The Cthulhu Dynasty - "The Nameless City" and "The Hound" by HP Lovecraft

[Abe Sargent]

As mentioned in a post in the general forum, I am interested in doing a dynasty where I read one of the great horror short stories in the Cthulhu Mythos. Then I post my own review and synopsis.

Here is how this dynasty will run:

1). I'll post what the next story in the dynasty is, and if possible, I'll supply a link to where you can find it on the Net. Then I'll wait a day or two before posting my review. This gives any reader a chance, if they want, to read the story. Some of the stories that I will be reading are among the most influential short stories in the history of horror literature.

2). Then I post my review and synopsis, and we can comment on the story, you can post your own thoughts if you've read it, and so forth. I'll also provide a historical perspective on many of these stories.

And thus the dynasty would go, slowly moving over the face of the great Mythos stories.

So, let's try it out! The first short story that I am going to review is "The Call of Cthulhu." You have to start with this story. It is easily one of the top ten or maybe even five most influential horror short stories of all time and the originator of the Mythos.

If you are interested in reading The Call of Cthulhu, clck your mouse at:

hxxp://www.dagonbytes.com/thelibrary/lovecraft/thecallofcthulhu.htm

And give it a read!


I will post more on the Mythos and this story in particular a bit later. I hope to post my review and synopsis on Friday, but if I can't, expect it over the weekend.


Good luck!


Let's include an updated Table of Contents, in case folks want to catch up. These are the stories we've read and discussed thus far:


1). The Call of Cthulhu, by HP Lovecraft; 4.5 stars
2). The Shadow over Innsmouth, by HP Lovecraft 5.0 stars
3). The Dunwich Horror, by HP Lovecraft, 4.0 stars
4). The Haunter of the Dark, by HP Lovecraft, 4.0 stars
5). At the Mountains of Madness, by HP Lovecraft, 4.0 stars
6). The Colour Out of Space, by HP Lovecraft, 4.5 stars
7). The Tale of Satampra Zeiros, by Clark Ashton Smith, 4.0 stars
8). Ubbo-Sathla, by Clark Ashton Smith, 3.5 stars
9). The Seven Geases, by Clark Ashton Smith, 5.0 stars
10). The Black Stone, by Robert E. Howard, 4.0 stars
11). The Thing on the Roof, by Robert E. Howard, 3.0 stars
12). The Fire of Asshurbanipal, by Robert E. Howard, 4.0 stars
13). Worms of the Earth, by Robert E. Howard, 4.0 stars
14). The Hounds of Tindalos, by Frank Belknap Long, 3.0 stars
15). The Shadow out of Time, by HP Lovecraft, 2.0 stars
16). The Challenge from Beyond, by CL Moore, A. Merritt, HP Lovecraft, Robert Howard and Frank Belknap Long, 2.0 stars
17). The Space-Eaters, by Frank Belknap Long, 2.5 stars
18). The Lair of the Star-Spawn, by August Derleth and Mark Schorer, 2.5 stars
19). The Walker on the Wind, by August Derleth, 3.0 stars
20). The Sealed Casket, by Richard F. Seawright, 2.0 stars
21). An Inhabitant of Carcosa, by Ambrose Bierce, 5.0 stars
22). Haita the Shepherd, by Ambrose Bierce, 4.0 stars
23). The Yellow Sign, by Robert W Chambers, 5.0 stars
24). A Shop in Go-By-Street, by Lord Dunsany, 3.5 stars
25). Of Skarl the Drummer, by Lord Dunsany, Unranked (Too Short)
26). The Kraken, by Alfred Lord Tennyson, Unranked, too short and famous
27). The Moon Pool, by A. Merritt, 3.5 stars for short story (3.0 for five five chapters of novel)
28). The Shambler from the Stars, by Robert Bloch, 2.5 stars
29). The Shadow from the Steeple, by Robert Bloch, 2.5 stars
30). Fane of the Black Pharaoh, by Robert Bloch, 3.5 stars
31). Winged Death, by HP Lovecraft and Hazel Heald, 4.0 stars
32). The Outpost, by HP Lovecraft, Unranked (too short)
33). The Tree-Men of M'Bwa, by Donald Wandrei, 4.0 stars
34). The Fire Vampires, by Donald Wandrei, 2.5 stars
35). Ithaqua, by August Derleth, 3.5 stars
36). The Whisperer in Darkness, by HP Lovecraft, 3.0 stars
37). Bells of Horror, by Henry Kuttner, 3.0 stars
38). The Eater of Souls, by Henry Kuttner, 3.5 stars
39). The Jest of Droom-Avista, by Henry Kuttner, 3.0 stars
40). The Dreams in the Witch House, by HP Lovecraft, 2.0 stars
41). The Salem Horror, by Henry Kuttner, 2.0 stars
42). The Black Kiss, by Henry Kuttner and Robert Bloch, 2.5 stars
43). A Study in Emerald, by Neil Gaiman, 5 stars - Won Hugo Award
44). Only the End of the World Again, by Neil Gaiman, 3.5 stars
45). I, Cthulhu, by Neil Gaiman, 3 Stars
46). Pickman's Modem, by Lawrence Watt-Evans, 3 stars
47). 24 Views of Mt. Fuji, by Hokusai: by Roger Zelazny, 5 stars - Won Hugo Award
48). A Quarter to Three, by Kim Newman, 3.5 stars
49). The Big Fish, by Kim Newman, 4 stars
50). Jerusalm's Lot, by Stephen King, 3 Stars
51). Crouch End, by Stephen King, 3.5 Stars
52). The Church in High Street, by Ramsey Campbell 2.5 stars
53). Cold Print, by Ramsey Campbell, 3.5 stars
54). Some Notes Concerning a Green Box, by Alan Dean Foster, 3 stars
55). The Horror on the Beach, by Alan Dean Foster, 2 Stars
56). The Eye of Hlu-Hlu, by Donald Burleson, 2 Stars
57). Dark Awakening, by Frank Belknap Long, 3.5 stars
58). The Terrible Parchment, by Manly Wade Wellman, 3 stars
59). Than Curse the Darkness, by David Drake, 2.5 stars
60). The Courtyard, by Alan Moore, 4 stars
61). Neonomicon, by Alan Moore, Not Ranked, Won Stoker Award
62). Shaft Number 247, by Basil Copper, 4 Stars
63). Black Man with a Horn, by T.E.D. Klein, 4 Stars
64). The Fishers from Outside, by Lin Carter, 3.0 Stars
65). Dead of Night, by Lin Carter, 2.5 Stars
66). Out of the Ages, by Lin Carter, 2.0 Stars
67). The Horror in the Gallery, by Lin Carter, 2.0 Stars
68). Nameless City, by H.P. Lovecraft
69). The Hound, by H.p. Lovecraft


EDIT - I decided to edit in my ratings for these stories.

[Abe Sargent]

Okay, let's begin with a discussion of Lovecraft and the Mythos. Why should you care? Why is this stuff important? (Other than being good, of course)


HP Lovecraft was a pulp writer in the late teens, twenties through the mid thirties before he died. His early stories are written in a very Poe vein and his middle stories are written in a very Dunsany vein. It isn't until the above story, The Call of Cthulhu, that he finds his own voice. He'll only be writing short stories under his own voice for about 10 years before he dies.

Oh what ten years they are

Lovecraft is not a major writer of the time. He's not even a major pulp writer. Lovecraft was a minor pulp writer who was good enough to keep getting published and have respect and a living but not nearly enough to really skyrocket. His works were so visionary and different that manyr eaders simpyl did not like them At a time when people were turning to the pulps for cowboy stories dressed up as sci-fi stories, with simple plots, big breasts, and fights, Lovecraft wrote real literature.

It wasn't until years after his death that his writings generally became seen for the genius that they are. (There were visionaries. After publishing The Call of Cthulhu, Robert Howard wrote Weird Tales and said that this story would go down as one of the best weird short stories of all time. He was right.)

There were three major writers for Weird Tales. Clark Ashton Smith was the most prolific, Robert Howard the most popular, and Lovecraft, the most skilled. These three were great friends and exchanged letters and story ideas.

Lovecraft began using similar elements in his stories from one to the next. He would borrow a place, character, book or being from one of his previous stories in order to more fully flesh out his current story. This is the beginning of the Cthulhu Mythos.

Of course, this was just one writer sharing ideas among stories. That's nothing particularly unusual. What chanegd was the other half of Lovecraft's works.

Lovecraft is one of the most noted epistolareans of our age. He wrote letters that were pages long to correspondants, and he loved writers. He would write letter after letter to writers, asking them about their stories, complementing their style or a clever turn of phrase, and talkign with them about various ideas, stories, and so forth.

Lovecraft would counsel young writers like August Derleth and Robert Bloch while co-writing stories with tons of young writers, like Zeala Bishop and Adolphe DeCastro. This combination of writing with young writers while also counseling others and working with established writers created a cadre of writers that communicated back and forth.

Most people believe that it was Clark Ashton Smith who began the Mythos by adding an element to one of his stories. In one of his fantasy stories set in an old Earth, CAS wrote Kultulten as an evil deity. Someone wrote in and asked if this was an old form of Cthulhu. He hadn;t mean it to be so, be after considering it, he liked the idea, and responded that it was, in fact, Cthulhu.

That was the beginning.

Robert Howard grabbed the Necronomicon for one of his stories and Lovecraft responded by taking Howard's Unaussprechlichen Kulten and adding it to his own stories. Lovecraft grabbed the evil deity Tsathoggua from Clark Ashton Smith's writings and added it to his writings.

This give and take continued and increased with more authors and more material until Lovecraft died in early 1937. When he died, one of his proteges, August Derleth, really took over Lovecraft's works.

Derleth founded Arkham House Publishing and began compiling Lovecraft's works and publihsing them. He kept Lovecraft alive again and again through printing after printing, and Arkham House still owns the rights to Lovecraft to this day.

Derleth also wrote heavily in the Mythos. He coined the term, "The Cthulhu Mythos," and then wrote and inspired others to keep writing their horror stories in the Mythos. Derleth would also "co-write" books with Lovecraft by turning Lovecraft's outlines or short stories into novels.

The problem with Derleth, and this is why he is usually universally scorned by Lovecraft fans, is that he is not nearly the writer Lovecraft was. Where Lovecraft would spook you with mystery, mood and the unknown, Derleth would gleefully pull back the curtain. Whether or nor Lovecraft had envisioned his universe to be as Derleth painted it, one has to admit that Lovecraaft at least never revealed it, like a clever showman.

Lovecraft was a masterful magician and Derleth was the sufficient magician who made his living showing you how magicians did things.

Derleth also changed Lovecraft's visions significantly and in ways which we will likely get into later (I don't want to burden new readers with the language of the Mythos until later).

There were tons of writers that wrote short stories that incorporated one or more elements of this growing myth-cycle. In fact, writing a short story or three in the Cthulhu mileau is common for major writers. In my seven or eight Mythos antholgies, I have short stories in the Mythos by:

Neil Gaiman
Stephen King
Phillip Jose Farmer
Harlan Ellison
Robert Howard
Robert Bloch
Roger Zelazny
Brain Lumley
Ramsey Campbell
Lin Carter
Lawrence Watt-Evans
Fritz Leiber

and much more. In fact, I've read novels or works by all of these writers in other areas (King his novels, Leiber the Fafhrd and Grey Mouser tales, Neil Gaiman's Sandman, Zelazny's Chronicles of Amber, Robert Howard's Conan, and so forth).

Many writers great and small have spun tales using one or mroe Mythos elements, and therefore, this world in unlike other shared worlds that are controlled by a company. This is all, for the most part, public domain. I could point you to websites that still accept public submissions from writers like me and you that are Mythos and will publish them if they are good enough.

It's a great area to read and explore, and therefore, I hope you at least read the reviews and such, even if you choose not to read the stories.

[Chas in Cinti]

My fave Cthulu novel is "Nightmare's Disciple" by Pulver. I think it was published by Chaosium, but I really got into it!

Regards,
Chas

[Raven Hawk]

You've piqued my interest. I may be following and reading along.

[Abe Sargent]

Yay!

[Abe Sargent]

The Call of Cthulhu - Synopsis

All synopses are spoilers, so do not read this if you do not wish to know what happens.

Our story begins with the protagonist, who in this story is nothing more than a compiler of information. The protagonists uncle, a noted professor of archeology and ancient languages at Brown Univeristy has just passed away under mysterious circumstances. In his papers, the protagonist finds a locked case, and opens it with a key on his uncle's personal key ring.

In the box are some papers, newspaper clippings, a bas-relief that is only a year or two old, and a journal. The bas-relief has an odd figure at once part octopus, part anthropod and part dragon. There is an unknown language on the bas relief and it appears to be a scene on an isle.

The protagonist opens the papers and begins reading. He discovers that the bas-relief was made by a person, Wilcox, who claimed to have seen the scene and carvings in a dream. He then sculpted what he saw and appraoched the professor. Some of the words he remembers hearing include Cthulhu and R'lyeh. The professor began to keep notes on Wilcox's dreams, corresponded with others abroad, and began to research more intimitely.

Wilcox will then go into a long dark stupor that lasts for days until he pops out with no memory and no longer has the dreams.

As the protagonist continues exploring the contents of the box, the science shifts to the professor's own journal from 17 years prior at an archeologist convention where an Inspector Legrasse of the New Orleans police department arrives with an odd statue. Legrasse comes with a story of a black cult that they busted and confiscated the statue.

The assembled archeologists are amazed because none have any information on this statue. It's obviously old, of an unknown substance, high quality and of a octopus/dragon with an upright gait.

Then one distinguished colleague points out that he had heard of rumors of an obscure tribe of eskimo in West Greenland that supposedly worshipped an old demon god. He then ventured out to meet this dark tribe of eskimpo, and observes silently their worship and overhears them recite a chant over and over again.

At this point, Legrasse is asked to recount his story. 20 police officers responded to calls from a group of squaters out deep in the bayou of strange chants and lights in the night from a deep, black area of the swamp where no one supposedly goes. The officers investigate and discover a large number of cannibal worshippers, dancing naked aroudn a statue of an old figure int eh middle.

Legrasse and the one archeologist agree that they overhead the same chant. Legrasse asked the cannibals that they had captured what it meant and they inform him that it means "In his house at R'lyeh dead Cthulhu waits dreaming."

One older cannibal celebrant is named Castro, and Castro will give information to Legrasse about an ancient cult that worships the Old Ones who have died long ago but continue to await their reawakening at the hands of their servents, with whom they communicate via dreams.

After finishing these tales of his uncle's, the protagonist disocovers on his own a paper clipping from an Australian Newspaper of a ship that was captured with an idol the same size at Prof. Legrasse's. Our protagonist heads to Australia and finds that one person survived, but he has moved back to his home at Oslo. Our protagonist follows but arrives too late. His wife remains, dressed all in black, and informs that her husband died a few days ago to mysertoius circumstances. Johanson, the remaining sailor, left a journal, which our protagonist takers, and then reads.

The story goes like this:

The sailor was on a ship bound for New Zealand when a ship of fifty people tells them to turn back. The ship attacks and overcomes these apparent pirates, and then continues to sail to see why they required Johanson's ship to turn around. They arrive on an island that is where none exist and there they disocver gigantic ruins ("cyclopean" as the author describes them) with an odd, non-Euclidean geometry that does not correlate with the known laws of math and science.

After investiagting, the group stumble across a huge door in the floor/wall (hard to tell with the geology and architecture being unrelateable). The door slowly opens and a positive darkness spills out, darkening the sky and sun. They begin to hear the splash and movement of something gigantic.

Several begin to move away from the door, including Johanson, when out comes a giant clawed hand that sweeps away three of the men. The remaining men began running towarsd the steamer they left behind and out from this cyclopean doorway appears a gigantic figure, part octopoid, with great wings and an erect walking figure.

More will fall, die, or faint dead, but two make it to the steamer. One is struck mad and eventually dies gibbering. The other is Johanson. He begins the ships, but the gigantic figure of the creature folllowing enters the water, where the head only remains above the water.

Realizing that the creature is faster than him, he turns the boat around and sails full speed at the head, hitting it full force and the octopus head explodes like a balloon.

As he looks back, he sees the head reassembling. He continues to sail away. Several days later, a fierce storm hits, and when people go back to the spot, nothing is there.

Our protagonist puts it all together, however. Wilcox has his dream on the same night that an earthquake hit, causing R'lyeh to rise fromt the ocean floor, and Cthulhu to begin to send out dreams. When Johanson and his men landed on the island and opend the door, Wilcox started to go crazy, until the storm occurs, when R'lyeh sinks below the seas, and Wilcox goes back to normal suddenly, and the dreams cease.

The protagonist fears for his life, and that agents of Cthulhu might kill him as they did his uncle and Johanson. That is the last entry in his journal. The journal was found among his effects after his death which occured the following day after the last entry.

[Abe Sargent]

The Call of Cthulhu - Review

All reviews are spoiler free.

Why is The Call of Cthulhu so important to horror literature? You can see in the first paragraph. I want you to read this paragraph, the first one in the story:

The most merciful thing in the world, I think, is the inability of the human mind to correlate all its contents. We live on a placid island of ignorance in the midst of black seas of infinity, and it was not meant that we should voyage far. The sciences, each straining in its own direction, have hitherto harmed us little; but some day the piecing together of dissociated knowledge will open up such terrifying vistas of reality, and of our frightful position therein, that we shall either go mad from the revelation or flee from the light into the peace and safety of a new dark age.


Can you see what this story did? In one paragraph, in one story, he advanced horror past all previous stories. Lovecraft writes the first, what I call large scale horror story.

Previous horror stories involves a guy getting bricked behind a wall or a group of friends fighting a vampire in London, or a guy discovering that the woman he was engaged to was actually his sister or an evil plant actually being a harginger of a murdered corpse or a ghost haunting a army troop.

This story launches past that. This story creates the basic Cthulhu Mythos concept that we are insignificant little creatures who are beneath the notice of beings significantly more powerful than ourselves.

This story has a macro scale. It is concerened with things much bigger than a vampire, a ghost, a murderer, or a wierd death. This is concerned with the nature of existance. The term Lovecraft coined for this was cosmic horror.

This is cosmic horror on a major plane. This story not only advanced horror but it also was Lovecraft's wake up story. This allowed him to fully realize his own voice, his own world, and his own ideas. It's a very lonely place.

Lovecraft's philosophy has come to be known as Cosmic Indifference. Nobody cares about us, nothing. We aren't even worth noticing. In the scheme of existance, we are lower than ants.

This sense of loneliness goes beyond being hunted by a werewolf. We are alone in the cosmos. Throughout dimensions and space, nobody cares about us, unless they need something from us, just as we might occasionally need something from bacteria.

All we are is tools to powers greater than our entire race combined, and as soon as we've outlived our usefulness, we'll be discarded with no more though that you or I would give to discarding a used match.

That's why Lovecraft is so great. That's why writers are still emulating his concepts 80 years later. That's why writers great and tiny are still writing in his world. He is a genius that pushed a genre beyond the pervious boundaries, and scared people with what was discovered.



