That Is Not Dead (Cthulhu Anthology #20) 1Star

 

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: That Is Not Dead
Series: Cthulhu Anthology #20
Editor: Darrell Schweitzer
Rating: 1 of 5 Stars
Genre: Cosmic Horror
Pages: 212
Words: 82K

Last time I read something edited by Schweitzer, it was Cthulhu’s Reign. I enjoyed that. This time, there was a story, by Schweitzer himself, that was out and out blasphemous. While I usually will dnf a book with issues like that, in a collection of short stories I feel ok with not. But the rating tanked right down to 1star. I was surprised, because there was a story by S.T. Joshi and he’s a total twat, so I was expecting HIS story to be the one I hated on.

It also leads to another observation about the Cthulhu Mythos that continues to bug me. It is always Christianity and Jehovah and Jesus that get the shaft in these stories. Always. No Buddha getting his serenity all butt raped. No Allah eating shit and saying he likes it. Not even Joseph Smith for goodness sake! The least they could do is make his magic glasses eat his brains or something. But nope, none of that now. And I wonder why. I have some ideas but they are pure conjecture and baseless speculation.

So really, while I enjoyed some of these stories, the ones I didn’t dragged me down paths I didn’t really want to perambulate on and I feel like I was mugged. That is NOT the feeling I want when I read a book.

★☆☆☆☆

From Wikipedia

The book collects fourteen short stories by various authors, with an introduction by the editor. All share the Cthulhu Mythos setting originated by H. P. Lovecraft, but unlike his stories, which generally take place in modern times, they are set in previous historical eras. The effect is to take the Mythos from the realm of contemporary horror into that of historical fiction. The stories are presented in chronological order from the 2nd millennium BC to the late 19th century, with the last set in the present but looking back to medieval events

TOC

• "Introduction: Horror of the Carnivàle" (Darrell Schweitzer)

• "Egypt, 1200 BC: Herald of Chaos" (Keith Taylor)

• "Mesopotamia, second millennium BC: What a Girl Needs" (Esther Friesner)

• "Judaea, second century AD: The Horn of the World’s Ending" (John Langan)

• "Central Asia, second century AD: Monsters in the Mountains at the Edge of the World" (Jay Lake)

• "Palestine, Asia Minor, and Central Asia; late eleventh and mid twelfth centuries AD: Come, Follow Me" (Darrell Schweitzer)

• "England, 1605: Ophiuchus" (Don Webb)

• "Russia, late seventeenth century: Of Queens and Pawns" (Lois H. Gresh)

• "Mexico, 1753: Smoking Mirror" (Will Murray)

• "France, 1762: Incident at Ferney" (S. T. Joshi)

• "Arizona Territory, 1781: Anno Domini Azathoth" (John R. Fultz)

• "Massachusetts, USA, early twentieth century. Italy, early nineteenth century: Slowness" (Don Webb)

• "Massachusetts, USA, and Spain, late nineteenth century: The Salamanca Encounter" (Richard A. Lupoff)

• "Seattle, Washington, USA, 1889: Old Time Entombed" (W. H. Pugmire)

• "England, twenty-first century and the Middle Ages: Nine Drowned Churches" (Harry Turtledove)

• 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

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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