Bookstooge's Reviews On the Road: Cosmic Horror

Showing posts with label Cosmic Horror. Show all posts

Tuesday, December 03, 2024

Mon Dieu Cthulhu! (Cthulhu Anthology #19) 2.5Stars

Title: Mon Dieu Cthulhu!
Series: Cthulhu Anthology #19
Editor: John Houlihan
Rating: 2.5 of 5 Stars
Genre: Cosmic Horror?
Pages: 184
Words: 72K

I was really wavering about giving this 3stars instead of 2.5, but when I considered that there was at least another novella featuring the main character Dubois and I had zero desire to read it, that sealed the deal.

There was nothing particularly “wrong” with this book. It just didn’t appeal to me. The main character wasn’t appealing, the tinge of madness, while hinted at, didn’t really appear and I just never felt a shiver of “will he go stark raving mad and kill everyone around him?” like I should in a properly told Cthulhu story. It probably didn’t help that these were longer novellas too.

Live and learn I guess.

★★✬☆☆

From the Publisher & Bookstooge.blog

The Crystal Void

The year is 1810 and as Napoleon’s marshals chase Wellington’s expeditionary force to the lines of Torres Verdras, the dashing if rather dim French Hussar Gaston Dubois is astonished to encounter the love of his life. But the fragrant Odette is soon abducted by the Marquis Da Foz, a ruthless and sadistic Portuguese noblemen.

Joined by a mysterious British Major, the hot blooded Hussar is soon in deadly pursuit, but what strange horrors lurk within the shadows of Da Foz’s ancient Moorish fortress? Can the heroic duo foil Da Foz’s dark machinations, rescue the delightful Odette and ultimately prevent the opening of the dreaded Crystal Void?

Yes, yes and yes.

Feast of the Dead

Dashing French Lieutenant, Gaston Dubois, is reassigned to the 13th Imperial Death’s Head Hussars and charged with leading a detachment of these “thieves on horseback” into the Spanish interior, in search of intelligence, supplies and plunder.

Forced to take refuge in the Monasterio de St Cloud, Dubois encounters the unworldly Doctor Malfeas and the beautiful nurse, Mademoiselle Brockenhurst. Yet this former house of the holy holds many outré secrets and Dubois faces fresh battles on all fronts, including the mystery which lies at the heart of the Monasterio itself, an ancient and terrible enigma which threatens both the lives and souls of all who encounter it.

Alone, deep behind enemy lines and beset on all sides, can Dubois survive his first real command and prevent the horrible unravelling of the feast of the dead?

Yes he can, yes he does and he kills the big daddy ghul to boot.

All of My “Cthulhu Anthology” Reviews

Saturday, June 08, 2024

Book of Cthulhu II (Cthulhu Anthology #18) 3.5Stars

Title: Book of Cthulhu II
Series: Cthulhu Anthology #18
Editor: Ross Lockhart
Rating: 3.5 of 5 Stars
Genre: Cosmic Horror
Pages: 515
Words: 184K

Not nearly as many repeats as last time. Thoroughly enjoyed this. Still, considering the material, nothing pushed this into 4star territory. After realizing that Cthulhu just doesn’t have re-readability, that really limits how high the rating can actually go. So unless there is something amazing from here on out, 3.5 is pretty much as high as Cthulhu is going to go, no matter how badass he might think he is. He’s dealing with The Bookstooge now. I have my Star Rating System and even Cthulhu has to bow down to my rules.

Iä! Iä! Bookstooge fhtagn!

★★★✬☆

Table of Contents:

ROSS E. LOCKHART : Introduction
NEIL GAIMAN : Shoggoth’s Old Peculiar
CAITLÍN R. KIERNAN : Nor the Demons Down Under the Sea (1957)
JOHN R. FULTZ : This Is How the World Ends
PAUL TOBIN : The Drowning at Lake Henpin
WILLIAM BROWNING SPENCER : The Ocean and All Its Devices
LIVIA LLEWELLYN : Take Your Daughters to Work
KIM NEWMAN : The Big Fish
CODY GOODFELLOW : Rapture of the Deep
A. SCOTT GLANCY : Once More from the Top
MOLLY TANZER : The Hour of the Tortoise
CHRISTOPHER REYNAGA : I Only Am Escaped Alone to Tell Thee
ANN K. SCHWADER : Objects from the Gilman-Waite Collection
GORD SELLAR : Of Melei, of Ulthar
MARK SAMUELS : A Gentleman from Mexico
W. H. PUGMIRE : The Hands that Reek and Smoke
MATT WALLACE : Akropolis
ELIZABETH BEAR AND SARAH MONETTE : Boojum
JONATHAN WOOD : The Nyarlathotep Event
STANLEY C. SARGENT : The Black Brat of Dunwich
FRITZ LEIBER : The Terror from the Depths
ORRIN GREY : Black Hill
MICHAEL CHABON : The God of Dark Laughter
KARL EDWARD WAGNER : Sticks
LAIRD BARRON : Hand of Glory

All of My “Cthulhu Anthology” Reviews

Wednesday, May 01, 2024

Book of Cthulhu (Cthulhu Anthology #17) 3.5Stars

Title: Book of Cthulhu
Series: Cthulhu Anthology #17
Editor: Ross Lockhart
Rating: 3.5 of 5 Stars
Genre: Cosmic Horror
Pages: 564
Words: 225K

This was published in 2011. I can believe it was quite the collection then. I would have really enjoyed all the brand new stories. Sadly, because I read this as the 17^th installment in the Cthulhu Anthology series, I had already read several of these. Let me name them for your reading mispleasure.

A Colder War
Fat Face
Black Man with a Horn
The Shallows

Not a single one of those stories is a bad story. I dutifully read A Colder War in its entirety. Fat Face I began to skim. Black Man with a Horn I skipped whole sections. The Shallows I skipped right to the ending to make sure it was the story I thought it was (it was). It made me realize something, about myself but mostly about the Cthulhu Mythos. Its appeal is the newness of the stories, nothing more. The existential dread one might have felt upon reading A Colder War for the first time went up in a cloud of poofy smoke upon this re-read. It wasn’t grim, it wasn’t dreadful, it didn’t make me shiver or go “brrrrr”. It bored me.

Some books and stories have re-readability and some simply do not. Those that do not, they are the paper plates of the book world, use once and dispose of immediately. They have no lasting value, nothing to offer besides new’ness. Once that new’ness is gone, all you are left with is a pile of words that sit there like a lump of garbage. You might ask “Bookstooge, WHO ARE YOU to pass such judgment?” and here is my humble reply. I read over 150 books a year. Over 25% of that, on average, is re-reading. I fething know what I’m fething saying because I’m a fething Book-Authority and don’t you forget it! But seriously, I read and re-read enough to know what I am talking about. If someone eats soup for breakfast, lunch and dinner, even the most dimwitted clodhopper at some point begins to realize some of those soups are much better than others. I am no dimwitted clodhopper. Far from it. I am genius enough to know that the tall sunflower falls the farthest while the humble grass simply soaks up the sunshine. I’m down here on purpose folks.