I'd give this a 4.5 stars out of 5. It can be a little uneven at times, but it is amazing for the most part, and well ahead of its time.

[Abe Sargent]

The next story to read is The Shadow Over Innmouth.

hxxp://www.dagonbytes.com/thelibrary/lovecraft/theshadowoverinnsmouth.htm


This is the second most anthologized of Lovecraft's Cthulhu Mythos fiction (the third most overall. One of his Poe-esque stories, The Rats in the Walls is actually his most anthologized because it is considered so technically proficient).

I believe this is his best work. It is considered by most fans to be the best of his stories after The Call of Cthulhu. It is interesting to note that this story was never published for five years after it was written, until just before his death. Yet most remember it very fondly.

This is a perfect second story to read, because it is a bit easier to read that The Coulour Out of Space or The Shadow Out of Time or The Whisperer in Darkness.

I'll try to get this review and synopsis up Monday.



One more thing - if you have played The Call of Cthulhu: Dark Corners fo the Earth by Bethesda Softworks, then you will really identify with this story. That game was based on this one.

[Abe Sargent]

Some info on The Shadow Over Innsmouth:

It's Lovecraft's longest short story, although he wrote three novellas that are longer. That's why I'm giving an extra day :)

Its the story I've read the most. I read it last night again for the fourth time. Great, high quality stuff.


It's very easy to get into. That may be why it is the most used of his works. In just this century, there is:

2001 - Dagon, Horror Film based on The Shadow Over Innsmouth (TSOI)

2005 - The Call of Cthulhu: Dark Corners of the Earth, Video Game, based largely on TSOI

2006 - Cthulhu, horror film to be released later this year, based on TSOI

Click here to see trailer for Cthulhu:

hxxp://www.imdb.com/title/tt0478126/trailers-screenplay-E27378-10-2


-Anxiety

[Abe Sargent]

The Shadow Over Innsmouth Synopsis

All synopses are spoilers. Please skip this if you want no spoilers.


We open with our protagonist in Newburysport, in a coming of age tour of the area of his ancestry in New England. He is wanting a train to Arkham but does not want to pay the fare, so he is directed to a bus to Innsmouth that will then lead to Akrham. The locals advise him away from Innsmouth, and curious, he does a little investigation into Innsmouth while in Newburysport.

He discovers that the town is an old fishing village that may have, once, been a decent port, but has since decayed, with naught but one gold refinery and a lot of fishing as its remaining economy. He swing sby the Newburysport Historical Register and takes a look at a piece of gold supposedly from the Innsmouth refinery. It's a gold diadem with an alloy of some metal he does not recognize. The archaic tiara is fully developed and fleshed out, like it has centuries of art behind it, but does not resemble any known human style of art. The angles look off and the tiara appears to be shaped for an unusually sized head.

Intrigued by this piece of gold and by the rumors, our protagonist, with a fierce curious streak, decides to save a few bucks and takes the bus to Innsmouth. The bus is driven by Joe Sargent and he looks...off. The author will describe Joe Sargent's looks and although no individual description is unusual on its own, the cumulative effect is a very disquieting feeling.

The bus heads to Innsmouth and our protagonist views the countryside, observing the dilapidation of Innsmouth close up. He does get a bit of fright when passing a church newly dedicated to the Esoteric Order of Dagon. Out of the door walks a priest wearing a similar tiara, and he gets a bit of a scare, but nothing serious.

Our protagonist arrives and exits the bus. He can occasionally sees a fellow Innsmouth person and notices that they have a similar look to Joe Sargent. The young ones look farily normal, but older ones show more pronounced features. The portagonist calls this the Innsmouth Look, and beleives it is due to inbreeding on a massive level. There are not any old people about.

He heads to a local gorcery store which is a chain, where there is a normal service person there, from out of town. He explains the town, its eccentricities, where visitors are allowed to go, and gives the protagonist a crudely drawn map of Innsmouth.

The protagonist, as a historian of architecture, sets out to explore Innsmouth and observe the buildings. He explores the town for several horus before he comes across Zadok Allen sitting by the fire station. The clerk at the gorcery store mentioned that Zadok Allen, a man of 95 years old, could tell stories of early Innsmouth if it was loosened by liquor.

Seizing the opportunity, the protagonist procures a bottle of homemade whiskey and leads Zadok to a quiet and secluded area by the shore. Out over a mile and half is the Devil's Reef, where mysterious things are said to take place. Out of the way of peering eyes, the protagonost plies Zadok with alcohol until his tongue is loosened.

Several pages are dedicated to the history of Innsmouth as told by Zadok. Here is his short story:

A sailor named Obed Marsh owned several vessels and sailed out of Innsmouth to all corners of the world. While in Indonesia, Obed came across a group of native on a secluded island that were rich with these gold artifacts and fish. None of the other islands had a bounty of fish. These natives claimed that those they worshipped gave them fish and occasionaly these gold trinkets. In return, they gave sacrifices to the sea.

Obed traded for the gold trinkets and returned to Innsmouth. The depression of the early 1840s hit Innsmouth hard and the people were desparate. Then Obed sailed away again, and this time, he arrived with the natives and spoke with them at greater length. The chief gave him a lead stone with odd carvings and said that if Obed dropped the lead stone in the water anywhere near these Deep Ones, they would come up the surface. Supposedly, the Deep Ones would want to mate with humans and walk around outside, for they were amphibians and enjoyed such things. Their spawn would be immortal.

Obed left with a stone and a new bride from the tribe. When he rearrived at Innsmouth, he brought a group of desparate folk together and sailed out to Devil's Reef and called up the Deep Ones. Soon, a few people around town came up missing, and Zadok Allen, as a boy, realized that it was Obed who was taking them to Devli's Marsh, so he called up the town leaders.

This was several months after Obed had begun working with the Deep Ones. The village elders rose up and captured Obed and all of his crew in one fell swoop, over 30 men. Then, after a few days of not getting their tribute, the Deep Ones attacked Innsmouth en masse, butchered the town leaders, and installed Obed Marsh as the new leader of Innsmouth.

Obed took politicial power and used it against other nearby cities for a while, even tricking some poor Akrham bloke to marrying his hybrid daughter.

Obed created a bunch of new rules, such as don't tell strangers this story.


End Story:

As Zadok is pointing out some things on Devil's Reef, he cries out that they;ve been spotted from the water. He tells the protagonist to leave immeidately for it is no longer safe for him. Zadok flees from the water, but a sudden wave hits and when it relents, Zadok cannot be found anywhere.

The protagonist doesn't beleive old Zadok, and when he returns to Innsmouth to catch the outgoing Bus to Arkham, he is informed that the bus broke down and will not be able to make it that evening. He finds lodgings at the Gilman House in Innsmouth and lies down to sleep after repairing the broken bolt to his room and sliding the bolts to the north and south adjoining rooms.

After some time, he realizes that someone is using a key in his door's lock. They gently try to the lock but find that his repair to the deadbolt had kept it tight. They then try the two adjoinging doors quietly, testing them to see if they work. As they leave to go back downstairs, the protagonist can hear them talking to someone else. The protagonist realizes that his death is imminate and investigates the window. He sees that he will need to go north or south two rooms in either direction before tryign to jump on an adjacent building's roof.

He dares not go outside so he tries the south door, but finds it opens towards him, and it will be difficult to bash open. He slides a bookcase in front the door and then looks north. As he goes to that door, he hears someone knocking on his room door. He checks the north door and the knocking gets louder, hopefully covering his banging on the north door.

He blasts through the north door but the sound in tremendous. He sees that the door to the hallway is unbolted, so he slides the bolt just as someone reaches the door. He then dashes through the open adjoining door and closes the hallway door in this third room as the door is being opened. He pulls a bedcase against this door and he hears people slamming against the door in his first bedroom where the bookcase now is.

He slides furniture against all of the doors to the current room and moves to the window. The bashing against the doors and furniture is getting loud, and something heavy is being used as a ram against one door.

The protagonist sees that there is a large ledge on the opposite building and he goes over, then crawls up to an open skylight and runs down this new building, ultimitely hitting the street.

Consulting his map, our protagonist begins moving towards one of hte main roads, and as he does so, he will sometimes dash, sometimes hide, and sometime walk out in the open using the shambling Innsmouth gait. As the hue and cry level continues, he realizes that all of the main entries to city are guarded by Innsmouth folk, and he decides to head to the old railraod and use it as a way out (Innsmouth is surrouded by Salt Marshes and not really a place you just want to scurry around)

As he moves towards the station, he sees some lights on distant Devil's Reef and then turns around and sees those same lights coming from the Gilman House, like messages coming back and forth. Then, as the moon comes out from behind the cloud, he sees the ocean.

At first, he thinks the ocean is very choppy, but there is no wind. Then as he walks closer to the shore in order to get closer to the train station, he sees that the water is full of things swimming to shore from the Reef.

He ducks into a side alley and scurries to the train station. He begisn to follow the old train tracks and there is no pursuit. He jumps over a gap in the tracks at a covered bridge and comes to where the railroad crosses the main road in and aout of Innsmouth. As he gets closer, he observes that the people are on the road, out and looking for him.

He has a good hiding place, and can observe the people following him. His natural inclination is to close his eyeys and keep them shut from the terrors that he suspects as they people pass close by his hiding place in the brush. Ultiamtely, he looks and sees these fish/toad/human creatures moving about, and one is wearing the same type of tiara that he had seen twice before.

He passes out, only to awaken the following morn when he scurries to the nearest town and babbles all he saw to the local constabulary which calls in the feds. His information is verified and then acted upon. In one swift action, the feds torpedo Devil's Reef, kill and catpure most of Innsmouth and silence the ring leaders.


Several years later, our protagonist is continuing his genelogical investigations and there is a deadend with his grandmother. His grandmother was a ward of the court with a anonymous benefactor that paid her way through school. She married an Akrham man and they had a daughter, that was our protagonist's mother, and a son that was hs uncle.

The protagonist fears knowledge when he discovers that his grandmother was a Marsh, but there are many Marshes in the Essex County region of Massachusetts.

His grandmother had disappeared under strange circumstances, and his uncle committed suicide with a pistol (his mother died when he was very young to an accident). He had, as a chield, never liked the look of his grandmother and uncle, but it wasn't until he looked at their pictures that he noticed the similarty

Didn't Zadok mention that Obed had tricked an Arkham man into marrying his daughter?

Our protagonist has a cousin in the insane asylum in Canton spoting things about dreams and Deep Ones and many columned Y'ha-nthlei.

As our protagonist's investigations continue, his own dreams become more concrete. He dreams of swimming with his grandmother in great Y'ha-nthlei and of joining his brethern underneath the sea. As he looks in the mirror, he sees an increasingly familar and comfortable face staring back.

So far I have not shot myself as my uncle Douglas did. I bought an automatic and almost took the step, but certain dreams deterred me. The tense extremes of horror are lessening, and I feel queerly drawn toward the unknown sea-deeps instead of fearing them. I hear and do strange things in sleep, and awake with a kind of exaltation instead of terror. I do not believe I need to wait for the full change as most have waited. If I did, my father would probably shut me up in a sanitarium as my poor little cousin is shut up. Stupendous and unheard-of splendors await me below, and I shall seek them soon. Ia-R'lyehl Cihuiha flgagnl id Ia! No, I shall not shoot myself - I cannot be made to shoot myself!

I shall plan my cousin's escape from that Canton mad-house, and together we shall go to marvel-shadowed Innsmouth. We shall swim out to that brooding reef in the sea and dive down through black abysses to Cyclopean and many-columned Y'ha-nthlei, and in that lair of the Deep Ones we shall dwell amidst wonder and glory for ever.



-Anxiety

[Abe Sargent]

Review of The Shadow Over Innsmouth

All reviews are spoiler free, except I allow myself to refer to the first page.

This is Lovecraft as his best. It is a great example of his sense of scale. Horror is developed by scale, as the reader becomes increasingly cognizant of the surrounding terror.

It's also a very rich story. Lovecraft will engulf you in details of Innsmouth, giving you an amazing and fleshed out backstory. This is more that you normally get from Lovecraft, and you can see what he could do when he was firing on all cylinders.

It also hits all fo the major Lovecraft sub-themes. Lovecraft loved exploring dreams in his stories, and here you have dreams. Lovecraft loved exploring the consequence of blood and ancestry, and here you have his best example of this sub-theme. Lovecraft had a thing about not liking oceans and seas, and here you get that disquieting sense of the brine.

My favorite scene in all of Lovecraft is the one I detailed signifciantly in the synopsis. It's marvelouslly done, with loads of tension with ever increasing revelations that continute to add to the sense of impending doom.

I think this is also one of the most flavorful of Lovecraft's stories. Can't you just taste Innsmouth? It's smell clogs your nostrils, you can feel it on your skin, you can hear and see the sights. It's a very sensational work.

Although this was published a few months before Lovecraft's death, only 150 copies were made before the printer went out of business. It would be printing in Wierd Tales 5 years later to great acclaim, and was instantly realized as one of the authors greatest works.

I think one of the reasons Lovecraft didn't like this story is that it was a bit different for him and it included elements that were very un-Lovecraft, like the (spoiler, but not really, since you learn this on the first page) feds getting involved. This was particularly outside the realm of Lovecraft since he prefers his characters to stand or fall (and usually fall) on their own.

I hope you either enjoyed reading the story or reading the synposis and review.


I'd give Shadow Over Innsmouth a 5 out of 5 stars. It is a pitch perfect story.

[Abe Sargent]

The next story is The Dunwich Horror. You can find it here:

hxxp://www.dagonbytes.com/thelibrary/lovecraft/thedunwichhorror.htm


The Dunwich Horror completes the Lovecraft Trilogy of Perfection, toerhwise known as his three greatest Mythos stories. It's not nearly as long as The Shadow Over Innsmouth.

I'll try to get the synopsis and review up on Wednesday.


I am going to start editing the post title with the title of the new work I am reading.

[KWhit]

Great thread, but I'm behind. I am going to start on The Call of Cthulhu tonight.

[Abe Sargent]

Great!

I'm a little behind as well. I'm super busy with training, so it may be a day or two before I finish The Dunwich Horror and have time to post my thoughts on it.

[Abe Sargent]

Synopsis of The Dunwich Horror

The story begins in a rural village named Dunwich that is older than most New England towns, and dilapidated in both genepool and architecture. One decaying family, the Whateleys, live in a farmhouse away from Dunwich.

One night, Lavina Whateley, an albino, gives birth to Wilbur Whateley. No one knows the father, but the grandfather, Old Whateley, is quite proud. Over time, Wilbur ages quickly, and begins to exhibit odd features, like elongated ears and such.

His grandfather educates him in the black arts of various tomes and what, while also working on fixing up the house. The people of Dunwich shun the farm and its three inhabitatants.

Old Whateley boards up the top of the house and begins buying a lot of cattle. His herd often look diseased and it appears like his cattle must die quickly.

Lavina and Wilbur are spotted dancing on top of Sentinel Hill where some old stones lie. The spotter thinks they might be naked.

Wilbur always dresses more impeccably than the rest of his family. His room is on the bottom of the house. More carpentry is done, including putting an incline up to a top window and taking out some walls and what.

Lavina starts to be excluded by Old Whateley and Wilbur and is a bit frightful. The few guests never leave the ground floor of the old farmhouse.

Years pass. Eventually, Old Whateley dies, but before he does, he tells Wilbur that he needs to reference page 751 of the unabridged version. As he dies, the Whipporwhills chant ferociously.

Shortly thereafter, Lavina goes missing as well.

Wilbur moves out of the house into a shed and does more carpentry work to the Whateley house.

He arrrives at Misktonic University in Arkham to review their copy of the Necronomican. It seems that his copy is the abridged English copy and he needs to reference the Latin unabridged copy kept there. The librarian is Dr. Henry Armitage, who visited Wilbur Whateley a few years ago and remembers a nasty, unwholesome smell faintly.

Wilbur asks to take the Necronomican back with him. While he was researching it, Armitage references that passage and discovers that it is a reference to Yog-Sothoth as the gate to the Old Ones.

Henry elects not to allow Wilbur to take the Necronomicon, and Wilbur takes off for Harvard to see their copy. Meanwhile, Armitage contacts Harvard and Cambridge and lets them know that Wilbur should not be given any information about the Necronomicon, and they agree.

A while later, Henry Armitage awakens to the sound of the library guard dog howling and a shout like something unhuman. He crosses the street and enters the library where there is evidence that someone broke in. Lying on the floor is what is left of Wilbur Whateley. He was struck by the dog, and his body lies on the floor.

His body is not human, and was apparently a human hybrid with something else. It kept human form only through tight clothing. It had around 20 tentacles around the abdomen, eyes on its hips, a furry back, and this foul stench hangs over the body, the same smell Armitage rememebered from his visit to the Whateley farm.

Over time, the corpse dissolves, and Armitage begins to pack for Dunwich with Professor Rice and Doctor Morgan, two other experts from Miskatonic U with expertise in the area of the antiquarian.


Meanwhile, in Dunwich:

They arrive in Dunwich to find the village people are scared of sounds and odors that come from the Whateley Farm. On the evening of September Ninth, two boys came back to their mothers and claimed that they saw something nasty coming from the Whateley Farm. Most of Dunwich's men gathered and charged the place.

They arrive at the farm only to find that the farmhosue is in ruins and a trail of something large tears trhough the forest. They choose not to follow and return home.

That night, something that stank massively tore into a local farmhouse and evoured the cattle before leaving.

Two more nights pass, and no farms are threatened. The large swath of destruction left by whatever the Dunwich Horror is can be followed, but the people are not threatened. Some begin to feel that maybe the dark time has passed.

On the fourth night, the whipporwhills chanted all night, and when morning came, the entire Frye farm had been completely destroyed, and death and destruction were the only things harvested there.


Meanwhile, in Arkham:


The diary of Wilbur Whateley, discovered in the farmhouse by the people of Dunwich, is sent to Miskatonic University. The diary is in a language that is not easily deciphered.

The books found in the farmhouse ruins along with the diary are given to Armitage's care. Ultimately, armitage cracks the code of the diary. After reading the diary and a subsequent fever, he realizes what has been done in Dunwich by the Whateleys, and what they have let in.

Armitage, Rice and Morgan continue to ready themselves to go to Dunwich, but now with additional alchemical preparations. Unfortunately, their preparations are cut short by news out of Dunwich of the additionall horrors.

They arrive to find a state police car with five officer has arrived to investigate, and the officers have left to follow the trail of the Horror.

They decide to wait the night out, and in the morning, another attack begins, this time in the day, with a storm. A dozen Dunwich folk arrive where the three professors are waiting for the Horror and inform them that the Horror is trampling through some farms.

Armitage rallies the few townsfolk he has, and tells them that the Horror is invisible. He says that he has something that might work against it, and they might as well go after it now.

They arrive at the Bishop place where the Horror supposedly just struck, and the destruction is similar to the Frye incident. Death, and a noisome foetor linger.

Using a spy scope, they see the bushes moving on Sentinel Hill and it appears like the Horror is moving up the steep slope. The townsfolk became frightened and refused to go further, so the three professors trudged on toward Sentinal Hill alone.

