By Byron Craft
Most books have an introduction. My novel, "The CRY of CTHULHU" has an introduction. Introductions can be boring. Introductions, many times, are what we skip over so we can jump right into the story. I endeavored to make my introduction titled, "Warning," to be an integral part of my novel's story. To drive this point home even further you can read the opening of, "The CRY of CTHULHU" (initially released as "The Alchemist's Notebook") below...my introduction:
Most books have an introduction. My novel, "The CRY of CTHULHU" has an introduction. Introductions can be boring. Introductions, many times, are what we skip over so we can jump right into the story. I endeavored to make my introduction titled, "Warning," to be an integral part of my novel's story. To drive this point home even further you can read the opening of, "The CRY of CTHULHU" (initially released as "The Alchemist's Notebook") below...my introduction:
Warning
The statute of limitations has run out. What I stole from Miskatonic University, they still want back. They want to hide the truth.
The theft of what the news media called the “Alchemist’s Papers” was made public in January of 1984 but the cover-up that followed, and the failed attempt to retrieve them, left the story only half told. The truth is about a fold in the soft and otherwise smooth surface of time. It is a harbinger of an evil so destructive that the current state of the world, plagued with terrorism and economic chaos, would only be a footnote in history by comparison.
The tabloids had a heyday with the story, claiming apocalyptic doom, while the mainstream media labeled it as another crackpot interpretation of the “Book of Revelations.” Neither were accurate. Miskatonic University of Arkham, Massachusetts had done an effective job of discrediting the papers and me, and until now, no one would publish them.
The one piece of information that they were unable to keep from the public was the existence of a covert organization within the university itself. We were a group of select scholars that investigated what appeared to be supernatural occurrences all over the world. It was alleged that during some of these investigations the group had acted like vigilantes, taking the law into their own hands, passing out judgment where they saw fit.
My name is Thomas Ironwood. I was a resident professor at Miskatonic and head of the Physics Department. I was a member of the group, known then, to only a few, as the “Mythos Department.” My confessions to the press were not out of remorse for any wrong doing, rather as a revolt against my colleagues who were becoming dangerously lax in their retaliatory measures.
I believed then, and believe even more today, that the individual stories of Faren and Janet Church, and Faren’s great Uncle Heinrich Todesfall, constitute a warning to an already endangered world and should not be suppressed. The rampant ignorance in the world has left me no alternative but to come out of hiding and go public with the documents.
The plausibility of our planet being threatened by an ageless horror may automatically arouse suspicion to the authenticity of the following chronicles and possibly create a back-lash from the more serious elites in the media. How Miskatonic acquired the papers may be questioned. Why hide them if they are only a hoax?
The chronicles are authentic. They required some editing to clarify the time lines. The accounts original forms were as a journal, a diary and a series of tape recordings. They have been edited into separate narratives subsequently breaking the work down into four parts.
With the help of my publisher, we have struck out redundancies which often occur in personal journals and eliminated digressions which the elderly Todesfall was guilty of doing when his mind would stray from the story and wander unchecked into the intervening years. Faren Church’s was the least polished of the narratives, because his was a hasty account left on tape and required more extensive editing.
For the remainder, we have left well enough alone. The chronicles accurately tell the whole story without additional enhancement.
The theft of what the news media called the “Alchemist’s Papers” was made public in January of 1984 but the cover-up that followed, and the failed attempt to retrieve them, left the story only half told. The truth is about a fold in the soft and otherwise smooth surface of time. It is a harbinger of an evil so destructive that the current state of the world, plagued with terrorism and economic chaos, would only be a footnote in history by comparison.
The tabloids had a heyday with the story, claiming apocalyptic doom, while the mainstream media labeled it as another crackpot interpretation of the “Book of Revelations.” Neither were accurate. Miskatonic University of Arkham, Massachusetts had done an effective job of discrediting the papers and me, and until now, no one would publish them.
The one piece of information that they were unable to keep from the public was the existence of a covert organization within the university itself. We were a group of select scholars that investigated what appeared to be supernatural occurrences all over the world. It was alleged that during some of these investigations the group had acted like vigilantes, taking the law into their own hands, passing out judgment where they saw fit.
My name is Thomas Ironwood. I was a resident professor at Miskatonic and head of the Physics Department. I was a member of the group, known then, to only a few, as the “Mythos Department.” My confessions to the press were not out of remorse for any wrong doing, rather as a revolt against my colleagues who were becoming dangerously lax in their retaliatory measures.
I believed then, and believe even more today, that the individual stories of Faren and Janet Church, and Faren’s great Uncle Heinrich Todesfall, constitute a warning to an already endangered world and should not be suppressed. The rampant ignorance in the world has left me no alternative but to come out of hiding and go public with the documents.
The plausibility of our planet being threatened by an ageless horror may automatically arouse suspicion to the authenticity of the following chronicles and possibly create a back-lash from the more serious elites in the media. How Miskatonic acquired the papers may be questioned. Why hide them if they are only a hoax?
The chronicles are authentic. They required some editing to clarify the time lines. The accounts original forms were as a journal, a diary and a series of tape recordings. They have been edited into separate narratives subsequently breaking the work down into four parts.
With the help of my publisher, we have struck out redundancies which often occur in personal journals and eliminated digressions which the elderly Todesfall was guilty of doing when his mind would stray from the story and wander unchecked into the intervening years. Faren Church’s was the least polished of the narratives, because his was a hasty account left on tape and required more extensive editing.
For the remainder, we have left well enough alone. The chronicles accurately tell the whole story without additional enhancement.
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