Review: Tarra Khash: Hrossak!

LUMLEY, Brian, Tarra Khash: Hrossak! Tales of the Primal Land, Volume 2, Tor Books/Tom Doherty Associates LLC, New York, NY, USA, 2006.

Octavo; hardcover, with metallic red spine-titling; 256pp. Near fine in like dustwrapper.

In his novella “The House of Cthulhu”, Brian Lumley established the prehistoric continent of Theem’hdra as an early locale for all things Mythos-related. Existing prior to the age of the dinosaurs, the continent was the home for various powerful wizards, among them Mylakhrion, Exior K’mool and Teh Atht. The landmass was home to myriad environments from rainforested southern isles to sere deserts. Centrally located was a gigantic inland sea which was home to an even earlier species of sentient humanoid than the Theem’hdran humans, the Suhm-yi. While this locale has featured in many of Lumley’s Mythos works, this is a focussed series of linked narratives, which follow the endeavours of one Tarra Khash, adventurer from the steppes of Hrossa in the continent’s southeast.

Lovecraft’s Dreamlands stories cemented the notion that the Dreamlands of Earth were a realm of the fantastic, a literal fantasy world wherein anything might happen. The tone of his Dreamlands tales is reminiscent of most fantasy genre material which appears these days – low-tech environs of a medieval or Renaissance flavour. It’s anyone’s guess, I would hazard, whether Robert E. Howard influenced HPL in the writing of these tales or vice versa, but REH’s ‘swords-and-sandals’ work links in strongly with this set of stories by Lumley. Clark Ashton Smith’s Averoigne narratives and the Lankhmar tales of Fritz Leiber are other touchstones for Lumley in writing this world and there are strong echoes of both running through the book. In short, it seems that, since the First Circle of Lovecraft writers frequently indulged in works of fantasy – probably what we’d think of as Dark Fantasy – Brian Lumley has decided to throw his hat into the same ring.

This is nothing like Gary Myers’s House of the Worm: there is no chilly cynicism running behind the nightmares. This reads like REH on Zoloft: The swords and biceps and loincloths are all here, but the sense of doom that pervades Howard’s work is absent. Too, there are flashes of Fafhrd and the Grey Mouser but without Leiber’s sly wit and dry humour. Cthulhu is mentioned a few times, but overall the horrors are kept mainly in the background and rarely burst forth to cause too much mayhem.

I suspect it stems from Lumley’s naval background, but he sets up obstacles in his stories – monsters; mystical menaces; lost and cursed temples – as things to be overcome, either by brains, or by brute force. His heroes scout the obstacles, formulate a strategy and – assuming that their plan survives contact with the enemy – win through in the end. As far as Mythos works are concerned, this runs completely contrary to the universe as Lovecraft saw it, but Lumley seems to have a lot of fun with it regardless.

The main thing that threw me about this book was the fact that, after a point about halfway through, Lumley decides to forego the use of articles, definite or otherwise. I suspect he did this to try and inject a sort of ‘olde worlde’ charm to the writing style (à la Gary Myers) but it only serves to be annoying, and somewhat confusing in places.

Tarra Khash is a likeable enough protagonist with whom to hitch a ride. He is nuggetty and clever, free with his cash, partial to a drink and sweet on the ladies. He wasn’t born yesterday and many of the evil cads he encounters in this book underestimate his cunning, to their cost. However, Conan he ain’t. Fafhrd he ain’t. There’s a kind of four-square blokiness about Tarra Khash that makes him seem slightly unreal: there’s no dark side; no grit; nothing compelling. What you see is what you get. When he wins through, you don’t feel like cheering; you just turn the page to see what’s next.

That’s not to say that these are boring stories – not in the least. The plotting is good and the pacing well timed. Tarra Khash’s opponents – be they scorpion gods, lamias, wizards, or thugs – are all well-sketched and worthy foes. There’s nothing hokey, or cheese-y, about the way the stories unfold and everything wraps up nicely, even unexpectedly in places. For my taste though, for a book with a stonking great picture of Cthulhu on the cover, it could be darker in tone - a little bit more edgy. This is definitely dark...lite?

Two-and-a-half Tentacled Horrors