In previous collections, I have complained about Jehovah and Jesus being trampled underfoot by the authors and Cthulhu’esqu gods simply obliterating them as powerless and empty human abstracts. That didn’t happen here. But what did happen was that a Muslim Jihadist was the goodguy and Allah gave him the power to overcome the Cosmic Forces arrayed against him because he, Allah, was such a kind and benevolent and POWERFUL being. Equal treatment folks, that’s all I ask for and I didn’t get it, not even close.

Ok, that was a powerful load of complaining. Even I acknowledge that. You might be wondering why in the world I gave this 3.5stars with those paragraphs and paragraphs of whiny complaints. The reason is simple. The rest of the stories were really good.

Calamari Curls was a story about a new restaurant opening up and taking business away from the old grumpy and cantankerous jackass who owned a soup shop. Only to have everyone go insane as the building was a weakspot and cosmic horror regularly broke through every couple of decades.

Bad Sushi dealt with a Japanese World War II vet trying to stop the takeover of a town that was being fed elder god in the new sushi menu. He’s like 80 years old and dies. But he stops it.

The Fairground Horror was all about two brothers that allowed greed and fanaticism to destroy them both when they confront Cthulhu and try to use him as a vending machine, metaphorically speaking.

The Doom That Came to Innsmouth was a wonderful tale of descendant of Innsmouth making his way back and escaping to the sea, as the Federal Government once again tried to wipe out Innsmouth. It was diabolical how twisted the main character was and how he used every means possible to present himself as “normal” even though he was a sick, twisted, perverted murderer, as was every other Innsmouth inhabitant.

The rest were just as disturbing and shiver inducing. That is the exact reason I read these.

★★★✬☆

Table of Contents – Click to Open

Introduction
Andromeda Among the Stones
The Tugging
A Colder War
The Unthinkable
Flash Frame
Some Buried Memory
The Infernal History of the Ivybridge Twins
Fat Face
Shoggoths in Bloom
Black Man with a Horn
Than Curse the Darkness
Jeroboam Henley’s Debt
Calamari Curls
Jihad over Innsmouth
Bad Sushi
The Dream of the Fisherman’s Wife
The Doom that Came to Innsmouth
Lost Stars
The Oram County Whoosit
The Crawling Sky
The Fairground Horror
Cinderlands
Lord of the Land
To Live and Die in Arkham
The Shallows
The Men from Porlock

All of My “Cthulhu Anthology” Reviews

Thursday, March 21, 2024

Cthulhu Cymraeg (Cthulhu Anthology #16) 3Stars

Title: Cthulhu Cymraeg
Series: Cthulhu Anthology #16
Editor: Mark Jones (ed)
Rating: 3 of 5 Stars
Genre: Cosmic Horror
Pages: 127
Words: 47K

I had my fears about this collection, as it had a forward by ST Joshi, a so-called “authority” on the Cthulhu mythos. I say “so called” not because he doesn’t know his stuff, but because the Cthulhu mythos isn’t worthy of anyone spending as much time on it as Joshi has. It’s like studying a pile of poop and then calling yourself an authority on poop in your backyard. You can do it, but it’s a complete waste of time and talent. And then if you have the ego that Joshi apparently has, you expect “respect” for being an “authority”. What I’d like to do is kick his teeth in. But all I’ve got is this stupid blog that is being destroyed by the company hosting it. Isn’t that right WordPress.com? I’d like to kick their teeth in too.

Other than that generalized expression of violence, I should be done now.

So, Joshi’s introduction didn’t mean this was a skank collection of wanktards writing out of their asses, like most of the stuff headed by Joshi. I’m guessing that’s because Jones was the editor. On the flip side, he included some really wacked out stories, ones that were supposed to be humorous, but in that bizarro way that’s not actually amusing. Then it would rocket over to the more typical cosmic horror’y side of things with death, despair and violence.

That schizophrenic approach is why this only got 3stars and not any more. It wasn’t a bad collection but it wasn’t a very good collection either. And that’s how I’m going to end this review.

★★★☆☆

Table of Contents:

FOREWORD
S. T. Joshi
INTRODUCTION
Mark Howard Jones & Steve Upham
WHAT OTHERS HEAR
John Llewellyn Probert
THE BICYCLE-CENTAUR
Rhys Hughes
THE CAWL OF CTHULHU
Bob Lock
PILGRIMAGE
Mark Howard Jones
SONG OF SUMMONING
Brian Willis
THE NECRONOMICON
Charles Black
UN-DHU-MILHUK WOULD (IF HE COULD)
Liam Davies
PERIPHERY
Paul Lewis
STRANGER CROSSINGS
Adrian Chamberlin

All of My “Cthulhu Anthology” Reviews

Sunday, February 04, 2024

Shotguns V Cthulhu (Cthulhu Anthology #15) 4Stars

Title: Shotguns V Cthulhu
Series: Cthulhu Anthology #15
Editor: Robin Laws
Rating: 4 of 5 Stars
Genre: Cosmic Horror
Pages: 242
Words: 94K

This was how my final King in Yellow book should have gone! This had shivers running up my spine. This had my mind revolting. This had me questioning why I enjoyed the twisted stories so much. It was everything I expect in a Cosmic Horror story.

Now, I had read a King in Yellow anthology edited by Robin Laws and it wasn’t very good. So I went into this with lowered expectations. Thankfully, I was disappointed in my expectations.

And that’s all I write because I’m tired of writing right now.

★★★★☆

Table of Contents:

Robin D Laws Preface: Save a Barrel for Yourself
Kyla Ward Who Looks Back?
Rob Heinsoo Old Wave
Dennis Detwiller Lithic
Chris Lackey Snack Time
Dan Harms The Host from the Hill
Steve Dempsey Breaking Through
A. Scott Glancy (based on an idea by Bret Kramer) Last Things Last
Chad Fifer One Small, Valuable Thing
Nick Mamatas Wuji
Natania Barron The One in the Swamp
Kenneth Hite Infernal Devices
Dave Gross Walker
Robin D. Laws And I Feel Fine
Larry DiTillio Welcome to Cthulhuville
Ekaterina Sedia End of White

All of My “Cthulhu Anthology” Reviews

Tuesday, January 16, 2024

Y (The King in Yellow Anthology #12) 2.5Stars

Title: Y
Series: The King in Yellow Anthology #12
Author: Simon Brake (ed)
Rating: 2.5 of 5 Stars
Genre: Cosmic Horror Anthology
Pages: 120
Words: 41K

This was the last King in Yellow collection I could track down. While I know there are more individual short stories, the effort needed to find them and then track down where they reside is more work than I am interested. So I was hoping to go out with a bit of a bang with this collection. Sadly, I didn’t get that.

Nothing was really bad in this collection. But nothing stood out, nothing popped, nothing made me shiver. Reading a King in Yellow story should be like watching a train carrying hundreds of people derail, in real time. Horrifying, terrible but so compelling that you can’t look away even though you want to, even though you know you should.

