The Dream-Quest of Vellitt Boe by Kij JohnsonMy rating: 4 of 5 stars
This is yet another re-imagining of H.P. Lovecraft's oeuvre, in this case "The Dream Quest of Unknown Kadath." Not having read the original, I'm sure I didn't pick up on many of Kij Johnson's references, but this lack did not impede my thoroughly enjoying this story. Starting with the main character: 55-year-old Vellitt Boe, a professor at a women's college in the "dreamlands," a world where capricious gods slumber and destroy, nature is in a perpetual state of upheaval, and physics as we know it does not exist.
Can you imagine that? A middle-aged woman, not relegated to invisibility, in charge of her own story? Sign me up.
It soon becomes apparent that although Vellitt's quest is important (she's pursuing a young student who ran off with a man from the "waking world," in fear that said student's father will shut down the Ulthar Women's College, one of the few opportunities available for women of the dreamlands), the journey itself is the point. Vellitt walks endless miles through nasty underground caverns, meets with and fights all sorts of dangerous creatures, and eventually ascends to the "waking" (e.g., our) world. (For much of this journey she is accompanied by a small black cat--which does not die. TAKE NOTE, JOE HILL!!!) Along the way, we are given considerable insight into the far-traveling young woman she once was, and how she is determined to be, as she puts it, more than a "footnote to a man's story." The only complaint I have about this story, and it's a minor quibble, is the abruptness of the ending. This storyline is wrapped up, but I would very much like to know what Vellitt does next.
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