The Fillmore Shoggoth

"The Fillmore Shoggoth"
Author	Harry Turtledove
First Appearance	The Madness of Cthulhu
Publisher	Titan Books
Editor	S.T. Joshi
Reprinted	No
Collected	No
Series	Cthulhu Mythos
Genre(s)	Fantasy-horror
Publication date	2014

"The Fillmore Shoggoth" is a short story by Harry Turtledove published in The Madness of Cthulhu Anthology (Volume One) edited by S.T. Joshi in October 2014. The story is set in 1968 in the same continuity as H.P. Lovecraft's work "At the Mountains of Madness". Years after the second expedition alluded to in the story, humans and Old Ones have become aware of each other and have managed to co-exist. However, shoggoths, the main antagonists of the original Lovecraft novella, remain a threat to both races.

The story centers on a rock band called "HPL" (a very thinly disguised version of the historical band "H.P. Lovecraft") as they get ready to perform at the Fillmore in San Francisco when an iceberg from Antarctica deposits a swarm of shoggoths in the city. The story's primary POV is George, HPL's nominal leader (a thinly disguised George Edwards, the historical founder and lead of the band H.P. Lovecraft), as he and the band go through the day preparing to perform. The story then sees the band's performance interrupted by a shoggoth, which kills a pair of Old Ones attending the concert, as well as noted author and Old One expert Howard Phillips (an analog of H.P. Lovecraft), and the band's panicked efforts to escape the Fillmore.

See Also

• "Nine Drowned Churches", another story in which Turtledove dabbles in Lovecraft's canon by using a thinly disguised historical musician as a POV character.

• "Interlibrary Loan", another story set in Lovecraft's canon. This story, set in 2017, focuses on potential impact the Cthulhu Mythos might have on the strife in the Middle East, but does not use a thinly disguised musician.

• "The Hill of the Beast", another story set in Lovecraft's canon.

• "The Genetics Lecture," a spoof of the Cthulhu Mythos.