Of course, things got off to a rough start because the editor, one Simon Brake, talked about how the King in Yellow wouldn’t have survived without being folded into the Cthulhu Mythos. That’s a lot of bunk, total bs and the kind of statement I wouldn’t even be bothered to wipe my bottom with. Even if there is a kernel of truth in it, sigh.

Then the stories sailed along. Nice and smooth. Predictable, with a small amount of tension, but nothing to make the hair on my arms stand up. I was expecting John Wick and I got He-Man the cartoon instead.

This concludes my KiY readings. Anything else will be accidental and I suspect will simply be part of Cthulhu anthologies.

★★✬☆☆

Table of Contents

Click to Open

Prologue –

In Service to a Distant Throne – John Linwood Grant

Vignette I – April 1919

The Blind King of Bythesea Manor – Glynn Owen

Vignette II – November 1932

The Cult and the Canary – Orrin Grey

Vignette III – August 1971

Have You Found The Yellow Sign? – Alison Cybe

Vignette IV – June 1983

The Painter – Helen Gould

Vignette V – September 1996

The Fairy King of Yellow – Tom Pleasant

Vignette VI – April 2017

Haxan – Adam Gauntlett

Epilogue

The King in Yellow & Other Stories (Book 1)
In the Court of the Yellow King (Book 2)
The King in Yellow Tales (Book 3)
A Season in Carcosa (Book 4)
New Tales of the Yellow Sign (Book 5)
The Hastur Cycle (Book 6)
Cassilda’s Song (Book 7)
The Yellow Sign (Book 8)
Rehearsals for Oblivion: Act One (Book 9)
Dedication of the High Priestess (Short Story 10)
The Chromatic Court (Book 11)

Wednesday, November 29, 2023

The Chromatic Court (The King in Yellow Anthology #11) 1Star

Title: The Chromatic Court
Series: The King in Yellow Anthology #11
Author: Peter Rawlik (ed)
Rating: 1 of 5 Stars
Genre: Cosmic Horror Anthology
Pages: 284
Words: 107K

This collection of short stories starts off with some modern sexual perversions and insanities masquerading as personal choices, so while that type of thing usually ends in an immediate DNF, I decided to finish the collection.

Sadly, this was as much a Cthulhu collection as it was a King in Yellow collection. I even hesitated to put this into the King in Yellow side of things, but I did and decided to just call this book a complete loss.

What a way to end the month, sigh.

★☆☆☆☆

From the Publisher and Table of Contents:

The Color of Things © Peter Rawlik

When Lavender is in Bloom © Christine Morgan

Love and Treachery © Joseph S. Pulver Sr.

The Grey Queen © Paul StJohn Mackintosh

The Man in Purple Tatters © Rick Lai

The Green Muse © Jon Black

The Songs of Burning Men © John Linwood Grant

Curse of the White Inferno © Glynn Owen Barrass

The Blues of the Endless Sky © Simon Bucher-Jones

Tatterdemalion in Grey © Micah S. Harris

The Frieze of Helmsly Ainsworth © David Bernard

The Matron in the Wood © Logan Noble

The Duke of Rust © Matt Laughlin

Have you ever been haunted by a work of art?

You may not be merely captured by the craft, but by something that lies in the work’s depths. Something admiring you as you admire it.

Do you know the King in Yellow? The Sepia Prince? The Duke of Rust? Have you heard their whispers coming to you from dried up parchment and faded photographs? Maybe another member of the King’s court has lit upon your life, casting shadows and doubts. Do you worship them, fear them, revere them, or simply seek to understand them? These hallowed nobles who hold court around the King.

Each noble holds an artform in their wavelength. For their color to shine, that art must practiced. There are no older or younger members of the court. Each has existed since before time was a concept they entertained. All of culture has evolved to suit their needs.

Art is in the eye of the beholder, and color is only an abstract concept. The Chromatic Court is very real, you reading this has assured that…

Wednesday, November 01, 2023

Cthulhu’s Reign (Cthulhu Anthology #13) 3.5Stars

Title: Cthulhu’s Reign
Series: Cthulhu Anthology #13
Editor: Darrell Schweitzer
Rating: 3.5 of 5 Stars
Genre: Cosmic Horror
Pages: 267
Words: 102K

One of my biggest issues with the Cthulhu mythology has always been that it never actually happens. Either the elder gods are staved off by heroic human intervention (in most cases it is simply the elders not caring enough and waiting) or they do break through and that is the end of the story. I’ve always asked myself, so what is the logical conclusion to this mythology? What happens next?

This book answers that, in spades.

The story that stuck in my mind the most was “The New Pauline Corpus”. It was a Catholic priest/monk who had gone insane trying to reconcile the Bible with the events of Cthulhu’s coming. It was very weird because parts would be repeated, but subtly changed and incorporating the previous “questions” as now stated fact. The author, Matt Cardin, at least knew his doctrine enough to not make a complete fool of himself. That I can appreciate it. Didn’t actually care for the story, but that’s kind of to be expected what with me being a Christian.

“Spherical Trigonometry” was a story about an occultic rich genius who figured out that if he lived in a house with no angles, that he could survive the apocalypse. He brings his wife and the architect of the place and her husband to this new “ark”. It seems to be working. But he’s a complete jerk and nobody likes him. The husband of the architect is the narrator of the story and tells how his wife is locked out one day because the genius thinks he saw one of the monsters and won’t take a chance that it might get inside. So the architect dies, poor woman. This obviously sets the husband against the rich occult guy and the rich wife hates her husband, because he ignores her. Thus the husband and the rich wife carry on an affair. And the story ends with the eldrich forces invading the ark and eating them all because they had formed a “love triangle”. It was a terrible play on words and I laughed my head because everbody died. Which is how a good Cthulhu story should end.

The final story I want to talk specifically about is “Her Acres of Pastoral Playground” by Mike Allen. That has a man who invoked the Necronomicon to save himself, his wife and his daughter by creating a parallel dimension that they could reside in when the elder gods came. Problem is, it didn’t quite work right. His daughter is now just a disembodied voice, his wife is actually a tentacle monster who he forces to be in the form of his wife and he had to cut out all of his own memories of how he sacrificed his daughter to make it happen. He occasionally sees outside and that the elder gods are just waiting. As time has no meaning for them, his end has already come. The story ends with him finding himself infected by the tentacle monster and thus he knows his time is short. It was deliciously horrific.

Overall, I felt that each story stuck to the theme of “what comes next” very well. Nobody wandered off the reservation and told a story about their “pet cause”, as I’ve seen happen in other Cthulhu anthologies. I’m going to say that Darrell Schweitzer, the editor, kept a tight hand on the helm of this book and it really shows. I’m impressed. And as you all know, impressing The Bookstooge is what all editors and authors live for.

