The Deep, Dark Mines of the Uncanny Valley

T. Kingfisher, What Stalks the Deep

Shellshocked veteran Lt. Alex Easton’s sole qualification to investigate unexplained phenomena, is that they’ve seen it before without flinching. But where they previously fought ineffable monsters in their native Gallacia, a mysterious Eastern European land of dismal swamps and forests primeval, this time, they’ve been invited to America. But then, if there’s a place as old and as hostile to humankind as Gallacia, it must surely be Southern Appalachia.

T. Kingfisher’s “Sworn Soldier” novellas, starring Alex Easton, whose unique gender identity doesn’t translate into English, each delve into different horror subgenres. The first retold a Poe classic, highlighting a theme Poe introduced, but didn’t explore. The second followed the conventions of folk horror. This third unpack a theme popular in recent movies: the legend of mysterious humanoids dwelling in the caverns and mines permeating America’s eastern mountains.

Dr. James Denton, a supporting character from Easton’s first story, has telegrammed Easton for their help. He admits Easton isn’t particularly qualified, except that they’ve faced similar conflicts before, and he needs a partner who won’t ask stupid questions. So Easton crosses the ocean, rides America’s rails, and walks into West Virginia’s dark, forested mountains, a terrain from which more intrepid explorers have frequently failed to return.

Many American folk myths speculate that something dark and mysterious dwells underground, a horrible monster which we’ll uncover by mining for hydrocarbons or even just spelunking. This monster is usually whispered to be older than humankind, and eager for small provocations to resurge and take America from us. Of course, this is coded language. We “Americans” know who we stole this land from, and why they deserve to reclaim it.

Kingfisher salts these themes with a Lovecraftian influence which she acknowledges in her afterword, but which she doesn’t hammer needlessly. Rather, she describes two war-torn old souls, walking wounded, who investigate a land older than human conception. There, they discover a cavern that cannot possibly exist, guarded by a force so close to human, that its very existence personifies the uncanny valley. But that force is holding something worse back.

T. Kingfisher (a known and public
pseudonym for Ursula Vernon)

Reading this novella, I’m reminded of Stanisław Lem’s signal classic, Solaris. Both stories feature humans encountering an intelligence so different from themselves that they cannot truly communicate. Though Easton and Denton have more success than Kelvin in making peace, they struggle with some of the same problems. What does it mean to “communicate” with an intelligence that isn’t human? Or to speak individually with a collective intelligence?

But our protagonists bring something to the story that neither Lovecraft nor Lem considered: capitalists’ willingness to burn everything that doesn’t turn a profit. Lovecraft’s shoggoths and Lem’s ocean planet encounter humans primarily through scientists and explorers. Kingfisher’s primordial intelligence comes to light because humans dynamited the mountains and uncorked Earth’s mantle in search of power and money. Therefore, “first contact” means not curiosity, but pain.

I’ve become a particular Kingfisher fan because she reverses widespread cultural expectations. In this case, besides Easton’s blunt defiance of the Anglophonic gender binary, Easton also sees America as exotic and foreign, reading America back to Kingfisher’s audience. Burned out on conflict, Easton sees American glorification of the Spanish-American war as bizarre and uncivilized. America’s much-bandied national youth seems ridiculous amid Appalachia’s uncountable antiquity.

One could continue unpacking Kingfisher’s themes. Cartesian dualism versus the Freudian psyche, perhaps, or the failures of technological triumphalism in the face of Earth’s unimaginable age. Kingfisher plays with these thematic contrasts and reversals like Lego bricks, creating a whole that readers recognize from previous books, but which is entirely her own. Her ability to use common strategies to tell an uncommon story is why I’ve become a Kingfisher fan.

Although this story remains short, it’s the longest yet of Kingfisher’s Sworn Soldier novellas, over 170 pages plus back matter. This gives Easton space not only to investigate their themes, but also to confront the monster. But this story also has perhaps the largest company of characters yet, and Kingfisher doesn’t give everyone full development. Easton’s loyal batman Angus, in particular, gradually disappears from the story, which is disappointing.

That said, this story largely maintains the momentum of the previous “Sworn Soldier” novellas. Though I might wish the story was about fifty pages longer, to give every character the space they deserve, that would’ve changed the novella-reading experience. Kingfisher’s distinct voice and nonconformist attitude remain visible and keep the narrative popping. It reads like a slice of popular literature, just seen through a lens like you’ve never read before.