The three professors are seen by the townsfolk, using the spyglass, to ascend the hill, and then Rice prepares to spray using a powerful bug spray container with a new formula in it where they believe the Horror to be. This will supposedly turn the Horror visible for a short time.

The townsperson with the spyglass, Curtis, sees the Horror become visible and drops the spyglass, shaking. His broken words:

'Bigger'n a barn... all made o' squirmin' ropes... hull thing sort o' shaped like a hen's egg bigger'n anything with dozens o' legs like hogs-heads that haff shut up when they step... nothin' solid abaout it - all like jelly, an' made o' sep'rit wrigglin' ropes pushed clost together... great bulgin' eyes all over it... ten or twenty maouths or trunks a-stickin' aout all along the sides, big as stove-pipes an all a-tossin' an openin' an' shuttin'... all grey, with kinder blue or purple rings... an' Gawd it Heaven - that haff face on top...'

He'll faint a few seconds later.

The townsfolk pick the spyglass back up to see the three professors running for the top of the Hill and nothing more. The Horror is invisible again. The figures reach the top and one is waving his arms ceremoniously.

The daylight darkens for no discernable reason, dogs begin baying, and a rushing deep tone can be felt from deep away. Lightning flashes with no clouds in the sky.

The sounds appear to be coming from an altar stone atop Sentinel Hill. Then a cry can be heard, montsrous, crying out to its father. Crying out to Yog-Sothoth.

A blast of fury tears from the Hill, ripping through trees, killing whipporwhills, and stripping vegetation of leaves. A short while later, the three professors can be seen marching towards the townsfolk.

They arrive and decide not to answer any questions. Then the person who had seen the Horror awoke and exclaimed that the face of the Horror resembled Old Whateley's.

Armitage decides to let them know what happened. The Horror had been growing inside the side, and it was Wilbur's twin brother. It just resembled its father more than Wilbur had.

[Abe Sargent]

I'll post the review later. I'm not sure where to go next with the dynasty, after the big three, but I have an idea.

[Abe Sargent]

Review of The Dunwich Horror

Like his two previous works that we've read, Lovecraft imbues this story with a sense of the immense. Even though it is a lower key intensity in terms of scale, its still bigger than a vampire or a ghost story.

I think I know why Lovecraft is so popular among horror writers and enthusiasts. Most horror writers write nameless things. Zombies shamble out from behind tombstones, ghouls attack at night, madmen wield power tools and the perverted torture and maim.

There's no rhyme or reason. Things happen for sensationalism. Lovecraft, on the other hand, understands that true horror goes beyond a scream or a disgusting zombie. He created a world where the very foundation was scary, and then tapped into the world in his stories, giving the reader a glimpse of the unthinkable.

Few horror writers create mythologies. Fantasy writers do, sci-fi writers do, but horror writers do not. Lovecraft created an enduring mythology, and that may be his greateest contribution to horror literature.

The Dunwich Horror, in my opinion, drags a bit. Lovecraft is at his best when he tells one story from one perspective all the way through, like The Shadow Over Innsmouth. When he starts a stary from the point of view of the Dunwich folk, then switches to a Whateley, then to Armitage, then to more townsfolk, then back to Armitage, I think he ruins the horror element.

I also think Lovecraft gives away too much in the early pages of his works. All horror writers use foreshadowing to build suspense, but I sometimes think Lovecraft uses it a bit too much. The Innsmouth foreshadowing let you know that something major happened, but you have no idea as to what. This one tells you the plot early.

As a result, the technical aspects are not nearly as good as Shadow. The Mythos elements are there in full force - Akrham, Dunwich, Miskatonic University, Yog-Sothoth, and the Necronomicon among others. You get a real sense of his world as he intended it, and you get a good sense of Lovecraft as his best. That sense is fleeting however.

Of the Lovecraft trilogy (The Call of Cthulhu, The Shadow Over Innsmouth and The Dunwich Horror) that every horror fan should read, this is the weakest.

As such, four out of five stars.

[Abe Sargent]

What's next?

I want to give any readers out there a bit more of a Lovecraft foundation than you already have. I don;t think a Mythos reader needs to read all Lovecraft stories, or even start with all of his Mythos stories. Hoeever, I do think you need a bigger start than this.

Lovecraft has some horror Mythos stories that have significantly heavier sci-fi elements. These include The Colour Out of Space, The Shadow Out of Time, The Whisperer in Darkness and such.

On the other had, more traditional horror stories also exist, like The Case of Charles Dexter Ward and At the Mountains of Madness,

I should recommend At the Moutnains of Madness next. However, it's a novella, so I'll skip it for now. Instead, I'll recommend one of my favorites in the classic horror style that's left.

The Haunter of the Dark

http://www.dagonbytes.com/thelibrary/lovecraft/thehaunterofthedark.htm


This is one of Lovecraft's final works, and you can see the sum talent of his accumulated skill in it. I actually like it better than The Dunwich Horror. Enjoy!

[Groundhog]

At the Mountains of Madness was the first H.P. Lovecraft I read. I struggled through the first 20 pages or so as I really didn't like his style of writing, but soon enough the real horror began, and I quickly appreciated how perfectly his style of writing and his use of words complimented his stories.

It remains my favourite Lovecraft, though The Case of Charles Dexter Ward is a close second. It's a shame he didn't write more stories of the same length as these.

[Abe Sargent]

If you can get past the length of the story, it is VERY good. At the Mountains of Madness is, frankly, better then The Dunwich Horror, and Lovecraft fans list it as their third fav story after Call and Innsmouth.

I think Haunter, Call, Innsmouth, Mountains, would be in my top five. I do not know what my other top five would be.



I finished Haunter just now (it was only 20 pages long), and I'll try to find time to post a synopsis and a review tomorrow. Here are Mythos elements in Haunter:

Necronomicon
Un. Kulten
Des Vermis Mysteriis
Les Cultes des Ghoules

Nephren-Ka

Nyarlathotep
Azazoth
Yog-Sothoth


All of these, except for Nephren-Ka are mentioned very briefly as window dressing. You could pick up Haunter Of the Dark and read it without any previous Mythos expereince and it would work for you, so I like that.


-Anxiety

[Abe Sargent]

I finished freshmen move in today and I have to go around to the floor meetings in a few minutes to introduce myself. I beleive that in the next day or two I'll have a chance to get my synopsis and review of Haunter up.

In teh meantime, I've decided to cave in and the next story WILL be At the Moutnains of Madness. It's that good, and its that important. It is, however, a novella, so it will take a few extra days and nights to get done. I won't have Mountains up until at least Wednesday.

You can find this story here:

http://www.dagonbytes.com/thelibrary/lovecraft/mountainsofmaddness.htm


-Anxiety

[Abe Sargent]

The Haunter of the Dark Synopsis

The Haunter of the Dark is a shorter tale than previous works that we've analyzed, therefore the synopsis is shorter as well.

The tale beings in Providence, Rhode Island, there the main character, Blake, has rented a room on College Hill which overlooks much of the city. Blake is an occultist in the sense that he is well read, and researches the occult in order to get inspiration for his writing. He has published several short stories as well as done paintings and sculptures.

One day, while gazing out his room at the Providence skyline, he notices an old church steeple that has been darkened with age and disuse. He finds it an interesting dichotomoty against the clean, white surrounding buildings.

He continues to study the church facade from a distabce, and soon finds himself staring at the steeple for a lot of time each day. Obsessed with this old church, he sets forth to find it.

He heads to the area of the city where th church is, and its a largely Italian section. He asks the people but they feign ignorance. He eventually crosses a street that allows him to glimpse the church and heads towards it.

The church is old and dilapidated. Some of the boards have come apart and the surrounding fence is disused. In a moment of impulse, Blake steals into the church and enters the basement.

He sees some odd things (the cross is odd, some glass stained windows are off, a few texts like The Necronomicon and whatnot, etc) and then goes upstairs to the steeple that he saw from his room. Instead of finding a bell, he discovered a podium in the center of the room with seven chairs arrayed around it.

On the podium is a box made of odd materials. He approaches the box and opens it, and inside is a Shining Trapezohedron, a oddly shaped stone of unknown origian that glistens and calls to one's soul teh longer one stares at it.

For a while, Blake stares at the stone until he feels soemthing staring back. Frightnened, he closes the box and takes it. He sees a skeleton in the corner underneath dust with a journal and reads the journal and finds it is the remains of a jounralist who was investigating the church thiry years prior. Something happened to the investigator and he was never heard from again.

Blake leaves and sensing another presence and heads back home. He does some research on the Shining Trapezohedron and discovers that it was unearthed in Nephren-Ka's pyramid. Nephren-Ka is the Black Pharaoh, one who investigated the dark side of man and such and therefore scoured the stars and skies for information about the Old Ones and how to contact them. His name was purged from all Egyptian records until his pyramid was discovered and his remains exhumed along with the Shining Trapezohedron.

This object supposedly began a cult called the Starry Wisdom. This church was supposedly their headquarters long ago. There were mysterious noises and such seen long ago.

Blake realizes that he called out a presence when he stared at the Shining Trapezohedron too long, so he searches for a way to fight it. Apparently, exposing it to light will kill it, and it moves in total darkness. He knows that it is still there, in the upper reaches of the steeple of the church, lurking and waiting.

Then, there is a short blackout. Deaths and noises are reported in the Italian section of the city and he night ends with dozens of Italians with candles and lanterns around the old chruch praying against the forces of evil.

Blake begins to panic, and research more and more. Then, another storm hits and another black out occurs. Blake is staidng at his window and he knows that the Haunter of the Dark will come for him to claim him. Lightning keeps flashing, which keeps the Haunter at bay. Then the lightning stops momentarialy.

The Italians and priest that are gathered outside the old church in another vigil see the steeple explode in the darkness (in the candles and lanterns), with shards flying everywhere. Then, a shreech is heard and the local fraternity in College Hill hears a loud sound and a massive Lightning Bolt rends the sky.

The following day Blake is found at his window, dead from, apparently, electrical shock but the window is unharmed. His notebook is found with his scrawlings after the power went out.

[Abe Sargent]

The Haunter of the Dark Review

As mentioned before, this tale is much shorter than the previous three that I read. I think it's actually a better tale that The Dunwich Horror. I love the imagery of this story, and the various elements really work together to create a very nice mood.

I think, at least in this case, shorter is definitely better. Many of Lovecraft's longers works are highly regarded (The Shadow Over Innsmouth, The Dream-Quest of Unknown Kadath, The Case of Charles Dexter Ward, At the Moutnains of Madness). Still, this shows him a bit more elegant. His prose is tighter and well woven, creating a nice tapestry.

You can tell that he is at the height of his craft when he writes this story. This was near the end of his life and he had already been diagnosed with the stomach cancer that would kill him. He wrote several stories during this time, but this was the only story he wrote by himself. It was really his swan song, since only one other tale (co-written as many of his last tales were) would follow and its not even in the mythos (it is, however, really, really good (The Night Ocean)).

One problem is that the story does have more conventional horror elements at times. As such, it is an easy read from those getting into Lovecraft for the first time, but its a bit disappointing for those who enjoy the uniqueness of Lovecraft's vision.

As a result, I'd say the technical precision is Lovecraft at his best, but the occasionally mundane elements bring it back down.

Four out of Five Stars.

[Abe Sargent]

After "At the Mountains of Madness" I'm going to hit up one more Lovecraft story before moving on to another writer or two.

The last story is "The Colour Out of Space." It is a sci-fi oriented story, so you get a taste of what Lovecraft done the sci-fi way is like. Lovecraft, in his letters, called Mountains and Colour his two best stories, or alternatively, the two stories he wrote that he liked the most. It is appropriate, then, to read these now at the end of our first jounrey through Lovecraft.

You can find Colour at the same website as the other Lovecraft stories and just go to the archive and find Colour and read it.

We'll occasionally come back to Lovecraft after venturing out to other writers. It's not like we'll never see him again. However, we only have two more stops on the Lovecraft Express before moving on to the next line.

-Anxiety

[Abe Sargent]

I've finished Mountains last night, and I expect to have the synopsis and review up today sometime.

[Abe Sargent]

At the Moutains of Madness Synopsis

Since this is a huge novella sized story, I'm am going to eschew my nomral lenthy and detailed synopsis in lieu of a quick and dirty synopsis.

The narrator and a team of experts in various fields leave Mistonic University on a expedition to the Antarctic. They reach the continent and head inland. After several months of exploring and drilling, the majority of the contingent goes up ahead into the continent while a smaller group stays behind.

The leader of the contingent that goes ahead, Lake, discovers a huge mountain chain. Bigger than the Himalayas by a couple of miles. With odd cube rocks on the slopes. Lake lands the planes at the base of this huge unknown mountain chanin and starts drilling.

Some of the men discover a pocket under the ground where an old cave is. In this are bones of tons of animals with various degrees of scarring. There are also some corpses of this amazing creature, a star shaped (Radially, not vertically), tentacled thing.

Lake takes the 13 specimens of these Star Creatures back to his camp to begin scientific work on them. They are ancient, millions of years old each. He begins to dissect one and makes severl importnat discoveries before a major snow storm moves in.

The smaller group left behind does not hear from Lake's expedition. Again. They head to the camp and discover mutilated corpes, missing star bodies, a missing camp member, a missing dog, lots of missing equipment and more. The smaller expedition starts packing what is left and buries the remains of the bodies.

Two members, Danbury and the narrator take the plane over the Mountains to see what is there while the remaining men pack up the camp.

They see an ancient, worn city on a huge plateau four miles above sea level. The area has been glaciated. They land and explore and discover art that shows the history and culture of the star beings.

After investigating the star beings in the art, including their origins, their war with the servants of Cthulhu aeons ago, their arrival from space, their genetic manipulation of the Shoggoth and more, the two continue deeper into the heart of the city.

A underwater city supposedly existed at the bottom of an underground sea as the last vestige ofthe star beings. The two decide to descend to see what they can see.

After a while, they come across the equipment from camp including the slegdes packing with the stolen equipment and the carefully killed and stored bodies of the missing dog and person. The star beings that awakened and left the camp are nowhere to be found. The two delve deeper.

They notice that the art has changed serious as they get closeo the lake and then they come across four bodies of the star things, recently killed. A mist begisn to form from the lake and a creature changes them back up the inclines and they realize that it is a Shoggoth that is chasing them, and that the Shoggoth must have killed all of the star beings and taken over this last city.

They barely escape and Danbury looks back to see one last unknown horror as they fly away. They leave, never to return and swear that they shall keep others from coming back to Antartica.


Obviously the story is amazingly more detailed than that, but thats the basic gist.

[Abe Sargent]

At the Mountains of Madness Review


This story is famous because is represents Lovecraft demythologizing his own mythos. He takes various elements of his mythos and connects them together in a basic and understandable way. In a way, he pulls aside the curtain and allows readers to see behind the scenes.

The story still has horror elements in it, no doubt. However, Lovecraft loves to mix horror with wonder, and this story is his piece de resistance when it comes to mixing the two.

Mountains was amazingly well researched, from the geography to reading about previous journeys to the Antarctic and more. The science in it is incredible - like reading a Jules Verne novel.

The story includes or mentions a lot of mythos elements like Cthulhu, the Mi-Go, various tomes, and more. It is a core mythos story because it is the story that connects the dots, so to speak.


It can drag a bit at times when Lovecraft does what he really wants, which is to tell you about his universe. Otherwise, its a fine story.

4.0 out of 5.0 stars.


-Anxiety

[Abe Sargent]

Next up is the last Lovecraft story we'll do for now, The Colour Out of Space. You can find it in the same site as the others (Dagonbytes.com). This one has a different feel with a bit of sci-fi poking out around the edges.


-Anxiety

[Abe Sargent]

I'm considering picking this back up again for a while. Any interest?

[Groundhog]

I'm considering picking this back up again for a while. Any interest?

Absolutely. Been a while since I read any Lovecraft, but reading through this has got me in the mood to pick some more up.

[Abe Sargent]

The Colour Out of Space Synopsis


If you don't want spoilers, move to the next post.


This story open with the narrator, employed by a company building a dam nearby, doing scouting of the area that will be underwater. The reservoir built by the dam will be used for drinking water for Arkham.

One area roughly five acres in size is called the blasted heath. Here nothing grows, everything is grey, and things feel odd. The area around the heath is also odd, but to smaller degrees. After passing through, the narrator stop in Arkham to inquire as to what happened. They tell him it happened in the 1880s, and don't listen to Ammi, a man who lived there and rambled about it. Of course, our narrator seeks out Ammi, the last person living in the wide valley, and gets the story.

In 1882, a meteorite falls to Earth at Nahum Gardener's estate. scientists from a local university arrive to take samples, and the meteorite is completely odd and unusual. It's shrinking, it remains hot, and most tests on it show it to be inert. However, when shining light into a fragment under study, scientists note that it gives off light of various colours, including some that are unreal.

they come back a few days later to get another sample, and while chipping it, find a globule of a plastic/glassy substance. It glows of the same strange unknown colour as was shown, and one cracks it with a hammer. It breaks, and loses its coloration. They try to find another globule to take with them, but fail, so they head back to do more research. After these samples shrink away, they return to the farm to find that after a night of thunderstorms in which lightning hit the meteorite six times, i has completely disappeared.

Over the next few months, more and more disturbing things occur on the farm. Animals are acting queerly, fruit is much bigger, but tastes awful, and so forth. Slowly, over time, more queer things occu.r

Eventually, trees sway at night, plants grow, turn grey, and die. But the most unusual thing is that many plants and animals turn a shade of the unnatural colour and then grey and are destroyed. People in Arkham won;t put stock into these "superstitions." Eventually, animals start dying, and the humans living on the farm are affect. They begin to go mad, and soon, one dies and then another.


At last, almost a year after the fall of the meteorite, Ammi heads back to the farm to check on the family. He finds Nahum in a crazy, mad mood, and his wife locked away and changed. Vapors of the colour brush past him, and the wife, dead, head downstairs to Nahum. Nahum begins to decay in front of Ammi.

Ammi leaves to tell those in Arkham of the death of the Gardeners. Officials arrive at the farm to investigate. They find Nahum and his wife as described by Ammi, greyed and decaying.

They begin to explore the farm for the lost tow children, scour the well. They find two skeletons there. That night, while still investigating, everything begins to coalesce. Glowing plants, trees, swaying, and more turn into bright lights exploding with a range of colours like that of the meteorite, and the farm begins to erupt in that light and miasmas form. Eventually, all fo the light combines and shoots off into the night sky, leaving earth.

A giant popping is heard, and the farm and trees collapse. Ammi notices another wave of the colour on the farm falling into the well, and believes another entity is sill down there.

We slide back to real time, and our narrator mentions he won;t drink any of the water from the new Arkham reservoir.

[Abe Sargent]

The Colour Out of Space Review


All reviews are spoiler free


This is a piece that's more about mood than plot. It's one of the first where Lovecraft combines science fiction and horror, rather than more traditional things with horror. This was an era of occult in horror, including goblins, witches, magic, ghost, vampires and werewolves. Lovecraft's horror is moving into distinctly non-occult and non-gothic areas.