★★★✬☆

Table of Contents:

Introduction by Darrell Schweitzer
“The Walker in the Cemetery,” by Ian Watson
“Sanctuary,” by Don Webb
“Her Acres of Pastoral Playground,” by Mike Allen
“Spherical Trigonometry,” by Ken Asamatsu.
“What Brings the Void,” by Will Murray
“The New Pauline Corpus,” by Matt Cardin
“Ghost Dancing,” by Darrell Schweitzer
“This is How the World Ends,” by John R. Fultz
“The Shallows,” by John Langan
“Such Bright and Risen Madness in Our Names,” by Joseph E. Lake, Jr.
“The Seals of New R’lyeh,” by Gregory Frost
“The Holocaust of Ecstasy,” by Brian Stableford
“Vastation,” by Laird Barron
“Nothing Personal,” by Richard A. Lupoff
“Remnants,” by Fred Chappell

All of My “Cthulhu Anthology” Reviews

Tuesday, September 12, 2023

Dedication of the High Priestess (The King in Yellow Anthology #10) 2Stars

Title: Dedication of the High Priestess
Series: The King in Yellow Anthology #10
Author: Ephraim Unger
Rating: 2 of 5 Stars
Genre: Cosmic Horror / Short Story
Pages: 33
Words: 10K

This was a short story that the author was kind enough to give me a free copy of. It would have fit into a KIY anthology just fine but since that probably won’t be happening anytime soon, I figured I’d take a stab at a standalone short story. While I enjoyed this in expanding the King in Yellow lore, there were a couple of things that dragged this down to the two star level for me.

The biggest issue was that the main character was 12 years old and has visions of being embraced by the King in Yellow. While cosmic horror should be disturbing, I felt like this crossed into territory that I wasn’t comfortable with. At all.

The second issue was a more technical issue. The story was written in the first person perspective and there was a lot of “he did, she wore, they said”. While some of that is inherent to that perspective, there are ways to mitigate sounding like a sports announcer at a tennis match.

I really wanted to like this more and give it a higher rating. But it is what it is. I do give props for that cover though. Ohhhhh, that is some good art right there.

★★☆☆☆

From Bookstooge.blog

A 12 year old ballerina is drawn into the world of the King in Yellow and becomes his high priestess. She brings him into our world and ushers in a new age of cosmic horror.

Friday, September 08, 2023

Cthulhu 2000 (Cthulhu Anthology #12) 3Stars

Title: Cthulhu 2000
Series: Cthulhu Anthology #12
Editor: Jim Turner
Rating: 3 of 5 Stars
Genre: Cosmic Horror
Pages: 440
Words: 178K

I have to admit, I was hoping for a little more from this collection. The editor talks about the various stories at the beginning of the book and mentions that the final story by Zelazny might be difficult to fit into a Cthulhu collection. He wasn’t kidding. Zelazny’s story had NOTHING to do with cosmic horror and came across as nothing more than adding a big name to sell the collection. Color me unimpressed.

I did like “Pickman’s Modem”, as I love it when technology dates itself to a point where I can remember using that stuff. The modem in question is a 2400 baud modem. Oh yeah, those were the good ol’ days! The rest of the stories were simply ok (outside of Zelazny) and while I don’t regret that I read them, I do wish they’d been a little bit tastier.

Hopefully the next collection will be better.

★★★☆☆

Table of Contents:

The Barrens, F. Paul Wilson
Pickman’s Modem, Lawrence Watt-Evans
Shaft Number 247, Basil Copper
His Mouth Will Taste of Wormwood, Poppy Z. Brite
The Adder, Fred Chappell
Fat Face, Michael Shea
The Big Fish, Kim Newman
“I Had Vacantly Crumpled It into My Pocket … But by God, Eliot, It Was a Photograph from Life!”, Joanna Russ
H.P.L., Gahan Wilson
The Unthinkable, Bruce Sterling
Black Man with a Horn, T.E.D. Klein
Love’s Eldritch Ichor, Esther M. Friesner
The Last Feast of Harlequin, Thomas Ligotti
The Shadow on the Doorstep, James P. Blaylock
Lord of the Land, Gene Wolfe
The Faces at Pine Dunes, Ramsey Campbell
On the Slab, Harlan Ellison
24 Views of Mt. Fuji, by Hokusai, Roger Zelazny

All of My “Cthulhu Anthology” Reviews

Friday, August 04, 2023

Through a Mythos Darkly (Cthulhu Anthology #11) 2.5Stars

Title: Through a Mythos Darkly
Series: Cthulhu Anthology #11
Editor: Glynn Barrass & Brian Sammons
Rating: 2.5 of 5 Stars
Genre: Cosmic Horror
Pages: 257
Words: 98K

The title of this anthology is a rip off of the Bible verse from 1^st Corinthians, Chapter 13, verse 12 which starts out “For now we see in a mirror, darkly;” so I knew going in that this might very well be quite blasphemous. Thankfully, it wasn’t.

But it wasn’t that good either. I have built up my expectations about Glynn Barrass as an editor and he really let me down this time. I think a large part of that was the inclusion of a bunch of woke buzz words and ideas that shaped the stories into more political screeds than actual good story telling. Plus, several of them were using very modern terms (health care practitioner in the 1920’s, I don’t think so!) in stories where said words weren’t used that way. It just threw me out of the story every time it happened and damped down my enjoyment.

Plus, several of the stories had that “man is evil, man is a monster, man should just destroy himself to make the world a better place” mentality which has nothing to do with cosmic horror and more to do with the author’s thoughts and feelings about humanity. Which if they really believed that, they would put a gun in their mouth and blow their brains out. And we would all be better off not having to put up with their stupidity. But what they MEAN is that everyone ELSE is a monster and should destroy themselves, obviously not them!

The short story “Fate of the World” had a tie in with the King in Yellow in that Carcosa is a real place on Earth and is at war with the rest of world who are under the sway of various elder gods. But that was it and was barely there. The King doesn’t even appear. So it wasn’t what I expected or wanted.

Overall, I was pretty disappointed with this collection. While not egregiously bad like The Black Wings of Cthulhu, I am actually rating this lower because there wasn’t even one story that really rose above the rest. Everything was grey, mediocre pablum. That is the very antithesis of Cosmic Horror.

★★✬☆☆

Publisher’s Blurb & Table of Contents:

In this Cthulhu Mythos inspired anthology, editors Glynn Owen Barrass & Brian M. Sammons invited their authors to Take a steampunk world, fill it with giant steam powered robots, and have them herding shoggoths for the betterment of mankind. Have them rebel, and have do-gooders set about trying to free them. Fill a world with Deep Ones or Ghouls, or create a world where magic is a part of everyday life, or where America was never discovered because something kept eating the ships, or the Nazis won WWII thanks to outside influences. Perhaps the Chinese built the Great Wall to keep something out other than Mongol hordes. So, how did they do? Fantastically of course.

