Nick Mamatas
Night Shade Books
August 9th, 2016
ISBN: 1597808350 (ISBN13: 9781597808354)
Panos Panossian is dead. He’s not really sure how he ended up that way, but he’d sure like to know. He cant really see much, as his eyes are cloudy and he spends much of his time locked in a morgue drawer. He’s stuck in the dark with his memories, trying to puzzle out what happened.
Colleen Danzig is a bit weirded out by the congoers at the Summer Tentacular–a Lovecraft convention held yearly in Providence, RI. This is her first year, and she was room sharing with Panossian when he turned up dead, with his face missing. Now she wants to know who killed him, but there are so many possibilities–the guy with an unhealthy obsession over books bound in human skin, the ex-stalker who once threw herself at Panossian, the secretive scholar who pulled the fire alarm to evade the police and speed away from the hotel in the night. The hotel is full of suspects.
I Am Providence is a quirky book with fandom personalities you’ll definitely recognize. The smartass who just has to poke at everyone. The pedant that argues every last fact and theory. The closet racist that defends Lovecraft’s attitudes because history. He’s even included a few anecdotes and incidents similar to things that folks might recognize from net fights and internet ‘controversies’ from recent memory. Aside from being an interesting whodunit, I Am Providence is also about the awkwardness of fringe fandom, and the strange little family within. We might occasionally harbor some pretty strange people, but they’re ours.
Snappy dialogue and interesting characters, it’s a fun read for anyone who’s experience of fandom includes conventions, message boards, or the tight knit communities that form on the internet.
JL Jamieson is a strange book nerd who writes technical documents by day, and book news, reviews, and other assorted opinions for you by night. She is working on her own fiction, and spends time making jewelry to sell at local conventions, as well as stalking the social media accounts of all your favorite writers.