacious little woman."
- Major Gomez, Pedro's "friend at the missile base."
Publication History[]
"The Horror on the Beach" was first published in July 1978, part of The Library Lovecraftian series, in an edition of some 1,000 copies. The back cover carried the misspelled blurb, ""CTHLULHU WAS IN CALIFORNIA."[1]
The story was not reprinted again until 1996, when it was included in Robert M. Price's The New Lovecraft Circle (Fedogan & Bremer).[1]
References[]
- ↑ 1.0 1.1 Internet Speculative Fiction Database, "Title: The Horror on the Beach."