It's not that long. Just 24 pages in my book. He only managed to sell it for $25 to Amazing Stories. The Editor, famous Hugo Gernsback (after whom The Hugo Awards are named) paid him late and he refused to publish with them again. It was the only story ever published for Amazing Stories to be in a famous annual anthology of short stories of various genres called the best of the year (The Best American Short Stories).

It's considered by many one of the best written stories, and again, Lovecraft felt is was his best short story. It's written and published in 1927, the year after The Call of Cthulhu was written but one year before it was published.

As a story at the front of the Mythos, elements in it are very light. If you have never read a Mythos story, then this won't look like it. However, a few famous Lovecraftian scholars point out that it's more important that a story have the Lovecraft tone and values than details like the Neronomicon or Cthulhu. Using that metric, this is a very important story (although Arkham is a Mythos elements, as a fictional town in Massachusetts where a lot of Mythos stuff happens).

I wanted this to be the sixth story and the last Lovecraft story for a while for several reasons. You can see a Mythos story light on elements, and how nice it is, you have a sci fi story, and you have an early mythos story that is before most of the later stuff. It's well written and well-received by critics ever since it saw print. The mood and tone are great!


I hope you enjoyed it if you read it!


I give it a solid four and a half stars out of five.

[Abe Sargent]

What's next?

I want to flesh out Generation 1 for a while before we go up or down the spectrum.


For purposes of this dynasty, we will be using my own language for discussing the Cthulhu Mythos. I am not a scholar, but just someone who loves reading this stuff!



Generation 0 - The foundational pre-Lovecraftian works that were later added to the Mythos, or which have mood, tone and details in common with the Mythos, and inspired Lovecraft and others. This is where you will find stories by Arthur Machen, Robert W Chambers and more.


Generation 1 - HP Lovecraft, and his immediate circle of friends and protegees. These are the first stories, coming out in the late 20s through roughly 1940 a few years after Lovecraft's death. Stories here are in all sorts of genres and feature writers we are about to explore.


Generation 2 - Robert Barlow was given Lovecraft's estate by his will, and was one of his protegees Lovecraft tutored in the craft of writing. August Derleth was another protegee who refused to allow Lovecraft's works to die out. Together, they pushed Lovecraft's works into the public. This gen ends around, roughly, the mid 1960s. It's a time of much change in the Mythos, as we will discus later

Generation 3 - Lin Carter and other writers appear on the scene in the mid 1960s. Too young to have read Lovecraft when he was alive, these new writers had been introduced to him via the collections published by Derleth and others, ans well as Gen 2 stories. Many of them move the Mythos forward in significant ways. Carter sort of takes over the Mythos from Derleth, editing many magazines and collections. He also uses his job s editor at Ballentine Books to bring back several Mythos writers such as Arthur Machen and Clark Ashton Smith. This lasts until, roughly, the mid 80s.


Generation 4 - The modern era. The RPG based on the Mythos put the stories into many more hands. Printing of stories explodes as people demand stories old and new. Many writers set stories in the Mythos as a way of telling art or adding to the story. With greater exposure through publishers like DelRey Books and Chaosian, many writers push the Mythos into many new places, while keeping essential elements. Even as recently as 2004, the Hugo award was given to Neil Gaiman for a short story set in the Cthulhu Mythos (and the Sherlock Holmes one as well - it's just a perfect short story, btw.)


So, those are my views of the various generations and the Mythos.

[Abe Sargent]

The next story will be one of the major authors of the era, and in the Mythos. This story is a bit odd, and will take your Mythos reading to a completely different era.


Clark Ashton Smith wrote fantasy stories set in the future or past of Earth. He's known for the many worlds he created and wrote stories in. The story we are reading is The Tale of Satampra Zeiros.

This was an attempt to channel Lord Dunsany's stories - HP Lovecraft loved it, and praised CAS's story. He also takes an element from the story and adds it to his own - Tsathoggua.


Tsathoggua is introduced in this story, so this is an essential Gen 1 story. It's also the first of the stories set in Hyperborea, a long lost age of man thousands of years ago, before the last Ice Age. Look for CAS's trademark dark humor here.


You can find it, for free, online here:

The Tale of Satampra Zeiros by Clark Ashton Smith (http://www.eldritchdark.com/writings/short-stories/208/the-tale-of-satampra-zeiros)


A lot of Gen 1 writers are writing things in the past and bring those elements into their age. We'll see it with the next writer on our list, Robert E Howard. We'll check out another story or two of CAS before moving to REH, or as Lovecraft called him, Two Gun Bob.


It clocks in at a mighty 12 pages in my anthology, so it's not going to keep you up all night or anything.

[CrimsonFox]

ponders running a call of cthulhu game here someday

[britrock88]

Well, I've now read The Call, and will be catching up in the near future. Kudos.

[Abe Sargent]

Cool cool!!!

[Abe Sargent]

The Tale of Satampra Zeiros Sypnosis




In this story, the great thief Satampra Zeiros opens by telling the story of how he lost his left hand. He begins by introducing a life-long friend and co-thief of majesty, Tirouv Ompallios. They pulled off some major heists, but it has been a while since they last scored ,and they are looking for the next thing.

They live in the city of Uzuldaroum, which is now the capital of Hyperborea. At one time, the capital was Commoriom, but it was deserted centuries ago. The people moved one day’s journey away to establish the city of Uzuldaroum. Perhaps Commoriom was deserted because of a prophecy against it by the White Sybil as is rumored, or for some other reason. The people of Uzuldaroum don’t go back. Tirouv and Satampra get the notion to head to Commoriom and explore, stealing the royal treasures that are still there.

They spend the day moving toward Commoriom and steal what they need from farmers and merchants along the way. They arrive at the ancient ruins of the city. It’s becoming dark. They decide to begin exploring immediately, an come across an old temple to Tsathoggua. They expect there might be some choice jewels or such left behind, so they head in to explore.

They push open the door and move in. There is a large basin of bronze with a liquid on it to the side, and in front is an altar with an idol of Tsathoggua on it. They find no precious stones or anything in the basin or idol. Seeing nothing by the altar/idol they moved toward the basin. An odor begins to ooze from it. The liquid agitates and swells. It moves out of the basin and solidifies into a creature.

Instantly ,they begin running from the shrine. They run for a long time, and have left Commoriom, but they see and hear the monster still chasing them, so they keep it up. They run for hours, and still hear pursuit. The moon sets, and their run is darker, and they hit trees, scratch themselves and stumble. Still they run Eventually they emerge from the forest to find themselves back where they left, and by the temple. Both Tirouv and Satampra move to hide behind the idol, but Satampra gets there first and there’s not room to hide too, so he has to hide in the basin. The creature enters and finds and slays Tirouv. Satampra creeps to the door while it is digesting Tirouv and makes it there but has to throw open the bolt, telling it where he is. As he does, a tentacle from the monster snakes out and bites off his left hand and he escapes.

[Abe Sargent]

The Tale of Satampra Zeiros Review

Well, we are definitely out of Lovecraft for a while! CAS has a much different style of writing. So let’s talk!

A few notes about Clark Ashton Smith – He had a memory that was almost eidetic. He read a dictionary from front to back while a child, and remembered most of the words. He also read the Encyclopedia through twice. As such, his works tend to be littered with words that I have to look up or skip over. I love it! I learned the word ignescent a few weeks ago and have used it twice since then.

This is a classic CAS story. CAS has a weakened reputation among fantasy enthusiasts because he was never published in the right way. Let me explain. Right now, if I want, I can buy a book of Robert E Howards Conan tales or horror tales. I can find a collection of Edgar Rice Burroughs Pelucidar stories or H Rider Haggard’s Allen Quartermain stories and so forth. You can’t do that with CAS. You have to buy a big, expensive hard cover book of all of his stuff. You just can’t spend 5 bucks for his Hyperborea cycle or his Zothique Cycle. The copyright is still owned, because he died a lot later than many other writes of his era. Anyway, his stuff is really good, with different language, different tones, and different moods that most other stories of his era or other Mythos tales.

While this is a fantasy story, it’s also clearly a horror story. There’s no question that this is different from both Lovecraft’s sci-fi horror or the eldritch horror of much of the Mythos. It’s nice to read it, because CAS is a nice blast of fresh air.

CAS has a different take on the eldritch characters such as Tsathoggua. He writes the character as virtually a malign deity not unlike many others in mythology. He might be a bit ugly, but Tsathoggua is not unlike Loki. Because CAS’s stuff was all written on Earth in various ages, he incorporates these elements such as Tsathoggua everywhere. That means most of his entire output of literature is essentially Mythos, but I’d say it’s Mythos-lite for the most part. Because of that, we’ll read more by CAS before REH moves in for a while.

Overall, this story is a hallmark of CAS’s style – dark humor, fast paced, not a lot of time on detailed discussions of the area (compare his one paragraph description of Commoriom vs Lovecrafts two and a half pages to begin The Colour Out of Space), and tight. It’s a great story that stands on its own.

(For historians, it is important to note that while this story is the one the creates Tsathoggua in 1929, it is not published until 1931. Lovecraft read the script and incorporated Tsathoggua into a story that was published in 1930, so by some accounts, this is not the introduction of Tsathoggua in print).

Tsathoggua is one of the big greats of the Cthulhu Mythos. Lovecraft uses him a lot, and Howard uses him a ton more than any others.


I give it four stars out of five.

[Abe Sargent]

Next up!

Ubbo-Sathla, by Clark Ashton Smith

At a whopping six pages, this is hardly a major task to read. It’s very easy to read through in just a few short moments.

This is a very important work by CAS for the Mythos. It sets the tone for the introduction of many more entities on the level of Cthulhu, Yog-Sothoth, Shub-Niggurath, Tsathoggua, and more. Many other writers would add their own major powers to the list in Gen 1 and Gen 2. Once we had enough, most later writers would tell additional tales about these rather than getting involved in creating more. As each generation progressed, the number of stories being written increased significantly. Even if I created a creature in my story called Spjeuaoct in 1960, the likelihood that anyone would read it and consider it good enough to add to their stories was very low. We have what Gens 1 and 2 (and to some degree 0) gave us. This is a direct addition to the Mythos, and as such, is very interesting.

It was published in 1933. Due to its short length, I will not be taking long to give you a chance to read it before moving on. I'll likely finish it up tomorrow

You can find it here:

Ubbo-Sathla by Clark Ashton Smith (http://www.eldritchdark.com/writings/short-stories/224/ubbo-sathla)

[Abe Sargent]

Ubbo-Sathla Synopsis





We open with Paul Tregardis discovering a crystal. He picks it up in a local shop and takes it home. He is an arcanist and cultist expert who recalls a line in the Book of Eibon about it. It was supposedly found in Greenland, which matches the location of Hyperborea in old times, when the Book of Eibon was written

In the Book of Eibon, it mentions a wizard named Zon Mezzamelech who owned a crystal with a description that matches the one he has found. He pulls down his copy of the Book and finds the reference. It said that he could use the stone to observe the ancient past of Earth and creation, all the way back to the source and Ubbo-Sathla, the demiurge. The crystal and mage were lost.

Paul sets down the book and peers deep into the crystal. He stares deep into it for minutes and longer, until he notices changes. He becomes, in a sense, a dream like someone else. He realizes that he is Zon Mezzamelech while still connected to Paul Tregardis in London. He sees and knows what Zon knows. Zon wants to recover the secrets of the gods, and believes the crystal is his tool to do so.

Zon is about to use the crystal for the first time. The vision of the crystal becomes more distinct and Paul forgets his connection and is fully Zon. Zon begins to use the crystal and his mind is racing backwards into the past, witnessing various scenes. The scene is too much, and Zon breaks off connection, and Paul returns to consciousness in London.

Something is wrong. Paul does not fully feel himself. He still considers himself Zon and the real world is more like a dream. He feels a bit disconnected. Details off his life seem like another’s. On three separate occasions, Paul peers into the crystal again, and as Zon in the past, again tries to tear into the past. He goes farther each time, but he wants to see past everything.

Then he vows not to turn back, and one final time Paul peers into the glass and becomes Zon in Hyperborea. Zon uses the crystal and peers into the past. Scenes begin to flow past him, and they see and become other users of the crystal before Zon. He lives many lives and learns many things as time speeds past in reverse. Not all of these lives are human. Then he speeds past life itself and moves to the source and finds Ubbo-Sathla there at the beginning.

Paul is never seen from again and the crystal is not found among his belongings.

[Abe Sargent]

Ubbo-Sathla Review


It’s a 6 page story, how much can you write about it? Ubbo-Sathla is a minor character among the family. It’s not Nyarlathotep or Azathoth or any of the others, but you’ll see it here and there. Maybe even in the next story!

This is CAS writing in a more Lovecratian venue. Modern day occultist expert comes across item from ye olde days (or ye olde beyond) and that items and occultist interact in such a way as to reveal a part of reality that the person is not ready for. He connects the story with his own fantasy tales, and enables both to combine. This is also proof that Hyperborea and Cthulhu-earth are the same place. The Book of Eibon becomes one of the more important elements of the Mythos as well.

I wish we would have had more on Ubbo-Sathla, but like all of these stories, the less said the better. I’d rather a writer erred on the side of less than more, you know?

Anyway, I give it three and an half out of five stars, but next is CAS magnum opus.

[Abe Sargent]

Alright, one more CAS story for now, and we’ll move on to Howard for a few stories. This is longer than the previous ones. Say hello to The Seven Geases, by CAS.

In my opinion, The Seven Geases is the single most important short story by Smith to read, even if you don’t like this stuff. There’s not a lot of horror here, and Smith keeps things moving at a brisk pace. This one is three and a half times as long as Ubbo-Sathla (21 pages) but still on the shorter side for a Lovecraft story.

Why is this such an important story? Not only does it impact the Mythos in many ways, but it also was a huge influence on Gary Gygax and Dungeons and Dragons.

In OD&D, there’s no guarantee that things are fair. One of Gary’s and Rob Kuntz’s favorite stories, says Mornard, was Clark Ashton Smith’s The Seven Geases, in which (spoilers removed) That was one of the seminal texts of D&D, said Mornard, and one of the stories it was designed to model. “The story that D&D tells,” said Mike, “is the story of the world. (spoiler removed).

I’ll give you the full quote in the review.

Now, having read that, are you interested in reading Seven Geases? Here we go!



The Seven Geases by Clark Ashton Smith (http://www.eldritchdark.com/writings/short-stories/192/the-seven-geases)

[Izulde]

H.P. Lovecraft Answers Your Relationship Questions « The Bygone Bureau (http://bygonebureau.com/2012/04/04/h-p-lovecraft-answers-your-relationship-questions/)

Thought this was a fitting add to this thread. :D

[Abe Sargent]

Synopsis of The Seven Geases


Ralibar Vooz, lord and magistrate of Commoriom, is hunting. They camp at Mount Voormithadreth, and hear locals killing a saber tooth tiger and alpine catoblepas. Vooz is here to hunt the locals, called Voormis after the mountain. They head up the Mount but find no sport. The Voormis cannot be found.

They eventually arrive near some caves. They climb up above them to get down to them, but the opening down is not appearing, and his men and himself keep spiraling up the mountain. He is leading them up the mountain and spies smoke before hearing voices in front. He yells to his men to join him and bellows an announcement of his arrival to the people he hears and heads around the rocks. He spies a cabin in the mountain and approaches.

He finds an old man by an oddly colored fire in front of the hut. The old man and his archaeopteryx familiar curse Vooz and his arrival for ruining his evocation. Vooz doesn’t understand all that the sage is telling him, but he’s pissed that the guy is talking to one such as him rudely. Of course, he threatens the old man with violence, and the man announces that he is Ezdagor, a mighty wizard. In response to Ralibar Vooz’s interruption of his magic, and subsequent threatening, Ezdagor places him under a geas.

Vooz must cast aside all weapons and armor and head into the den of the Voormis. He is to fight against the whole tribe and then deeper into the cave until he finds Tsathoggua. Once there, he is to announce that he is the sacrifice to Tsathoggua from Ezdagor. The familiar archaeopteryx will go with him to guide him to the right place. Ultimately, Vooz is allowed to keep his basic armor to help him reach Tsathoggua.

Due to the leadings of the familiar, he is able to find the cave of the Voormis and enters. He slays the shaggy Voormis, and their females and children. Then he breaks through their camp and moves in deeper. He arrives at a foul-smelling cave wherein Tsathoggua lies. He announces that he is to be the sacrifice. The creature announces that he just feasted on a sacrifice and is sated for the moment, so he is given a second geas – to find Atlach-Nacha, and to announce that he is the sacrifice sent by Tsathoggua.

Down caves and caverns the familiar and Ralibar Vooz head. Finally he arrives at a giant chasm with many webs woven across it from one side to the other. In the middle of the webs, hovering over the abyss, is a dark creature. Seeing it, Ralibar announces has sacrificial status. It moves across the webs with lightning speed. It is a gigantic mix of human and spider. Atlach-Nacha says that he has not the time to extract Vooz from his metal shards, because he has to always guard the abyss. He sends Ralibar on to the Ante-Human sorcerer Haon-Dor with a third geas.

Vooz moves over the webs to the other side and across a ledge. They find stairs, and at the stairs is a giant snake. Seeing the familiar, it moved aside and allowed access to the stairs. They entered the palace of Haon-Dor. They penetrate various rooms and corridors, due to the knowledge the archaeopteryx has. They find the throne room on which sits a patch of darkness, in the shape of a being. He announces that he was sent by Atlach-Nacha. Silence ruled for some time, but ultimately sound radiated from the figure. He considered feeding him to his familiars, but they are too many and Vooz to little food. Instead, he will send him to his allies, and gives him another geas. He is to find the serpent people and present himself to them.

Deep into this underworld went Vooz led by the archaeopteryx. He finally found the serpent-men. He announces his appearance, but it takes a while and more announcing before the serpent-men acknowledge he is even there. They inspect Vooz and then go and find two specimens of people – one a Voormis and another a man. They give a lecture on anatomy to other lizard men in some other language. Eventually one speaks to him and thanks Huon-Dor for sending him to them, but they already have a sample of his species and they have dissected many others and have all of the knowledge they need. They don’t even eat meat anymore and his body has no pharmaceutical value. They give him another geas, to find and submit himself to the Archetypes.

They continue down, and discover a T Rex among spongy ground. It chases him and eats him, but with a body that’s astral, he manages to fall out and is fine. It moves way to find something digestible. They pass many other dinosaurs. He eventually arrives at two vaguely humanoid people. They claim to be the originals of mankind and are upset at how coarse a copy mankind now is of them. They disown Ralibar Vooz. He is given yet another geas, to depart without delay and to find Abhoth.

He is tiring but cannot stop. He finds a cavern with disgusting creatures all over. Giant worms with many tails and oddly shaped lizards. A thick steam hung about the cavern he has entered and stained his armor. Here he finds a pool and the familiar stops. From it spawned the creatures that filled the cavern. Many mouths appeared across it to eat those that spawned but moved not fast enough. He proclaimed to Abhoth his arrival as per the geas. A part of the pool rose, like a tentacle and created a rough hand, who moved and explored Vooz’s body.

