The Haunter of the Threshold by Edward Lee, review by Steve Hergina

The Haunter of the Threshold is an Edward Lee proclaimed sequel to The Haunter of the Dark by H.P. Lovecraft. I say in name only, as this novel shares very limited ideas with the Lovecraft story. Without the sexual overtones (or acts performed within), this book would be all of ten pages, stretching it out. Edward Lee has brought his very "hardcore" writing style to another Lovecraft story, his other one; The Innswich Horror (review forthcoming) is about other Lovecraftian ideas.

The story itself revolves around pregnant college professor Sonia Heald, an English literature professor, her fiancé Frank Barlow, a mathematician, an academic wiz, his recently deceased college professor, (retired) friend Henry Wilmarth and Sonia's closet friend Hazel Greene (whom wants to be lovers with Sonia). Sexual overtones already, you should read how that unfolds...

Sonia and Hazel travel up to meet with Frank at Henry's cabin, in the middle of nowhere New Hampshire. Henry asked Frank to destroy all the work he and Frank's father were working on over the years, because Henry believed he solved the math problem that hounded them for years, only to discover how it would bring about a new world.

Some of the Lovecraftian beings are here; The Old Ones, tentacled people in robes, and Yog-Sothoth, but the majority of the novel revolves around sex and many fetishes. From the backwoods redneck hillbillies and their strange ways of getting by, to all the weird mystical ideas that Lovecraft came up with, butchered by an author (whom I like to read) who uses his perverted ideas of sexual overtures where they don't belong (this time, you don't mess with Lovecraft in that way). He writes a lot of stories, but unfortunately his style doesn't fit with Lovecraft. He proclaims Lovecraft as one of his faves in the author's notes and confessed that this novel is "a damnable one" as far as a sequel goes, and in the end says "And May God and Lovecraft Forgive Me". He can only hope they do, cause I can't.