TOC:

Introduction (Through a Mythos Darkly) • essay by Glynn Owen Barrass and Brian M. Sammons

The Roadrunners • short fiction by Cody Goodfellow

Scrimshaw • short fiction by Jeffrey Thomas

Sweet Angie Tailor in: Subterranean Showdown • short story by John Langan

An Old and Secret Cult • short fiction by Robert M. Price

Stewert Behr—Deanimator • short fiction by Peter Rawlik [as by Pete Rawlik]

To Kill a King • short fiction by Don Webb

The Last Quest • short story by William Meikle

Fate of the World • short fiction by Christine Morgan

Red in the Water, Salt on the Earth • short fiction by Konstantine Paradias

The Night They Drove Cro Magnon Down • short fiction by D. A. Madigan

Sacrifice • short fiction by Sam Stone

Get Off Your Knees, I’m Not Your God • short fiction by Edward R. Morris

Excerpts from the Diaries of Henry P. Linklatter • short fiction by Stephen Mark Rainey

Plague Doctor • short fiction by Tim Waggoner

Amidst the Blighted Swathes of Grey Desolation • short fiction by Lee Clark Zumpe

Cognac, Communism, and Cocaine • short fiction by Nick Mamatas and Molly Tanzer

Kai Monstrai Ateik (When the Monsters Come) • short fiction by Damien Angelica Walters

All of My “Cthulhu Anthology” Reviews

Sunday, July 09, 2023

Rehearsals for Oblivion: Act One (The King in Yellow Anthology #9) 3Stars

Title: Rehearsals for Oblivion: Act One
Series: The King in Yellow Anthology #9
Editor: Peter Worthy
Rating: 3 of 5 Stars
Genre: Cosmic Horror
Pages: 252
Words: 99K

This was much more melancholic than cosmic horror’y. It reminded me of the later stories in Chamber’s original King in Yellow than of the first ones. Everything was just kind of sad. Part of that I know is because of the inclusion of several poems.

Several of the stories were about the degradation of the human spirit. One in particular was about a drug addict who would screw anything on two feet. The King in Yellow uses him as a prophet, but everything that made him proper malleable material for the King was because of his own choices. The King simply reaped the benefit of the man’s own self-destructive choices. Several of the stories went that route and I thought it devalued the power and the horror that the King in Yellow is supposed to have and be. One might see it as a little thing, but if you are going to write The King in Yellow, you need to write him correctly. Man, look at me, turning into some kind of KiY purist, sigh.

Now, some of the stories were downright awesome. One was a Sherlock Holmes and Watson pastiche where Holmes and Watson face down a Protege of Moriarty’s. Said Protege wants to bring the King in Yellow to our plane of existence to rule so that he can resurrect Moriarty and the three of them (Protege, Moriarty and the King in Yellow) can rule the world. I don’t think the Protege really understood that once he had brought the KiY into our world, well, he would have brooked no challengers to his power. Holmes does a little razzle dazzle bippity boo and defeats the Protege and thus keeps the world safe.

Another story that I thought did the mythology great service was “Yellow is the Color of Tomorrow”. It takes place in the alternate universe of the United States where Winthrop and Thorndyke had been President, the Indian and Negro states had formed their own union and the suicide booths were in regular operation. The story follows a man who buys a used collection of books as a way to push off the ennui of living in such a society. He ends up reading the King in Yellow, goes completely mad, kills the old bookseller and the story ends with him realizing what he’s done and heading off to the suicide booth so he doesn’t go to jail. It captured the feel perfectly from Chamber’s original story.

The final story in the anthology, “The Purple Emperor” tries to open up a greater cosmology. In it the narrator is a devotee of the Purple Emperor, some higher order being that is in charge of multiple dimensions, one of which contains the King in Yellow. The whole story revolves around the King in Yellow trying to spread his influence through psychics so that when the time is right, he can challenge the Emperor and take his place. I like the idea of a wider cosmology, as it brings more story options to the table. My only fear would be that the KiY would get lost in it all and become just a bit player instead of the main force of the mythology.

Overall, I thought the various authors did a great job of either taking a tiny piece of the original stories and spinning a wider web from them or simply extrapolating from the original and running wild with a logical conclusion from that extrapolation.

★★★☆☆

Table of Contents:

The Curse of the King

Richard L Tierney

The Dream-Leech

Willliam Laughlin

Ambrose

John Scott Tynes

In Memoriam

Roger Johnson and Robert M. Price

Cordelia’s Song From The King In Yellow

Vincent Starret

Chartreuse

Michael Minnis

Cat With The Hand Of A Child

Mark McLaughlin

Lilloth

Susan McAdam

Reflections in Carcosa

Mark Francis

Broadalbin

John Scott Tynes

The Adventure Of The Yellow Sign

G. Warlock Vance

Tattered Souls

Ann K Schwader

What Sad Drum

Steve Lines

The Machine In Yellow

Carlos Orsi Martinho

The Peace That Will Not Come

Peter A. Worthy

Yellow Is The Color Of Tomorrow

Ron Shiflet

The Purple Emperor

Will Murray

A Line Of Questions

Joseph S. Pulver, Sr.

Tuesday, June 13, 2023

Atomic Age Cthulhu (Cthulhu Anthology #10) ★★★★☆

Title: Atomic Age Cthulhu
Series: Cthulhu Anthology #10
Editor: Glynn Barrass & Brian Sammons
Rating: 4 of 5 Stars
Genre: Cosmic Horror
Pages: 287
Words: 106K

Table of Contents:

Introduction

Bad Reception by Jeffrey Thomas

Unamerican by Cody Goodfellow

Fallout by Sam Stone

Eldritch Lunch by Adam Bolivar

Little Curly by Neil Baker

The Day the Music Died by Charles Christian

The Terror That Came to Dounreay by William Meikle

The Romero Transference by Josh Reynolds

It Came to Modesto by Ed Erdelac

Within the Image of the Divine by Bear Weiter

Yellow is the Color of the Future by Jason Andrew

Fears Realized by Tom Lynch

Professor Patriot and the Doom that Came to Niceville by Christine Morgan

Rose-Colored Glasses by Michael Szymanski

The Preserved Ones by Christopher M. Geeson

Putnam’s Monster by Scott T. Goudsward

Operation Switch by Pete Rawlik

Names on the Black List by Robert M. Price

The End of the Golden Age by Brian M. Sammons & Glynn Owen Barrass

This was a great collection of Cthulhu mythos stories set during the 1950’s and ranged from the commies being Eldrich Horrors to the Eldrich Horrors taking over America so THEY could fight the commies. In most of the stories any commies got what was coming to them.

This was on track for being a 4.5star rating, but I ran into 2 stories that made that impossible.

The first one, Eldrich Lunch, almost made me quit the book. It was vile, and brought to mind my reaction to Lapvona last month. It really made me question if I was being hypocritical or not. I don’t think so for two reasons. First, the story was meant to be vile. Cosmic Horror is meant to have that edge. Second, it was just that one story and not the entire book. Quantity does matter. But it made me want to be much more careful about how I judge others for the books they read in the future. I’m still going to judge the heck out of the books and possibly the authors, but the people reading and praising them, I can at least keep my mouth shut.