Abhoth communicates with Vooz telepathically and is upset that the Archetpyes bothered him. It doesn’t appear that Vooz is anything Abhoth can devour, since he is not one of his progeny or progeny’s progeny. Therefore, he banishes Raliber Vooz to the Outer Realm and gives him a geas to leave here at once and go outside.

The familiar allows Vooz to rest for a bit before continuing. The archaeopteryx found a fish’ish thing and Vooz eats it raw due to his hunger, weariness, and lack of anything else available. They begin to leave the underworld. The route they are taking is a short cut. They skip past The Archetypes, serpent people and temple of Huon-Dor, using a different exit. Eventually, the arrive at the Abyss guarded by Atlach-Nacha. All along the way he was chased by the progeny of Abhoth that grew as they left his side. One creature moves onto the webbing and he is chased by the progeny to the webs. He moves in after the wake of the first creature and tries to escape the progeny. However, the webbing has weakened, and it falls. He plunges into the Abyss.

The final line is:

This, unfortunately, was a contingency that had not been provided against by the terms of the seventh geas.






Full quote:

In OD&D, there’s no guarantee that things are fair. One of Gary’s and Rob Kuntz’s favorite stories, says Mornard, was Clark Ashton Smith’s The Seven Geases, in which the hero survives a horrible death at the hands of seven different monsters only to die meaninglessly slipping from a ledge. That was one of the seminal texts of D&D, said Mornard, and one of the stories it was designed to model. “The story that D&D tells,” said Mike, “is the story of the world. Heroes aren’t invincible”

[Abe Sargent]

Review of The Seven Geases



I love this story so much. First of all, you won’t find a better example of CAS’s dark humor. My favorite example is when the lizard folk, who are scientifically oriented say that the mystic geas is nothing more than hypnosis. He deconstructs his own story IN the story, and that’s crazy funny. He shows you such a large and sprawling world under the mountain.

This was published in 1933 and was a great story in the Hyperborea cycle, and it also demonstrates Smith’s different view on Tsathoggua in specific and all of the entities in general. All he is in a powerful, bloated deity that happens to be powerful and therefore gets sacrifices feeding to it.

There are some who believe that Abhoth and Ubbo-Sathla are the same creature, viewed at different epochs with different names. The Mythos does play games like that, and you will read of an era in which Cthulthu is spelled and pronounced Kultult or something. But these are radically different names. They have similar appearances, and my guess is that they are related – parent and child or aunt and niece or whatever.

Anyway, you can see the influence on early D&D as mentioned above, the influence on the Mythos, and the fact that it’s simply a great story.


I honestly believe this is a five outta five, and it is to Clark Ashton Smith what The Call of Cthulhu is to Lovecraft. We still feel it’s impact to this day.

A lot of people are turned by the ending, which they see as lazy, but I think it was the only ending possible. As I look back on the story, I can’t think of a ending that would have better fit the story. So if you don’t like it, you are not alone. Many others agree, and we can discuss it away!

I expect that we will come back to Smith later.

[Abe Sargent]

Alright, next up, we move to Robert E. Howard for a few stories. Are you ready?



The first Howard story we’ll be reading is The Black Stone.


This story is published in 1931, and introduces Mythos elements such as Justin Geoffrey and Von Junzt’s Unaussprechlichen Kulten. It also probably features some of Clark Ashton Smith’s works.

You can find it here on Project Gutenberg Australia: http://gutenberg.net.au/ebooks06/0601711.txt


It takes 16 pages in my anthology, so you won’t see a lot before we move in.

We will be reading four stories by Howard, before we move onto other writers. Read The Black Stone, and then we’ll see a synopsis and review.

[Abe Sargent]

On Howard

If you have never read a story by REH, such as Conan, Kull, Solomon Kane, or other characters, then you need to read this post. We need to discuss Howard, and what he cares about.

Some people have accused HP Lovecraft of being racist. Consider, for example, in the Call. The way he describes the savage tribe of people in Greenland is hardly complementary. His depiction of the people of New Orleans are similarly unflattering. A good word for these folk is degenerate. Lovecraft depicts many non-white people as degenerate worshippers of the dark ones. To be fair, he doesn’t generalize. He never states that all of the people of Greenland are at the same level of savagery and evil as that one tribe. He also happily has lost enclaves of white people that have inbred and become degenerate as well. New England is rife with old towns centuries old that time and morality have past by. He’s equal opportunity.

There are some stories that appear to have latent tones of discriminatory outlook such as Horror at Red Hook. For the most part, it’s not there (and remember, this is a guy who married a Jew.) I believe that Lovecraft was likely a person who shared the believes of his day in white superiority, but it really doesn’t impact his work. For example, if you read Winged Death, set in Africa, most Africans are depicted as normal people, or even brave.

Howard, on the other hand, completely changes this. Howard really cares about race. His stories are rife with ideas of race. Take a look at man Conan/Kull stories that you will see the white Aryan fighting against evil races of others. Whether it’s the serpent men of Valusia or the little people of Wales, his people really are cognizant of race and bound to battles between them. There is a lot of racism in Howard’s works, but not in the traditional sense of black vs white (Although he does have some yellow peril stories). Howard embraced the underdog, and shared a real affinity for natives. His entire ethos embraces noble savagery. He doesn’t find evil in savages, unlike most white writers of the time. Instead, he finds it in other races. A modern reader may be uncomfortable reading some of his stories. For example, we will not read The Children of the Night, which is blatantly racist and whose pro-Aryan lines could be read in a very poor context post-Hitler. Do you really want to read lines like this:

For I come of a royal race, and such as he is a continual insult and a threat, like a serpent underfoot. Mine is a regal race, though now it is become degraded and falls into decay by continual admixture with conquered races. The waves of alien blood have washed my hair black and my skin dark, but I still have the lordly stature and the blue eyes of a royal Aryan.


We’ll skip past most of this stuff, but one story slides into it.

On other news, the works of Howard were brought into the Mythos. Both his own works brought them in, and Lovecraft did as well. He mentions long lost Valusia and its serpent men in many stories. Other references appear. If you pick up a collection of Conan stories, you are reading Mythos works. But they aren’t adding anything to the Mythos, or using elements of the Mythos. We won’ be picking up a Kull story or a Conan story. I just want to point out that they all occur on the same world.

Okay, let’s Black Stone it up!

[Abe Sargent]

Synopsis of The Black Stone



This story opens with our narrator coming across a reference to a Black Stone while reading Nameless Cults or Unaussprechlichen Kulten in its original German. In that book, there is a reference to a Black Stone high in the mountains of Hungary. He mentions it much in passing, since it’s use in ancient cultic ceremonies is long since dead, and he wasn’t much interested in it. However, the appearance of age speaks to the narrator. He digs further.

He finds a quick mention in a historical book and says that it is right outside of the town of Stregoicavar – which means something like witch-town. It’s such a small town it’s not even on maps or in travel books. Then he realizes a connection between Justin Geoffrey, the mad poet and this stone. In one of his poems, he discusses the People of the Monolith. He finds the whole thing extraordinary and plans a trip to investigate.

This is nearby the battle site where Count Boris Vladinoff tried to hold off the Turks, but ultimately failed in 1526. His train meanders through the hills, and he discovers a passage on the battle. It describes Vladinoff having originally won the first battle, and then an aide brings to him a small lacquered case confiscated from a famous Turk historian. He reads the case’s contents, but gets very pale. Then cannon reinforcements from the Turks arrive and blast the ruins of a castle in which he had made his headquarters. He was buried underneath the rubble and to this day that is his tomb. They pass the rubble on the train, where it is believed that he still rests.

The town of Stregoicavar is a sleepy little town. They mention that they had a visitor about ten years before named Justin Geoffrey, confirming that the mad poet had come through here. He gets some people to talk about the Black Stone. There are rumors about staring into it too long and about what happens on Midsummer’s Night. The inhabitants of Stregoicavar are from other Hungarian towns. The Turks killed everyone here and they moved in after the Turks left. They have no resentment towards the Turks, because their ancestors didn’t like the people here any more than the Turks did.

The following day, our narrator sets out to find the Black Stone. After a bit of hiking, he encounters it. There are unusual markings present that speak of lost languages from far off. He discovers no connection with it and anything else. He returns and finds someone who has dreams about the Stone and talks with him. He finds the schoolmaster is not as reserved when discussing the stone as the rest of the village and discusses it at length with him. The schoolmaster believes the stone was not built by those who worshipped it but simply used by them. He believed that the legends around the stone were just myth.

As that night was Midsummer Night, the narrator takes a trip to the Black Stone, and sits right where he believed Justin Geoffrey must have sat. He observes the setting of the sun, and the ebbing of day. Soon midnight strikes, and he begins to witness a scene. Many people are coming to the Stone, but they are not the people he has met. A Priest in a deer skin and a naked woman arrived. The Priest whips the woman, who frantically dances in a pagan ritual. An evil ritual results, which the killing of people, at the end of which, a toad like figure appears over the stone and the priest brings it a struggling girl, but then the narrator falls unconscious.

He awakes and it is dawn. He believes that what he saw was the vision of something from the past, but maybe it was just a vivid dream, heightened by the nighttime. He realizes, that he can find proof! He moves to the place where Count Vladinoff supposedly fell and begins to excavate the ruins. He finds the bones of a man and a small damaged, case. Inside is a scroll written in Turkish and an object wrapped in silk. It describes a scene very similar to what he saw, and the item is a toad like medallion that matches a place on the priest where one was missing. The Turks tortured the people in Stregoicavar to find out what was happening, and then they hunted down and killed a toad like creature that resulted in the death of many Turks.

Our narrator realizes that the stone is not a stone at all, but the spire of a castle built long ago but covered by earth over the years.

Key Quote at the end:

Man was not always master of the earth – and is he now?

[Abe Sargent]

Review of The Black Stone


I think there is a lot to like in this story. Howard knows where he is going and gets you there. He introduces a lot of elements to the story, and yet, there is no obvious Mythos element here. He doesn’t use the Necronomicon or The Book of Eibon. Gone is the dank corridors and oppression of many tales. We aren’t investigating long lost caves and caverns or finding deep mysteries under things. All we have is a rock that defies explanation with a past.

Many of the Mythos stories of Howard take place in other eras, but not this one. As such, it’s easy to slide in alongside the others. Many consider it his best written horror story, including Robert Price. I think it’s great except for one thing. I find the descriptions of what the narrator sees a bit prosaic. After reading a lot of Mythos fiction, there are a few details I can do without, and pagan rituals, orgies, sacrifices, and altars are some of them.

There are many great things to recommend this story, and many a reader wishes we would stay in Stregoicavar for longer. Getting outside of New England and England, and breaking into these places is something very nice indeed.

Howard’s description of the story lacks the focus of the scientist that Lovecraft has. It has, instead, the focus of a researcher. Compare, for example, Lovecraft’s depiction of the analysis of the meteorite in Colour with Howard’s of the narrator’s initial research. Each focuses on what they know best.


Anyway, I think this is a very good story by Howard, and arguably his most important Mythos work. I give it a 4 out of five stars.

[Abe Sargent]

The next story on our list will be the eight page story The Thing on the Roof. Find it here:


http://gutenberg.net.au/ebooks06/0608011.txt


It’s another easy read, and one you can blow through in a few minutes.

It’s one of many stories that shows the severe impact The Dunwich Horror had, not only on Howard, but on the Mythos generally. There are several elements of the Horror in this story, and you’ll see its impact in many other places. Look for it as you read it.

[Abe Sargent]

Synopsis of The Thing on the Roof


This story opens with a narrator telling us about being contacted by a gentleman named Tussmann. Both were in the same field of search and a bit of arcanology, and they had batted heads professionally. Tussmann needed an original version of Nameless Cults for his researches. He had read an edited version and saw hints that he needed to fully explore.

The narrator agrees to get Tussmann the original work if possible, although few copies remain after the mysterious death of Von Junzt. Eventually a colleague in Virginia with a copy sends it to the narrator. Tussmann arrives and searches, finding a passage about Honduras jungle where a strange god is worshipped in an ancient temple. It speaks about a mummy from old times with a jewel around its neck, which was a key.

At this, Tussmann mentions that was in Honduras and saw the temple. The native Indians say that the temple was built long before them. He didn’t have the time or the tool to break into the temple and he left. Now, after confirming what is there in Von Junzt’s book, he intends to return, penetrate the temple/pyramid, and find that key and whatever treasure it unlocks.

Tussmann leaves the next day, and the narrator reads Nameless Cults more. It is referred to as the Temple of the Toad. He finds additional things that are disquieting, but he is unable to get in touch with Tussmann to let him know.

A few months pass and Tussmann has returned. His place is unkempt as our narrator arrives. Tussmann claimed that the treasure was a hoax, but the key jewel was true. He pulls it out to show the narrator. It’s a red crystal in the shape of a toad-like thing with characters on it no one can decipher. They resemble ones on a Black Stone in Hungary.

He describes the temple in detail, it’s rock, columns and more. The mummy was exactly as stated in the book, with the chain about it. He gathered the gem and touched it to an altar and a panel opened. His mercenaries refused to follow him down into the temple. He was annoyed by the sound and movements of a strange toad that hopped ahead of him, outside the light of his flashlight. In there were no gold or gems. When he returned, the mummy and his men were gone. He suspected they took it and fled.

Then a noise is heard from upstairs on the roof. The narrator wonders what it is and Tussmann is obviously disturbed. He refuses to give up the Key and in a few moments he pushes the narrator out of the room, as the noise grows. They realize that the treasure of the Temple of the Toad was the god itself. Loud crashing noises are heard, and a few minutes later, the narrator returns, and the room has been cracked into, the Key is gone, Tussmann is smashed in but not by tinder or the roof, and marks of a creature are seen.

[Abe Sargent]

Review of The Thing on the Roof



I personally wish this story would’ve followed the journey to Central America. I think it would have been interesting to read what happened, rather than to read about afterwards. Putting you in the moment would have increased the pace and danger of it.

Again, getting out of the past and New England is welcome.

While REH thought this was his best horror story, August Derleth told Lovecraft that it was weak. Lovecraft responds to the criticism by saying that.

I know it’s trite, but something in it gave me a kick for all that.

So there you have it, a trite kicky story!

Here’ s Howard on the story:

…is not only my best story by far that I ever wrote, but…is, in my honest opinion a really first-class weird story judged by any standards.

It’s it as high as Howard thinks? No not really. It is as low as August Derleth thought? No, not really. I agree with Lovecraft, in that it feels too short, too simple and too obvious, but there is something in it that sticks with you. I went back and reread my Howard anthology of Horror stories a month ago, and I only remembered the bajilion ones on the dark race vaguely, the others we’ll read, and this. It has something to it. I think it’s the weakest of the four Howard stories we’ll be reading about now, and I put it at three out of five stars. It’s worth reading and exploring, but no one would call it a major story.

[Abe Sargent]

The next story is my favorite Mythos story by Howard, and one of the most anthologized. There are two versions of it. We will be reading the one with the Mythos elements.

Say hello to The Fire of Asshurbanipal

http://gutenberg.net.au/ebooks06/0601741.txt



It appears to be influenced by The Haunter in the Dark. It was also published posthumously six months after Howard killed himself. You can find Mythos references to several creatures. When telling the story of the past, you will be introduced to Xuthltan, which is also the ancient name of the village in The Black Stone.

[Abe Sargent]

Synopsis of The Fire of Asshurbanipal




Our story opens as Yar Ali and Steve Clarney fight off a group of Arabian raiders that are attacking them as they plunge deeper into the desert. They have few bullets left, and little supplies.

Then we wind things back and learn who our players are. Yar Ali and Steve are mercenaries and friends. Yar is an Afghan Muslim and Steve an American Christian. They heard tales of a Black City in the Persian desert north of Shiraz, and in it, the Fire of Asshurbanipal. An ancient valuable jewel that is still held in the hand of the ancient king that once ruled the city in the sands. A Persian trader heard of it and saw the city that only the Bedouins have seen in centuries.

Following the legend, Yar Ali and Steve Clarney prepared as best they could, and moved into the desert of Turkistan in central Asia. They have been in the desert for weeks, having lost or used their supplies. They plunge on, because the oases they have left are too far away, so all they have is what may lay ahead.

After resting for the night, they awaken and notice an oddly shaped ridge on the horizon. They move towards it and discover the city of stone in the midst of sand. Yar Ali hesitates a bit, because he I uncomfortable with this City of the Djinn, as he calls it. They move in to investigate and find that it is Assyrian in design and architecture. They see the creatures of Assyrian places. It appears this was built under the control of Ninevah.

The find a temple which Steve says might be a Temple of Baal, and it’s one of the few free standing structures. Wanting water, he moves in ,but again, Yar Ali hesitates. They believe that the Arabs would never come here with their superstitions, and lower their guard to explore.

They explore and look around. Steve makes much speculation about what happened. They find the altar to Baal in the temple, and Steve has them plunge past it, through a doorway, and then up stairs. Ali advises against going up them, for only Djinn would be there, but Steve wants to go, and Yar Ali won’t leave his friend to face them alone, so he grabs his knife and they move up.

The stairs are massive, and at the top is a royal chamber. There was a dais with several steps up to a throne-like seat. Sitting on it was the skeleton of an old king, and in his hand is the Fire of Asshurbanipal. Steve moves in to grab it, but Yar Ali runs in and knocks his hand away. They argue for a bit, but Yar Ali tells Steve that he sense great danger around it and reminds him of the previous times his sense of danger kept them alive. Steve relinquishes his attempt to grab it.

Then they realize that many Arabs are mounting the stairs and moving to them. They grab guns and shoot and kill a few, and then engage in hand to hand combat. They kill a few of the Arabs, but then are overwhelmed. A voice tells the Arabs not to kill them not yet. They are tied up, and the lord of the Arabs is revealed as an old acquaintance of the mercenaries named Nureddin El Mekru, a former Yemeni slave trader they injured and scarred.

Nureddin became the leader of this group of Arabs, and the ones that Steve and Yar drove off returned and he followed them. He was after The Fire of Asshurbanipal as well, and now it’s his. At this, the Arabs protest, and an argument ensues. They tell the history of the city to Nureddin. They say that the ancient sorcerer and king cursed the stone and no man should take it. Eventually, Nureddin fights off the Arab arguments and grabs the Fire.

A great wailing noise goes up, and the Fire slips from his hand and rolls down to the back wall, where he Nureddin chases it. The Arabs run screaming from the area and down the stairs. The wall by Nureddin begins to slide open, and Steve can sense that witnessing what is about to occur will drive him mad. Both Yar Ali and himself turn away and squeeze their eyes tight. They hear something emerge from the passage and grab Nureddin and pull him back. Then the spell passes, and the creature leaves, but before he does, Steve steals a glance of it as it’s leaving, and is haunted by that memory. The Fire of Asshurbanipal was back in the hand of the King.


They free themselves from their bonds and run away, where they find the horses and provisions of those they had slain. In their haste to leave quickly, the Arabs had left them. They take the horses and flee. As they do, Steve confesses that he saw the risen Xuthltan himself replace the gem on the hands.

