Entering Unknown Worlds: A Review of Octavius Anglicus's "That What Lies Below"
The Arbo Files
They dwell in forgotten civilizations and cities. Agartha, Leng, Lemuria. In frozen Thule, they dream. Who are they? They are a mostly unseen lot—a type of human cryptid always slouching towards Bethlehem and, on rare occasions, Brooklyn. Sometimes they are known by the wail and gnashing of teeth they leave behind. Other times the phosphorescent residue of their incendiary digital graffiti marks their place. They exist.
They are the online anons, and whether you like it or not, they are birthing a new culture. We here at the Obelisk have already touched on the New Literature, and we are fortunate enough to do so again. This time the book in question is a rather slim volume entitled That What Lies Below. The author is Octavius Anglicus, an English gentleman who runs the Twitter account @reviewlhu.
At fifty-four pages, That What Lies Below can easily be consumed in a single sitting. However, this does not mean that this book constitues light reading (although it is cozy). Rather, Mr. Anglicus delivers in That What Lies Below a Lovecraftian invocation of the weird. The stories and single poem all touch upon the familiar tropes of Lovecraft’s oeuvre, from primordial cults to the kind of madness derived only from the cold, unfeeling cosmos.
The titular story is told from the perspective of an unnamed British research scientist aboard the doomed ship Emma. During the summer 2019, Emma is attacked by a monstrous and tentacled Leviathan that throws the mixed Anglo-American crew into the drink. Counted among the survivors are the narrator and the black tomcat known creatively as “Black Tom.” Black Tom is much more than a mere cat, and his otherworldly quality appears when the ship’s survivors find themselves on a mysterious island. Said island contains evidence of an ancient and forgotten civilization—a civilization with a fondness for felines. Horror, madness, and monsters await the men of the Emma. “That What Lies Below” deserves top billing in this collection. It is the best of the bunch, and its creeping dread is reminiscent of Lovecraft’s nautical tales, most notably “The Temple” and “The Call of Cthulhu.”
“The Thing Within” takes direct inspiration from “The Beast in the Cave,” one of the Old Gentleman’s tales from his juvenile epoch. “The Thing Within” takes places in a strange house rather than a cave, and its central story (a welfare check on an increasingly insane and isolated friend) is less important than the overall atmosphere. A similar quality marks “Throneis,” which concerns an odd village where a creature known only as the Thing slithers during the night in a vain attempt to return to its home among the stars. “Hermes,” the collection’s second-longest tale and another one that touches upon outer space, features the sad tale of a cosmonaut ape that discovered something dreadful. “Close,” the final tale in the collection, is a raw and mostly unadorned examination of the most elemental fear: the fear of the unknown.
That What Lies Below is far from perfect. Grammatical and typographical errors abound, with run-on sentences aplenty. These are minor grumbles, however. A few boo-boos by self-funded and self-sustaining dissident types matters little. What matters more is the art, and That What Lies Below is fantastic art. Although a majority of the tales are only two to three pages in length, they nevertheless manage to convey premium horror and fear. More importantly, Mr. Anglicus’s work gets it right when it comes to the central task of weird fiction. Creating a sense of unreality—a titanic madness enveloped everywhere by strangeness of indescribable character—is what makes weird fiction “weird.” That What Lies Below has that quality. Lovecraft would be proud.
Here’s three cheers and more beers for the author of That What Lies Below. May he pen more eldritch horror very soon.
I bought it and reviewed it on Amazon. It's exactly what I expected. Fun and weird. Hope to see more.