The second story, Yellow is the Color of the Future, was obviously a King in Yellow story. My hopes skyrocketed. Sadly, they were dashed even before my real reasons for disliking the story came into play. Some sad sack of a movie producer finds the play The King in Yellow and a friend reads it and they decide to film it. The character playing the King gets possessed and is preparing to use the movie to enter our world and rule it. The sad sack producer figures out how to stop him and destroys the film. Happily Ever After. No. There are NO happily ever after’s in a good KiY story. Because even when you win against the King, you still end up losing. That’s what I appreciated so much about The Yellow Sign, that author understood that conundrum and wrote it well. And a movie producer? Come on, those guys don’t have a working brain cell, much less a whole brain, to be able to fight against the Horror of the King. That would be like Petunia Pig taking down a Gundam, bare handed. Inconceivable!

Fallout, on the other hand, was an excellent story. It follows a teen boy who’s about to turn 16 who is living in an American Dream. His family, no, the whole town is well off and doing well beyond imagination. Sure, his dad built a bunker in the backyard that gives the teen the heeby jeebies, but you gotta be prepared right? Turns out, the town has made a pact to offer their first borns on their 16^th birthday for wealth and prosperity. It ends well too, with the boy being sacrificed and one of the people who threw him into the fallout shelter saying something like “next month is my Suzie’s 16^th”. Cosmic Horror for the win!

To polish things off, I’d just like to take a second and talk about the editors, Glynn Barrass and Brian Sammons. So far, I have had very good luck for books edited by Barrass. Unlike Joshi, he doesn’t seem to have his head stuck up his fundament and instead focuses on telling stories that fans want to read. I like that attitude and I am beginning to recognize his name. If I see his name on a cover, chances are good I’m going to eventually pick up that book. More importantly, I’m probably going to enjoy it. Sammons, I don’t know. I’ll see if he shows up in other books that I end up enjoying.

★★★★☆

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Monday, May 29, 2023

The Yellow Sign (The King in Yellow Anthology #8) ★★★★✬

Title: The Yellow Sign
Series: The King in Yellow Anthology #8
Editor: James Hodge
Rating: 4.5 of 5 Stars
Genre: Cosmic Horror
Pages: 199
Words: 72K

From the Publisher & Bookstooge.blog

FBI Agent Erica Blaine has suffered more than most. After narrowly escaping being at the center of a cult sacrifice she’d been tasked with infiltrating, Erica has spent the last few months hitting the bottle, trying to avoid dealing with the trauma of what she experienced and those she couldn’t save. Her ruined hands, always gloved, are an unavoidable reminder of her pain and anguish.

As is the voice that won’t allow her a moment of peace.

But when her old Army buddy goes missing under suspicious circumstances, Erica is pulled back into the Lovecraftian world of cult infiltration. The Yellow College welcomes her with open arms, but as her sanity crumbles beneath the weight of hallucinations, old traumas, and lost memories, how can she expect to save her friend when she can barely tell what’s real and what isn’t?

Have you seen the shores of Carcosa?

The Yellow College believes that Erica is the chosen vessel for the King in Yellow to manifest himself in. This will usher in a new age as the King reigns openly. What they don’t know is that the King has his own plans, for them, for Erica and for the world.

In the end, the college sacrifices itself in a feeding frenzy of madness and despair and Erica becomes a synthesis of herself and the King in Yellow, a new being called Nihilo. Who will bring death, destruction and madness everywhere she walks.

This starts out slow. But being familiar with how the mythology of the King in Yellow always works itself out, I was expecting that. I could see how that would be off putting to those who are either familiar with King in Yellow mythology or have not read much beyond the original 4 stories by Chambers. I would NOT recommend this as a starting place for people to read more of the King in Yellow.

This was published in ‘22 and I think I’ve made the right choice at placing it as #8 in this “series” about the King in Yellow. It is also a full novel. Most of what has been written before has been short stories. Those are easier to pull off and can rely on The Idea. A novel takes a lot more work and has other limitations that a short story doesn’t. Like characterization and plot.

I felt like Hodge did an admirable job of writing up a full length novel around the concept of the King in Yellow. With an FBI agent as the main character investigating cult like behavior, I wasn’t sure if he was going to try for the “happy ending” or the real deal King in Yellow type ending. Thankfully, he chose to go with a real King in Yellow ending and that pushed this from a 3.5star rating up to it’s 4.5star rating. I was very pleased with just how gruesomely this ended, with the promise of continuing madness (not that there is more story to tell, but that the character of Nihilo will continue on the Earth).

There are two things that kept this from getting a 5star rating from me. First and foremost, was the just plain gratuitous use of the word “fuck”. I felt like it was thrown around like a teenage girl uses “like yeah, duh”. It didn’t really convey anything except Erica’s dissatisfaction with a situation and that was already shown in other ways, so it just felt gratuitous. If you took them out, nothing would have changed. The second, which is more of a niggle than anything, was that Hodge’s interpretation of the King is more Cthulhu’ic than pure King in Yellow. When Erica meets the King, he is described in terms that are more fitting to an eldritch tentacled horror than the King of Madness as Chamber’s described him. I like my King in Yellow to be completely separate from the Cthulhu mythos, even while I realize that particular boat has sailed. Like I said, a mere niggle.

I believe this was Hodge’s debut work and as such I am planning to keep an eye out for anything else he writes. I couldn’t find a website for him, but I also didn’t look that hard. I’m not a fan of authors as people, just authors as authors.

★★★★✬

Thursday, May 04, 2023

World War Cthulhu (Cthulhu Anthology #9) ★★★★☆

Title: World War Cthulhu
Series: Cthulhu Anthology #9
Editor: Glynn Barrass
Rating: 4 of 5 Stars
Genre: Cosmic Horror
Pages: 365
Words: 137K

From the Publisher & Table of Contents:

The world is at war against things that slink and gibber in the darkness, and titans that stride from world to world, sewing madness and death. War has existed in one form or another since the dawn of human civilization, and before then, Elder terrors battled it out across this planet and this known universe in ways unimaginable.

It has always been a losing battle for our side since time began. Incidents like the Innsmouth raid, chronicled by H.P. Lovecraft, mere blips of victory against an insurmountable foe. Still we fight, against these incredible odds, in an unending nightmare, we fight, and why? For victory, for land, for a political ideal? No, mankind fights for survival.

Our authors, John Shirley, Mark Rainey, Wilum Pugmire, William Meikle, Tim Curran, Jeffrey Thomas and many others have gathered here to share war stories from the eternal struggle against the darkness. This book chronicles these desperate battles from across the ages, including Roman Britain, The American Civil War, World War Two, The Vietnam Conflict, and even into the far future.