[Abe Sargent]

Review of The Fire of Asshurbanipal




At first, this appears to be a story wherein many typical elements occur. In fact, it bears some similarities to The Thing on the Roof. However, I appreciate how some details make sense, rather than appearing to be dues ex machinas. For example, When Steve arrives at The Fire of Asshurbanipal, and moves toward taking it, Yar Ali tells him no. Eventually, he listens. A bad story would have had the bad guys interrupt him as he is about to ignore Yar Ali and take it and then become a saving grace simply by a massive coincidence. This story does not do that, and I appreciate it.

Having a story with some traditional elements such as a city in ruins in a desert and Arabs being fought by and around it (not really spoilers since its first page stuff) is okay when surrounded by a writer who gives you obvious reasons to believe the story. I appreciate little details like that. This is a very traditional Howard story in a lot of ways. Despite the presence of Arabs and guns, you can just feel that this is a Conan story or a Kull story. It has a lot of similarities between them. The next story will have even more similarities.


I like the location and the story. Again, it’s a story light on Mythos elements, and it just pushes you into the story and the world. A lot of later stories by authors that come by will push the Mythos too much in their story, and every single person has a copy of the Necronomicon and knows of Cthulhu and names are dropped all over. Consider how light some of the stories we’ve read, such as The Colour out of Space, this, and a few others have been. This is a masterful understanding of showing the world, but not getting wrapped up in the details.


Anyway, I give it a 4 stars out of 5. It’s not Howard at his best, but he’s on his game.

[Abe Sargent]

The next story is the final Howard one for a while. In fact, I’m not sure if we will ever come back to Howard. It’s the longest story we’ve had in a while, clocking in at 24 pages. That’s short for the first stories, but long for the ones we’ve been reading. The story is called Worms of the Earth. It can be found here:


http://gutenberg.net.au/ebooks06/0607861.txt


It’s published in 1932, and the only story told from Bran Mak Morn;s point of view. This is a character Howard created and has in several stories. It was adapted as a two issue Conan story in Savage Sword of Conan #16 and 17. It’s a very good story on its own. There are mentions of places such as R’lyeh. He edited a reference to Cthulhu to just the Nameless Gods. Anyway, let’s read Words of the Earth!

[Abe Sargent]

Synopsis of Worms of the Earth



The story opens with a Roman crucifixion of one of the Picts under the power of the King of the Picts, Bran Mak Morn. Bran has disguised himself as an ambassador to spy on the Romans, and they are a decadent people. Bran spends a lot of time being disgusted by Roman justice, Roman military, Roman luxury and Roman ethics.

Eventually, Bran needs to find a way to kill the Roman Governor of the area. He decides on using a method that his ancestors knew of. A dream of a mentor attempts to dissuade him, but he ignores it. He sends his aide to the local towns, to begin to Raid and Pillage to Roman controlled countryside. He knows the Romans well enough to know that the Governor will be at a large fortress while one of his generals takes much of the army out to the field. Bran Mak Morn slips into the jail and slays the commander who killed the Pict on the cross, and then escapes from the Roman compound.

He flees into the Welsh wilderness and plunges into a swamp. He runs across the abode of a witch woman who is half human and half something else. Something serpentine. He tries to negotiate her aid, and she knows he intends to summon the Worms of the Earth. Ultimately, the only thing that she will take in barter for her assistance is sex. He sleeps with her, and she aids him.

Afterwards, Bran Mak Morn penetrates a place called Dagon’s Barrow. Inside in a place of darkness down which he explores, until he finds an altar in the darkness with a black stone on it. He takes the stone and emerges as he hears things behind him. He moves to a place nearby, Dagon’s Mere, and casts the stone into it and then returns to the witch woman.

We find out that she had gone to give his instructions to the Worms, and they will meet with him. His people subdued the Worms long ago, and banished them to their caves. They arrive in hundreds, and they want their holy relic, the stone, back. He refuses and angers himself, and they back off. He trades the stone back to them for a service. He wants them to penetrate the walls of the great fortress that the Governor is in to bring him back to Bran. The Worms are an old humanoid race with bestial reptile features that have apparently gone more barbaric and degenerate since his people conquered them and spread the centuries ago.

They go to get him, and he goes to get back the stone. He dives into the Mere and discovers a deep creature here guarding it he barely manages to escape with the stone. He rides to the large fortress to watch the Worms get the Governor, and when he arrives, the entire structure has been destroyed. One of the Romans is still alive and confide in him that it fell down after big tremors hit it, and then they took the Governor. He follows their path and finds them at the agreed up meeting place he takes their stone and returns it to them, and they give him the Governor, but he’s gone mad with what he saw, so Bran kills him in mercy, not vengeance. At the end, the woman tells him that the Worms are not done with him, and the story ends.

[Abe Sargent]

Review of Worms of the Earth

I waited until the end of the Howard stories to have this, since in timeline, it resembles a bit the Clark Ashton Smith ones. We’ll head back to modern time again, and the Mythos won’t normally head back to the ancient sword and sorcery past for most of its stories.

Lovecraft refers to Bran Mak Morn in one of his own Mythos stories, further bringing this story into the Mythos., Not only does Howard refer to R’lyeh, but Lovecraft brings in it. Theirs is no question about its canonicity. Lovecraft wrote that:


Few readers will ever forget the hideous and compelling power of that macabre masterpiece “Worms of the Earth.

Howard’s writing style suits these sorts of stories much more than stories like The Thing on the Roof. This is where he is made immortal via Conan and others. This is why Fire is so good, because it has that sort of feel and character. Bran Mak Morn is another Howard hero in the typical mold – the noble savage against the decadent civilizations of his day – in this case, the Roman Empire. Howard loved rooting for the underdog, so he creates one.

Race is again at the forefront of this tale – you can’t get away from it in Howard’s works. Here, the half human witch woman is not fully evil, despite her evil ways. She knows she is likely to die if she helps Bran, but she does only for one night of passion. Since she has no suitors, it will be enough. And Bran will help her by ensuring her safety in his bargain with the Worms.

We see race in the Worms, and in the history of Bran’s Picts. We witness it with the Romans as well. It’s not just culture, or heritage, but blood that distinguishes people.




I give it 4 stars outta 5

(I reserve 5 for true masterpieces and 4.5 for near ones.)

[Abe Sargent]

This may be the last Howard story we ever do, and it certainly will be the last one for a good, long while. Therefore, I want to give you some reading advice if you really like Howard’s horror works and want to read more. Here are the ones I would recommend and in their order.


The House in the Oaks – If we come back for any story, this will be the one. It’s modern day, and quite good. It was a fragment of Howards which was finished by August Derleth.

Dig Me No Grave – It’s a bit obvious what happened, but it is a nicely written and short story.

The Little People/People of the Dark/The Children of the Night – I’d recommend holding off on these until after we hit Machen on Gen 0. They follow his stories. I’m not a super fan, but this is where the rest of the Mythos lies.

The Black Bear Bites – A bit of a yellow peril story (yuck) and pretty good, but with virtually no elements at all.


Skull-Face – A blatant yellow peril story with a Fu Manchu rip off. Among those who like reading the yellow peril stories of the era for historical purposes, this is considered one of the best. It also features characters that are, after being written, edited into Cthulhu.


Anyway, I like Howard enough to read him, but I also recognize his limitations. No one will ever call A Princess of Mars a great piece of literature, but everyone knows Edgar Rice Burroughs. No one will ever call a story by Howard a great piece of art, but everyone will know Conan and Robert E Howard.

[Abe Sargent]

For our next story, we are leaving behind the Big Three of Weird Tales, and moving on to other writers using and adding elements to the Mythos at its beginning. There is just one place to start after you leave behind the three. You start with The Hounds of Tindalos.


The Hounds of Tindalos (http://www.scribd.com/Eniena/d/4950396-The-Hounds-of-Tindalos)


Frank Belknap Long was one of the many young writers whom Lovecraft tutored. They began writing each other in 1920 before Long had even published fiction, and Lovecraft assisted Long throughout his career. They were good friends, and unlike many of Lovecraft’s associates, they actually were friends in real life. During his three years in New York City, they ran in the same circle.

The Hounds was published in 1929. It is by some accounts the very first story written in the Mythos by anyone other than Lovecraft himself. (This is true only if you don’t consider some of the stories we read set in the past by Smith as a true Mythos story. I do, so I don’t buy it. CAS is the first one to my mind)

Twelve pages await, so let’s go!

[Abe Sargent]

About Long –

You may not recognize Long’s name but don’t let the patina of time dim you to his contributions. Among other things, he wrote comics during the heyday of the 1940s and wrote Superman, Captain Marvel, and Green Lantern. He passed away in 94 and had written hundreds of short stories during the pulp era, and then dozens of novels after it died. He moved as the currents took him, and he was a chameleon. He wrote sci fi when it was popular, spy stories in the 60s, comics in the 40s, and so forth. To this day, he is still best remembered for his Mythos stories, and his greatest contribution to the Mythos is this story. You must read it first when you move outside of the big names, and you’ll see why.

Long mentions that Lovecraft and him exchanged more than 1000 letters some of which are more than 80 handwritten pages long. He was one of Lovecraft’s greatest correspondences, but not his only one. As a reminder, Lovecraft developed relationships with tons of new writers during his era. He ghost-wrote, edited, revised them, wrote to them, and tutored them. This was often voluntary on his part, but some contend that he got more money from his revisions of other authors than he did from his own work.

Frank Belknap Long was a distinguished enough author in the mid-30s to be invited onto The Challenge from Beyond project. This was a project by a pulp magazine to write a story in five chapters, with an author writing each chapter. The five authors writing the story were C.L. Moore, A Merritt, HP Lovecraft, Robert Howard, and Frank Belknap Long. A Merritt is a huge name as well. (We’ll read a very popular story of his in Gen 0).

Anyway, Long is not some random name I am pulling out a hat ,but one with a very strong connection to the Mythos.

[Abe Sargent]

Synopsis of The Hounds of Tindalos


The story opens with Halpin Chalmers contacting his friend ,the narrator, named Frank . Chalmers wants Frank’s assistance with a project he has been working on. He intends to combine this esoteric Chinese drug with his modern understanding of science and math (the parts that work) and use them to break the veil of time and space. He believes that time is in space, so the past is in a space we are not in, as is the future. By changing his perception to see another space, he should be able to see time. The drugs and math should help him do that.

He takes the drugs ,and Frank is to write down everything Halpin says. The drugs begin to work, and Halpin begins to see the past. He sees every person that ever lived, and pushes through them to before life began. He notices that we live in curved time, but there is also angled time in which others live, and they cannot pass into curved time. His journeys back find dark creatures and a dark deed at the beginning of time. These creatures, the Hounds of Tindalos, chase him back through time to his apartment and begin to hunt him. They can materialize unto curved space by using an angle of severity.

In order to protect himself, Chalmers and Frank use plaster to round the corners of his apartment and to smooth edges. The idea is to protect himself long enough to discourage the Hounds, who will retreat back to their haunt. However, a while later, an Earthquake happens. The plaster in the apartment cracks and breaks, and the Hounds get through. His body is found decapitated with no blood but a blue ichor all over.

[Abe Sargent]

Review of The Hounds of Tindalos


The very first Cthulhu Anthology of various writers was published in the late 60s by August Derleth. It was called Tales of the Cthulhu Mythos. It was highly influential, because many would follow down through the years. It would become the major way of finding and reading Mythos fiction. Derleth wanted to include the best stories he could find, and among those, was The Hounds of Tindalos.

This was a story that heavily influence the Mythos, because the Hounds are used again and again in later stories. The idea that something could travel through time and space and arrive in a room through sharp angles was both unnerving and new. It’s not an idea you can put your finger on. There will come a time when the Mythos will become more about pastiche than new and refreshing, but is not that time. It’s fresh, and exciting, and it inspires writers big and small. Long gets to be at heart of that.

Due to the cleverness of the concept, this is a major Mythos piece because so many that follow will use them. While many call it the first non-Lovecraft Mythos story, it does not include a single Mythos element. The books on the shelves are normal ones from real life, and no mention is made in the past seeing scene of anything Mythos-ish. That’s one reason why it’s interesting.

While Hounds is a fine story, it is a bit derivative. One of the Gen 0 stories we will read later has a similar plot element. (“The Great God Pan” by Arthur Machen). We also see Lovecraft’s influence all over the techno-talk at the beginning. Anyway, this is a classic of the Mythos, in part because of the ideas. The writing is sufficient, but never superlative. You can also see how this story inspires, in part, Smith’s Ubbo-Sathla. In both cases a person uses an artificial method to see back into the past, and in each case they get past human history and see something else, and in each case their experience is physically there, and their traveling has an impact.

I give it 3 out of 5 stars, in part because I feel the end meanders a bit and should have stuck with just the main story. Which would have improved it to 3.5.

[Abe Sargent]

There are so many places to go next. I wish some of the stories that I like were available online. I wish some of the stories that I want to read but were not anthologized were available online. For example, Donald Wandrei, another of the Lovecraft Circle, published two works in the early 30s in the Mythos, The Fire Vampires and The Tree-Men of M'Bwa. Neither has ever been printed in a Mythos anthology. You can only find them in a book of all of Wandrei’s horror and fantasy writings that costs roughly 60 dollars on Amazon.

Where to go, hmm? At first, I thought we would read stories that are not online, but now that we’ve read so many stories online in a row, I’m not sure anymore. So I found a story for next that is online. It’s right around this era – 1935, and I’ve actually mentioned in earlier in the dynasty. However, before we read it, we need to read a certain Lovecraft story. We are heading back to Lovecraft for one story, before we move to some more of this era. I mentioned we would weave back in and out of Lovecraft’s Mythos stories.

[Abe Sargent]

Next up is the Shadow out of Time.


It was written in late 34 and early 35, and published in Astounding Stories in June 1936.

While it was published a year after the story I want to read after this, it really seems like it was written first, and one clearly follows the other.

You can find it here:

http://www.dagonbytes.com/thelibrary/lovecraft/theshadowoutoftime.htm


In my anthology, this is a 54 page short story, so we’ll give you a bit longer to read it. This is a real love it or hate it sort of story. It’s my least favorite Lovecraft Mythos story, and yet, for many it’s their favorite Lovecraft tale. People such as Lin Carter called it Lovecraft at his finest. I think it’s Lovecraft at his most bizarre, and that’s not necessarily the same thing. It’s vitally important to the Mythos, so we are reading it here before we move to stories based off it, like we read stories such as Dunwich Horror and Call before we moved to stories based on them.

http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/en/e/e3/ShadowOutOfTime.jpg

Let’s get our read on!

[Abe Sargent]

Synopsis of The Shadow Out of Time


This story begins with Nathaniel Peaslee, an academic in New England. He has found something terrible and is writing this to his son, a Professor of Psychology at Miskatonic University. We begin to head back and look at Peaslee’s past.

For five years from 1908-1913, Peaslee was stuck with a powerful psychological change. He gained amnesia about the details of his life, but also gained many skills such as multiple languages and odd knowledge about the past. It appeared that Peaslee has developed a second personality. He tells us about this time from newspaper articles and research he did, because he can’t recall it. He pursued occult research and explored many areas.

Once Peaslee came out of it in 1913, he could not remember that five year period. Soon, he began to have dreams. He dreamed he was in a faraway place in some distant room. He was in a room with odd furniture, tools, and more. Eventually, his dreams became more detailed, and he dreamed he was moving about and interacting with people and learning the language. He dreamed he was in the form of a Conical Alien.

He began doing research into what he had been investigating during his blank five years. He realizes that he had been looking at some secret tomes ,such as the Necronomicon and Pnakotic Manuscript. He looks up the same places he did previously, and finds legends of an ancient race on Earth that travelled b switching minds into their new host and their old body. The details of this ancient race are found in many places

Peaslee studies psychology and believes that his powerful dreams are as a result of sub-conscious memories from the research he did back in 1908-1913. He discovers a small number of cases in the histories where people have had identical symptoms ,and publishes in psychology journals. He believes that these legends of an ancient race have created dreams in a small number of people over the centuries.

A few years later he gets a letter from a foreman in Australia. They have found these giant bricks that appear to be older than any known construction in the desert. He had a psychologist friend who remembered Peaslee’s articles and these bricks and their markings appear identical to what he wrote about and dreamed.

Peaslee gets Miskatonic U to fund an expedition to Australia. They arrive and explore the ruins. They begin charting them, and Peaslee encounters some bricks at night that aren’t of this race, but represent another race they were fighting against. Eventually, he discovers a hill and moves into a tunnel.

The tunnel follows along an ancient corridor in the old city,it exactly matches the dreams he has. He heads towards the library and moves around a lot of obstacles and keeps exploring. Eventually he finds the old library. As he moves in, he notices that the old guard doors which kept out this race’s enemies are open and unguarded. He wonders if what slew the race is still here.

He moves to a place and finds an unusual book, which proves that his dreams were not dreams, and that everything was real. He begins to move back, but he makes too much noise falling, and suddenly something begin to emerge from behind him.

He rushes back out of the tunnels/city/ruins but more of the creatures are chasing him. He barely manages t make it out, but the book is lost. The tunnels have moved back to a hill formation and the sands swallow it up. He remembers that the book had English writing ,and that he had written the language for them when he was back in time.

[Abe Sargent]

Oh, here is a picture of the race that he swapped with:



http://www.awesome-engine.com/graphics/yithianxv6.jpg




And here is the race they fought against. It's known as the flying polyps, for lack of a better word:



http://th03.deviantart.net/fs71/PRE/i/2013/020/6/8/flying_polyp_by_thelivingshadow-d5s598g.jpg

[Abe Sargent]

Review of The Shadow Out of Time


This was the second to last story Lovecraft wrote fully. Some other stories from his last years were The Haunter of the Dark and some stories with other people. There are a lot of people who feel this is a classic of Lovecraft and horror/sci-fi writing. Many critics love it. I’m not sold, and let me tell you why.

First of all, it’s very redundant. The story spends pages going over the dreams, then spends pages going over the legends, which are very similar, then pages going over reality. How many times do I need to read this stuff? This very long story could have easily been cut down to half the length, at least.

Anyway, this is clearly the next step in Lovecraft’s world after Mountains of Madness. He is continuing to reintroduce his mythos in scientific terms. It’s not about monsters, deities and magic, but science. This is a note to the mythos that many writers don’t pick up on. Compare Howard’s The Black Stone, wherein people are summoning a dark creature by a classic cultish rite straight out of the 1800’s gothic literature. Lovecraft has advanced to the next level. It’s impact on later Mythos works cannot be overstated.

We are about to read a story where this one is used heavily but was actually published earlier. Again, due to the length of the writing process, editing process, reviewing, and publishing, a story can be published one, two or three years after writing.


Anyway, I think this is important to read, in case you are one of the many people who love this story.

I personally give it 2 stars out of 5.

[Abe Sargent]

The next story is The Challenge from Beyond


This story was written in the mid-30s as part of a anniversary issue for Fantasy magazine in late 1935. The five writers they lined up were pretty special, and I talked about this before. Each writer writes a section of the story and then passes it to the next.



