The Dream-Quest of Vellitt Boe

Delightful story set in Lovecraft's Dreamland's. When a young student at Ulthar Women's College runs off with a boy from the waking world, Professor Vellitt Boe sets out to bring her back, unaware of the complications she'll soon run into. Johnson's tale works both as a critique of Lovecraft's male-centered views and a loving tribute to the worlds he created.

I liked this book a lot. Sometimes I found the author's voice a little hard to get into but overall the writing is accessible and moves along quickly. I enjoyed how the story was from the point of view of someone from the dream world, so bizarre, frightening things were seemingly mundane while things from our own world that we take for granted are considered new and strange. The book keeps the theme and feel of the Lovecraft story but takes a lot of the Insufferable Adventure Man out of it, which I appreciated.

I did not even realize how badly I needed a feminist take on Lovecraft in my life until I read this.

I went into this expecting a cosmic horror story, since I saw this advertised as a Lovecraftian story, but what I got instead was a gorgeous quest story that's really a hell of a lot more like fantasy than anything else. This reimagines the horrorscape of Lovecraft's imagination as...well, something not entirely unlike our own world, actually. Apart from the Elder Gods, mind-bendy physics, and the things that live underground. As I said, it's not what I expected, but I absolutely adore it all the same - especially since Johnson does a fairly good job of calling out Lovecraft's racism and misogyny.

I've watched 5-6 action movies in a row that wouldn't pass the Bechdel test and then I read something like this and my heart is all “please this and only this.” A woman, a far traveller in the dream-lands (yes the Lovecraft was strong), had settled in a college town for 20 yrs teaching math to women before being tasked with one last ultimate adventure and I loved it. so much.