La Cité oblique

It isn’t widely known that Howard Phillips Lovecraft, a man whose vision left an indelible mark on fantasy literature, made three discreet visits to Quebec City in the early thirties. The American author, who built a rich mythology populated by antediluvian creatures and has inspired some of the top genre writers, even wrote his own history of New France and a walking guide to “the city of a thousand ramparts.”

Christian Quesnel and Ariane Gélinas have drawn on this material to create a parallel history of Quebec in which the codes of Lovecraftian mythology govern as terrifying masters. In this oblique city, the Great Old Ones of New France come head-to-head with the Great Old Ones from the pen of the master of cosmic horror. The writer’s wanderings through “the city of enigmas walled behind the closed shutters of dream” combine brilliantly with a Lovecraftian tale of the brave deeds of Qartier and Loui Heyber. The result is a highly hallucinatory tribute to the father of the Cthulhu Mythos, as well as a fascinating reworking of the past.

Christian Quesnel spent several years creating this magnum opus, which is enriched by Ariane Gélinas’s soaring prose.