Table of Contents

Loyalty by John Shirley

The Game Changers by Stephen Mark Rainey

White Feather by T.E. Grau

To Hold Ye White Husk by W.H. Pugmire

Sea Nymph’s Son by Robert M. Price

The Boonieman by Edward M. Erdelac

The Turtle by Neil Baker

The Bullet and the Flesh by David Conyers & David Kernot

Broadsword by William Meikle

The Ithiliad by Christine Morgan

The Sinking City by Konstantine Paradias

Shape of a Snake by Cody Goodfellow

Mysterious Ways by C.J. Henderson

Magna Mater by Edward Morris

Dark Cell by Brian M. Sammons and Glynn Owen Barrass

Cold War, Yellow Fever by Pete Rawlik

Stragglers from Carrhae by Darrell Schweitzer

The Procyon Project by Tim Curran

Wunderwaffe by Jeffrey Thomas

A Feast of Death by Lee Clark Zumpe

Long Island Weird by Charles Christian

The Yoth Protocols by Josh Reynolds

Much, MUCH better than that stupid Black Wings of Cthulhu I read previously. This was proper cosmic horror with eldrich elder gods being summoned to our world. Of course, most of the stories end with the main characters being able to fight off the intrusions, but it came down more to the eldrich power simply not caring enough to make the effort to overcome the main characters. But the stories where the eldrich horrors do break through, oooooooh yeah, it gets baaaaaaad. And that is goooood!

One of the stories is a King in Yellow story, Cold War, Yellow Fever, and that is what elevated this from a pretty good 3 ½ star read to a darn good 4 star read. It was about what an extrusion of Carcosa into Cuba would look like during the 1960’s. While the King himself doesn’t make an appearance, his domain of madness is enough and I loved every second of it.

Even outside of that, the stories were pretty good. No fancy pants pretentious wankers writing balderdash but instead we had authors writing cracking entertaining stories about the madness hiding in the darkness, just waiting to devour us. THAT is what Cosmic Horror is about.

Glynn Barrass was one of the editors and so far, he’s done excellent work in the stories he’s chosen. Well done sir, well done. Now let’s have a cage match between him and that pustulent excrescence ST Joshi.

★★★★☆

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Thursday, April 13, 2023

Cassilda’s Song (The King in Yellow Anthology #7) ★★★★☆

Title: Cassilda’s Song
Series: The King in Yellow Anthology #7
Editor: Joseph Pulver
Rating: 4 of 5 Stars
Genre: Cosmic Horror
Pages: 241
Words: 92K

Table of Contents:

Introduction by Joseph S. Pulver, Sr.

Black Stars on Canvas, a Reproduction in Acrylic by Damien Angelica Walters

She Will Be Raised a Queen by E. Catherine Tobler

Yella by Nicole Cushing

Yellow Bird by Lynda E. Rucker

Exposure by Helen Marshall

Just Beyond Her Dreaming by Mercedes M. Yardley

In the Quad of Project 327 by Chesya Burke

Stones, Maybe by Ursula Pflug

Les Fleurs du Mal by Allyson Bird

While The Black Stars Burn by Lucy A. Snyder

Old Tsah-Hov by Anya Martin

The Neurastheniac by Selena Chambers

Dancing the Mask by Ann K. Schwader

Family by Maura McHugh

Pro Patria! by Nadia Bulkin

Her Beginning is Her End is Her Beginning by E. Catherine Tobler and Damien Angelica Walters

Grave-Worms by Molly Tanzer

Strange is the Night by S.P. Miskowski

This was a collection centered around the character of Cassilda, the former queen of Carcosa that the Yellow King subjugate/co-opted/seduced depending on which story you decide to hold to. In some of these stories she is fighting against the King in Yellow, other times the story is about her influence in our world and in some instances it’s just a feminist story wrapped in the liturgical wrappings of the King in Yellow.

I actually started to read this back in January, but with everything that was going on medically at the time, stories that dealt with despair and madness and hopelessness were way more than I could handle at that time. But now that we appear to be on the other side, I could dive into this cesspool with nary a shudder or twinge of disgust.

Two stories stood out to me. Not that they were the most enjoyable ones, but I felt like they encapsulated the best and worst of the King in Yellow mythology.

In the Quad of Project 327 was about a group of school kids who find the play The King in Yellow and one girl reads it. Unlike everyone else who has ever read it, it doesn’t drive her crazy but gives her psychic powers and she in turn gives these powers to the other kids. They use the power to make their Quad (apartment building area) a better place and to make their white male teacher hate Columbus and be a “nicer” guy. This exemplified the worst in my opinion. The author wrapped up her white male hatred and used some of the literary terms used in the King in Yellow stories. But she either didn’t understand or chose to ignore that the play has to drive people mad, or it isn’t The King in Yellow. As such, this didn’t have that hopeless, the walls are closing in, claustrophobic feel that a genuine KiY story should have. There is no hope, there is no betterment, there is no strength in a King in Yellow story. And if you choose to go outside of those bounds, then your story isn’t a KiY story. It wasn’t necessarily a bad story, but it was missing that downward punch that was needed.

Old Tsah-Hov was a story about a dog that ends up being owned by a woman named Cassilda, in Jerusalem. She adopts him as a stray and gets married and has a kid and then a war breaks out and her husband breaks under the strain and tries to hit her. The dog intervenes, only the son tries to stop him and the dog ends up biting the son by accident instead of the father. So he’s taken away to be put down. Once he’s put down, he awakens in Carcosa, where a mob is waiting for him, with hands filled with stones. To kill him. Again. Now THAT is how you tell a KiY story. The dog is loyal to Cassilda, loves the little boy and is doing his best to protect and serve. And his reward? To be killed again by the King in Yellow. The pure perversity of the entire situation, the twistedness of it, is exactly how a KiY story should be written.

Black Stars on Canvas, a Reproduction in Acrylic, the lead story, is a great KiY primer. If you can read that story and like it, The King in Yellow is for you. If you read it and don’t like it, or aren’t interested, I sincerely doubt you’ll like much else in the King in Yellow mythology. I’ve never been tempted to write a book, or even a short story, but if I ever did, it would be something to do with the King in Yellow.

The main reason I didn’t give this a 4 ½ rating was because one of the stories was poetry. Poetry is an essential element in the play The King in Yellow, but I don’t like poetry and I don’t have to.

I’ve included a large version of the cover below as it is hard to see in the little one I include with most reviews.

★★★★☆

https://dl.dropboxusercontent.com/s/r83hy39y0tpavxv/cassildassongbig.jpg

Thursday, March 23, 2023

The Black Wings of Cthulhu Vol 1 (Cthulhu Anthology #7) ★★★☆☆

Title: The Black Wings of Cthulhu Vol 1
Series: Cthulhu Anthology #7
Editor: S.T. Joshi
Rating: 3.0 of 5 Stars
Genre: Cosmic Horror
Pages: 385
Words: 141K

TOC

Introduction

S. T. Joshi

Pickman’s Other Model (1929)

Caitlín R. Kiernan

Desert Dreams

Donald R. Burleson

Engravings

Joseph S. Pulver, Sr.