The first writer is CL Moore, one of the first female writers in the Pulp Era for sci fi, horror and fantasy. Her impact in the genre is significant, both as a pioneer and in her writing. You’ll find her bit, which begins it, to be one of the clearest writing styles of the group. She was married to writer Henry Kuttner for years, and the two wrote together a lot. They met as people corresponding with Lovcraft’s circle

The next writer is A Merritt. Abraham wrote many major pulps and stories, and was one of the bigger names of the era. His Gen 0 story, The Moon Pool, will be one of the first we’ll read when we hit that Gen. His most famous work is likely The Ship of Ishtar. Here is a quote by Gygax from a DM’s Guide:

The most immediate influences upon AD&D were probably de Camp & Pratt, R. E. Howard, Fritz Leiber, Jack Vance, H. P. Lovecraft, and A. Merritt

Merrit is a major player, no question.

The third section is Lovecraft’s. This dynasty needs no introduction to his work.

The fourth chapter is Robert E Howard, and he needs no introduction either.

And finally, chapter 5 is Frank Belknap Long’s, who we’ve already looked at


This story is a project that attempts to do something different. Here’s the story!



"The Challenge from Beyond" by H. P. Lovecraft (http://www.hplovecraft.com/writings/texts/fiction/cb.asp)

[Abe Sargent]

Synopsis of The Challenge from Beyond


Geologist George Campbell is spending time investigating in isolation in Canada. One night, while out there, he reaches to grab a rock to throw at something, but he notices that the rock has a singular appearance. He bends down to study the rock.

It appears to be quartz but in an unusual shape. Inside is something…odd. How did that get in there? Campbell notices that light from his flashlight energizes the thing in the crystal, and he begins to look over it. It grows, and he feels himself being pulled in. The scene develops and it appears to be a world. Campbell is sucked in and his tent and surroundings disappear

He begins to remember where he had seen a reference to that object before – in the Eltdown Shards. It’s supposedly an artifact sent by a civilization far away to communicate and explore. They switch bodies and become spies with other worlds. An ancient race on Earth discovered this because they used a similar method, and that knowledge was passed down in eldritch texts.

It appears that this race is a race of giant centipede like beings that sometimes just infiltrate a race but sometimes dominate it if their world has the valuable minerals they need. Campbell has realized that he is in a centipede body, and faints!

Campbell awakens and realizes that his body is just a body, but his soul, that’s something different. He decides to take advantage of the situation. He grabs a medical instrument and slays one of the centipedes. Campbell then moves through the complex and tries to grab the stone which is worshipped by the centipedes. He reasons that if he can get the stone, they will crown him king.

Due to a failure of ethics, the creature in Campbell’s body dies, and Campbell remains in his body. He has grabbed the stone, and becomes the emperor of these beings.

[Abe Sargent]

Review of The Challenge From Beyond


Unlike normal reviews, this one is spoiler heavy. It has to be.


This is definitely an odd piece. I love how we have a normal story and then Lovecraft just can’t help it. He has to Lovecraft the story all up! Not only does he take a lot more pages than the other writers, but he adds Mythos elements to it and makes it completely different.

I also adore how Howard changes Lovecraft. Lovecraft wrote his section in horror! Look what’s happened! Then hoard turns the hero into a very Howard hero. Grab a weapon, and start using it! Move and act! Come up with a plan later.

Eventually, this is not a horror story, although Lovecraft’s section certainly is.

I do not like Long or Merritt here much. All each does is spin the wheels they already have. Merritt spends all of his time on the crystal, and leaves us with Campbell going into it. That’s his entire contribution to the story – Campbell goes into it. Ho hum. Long also takes Howard’s spin on a traditional Lovecraft story and does little with it. Lovecraft wrote heavily about Campbell not having the same feelings and hang-ups as a human. So Long ties into that at the end, and wraps everything up neatly. It’s a bit meh with a last few lines that almost read like a fairy tale ending. Howard and Lovecraft stories don’t end like that.

Moore certainly started well. I hope you saw her craft in the story. She built the character and setting in a nice way. Then she introduced the object and bowed out. All of this took little verbiage, and ye you got a real sense of Campbell and the object from the little she wrote. I respect that a lot.

Because the story changes in tone and some writers sort of take the story in wild directions from the previous ones, it’s not a finely wrought yarn. It’s nice to read as the project that it is though. I’d like to see some stories that don’t involve ancient hand held items of unspeakable power – The Haunter of the Dark, Ubbo-Sathla, this, etcetera.




2 out of 5 stars compared to other tales.

[Abe Sargent]

Alright, now that we have done a lot of exploring of the Gen 1 stories, let’s look at some Gen 1 stories that modify Lovecraft’s initial vision.


Our first story in the Gen 1 mods is The Space-Eaters, by Frank Belknap Long.

I searched long and hard for an online copy and eventually found it!


The Space-Eaters (http://www.donaldcorrell.com/long/space.html)

[Abe Sargent]

I have mapped out the stories for the next bit. I've actually gone ahead and read or re-read many of them and went ahead and wrote up synopses and reviews and other important notes on people.

In my opinion, the most important stuff in this dynasty is the notes on the authors, like Henry Kuttner, A Merritt, Fritz Lieber and many more. Check out some of these folks, and enjoy reading again.


Anyway, here's the list of the next set of stories, in case you want to get ahead (although because I've bumped this dynasty many times, I suspect that anybody still reading would be playing catch up - feel free to make comments any time)


The Space Eaters, Frank Belknap Long
The Lair of the Star-Spawn, by August Derleth and Mark Schorer
The Walker on the Wind, by August Derleth
The Sealed Casket, by Richard F. Searight


Then we'll move to Gen 0

An Inhabitant of Carcosa, by Ambrose Bierce
Haita the Shepherd, by Ambrose Bierce
The Yellow Sign, Robert W Chambers
A Shop in Go-By-Street, by Lord Dunsany
Of Skarl the Drummer, by Lord Dunsany
The Kraken, by Alfred Lord Tennyson
The Moon Pool, by A. Merritt

Back to Gen 1

The Shambler from the Stars, Robert Bloch
The Shadow from the Steeple, Robert Bloch
Fane of the Black Pharaoh, Robert Bloch
Winged Death, by HP Lovecraft and Hazel Heald
The Tree-Men of M'Bwa, by Donald Wandrei
The Outpost, by HP Lovecraft
Fire Vampires, by Donald Wandrei
Ithaqua, by August Derleth
The Whisperer in Darkness, by HP Lovecraft


And then we'll move to some Henry Knutter.

That's where I am right now. I've read and written up all of those. Some are just quick references posted in the thread, like Kraken and Skarl the Drummer and The Outpost. Others we do full reviews for.

[Abe Sargent]

Would you like to know which anthologies I own?

Tales of the Cthulhu Mythos
Tales of the Lovecraft Mythos

Both have lots of Gen 1 stories we are reading.


Cthulhu 2000
Shadows over Innsmouth
The Cthulhu Cycle
Miskatonic University
The New Lovecraft Circle



Shadows over Baker Street - stories that combine Sherlock Holmes with the Mythos.


And I have on order:

The Book of Iod, collections of works about that book, including many Henry Kuttner stories
The Dealings of Daniel Kesserich a novella by Fritz Leiber
Don't Dream, a collection by Donald Wandrei




I also have some single-author collections:

Cold Print by Ramsey Campbell
Several low quality out of print Chlark Ashton Smith stuff
The King in Yellow by Chambers
Best Ghost Stories of Algernon Blackwood
Nameless Cults, the Mythos fiction of Howard
The Three Imposters, by Arthur Machen
Ghost and Horror Stories of Ambrose Bierce


And I have six Lovecraft collections that have all of his work

[Abe Sargent]

Synopsis of The Space-Eaters


This story opens as Frank and his friend, a horror writer named Howard who clearly resembles a certain Lovecraft are discussing the relative value of horror stories. They are discussing the nature of horror, and Howard speculates on what creatures from beyond would be like, and the true horror that would naturally descend from them.

Then a neighbor named Wells arrives and tells a horrific tale of the evening. He was riding in a nearby wood when he discovered something soft and warm hit his face, which he thought was a liver. He looked up and saw nothing at first , and then describes an encounter with an unknown otherly thing. It appeared to be looking for something, a hand perhaps? Then he feels shrieking powerful painful icy grip in his head. There is now a hole in his head which reveals his brain, but does not bleed or slay him.

Howard is at first upset that Wells has so expertly summed up the horror he was trying to write, but upon realizing the seriousness of the situation, Frank and Howard begin thinking, and wells leaves. Eventually they hear cries from the woods and head out, suspecting something of attacking Wells.

They arrive and Wells is badly beaten, spiritually. They sense a massive grinding sound from beyond and manage to get Wells back to the farm but he has changed into a beast and attacks Howard before he knocks Wells out. Howard knows that the creatures must be from beyond and pieces things together. They call for a doctor to help Wells.

The doctor arrives, and tries surgery on Wells after putting Howard to sleep upon hearing his ravings. However, he sees the mark of them in Wells brain and gets frightful. He just sews Wells back up and lets him die naturally. He tells Frank that Wells is marked and they will come for him and leaves.

Frank and Howard manage to leave in a boat, and the get away for a bit. However, they pass by that wood and notice it’s on fire and a giant something that can just be sensed is about. Suddenly Frank hits upon an answer seeing somehow just how old they are. Frank suggests they light brands, and they make the sign of the cross, which drives off the creatures.

A few weeks later, they are in Manhattan, and discussing events. No more appearances have been seen by the creatures. They suspect that the sign has kept them away. Instead, Howard has written a powerful story that exactly reenacts the horror of the creatures, and Frank leaves after reading it. He gets a call a few hours later and hears the buzzing sound again in the background. Howard claims that they’ve arrived again, and that the sign isn’t working for him. It’s as if he’s become their priest, and now they can claim him.

Frank speeds over, but only to find Howard dead in his room, and sees the creature above him, but he sign drives him off.

[Abe Sargent]

Review of The Space-Eaters

This story is another of the first by another person in the Mythos. One of the things FBL got right about the Mythos was this sense of wrongness with creatures such as the Space-Eaters and the Hounds of Tindalos. He gets that to you, and what else is the job of a horror writer, but to convey horror?

A lot of people celebrate this story as nice, and yet others as too trite. One of the traditional attacks against the story is that by including a character similar to Lovecraft, it’s too hard to keep your sense of the real world. For all of that, Lovecraft himself did it several times. Klarkash-Ton is his name for Clark Ashton Smith and the main character in The Haunter in the Dark is designed and named after Robert Bloch.

Now I do have a lot of issues with this story, so don’t get me wrong. I don’t like the coincidental nature of the story. How come what they are talking about just happens to occur? That defies logical consistency. I kept waiting for Long to explain it away, but he never did. Perhaps their thinking about it actually caused it or something – but nope.

In addition to that, I find the incident with the doctor to be a bit outlandish. How would the doctor tell from an unknown mark what he was looking at immediately with such exactness?

Finally, a common complaint is the Christianization of the Mythos, which I agree with completely. In fact, I find the whole thing a bit hypocritical. In one paragraph, a character is chastising traditional horror writers and then in another, making a cross drives off the creatures! If that was intentional irony, then it didn’t seem like it.


Anyway, Long has a great potential about him, but he’s young and misses some stuff too. The story’s fine and a bit energetic. It’s not a bad read, but it’s not exactly a major classic, you know?


2.5 stars out of 5

[Abe Sargent]

Alright, now a bad thing is about to happen. We have to move to stories that I can’t find on the Internet. Well, not for free. Some stories are not on the ‘Net because no one bothered to put them there, and others have active and hard fought copyrights against them. Derleth was very pro-copyright when he was alive, and I have no doubt that his estate has been scouring the net for any copies that may have slipped through the cracks of his major stories.

I’ve avoided having stories that you can’t read for free as long as possible. I wanted to read a late 20’s tale directly inspired by Call but it wasn;t anywhere to be found. Several other stories reared their collective heads and could not be found, so I skipped over them. These cannot be skipped.

I would recommend

1). Hitting up a library - In fact, I just researched the DPL and found out that Donald Wandrei’s collection is there, so I may pick it up and read his three mythos stories, finally.

2). Buy some of the anthologies. The next two stories are both in an Anthology called Tales of the Lovecraft Mythos.

3). Borrow it from a friend! (I am not your friend… )

Anyway, the next story is….

The Lair of the Star-Spawn, by August Derleth and Mark Schorer

Here comes the Derleth-mobile.

[Abe Sargent]

What I'd kind of like to see is finish up the Gen 1 stuff on the list, hit a few Hunry Kuttner tales, maybe head back to Lovecraft for one story (The Curse of Yig probably), and then flash forward to the many high quality stories in Gens 2 and 3.

Frankly, the later stuff has some of the worst Mythos fiction of all time - spewed all over fanzines and such.m It also has some of the best Mythos fiction, and the best of Gen 2 and 3 is better than the best non-Lovecraft stuff from Gen 1.

So let's hit up great writers like Neil Gaiman and Roger Zelazny and Kim Newman and Ramsey Campbell. And some lesser known names with great stories to tell. It will be a lot of fun!

[Abe Sargent]

Synopsis of The Lair of the Star-Spawn

We begin with the narrator, Eric Marsh, telling us about the disastrous Hawks Expedition to upper Burma, of which he was the only surviving member. He was disconnected from the group by chance when a group of small humanoids named Tcho-Tcho attacked and slew all of the people in the expedition and left.

Eric gathers their belongings and moves forward into the Plateau of Sung they were exploring. Civilization is on the other side of the hills, and it should be closer than going back. He notices a far off ancient city called Alaozar on the Plateau, in the Lake of Dread. He encamps for the night nearby. As he does, he notices a line that fires up from the city into space, and then falls asleep. He awakens to noises by his horse and he is clubbed unconscious

He wakes up in Alaozar, imprisoned by the Tcho-Tcho. One Dr. Lo-Fan accompanies them, and the Chinese doctor has bandaged his wounds and explains what is happening. This place is called The Isle of the Stars in China, because they believe that a long time ago, people from stars like Rigel and Betelgeuse arrived. These were the Elder Ones that included people like Cthulhu, Hastur, Lloigor and Zhar. The Old Ones were here as well, and they fought a powerful war for Earth. At the end, the Old Ones won, and they imprisoned Cthulhu in R’lyeh, while Lloigor and Zhar were imprisoned here, underneath the Plateau of Sung. The Tcho-Tcho people are the servants of Lloigor and Zhar and are trying to release them so that they can conquer Earth once more.

Both Dr. Lo-Fan and Eric are expected to help in this endeavor. Eric doesn’t believe Lo’Fan., so he takes Eric down below the city and they see hundreds of Tcho-Tcho worshipping a great tentacled thing that is Lloigor. The Dr. has a plan. He has been trying to send his consciousness via telepathy to Rigel to appeal to the Old Ones there to assist in taking out the Tcho-Tcho and their twin masters. Eric’s task is to guard his body while he is gone.

Dr. Lo-Fan leaves to beseech the Old Ones, and Eric begins watch. Nothing happens for hours and Lo-Fan returns. They must leave the City and open the gates for the Old Ones’ Star-Warriors to ascend. They meet with the leader of the Tcho-Tcho, and Dr. Lo-Fan convinces him that Zhar has contacted him telepathically and wants to be released this day. The gates are opened, and they are escorted out of the city by four of the people, so they can prepare. Instead, they slay the four accompanying them and win their freedom.

They witness the Star-Warriors riding down to Earth and destroying the Tcho-Tcho, before moving down into the depths. Then one light snakes out and teleports Eric and Dr. Lo-Fan miles away for safety. Later, a pilot flies over the area and spies giant rotting corpses in the plateau that were decaying, and newspapers reports lights that evening from the Plateau of Sung.

[Abe Sargent]

Review of The Lair of the Star-Spawn



This review will consider only this story. Check out more on Derleth next.

This story was published in 1932. In it, Derleth’s contributions to the Mythos cannot be over-empathized. However, the story itself is no Call of Cthulhu. It has the same basic premise. Zhar and Lloigor are imprisoned, and there are people seeking to free them. But compare. Cthulhu was so powerful, that despite being imprisoned, could still impact the dreams of an entire world when his island rose. He was able to influence people across the world, and had cults everywhere. Zhar and Lloigor only have the Tcho-Tcho and that’s it. There’s no sense of scale – it’s just a local tribe of small denigrate folk that are directly descended from the seeds of evil planted by the twin entities themselves. Derleth misses the scales of horror as a result.

This is another story to suffer from “way too many unexplained/crazy things happened” syndrome. A few examples include why Eric is knocked unconscious, but not slain by the Tcho-Tcho. They went out and kidnapped Dr. Lo-Fan because they needed his skills, but what did they need from Eric? Dr. Lo-Fan didn’t mention, oh, by the way, I saw you out there and asked that they keep you alive. Just that quick line would have helped. Another crazy thing – what the hell is up with contacting the Old Ones via telepathy literally millions of years later and expecting positive results, and they‘ll come right down, and be in the same place and so forth. I find that unbelievable.


With this lack of scale, some questionable decisions regarding details, and more, I can’t give this story to many props. It’s not Derleth’s best, and lacks the skill of Lovecraft. Therefore, on the merits of the story alone, I give it 2.5 outta 5 stars.

[Abe Sargent]

Now, let’s talk heavily about August Derleth. No writer in the Mythos is as controversial, and we will be discussing these at length. They involve spoilers of the Mythos in general and the preceding story in detail.

Derleth modifies the Mythos in two major ways, and we just read the first. Derleth turned the Mythos into a battle of Good vs. Evil. A ton of later Lovecraft enthusiasts really disliked this Derlethization of the Mythos, and a lot of bad things were spoken of him.

In the early Lovecraft stories, the concept of evil doesn’t apply to these beings. They are beyond such concepts. Even Frank Belknap Long recognizes this. In The Hounds of Tindalos, when describing the entities in the earliest time, they are before the creation of good and evil. This aspect of g v e just wasn’t running around.

Or was it? I had you read The Dunwich Horror 3rd for very important reasons. In some ways, it is the single most influential Mythos story of all time. Why? Because in it, Lovecraft does not shy away from casting the conflict as one of good versus evil, and good wins.

Lovecraft also writes of battles between eldritch forces. In both At the Mountains of Madness and The Shadow Out of Time, there are battles in the past between various forces. Derleth’s battles between the Old Ones and Elder Ones is not that dissimilar between the Great Race of Yith and their foes in The Shadow Out of Time. Additionally, people who accuse Derleth of going too far off the course of Lovecraft fail to point out that Lovecraft re-incorporated Derleth’s stories into his own, verifying their canonicity.

How to detractors of Derleth respond to these counter points? They say Lovecraft was just being nice to Derleth and that Dunwich Horror was satire and not intentional. You’ve read The Dunwish Horror. Do you recall it being Satire? (I don’t).

Personally, I don’t like it that much. But I can’t make a cogent argument that it is out of place. I can’t even argue that the Old Ones are just good from our perspective, but really are a-moral because they intentionally save our two heroes at he end of the story! There is no room for interpretation.

Now, there are two more things Derleth does, and the second is, by far, the worst.

