"Shoggoths in Bloom" is a science fiction

Science fiction

Science fiction is a genre of fiction dealing with imaginary but more or less plausible content such as future settings, futuristic science and technology, space travel, aliens, and paranormal abilities...

 novelette

Novelette

A novelette is a piece of short prose fiction. The distinction between a novelette and other literary forms is usually based upon word count, with a novelette being longer than a short story, but shorter than a novella...

 by Elizabeth Bear

Elizabeth Bear

Sarah Bear Elizabeth Wishnevsky is an American author. Writing under the name Elizabeth Bear, she works primarily in the genre of speculative fiction, and was a winner of the 2005 John W...

, originally published in the March 2008 issue of Asimov's Science Fiction

Asimov's Science Fiction

Asimov's Science Fiction is an American science fiction magazine which publishes science fiction and fantasy and perpetuates the name of author and biochemist Isaac Asimov...

. It was the winner of the 2009 Hugo Award for Best Novelette

Hugo Award for Best Novelette

The Hugo Awards are given every year by the World Science Fiction Society for the best science fiction or fantasy works and achievements of the previous year. The award is named after Hugo Gernsback, the founder of the pioneering science fiction magazine Amazing Stories, and was once officially...

.

Plot summary

It is about a black college professor who is doing research on an ancient and little known sea creature, the shoggoth

Shoggoth

A shoggoth is a fictional monster in the Cthulhu Mythos. The being was mentioned in passing in sonnet XX of H.P...

 (a creature gleaned from H. P. Lovecraft

H. P. Lovecraft

Howard Phillips Lovecraft --often credited as H.P. Lovecraft — was an American author of horror, fantasy and science fiction, especially the subgenre known as weird fiction....

's work), off the coast of Maine

Maine

Maine is a state in the New England region of the northeastern United States, bordered by the Atlantic Ocean to the east and south, New Hampshire to the west, and the Canadian provinces of Quebec to the northwest and New Brunswick to the northeast. Maine is both the northernmost and easternmost...

. The story is set in 1938, against the backdrop of intensifying terror in Nazi Germany

Nazi Germany

Nazi Germany , also known as the Third Reich , but officially called German Reich from 1933 to 1943 and Greater German Reich from 26 June 1943 onward, is the name commonly used to refer to the state of Germany from 1933 to 1945, when it was a totalitarian dictatorship ruled by...

and a looming world war.

External links

• Full text of the story at Elizabeth Bear's official site.
• Shoggoths in Bloom by Elizabeth Bear at BestScienceFictionStories.com - A review of the story.