Copping Squid

Michael Shea

Passing Spirits

Sam Gafford

The Broadsword

Laird Barron

Usurped

William Browning Spencer

Denker’s Book

David J. Schow

Inhabitants of Wraithwood

W. H. Pugmire

The Dome

Mollie L. Burleson

Rotterdam

Nicholas Royle

Tempting Providence
Jonathan Thomas

Howling in the Dark

Darrell Schweitzer

The Truth about Pickman

Brian Stableford

Tunnels

Philip Haldeman

The Correspondence of Cameron Thaddeus Nash

Annotated by Ramsey Campbell

Violence, Child of Trust

Michael Cisco

Lesser Demons

Norman Partridge

An Eldritch Matter

Adam Niswander

Substitution

Michael Marshall Smith

Susie

Jason Van Hollander

There was a distinct lack of Cthulhu in this collection. A VERY distinct lack. It would have been better to call this a collection of stories about authors navel gazing as cockroaches ate their belly buttons. At least I would have been prepared for the completely self-absorbed narcissists who wrote these stories. They weren’t all necessarily bad, but without a direct tie to Cthulhu or some of his equally evil and cosmic brethren, they just came across as authors spouting nonsense about nonsense. I confirmed that Joseph Pulver Sr is a blithering idiot and has the skill of an epileptic caught in the throws of a fentanyl withdrawal while falling off of Nakatomi Towers.

I still gave this 3stars because of the ones that did tie directly into the Mythos. And I really enjoyed them. But 3 or 4 stories out of a collection of 21 is not a very good track record. Joshi (the editor of this collection) and I have a very mixed track record. Sometimes I really enjoy what he’s put together and other times I think he’s on drugs and his selections are crap. He is definitely one of those people who think Lovecraft’s mythology deserves “special attention” instead of just playing in the sandbox.

I just looked on Devilreads and there are FIVE more collections of this series. That’s rubbish. I am “almost” tempted to sample them to see if they too are Cthulhu’less, but I’ve got 6 other anthologies to investigate first. Maybe when I run out and am desperate for a Cthulhu fix (as I take a swan dive off of Nakatomi Tower, hehehehe).

★★★☆☆

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Friday, February 03, 2023

The Hastur Cycle (The King in Yellow Anthology #6) ★★★✬☆

Title: The Hastur Cycle
Series: The King in Yellow Anthology #6
Editor: Robert Price
Rating: 3.5 of 5 Stars
Genre: Cosmic Horror
Pages: 329
Words: 139K

Price appears to be a HP Lovecraft and Cthulhu buff and one of those bores who will kill a party quick as spit by telling you the historical importance of the works of HPL and why it matters. HPL did enfold some of the King in Yellow mythology into his works and thus, Price splits this book into stories directly about the King in Yellow and the rest are about Cthulhu with some of the KIY mythology names tacked on.

They were still good stories and I enjoyed them, but I wanted All the King in Yellow, All the time and I didn’t get that. So I waffled between giving this 3 or 4 stars and ended up coming down in the middle because my disappointment was perfectly balanced with my overall enjoyment.

This definitely felt puffed. Price includes a full story from both Chambers (who wrote The King in Yellow) and Lovecraft (who wrote Cthulhu) and while I appreciated that as it helped tie down the other stories by reminding us of why they were included. Saying a “random” name once in your story appeared to be enough to be included, so knowing how that “random” name actually tied into the mythology was good. But it didn’t take away from the fact that Price was including copyright/royalty free stories to pad the page and word count. Instead, I wanted all new stories and I didn’t get that.

Overall, between the “feels like padding” stories and the fact that this wasn’t strictly a KIY collection, I had to ding it. As a cosmic horror collection, I think it’s pretty good though. So there’s your mixed message for the day 🙂

★★★✬☆

Sunday, December 11, 2022

The Madness of Cthulhu Vol. 2 (Cthulhu Anthology #6) ★★★✬☆

Title: The Madness of Cthulhu Vol. 2
Series: Cthulhu Anthology #6
Editor: S.T. Joshi
Rating: 3.5 of 5 Stars
Genre: Cosmic Horror
Pages: 194
Words: 74K

The Table of Contents will be under the Details arrow, click if you want to expand it.

20,000 Years Under the Sea by Kevin J. Anderson

Tsathoggua’s Breath by Brian Stableford

The Door Beneath by Alan Dean Foster

Dead Man Walking by William F. Nolan

A Crazy Mistake by Nancy Kilpatrick

The Anatomy Lesson by Cody Goodfellow

The Hollow Sky by Jason C. Eckhardt

The Last Ones by Mark Howard Jones

A Footnote in the Black Budget by Jonathan Maberry

Deep Fracture by Steve Rasnic Tem

The Dream Stones by Donald Tyson

The Blood in My Mouth by Laird Barron

On the Shores of Destruction by Karen Haber

Object 00922UU by Erik Bear and Greg Bear

With this collection, Joshi steers the boat back into the Cosmic Horror side of Cthulhu instead of the Weird Fiction stream he entered with Madness Vol 1. I much prefer Cosmic Horror (as I’ve said before and I’m sure I’ll say again).

I’m realizing, as I read more of these anthologies, that a good grounding in both classic literature AND the original Cthulhu Mythos by Lovecraft make for a much richer, fuller read. The first story, 20,000 Years Under the Sea is about Captain Nemo and the Nautilus, from Jules Verne’s story 20,000 Leagues under the Sea. While Anderson does a good job (I’m surprised I’m saying that about him, as I usually think he does slip shod and crappy work) of giving us all the details we need to know for this particular story, if you know the original story it adds some depth to the characters, etc. In the same way, A Footnote in the Black Budget deals with the shoggoth and the fallout from Lovecraft’s story The Mountains of Madness. Again, you are given everything you need for this particular story, but knowing the history just adds more to your enjoyment.

I also find that the horrible works better than the strictly weird. The Dream Stones is a perfect example. That is an interview at a police station with a person who appears to have gone insane after murdering 6 couples. But if you believe in the mythos, you see that they have been driven insane by something so vast that it simply broke their mind. Why does that appeal to me? I have no idea.

Overall, I was pretty pleased with this collection. There was no snobbery or pretentiousness to ruin the stories and we went from the time of the Vikings to the Far Future, so it wasn’t all the same setting. At the same time, I gave this the same rating as Vol 1 because none of these stories quite rose to the occasion. So while I enjoyed the Cosmic Horror, it wasn’t as good as I was hoping for.

★★★✬☆

Monday, October 10, 2022

New Tales of the Yellow Sign (The King in Yellow Anthology #5) ★★✬☆☆

This review is written with a GPL 4.0 license and the rights contained therein shall supersede all TOS by any and all websites in regards to copying and sharing without proper authorization and permissions. Crossposted at WordPress & Blogspot by Bookstooge’s Exalted Permission
Title: New Tales of the Yellow Sign
Series: The King in Yellow Anthology #5
Editor: Robin Laws
Rating: 2.5 of 5 Stars
Genre: Cosmic Horror
Pages: 143
Words: 51K

★★✬☆☆