Pirates of Hyperborea

 

"A Voyage to Hyperborea" is a recent (2020) novel by John Michael Greer. It forms part of the author´s "Haliverse", an alternate reality in which Lovecraft´s Eldritch horrors (and other unspeakable creatures) turn out to be, well, the good guys! Greer really brought the Haliverse stories to a close already in 2019 with "The Weird of Hali: Arkham", but for some reason, the Eldritch Muses didn´t leave him alone, so a number of similarly-themed novels appeared promptly. 

"A Voyage to Hyperborea" follows a struggling scholar, Toby Gilman (his last name is a pun - Toby really does have gills!), as he is forced to join a dangerous expedition to Greenland in order to obtain a stipend. In the story, the glaciers of Greenland has began to melt due to man-made climate change, revealing the remains of several ancient civilizations beneath the former ice sheet, the most splendid being Hyperborea (said to be ancestral to Atlantis). Gilman happens to be an expert in the rather narrow field of Hyperborean linguistics. 

Unfortunately for him and many others, the voyage to the Arctic island turns out to be a cover for something very different. The Hyperboreans were worshippers of the Great Old Ones, and guarded ancient stone tablets with potent magic that can destroy the entire world. A mysterious brotherhood known as the Radiance (an obvious reference to the Illuminati) want to find the stone tablets, supposedly still guarded by an Old One in the bowels of the Greenlandic earth. Several alien races of shape-shifters want to stop the Radiance, and Gilman soon realizes that nothing is what it seems at the Arctic research facility...

The strangest part of the story features an encounter between Gilman and an entire crew of pirates, who look and act exactly as you expect unhanged pirates to act and look like. Rum, sea shanties, old swords, weird accents, male bonding...it turns out that the old farmboy and landlubber Gilman fits right in! That the fish-man is immune to salt water due to his hybrid nature is, of course, an extra plus on a sea voyage. Even the (hardly surprising) revelation that the pirates are really ghosts who´ve been at sea for centuries somehow fits the format.

The ideological commitments of the author are the same as in previous Haliversian novels. Humans are relatively unimportant in the bigger scheme of things, the Earth being inhabited by other intelligent creatures, and our modern civilization is just the latest in a series of cycles that saw the rise and fall of Hyperborea, Atlantis and others. The Ancient Ones are "pagan gods", usually indifferent to human concerns, although some of them have entered covenants with smaller groups of human (or hybrid) devotees. The Radiance (modelled on NICE in "That Hideous Strength" by C S Lewis) pretends to be on the side of science and progress, while actually being evil magicians - the author´s way of saying that modernity is deeply problematic. It´s hardly a coincidence that the centuries-old pirate vessel "Miskatonic" manages to destroy a modern ship with its old cannons, or that the pirates are invisible to modern radar, since "Miskatonic" is all made of wood! Apart from Lovecraft and Lewis, there are also references to Clark Ashton Smith, Jules Verne and (perhaps) Tolkien. The descent into the Hyperborean underworld have obvious similarities with how the Fellowship of the Ring encountered orcs and balrogs in the Mines of Moria, although in Greer´s story, the deadly creatures are all on our side.

Much else is the same, too. One peculiarity with all the Haliverse novels is that Greer meticulously describes every meal eaten by the main characters (brace yourself for some really bad culinary experiences onboard the pirat vessel). Another are the constant stops at libraries and archives, also described in some detail. The main difference is that the sex is steamier. It seems every sexy woman in this story is both willing and able to bed the hero. Unless, of course, their well-endowed female bodies are just a cover for something more monstrous...

Could perhaps be of some interest to fantasy fans. 

The Aryans are coming

I never read any Conan story, nor have I seen the classical film featuring Arnie as the indefatigable Cimmerian prince. I admit that I perused Robert Howard's “The Hyborian Age” mostly for the fun of it. Howard was, of course, the author of the weird sword-and-sorcery tales featuring Conan and other barbarians. Howard's booklet explores and explains the fictional universe of the Conan stories in some detail. Some people (who seem to be politically situated somewhere to the right of ancient Nordheimir) take his pseudo-historical musings seriously, despite disclaimers to the contrary. And why not? “The Hyborian Age” is fantasy, but it's a fantasy some people apparently *want* to be true…

Howard describes a cyclical history, where ancient civilizations and entire continents (such as Atlantis or Lemuria) rise, decline and disappear, often without a trace. Barbarism is very common, some of the barbarian races being almost organically incapable of attaining a higher degree of civilization (except in sword-making). A never-ending and frequently brutal war of all against all is the perennial predicament of man. It's not even clear whether all the tribal groups are “human” in the strict sense. It seems humans can mate with pre-human creatures, ape-men can become men, while some men have devolved into apes. The various human sub-groups don't seem to have a common ancestry. The most pure-blooded and blond Nordics hail from the far north and are really a kind of giants. It also turns out that the Aryans and Celts of “our” historical period are descendants of some of the warring, wandering peoples of the Hyborian age. So are the Huns, Mongols and Tartars. Egypt was once ruled by an Aryan dynasty, and even ancient Israel had Aryan admixture. Why are we not surprised?

Idealism clearly isn't an option. The Nemedian missionary Arus, a worshipper of the gentle Mitra (Arus is presumably based on Arius and Wulfila, and Mitra is really Christ) attempts to convert the barbaric Picts and their chief Gorm to the ways of peaceful civilization, but he only succeeds in making the barbarians more interested in acquiring new weapons to conquer and loot the powerful Hyborian kingdoms. Which they promptly do, spreading death and destruction in their wake…

The Hyborian Age (the name is perhaps based on the Hyperborean Age mentioned in Blavatsky's secret doctrines) comes after the destruction of Atlantis but before another cataclysm, during which the world acquires the shape it has today. Apparently, Howard's fantasy tales also incorporate themes borrowed from H P Lovecraft's “Cthulhu Mythos”, but these seem to be largely absent from the Hyborian booklet. Also absent are the peaceful Neolithic farmers and peaceful high cultures, such as the Indus Valley Civilization, that also existed. But sure, even feminists believe that the Kurgan culture was barbaric, war-prone and…patriarchal.

I'm not sure how to rate Howard's short text on Conan's alternate reality, brought to us by Rise of Douai, who also published editions of Freud's “The Interpretation of Dreams”, “The Communist Manifesto”, “An Idiot's Guide to Bee-Hunting” and “The Art of Money Getting” by P. T. Barnum. In the end, I give it three stars. But, please remember: what's really important isn't the star-rating, but the fact that two stood against many!