Cthulhu Reloaded (Cthulhu: Harrison Peel #1) 3.5Stars

 

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Title: Cthulhu Reloaded
Series: Cthulhu: Harrison Peel #1
Editor: David Conyers
Rating: 3.5 of 5 Stars
Genre: Short Story Collection
Pages: 240
Words: 94K

I enjoyed this collection of Cthulhu oriented stories, but with some big ol’ caveats. And they are big enough that I seriously considered dinging this down to 3stars instead of the 3.5 I ended up giving it.

First off, this is a collection of short stories all centered about the adventures of one Australian, Harrison Peel. He’s special forces and gets inducted into a secret agency that fights intrusions of the cosmic horror into our reality. And that is where my first caveat comes in. They are great horror stories. Wonderful in fact. But Peel sails through them all with nary a mind break in sight. What he sees affects him, but not any more than how veteran cops are affected after a life time of seeing the worst of humanity. And that is why I didn’t give this the “Cosmic Horror” tag. Peel should have been broken like an egg dropped from a sky scraper and he was barely scratched, not even cracked and totally not broken. In both the Introduction by Peter Clines and the Forward by the author, they mention how they don’t understand why people want to read stories about the main characters failing or breaking and thus Conyers created Harrison Peel as a character to combat that idea. Which just goes to show that Conyers doesn’t understand Cosmic Horror at it’s fundamental, foundational level. THE WHOLE POINT IS THAT CTHULHU AND HIS ILK ARE INIMICAL TO HUMANITY WITHOUT EVEN TRYING TO BE, THEY SIMPLY ARE. When you depart from that premise, you can have some great horrific stories but they aren’t cosmic horror. So that is my first and biggest caveat.

My second caveat is almost a sub-caveat to the first one. A lot of side characters DO go mad or get destroyed or totally lose it in one way or another. But not Peel. He keeps surviving through each and every short story. That is inimical (love that word!) to Cosmic Horror. It makes the stories simply adventure stories and if you’re looking for that, you’ll get your fill of some really good ones here. I was pretty impressed overall with the quality, but the author does admit that he went back and reworked many of these stories to fit together better and to polish them up. I had no problem with that and considering this collection came together, I’m happy he did that.

My final caveat is that there is a King in Yellow story and man, was I disappointed. It all springs from the idea that Peel doesn’t crack, so of course I was disappointed. The Yellow King never attempts to destroy someone until they have been sufficiently worked on so that they will destroy themselves. The King in Yellow would not offer me a harem, because he would know I was committed to Mrs B. But what he would do is to work against that love and loyalty that I have for Mrs B for my entire life until I WAS ready to accept a harem. And he would work it so that I would give myself heart and soul to him for just that chance. But once again, not Peel. He gives Peel the option to have something he truly wants, but it is offered without the ground work being laid so of course Peel walks away from it and the King in Yellow just lets him go. Bologna! That is NOT how the King in Yellow stories work. If he knows you are insusceptible, he won’t tempt you. Now, the story itself, dealing with the side characters, was a great KiY story and I enjoyed that part of it, a lot. But the inclusion of Peel and his “shrug it all off” attitude destroyed my enjoyment.

I really debated about including this as part of my Cthulhu Anthology “series” and wondered if it would be better served as it’s own little thing, but in the end I did include it because I feel that anything Cthulhu related should stay together to make it easier for others to find out about it. There are two more Harrison Peel collections and I plan on reading them both, but I will approach them quite differently than I did this time and hopefully that will help mitigate some of the dislike I felt for this author and his deliberate misinterpretation of the “Cosmic Horror” genre.

★★★✬☆

Table of Contents:

• Introduction -Peter Clines

• Forward - David Conyers

• Made of Meat

• Driven Underground

• Impossible Object

• False Containment

• Tears in Yellow

• The Weaponized Puzzle

• Weapon Grade

• The Elder Codex

• All of My “Cthulhu Anthology” Reviews

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

 

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, & Librarything by Bookstooge’s Exalted Permission

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

Book of Cthulhu (Cthulhu Anthology #17) 3.5Stars

 

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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:

• 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

Cthulhu Cymraeg (Cthulhu Anthology #16) 3Stars

 

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

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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.

★★★☆☆

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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

Shotguns V Cthulhu (Cthulhu Anthology #15) 4Stars

 

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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.

★★★★☆

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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

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

 

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, & Librarything by Bookstooge’s Exalted Permission

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.

★★★✬☆

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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

Cthulhu 2000 (Cthulhu Anthology #12) 3Stars

 

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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.

★★★☆☆

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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

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

 

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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.

★★✬☆☆

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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

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

 

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, & Librarything by Bookstooge’s Exalted Permission

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

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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.

★★★★☆

• All of My “Cthulhu Anthology” Reviews

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

 

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, & Librarything by Bookstooge’s Exalted Permission

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

INSERT SEPARATOR

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.

★★★★☆

• All of My “Cthulhu Anthology” Reviews

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

 

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, & Librarything by Bookstooge’s Exalted Permission

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).

★★★☆☆

• All of My “Cthulhu Anthologies” Review

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

 

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: 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 :-)

★★★✬☆

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

 

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, & Librarything by Bookstooge’s Exalted Permission

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

TOC

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.

★★★✬☆

• Cthulhu Lives! (Book 1)

• Cthulhu Lies Dreaming (Book 2)

• The Madness of Cthulhu Vol 1 (Book 3)

• Pyrate Cthulhu Vol 1 (Book 4)

• Pyrate Cthulhu Vol 2 (Book 5)