I mentioned long ago that he is an adequate magician who gets his living by showing how magicians do their tricks. He exposes all of the secrets of the Mythos. A good story stands on its own, and incorporates little. Compare stories like The Colour out of Space or The Haunter of the Dark to this. A good horror story leaves things hidden, and out of view. Even if Lovecraft and Derleth and others knew all along that the Elder Ones and Old Ones were in battle and one was good and the other evil, you don’t show your hand. You keep things hidden, and by doing so, you keep the mystery of the world fresh which makes your horror better. If any time a hero is oppressed by some otherworldly being he can just concentrate and summon the Old Ones, where is the horror? When you know that good will win out in the end, how am I terrified? There is a reason that most horror stories end ambiguously or poorly. The Call of Cthulhu still has that nasty creature out there. The Shadow Over Innsmouth proves that evil survived the torpedoing by the US government. Etc, etc. The nasties win or survive, while the goodies die, go crazy, or convert to evil.

At some point, this story stops being a horror story, and instead just becomes a sci-fi story. We don’t want that. Derleth, you are a bad writer, because you pull off the covers and expose the inner workings.

There is a third change that Derleth makes, but he doesn’t make it in this story. For now, we will skip it as a result. We’ll be looking at change #3 very soon, I promise.




Our next story is “The Walker on the Wind” published in 1933 by August Derleth. It’s just a dozen pages in my anthology. It introduces a major player to the Mythos, and it’s based on a Gen 0 story which is based on a myth. Here we go!

[Abe Sargent]

Review of The Walker on the Wind


In this story, virtually no action happens at all. Therefore, the plot can be summed up in a few sentences.

1). Constable Robert Norris is found dead months after his strange disappearance
2). We read his documentation, Stillwater,a town a year prior had all of the people go missing
3). One night, while looking up in the sky, three are witnessed by Norris falling to the Earth from that town, one dead, two alive
4). One whispers and cries strange stories before dying, and the other dies without awakening
5). A local Doctor confirms much of the story that he overhears from the one that wakes
6). Constable Norris disappears after believing that he was being chased by this being that swept up the people of Stillwater
7). By his dead body are the footprints of something huge, which were also by the disappearance of the three people found just outside of Stillwater more than a year prior; with a few tokens of antiquity on his body

And that’s it. Most of the story is dedicated to what the one person, Wentworth, told Constable Norris and Dr. Jamison, and it’s framed by the minor plot points.

Wentworth and Dr. Jamison claim that Stillwater worshipped an air elemental named The Wind-Walker. There were supposedly large altars in the nearby woods from which they would make human sacrifices. Wentworth and his friend arrives in Stillwater on the night of such a sacrifices, and Irene was to be it. She asks them to flee with her, and they do. The Wind-Walker comes and collects them, and also takes all of the people of Stillwater – either because they failed to sacrifice Irene or because lately they had been lax in their worship. They have been caught in the Wind-Walker’s wake for a year before dropped to Earth again.

They have been to strange places, like the Plateau of Leng, with the Tcho-Tcho people, and others. They were fed water and food from them and have driven made by these strange sights. Irene was slain as the sacrifice, but him and his companion were changed by their long-term exposure to the Wind-Walker. They are hurt by the warm, as if it were extreme cold. Indeed, both of them will die from being warmed up and cared for.

Because he saw the Wind-Walker in the sky before he dropped the three into town, Constable Norris believes he is being hunted. He finds one of the footprints on either side of Jamison’s house. Then he disappears a few days later and reappears months later with strange items in his pockets, dead, in a snow pile.

[Abe Sargent]

Synopsis of The Walker on the Wind


This is the first story of several to incorporate Mythos fiction into the world. Many others will play this trick. Just like Robert Howard will refer to Machen’s writings in his Mythos fiction, in this case, the writings of Algernon Blackwood are referred to. But we go a step further, and Lovecraft’s Call of Cthulhu is referenced when Wentworth speaks the name and Constable Norris researches it.


Introducing the Wind-Walker as an entity that is an air elemental is a bit blatant. I have no qualms with a creature having an elemental overtone, and being called Wind-Walker certainly suggests it. But, perhaps you can dial back the rational objective conversation of it. Keep the descriptions and nature a bit more hidden. Derleth strikes again!

As a matter of fact, I think this whole story is made better by removing one paragraph where he babbles on about everywhere he’s visited, and the short research by Norris into Blackwood and Lovecraft. Pull that out, and your story is much better. Still, I like that this doesn’t reveal nearly as much of the world as the previous story, and the creature introduced here is a major one, used fairly regularly by writers later (and named in a later story we’ll read).

Derleth’s approach is better here than in the previous story, and it’s a bit stronger writing because he doesn’t make some of the same consistency errors in the previous one. Even the one coincidence, (not a spoiler, since it’s on the second page) where he looks up and spies the creature above just as it is depositing the bodies is explained because a bitter cold wind had suddenly struck and he naturally looked up to see what it was from. You’re learning August, you’re learning.

As a story, it’s better than the previous one, and I give it 3 outta 5 stars.

[Abe Sargent]

The next story is a real treat, because I don’t have it in any of my anthologies! Therefore, I will be reading it alongside you. It’s by another young writer in Lovecraft’s circle – Richard F Searight. The name of the story is The Sealed Casket


It can be found here

Sealed Casket (http://crypt-of-cthulhu.com/sealed.htm)

In it, the Eltdown Shards are introduced, which was referred to later by Lovecraft in The Challenge from Beyond, which we’ve already read.


Richard Searight first published in 1924 at the age of 21 with the story, The Brain in the Jar. It won first place in a survey of the readers of the magazine Weird Tales. It wasn’t until 1933 that Seawright began to pick up the writing pen again. He wrote to Lovecraft at the suggestion of the editor of Weird Tales, who warmly embraced him, remembering the great story he had written in the mid 20’s.

He sold a few stories, but he was regularly rejected by magazines, because he wasn’t a big name. He was still trying to find a regular magazine to publish through, and he was the sort of writer frequently discouraged by rejections. As someone who has poured a lot into a story and gotten rejections myself, I sympathize. While Lovecraft was still alive encouraging him, he kept it up, and published poems and stories. After his mentor passed, however, he would file away a story after one rejection, and gave up writing altogether a few years later.

Due to his collaboration with Lovecraft, and some stories in the Mythos, some of his works have been anthologized, and many unpublished works saw print. I have an anthology with five of his short stories and his poetry in it, and four of them were never published.



So let’s read The Sealed Casket and see if we can discover whether it’s an unknown awesome, or a typical story.

[Abe Sargent]

I just finished it, and it took 11 minutes and 36 seconds to read, according to my stopwatch. Here we go


Synopsis of The Sealed Casket



The story opens with a quote from The Eltdown Shards telling the story of a demon captured by a wizard. Then we move to our main character, Wesson Clark. He is studying an ancient casket on his desk. The small casket is described, with a large lead seal with ancient writing on it.

We learn that Clark seduced the wife of an antiquarian named Martucci. It is implied that Clark may have had something to do with Martucci’s death. Martucci left the item to him and bid him to not open the seal, but to keep it safe as he had done for 30 years. Clark thinks this is rather silly, since there could be something valuable in there.

After some difficulty, he manages to get the seal off intact. He suspects that the writing could have some value as well. The casket is older than locks and has no such device, so Clark opens it up but sees nothing inside. While he’s trying to digest this info, there is a breeze in his locked office, and the beginning of a powerful odor. He moves to leave, but hears a sound as something moves between him and the door. He realizes that this must have been a trap set by Martucci. The invisible snake thing moves up and wrestles with him, constraining hum and he feels himself being pulled into out.

His house has burned down and Clark is dead. Neighbors say they heard a whistling and something breaking out of the house before the fire began, but are dismissed. Clarks body is found, with all bones crushed and drained of all blood.

[Abe Sargent]

Review of The Sealed Casket

Huh. That felt very underwhelming. I was hoping this Mythos tale would feel a little more, Mythos-ish, you know? The Shards are only mentioned in the preface, and nothing suggests the Mythos or its feel in the short story. The fact that Martucci was setting up Clark for a trap was broadcast from the very beginning, and not that surprising.

It’s salvation is that it’s a short work. Just for fun, I cut and pasted it into a Word doc. It’s just 2600 words. My average weekly Magic article is longer! Even in the era of hand writing and typewriting, it would take roughly a day to write and edit it. I’m not surprised it has been anthologized about…seven or eight times. Editors often look for these stories to bulk up the number of stories in their book.

Anyway, the plot is pencil thin, due to length, and virtually nothing happens. It’s interesting as a bit of flash fiction and of historical note as the first Eltdown Shards story. It’s nothing more than that, however. I do like the more interesting evil main character and would have loved to have seen a story maybe double this length fully fleshed out from the beginning with him at the helm.

2 out of 5 stars

[Abe Sargent]

Alright, It’s time to move. I had initially planned this Dynasty to begin with Gen 1, move to Gen 2 and back and forth a few times to get a good sense of things, drop back to Gen 0 as appropriate, and then move forward to 3 and 4.

However, the ability of most of these stories to actually be read has been a big help, so for now, I am going to change the direction. Let’s move backwards and start reading the foundational stories of Lovecraft and his fellow writers. These are some of the most critically acclaimed horror stories of their era, from the mid1800’s all the way through the 1910’s. We’ll read these, and now that we have a sense of the Mythos, you can see their massive impact.


This has been my favorite place to read stories over the last five years or so. I have collections by many of the greats and have been reading them with fervor. There’s a lot of untapped majesty in these stories. It’s also to see the influences on Lovecraft. Mike many, he took bits and pieces of works and styles he liked, and combined them to craft his own writings and world. We are about to read a bunch of great stories, and I can’t wait.

Generation Zero, here we come!

[Abe Sargent]

Our first two stories are both lightning short, by Ambrose Bierce. The first is regularly anthologized, and in some literature texts. The second is much less well known. Both are extremely important, not because of themselves, but because of what we will be reading next. Because they are short, we’ll read and review them both at once.


An Inhabitant of Carcosa - http://www.sff.net/people/doylemacdonald/l_carcos.htm - read by me in 7 minutes and 33 seconds (although I’ve read it like 5 times before)

Haita the Shepherd - Haita The Shepherd by Ambrose Bierce @ Classic Reader (http://www.classicreader.com/book/1937/1/) - 7 minutes 50 seconds


Ambrose Bierce is a name you probably know. Many of his best short stories have been updated through the years, in movies, episodes of the Twilight Zone, and other places. For example, an Occurrence at Owl Creek Bridge is in many literature texts.

He got his living mostly from scathing criticisms of other’s writings, but he was an amazing pensmith and I stand in awe at some of his passages. Every story of his has at least one or two moments of sheer brilliance. Let’s read some Bierce!

[Abe Sargent]

Actually, I'll just go ahead and post them in thread to help out:


An Inhabitant of Carcosa, by Ambrose Bierce

For there be divers sorts of death -- some wherein the body remaineth; and in some it vanisheth quite away with the spirit. This commonly occurreth only in solitude (such is God's will) and, none seeing the end, we say the man is lost, or gone on a long journey -- which indeed he hath; but sometimes it hath happened in sight of many, as abundant testimony showeth. In one kind of death the spirit also dieth, and this it hath been known to do while yet the body was in vigor for many years. Sometimes, as is veritably attested, it dieth with the body, but after a season is raised up again in that place where the body did decay.



Pondering these words of Hali (whom God rest) and questioning their full meaning, as one who, having an intimation, yet doubts if there be not something behind, other than that which he has discerned, I noted not whither I had strayed until a sudden chill wind striking my face revived in me a sense of my surroundings. I observed with astonishment that everything seemed unfamiliar. On every side of me stretched a bleak and desolate expanse of plain, covered with a tall overgrowth of sere grass, which rustled and whistled in the autumn wind with heaven knows what mysterious and disquieting suggestion. Protruded at long intervals above it, stood strangely shaped and somber- colored rocks, which seemed to have an understanding with one another and to exchange looks of uncomfortable significance, as if they had reared their heads to watch the issue of some foreseen event. A few blasted trees here and there appeared as leaders in this malevolent conspiracy of silent expectation.

The day, I thought, must be far advanced, though the sun was invisible; and although sensible that the air was raw and chill my consciousness of that fact was rather mental than physical -- I had no feeling of discomfort. Over all the dismal landscape a canopy of low, lead-colored clouds hung like a visible curse. In all this there were a menace and a portent -- a hint of evil, an intimation of doom. Bird, beast, or insect there was none. The wind sighed in the bare branches of the dead trees and the gray grass bent to whisper its dread secret to the earth; but no other sound nor motion broke the awful repose of that dismal place.

I observed in the herbage a number of weather-worn stones, evidently shaped with tools. They were broken, covered with moss and half-sunken in the earth. Some lay prostrate, some leaned at various angles, none was vertical. They were obviously headstones of graves, though the graves themselves no longer existed as either mounds or depressions; the years had leveled all. Scattered here and there, more massive blocks showed where some pompous or ambitious monument had once flung its feeble defiance at oblivion. So old seemed these relics, these vestiges of vanity and memorials of affection and piety, so battered and worn and stained -- so neglected, deserted, forgotten the place, that I could not help thinking myself the discoverer of the burial-ground of a prehistoric race of men whose very name was long extinct.

Filled with these reflections, I was for some time heedless of the sequence of my own experiences, but soon I thought, "How came I hither?" A moment's reflection seemed to make this all clear and explain at the same time, though in a disquieting way, the singular character with which my fancy had invested all that I saw or heard. I was ill. I remembered now that I had been prostrated by a sudden fever, and that my family had told me that in my periods of delirium I had constantly cried out for liberty and air, and had been held in bed to prevent my escape out-of-doors. Now I had eluded the vigilance of my attendants and had wandered hither to -- to where? I could not conjecture. Clearly I was at a considerable distance from the city where I dwelt -- the ancient and famous city of Carcosa.

No signs of human life were anywhere visible or audible; no rising smoke, no watchdog's bark, no lowing cattle, no shouts of children at play -- nothing but that dismal burial-place with its air of mystery and dread, due to my own disordered brain. Was I not becoming again delirious, there beyond human aid? Was it not indeed all an illusion of my madness? I called aloud the names of my wives and sons, reaching out my hands in search of theirs, even as I walked among the crumbling stones and in the withered grass.

A noise behind me caused me to turn about. A wild animal -- a lynx -- was approaching. The thought came to me: If I break down here in the desert -- if the fever return and I fail, this beast will be at my throat. I sprang toward it, shouting. It trotted tranquilly within a hand's breadth of me and disappeared behind a rock.

A moment later a man's head appeared to rise out of the the ground a short distance away. He was ascending the farther slope of a low hill whose crest was hardly to be distinguished from the general level. His whole figure soon came into view against the background of gray cloud. He was half naked, half clad in skins. His hair was unkempt, his beard long and ragged. In one hand he carried a bow and arrow; the other held a blazing torch with a long trail of black smoke. He walked slowly and with caution, as if he feared falling into some open grave concealed by the tall grass. This strange apparition surprised but did not alarm, and taking course to intercept him I met him almost face to face, accosting him with the familiar salutation, "God keep you."

He gave no heed, nor did he arrest his pace.

"Good stranger," I continued, "I am ill and lost. Direct me, I beseech you, to Carcosa."

The man broke into a barbarous chant in an unknown tongue, passing on and away.

An owl on the branch of a decayed tree hooted dismally and was answered by another in the distance. Looking upward, I saw through a sudden rift in the clouds Aldebaran and the Hyades! In all this there was a hint of night -- the lynx, the man with the torch, the owl. Yet I saw -- I saw even the stars in absence of darkness. I saw, but was apparently not seen nor heard. Under what awful spell did I exist?

I seated myself at the root of a great tree, seriously to consider what it were best to do. That I was mad I could no longer doubt, yet recognized a ground of doubt in the conviction. Of fever I had no trace. I had, withal, a sense of exhilaration and vigor altogether unknown to me -- a feeling of mental and physical exaltation. My senses seemed all alert; I could feel the air as a ponderous substance; I could hear the silence.

A great root of the giant tree against whose trunk I leaned as I sat held inclosed in its grasp a slab of stone, a part of which protruded into a recess formed by another root. The stone was thus partly protected from the weather, though greatly decomposed. Its edges were worn round, its corners eaten away, its surface deeply furrowed and scaled. Glittering particles of mica were visible in the earth about it -- vestiges of its decomposition. This stone had apparently marked the grave out of which the tree had sprung ages ago. The tree's exacting roots had robbed the grave and made the stone a prisoner.

A sudden wind pushed some dry leaves and twigs from the uppermost face of the stone; I saw the low-relief letters of an inscription and bent to read it. God in Heaven! my name in full! -- the date of my birth! -- the date of my death!

A level shaft of light illuminated the whole side of the tree as I sprang to my feet in terror. The sun was rising in the rosy east. I stood between the tree and his broad red disk -- no shadow darkened the trunk!

A chorus of howling wolves saluted the dawn. I saw them sitting on their haunches, singly and in groups, on the summits of irregular mounds and tumuli filling a half of my desert prospect and extending to the horizon. And then I knew that these were ruins of the ancient and famous city of Carcosa.

[Abe Sargent]

Haita the Shepherd, by Ambrose Bierce


In the heart of Haita the illusions of youth had not been supplanted by those of age and experience. His thoughts were pure and pleasant, for his life was simple and his soul devoid of ambition. He rose with the sun and went forth to pray at the shrine of Hastur, the god of shepherds, who heard and was pleased. After performance of this pious rite Haita unbarred the gate of the fold and with a cheerful mind drove his flock afield, eating his morning meal of curds and oat cake as he went, occasionally pausing to add a few berries, cold with dew, or to drink of the waters that came away from the hills to join the stream in the middle of the valley and be borne along with it, he knew not whither.

During the long summer day, as his sheep cropped the good grass which the gods had made to grow for them, or lay with their forelegs doubled under their breasts and chewed the cud, Haita, reclining in the shadow of a tree, or sitting upon a rock, played so sweet music upon his reed pipe that sometimes from the corner of his eye he got accidental glimpses of the minor sylvan deities, leaning forward out of the copse to hear; but if he looked at them directly they vanished. From this -- for he must be thinking if he would not turn into one of his own sheep -- he drew the solemn inference that happiness may come if not sought, but if looked for will never be seen; for next to the favour of Hastur, who never disclosed himself, Haita most valued the friendly interest of his neighbours, the shy immortals of the wood and stream. At nightfall he drove his flock back to the fold, saw that the gate was secure and retired to his cave for refreshment and for dreams.

So passed his life, one day like another, save when the storms uttered the wrath of an offended god. Then Haita cowered in his cave, his face hidden in his hands, and prayed that he alone might be punished for his sins and the world saved from destruction. Sometimes when there was a great rain, and the stream came out of its banks, compelling him to urge his terrified flock to the uplands, he interceded for the people in the cities which he had been told lay in the plain beyond the two blue hills forming the gateway of his valley.

'It is kind of thee, O Hastur,' so he prayed, 'to give me mountains so near to my dwelling and my fold that I and my sheep can escape the angry torrents; but the rest of the world thou must thyself deliver in some way that I know not of, or I will no longer worship thee.'

And Hastur, knowing that Haita was a youth who kept his word, spared the cities and turned the waters into the sea.

So he had lived since he could remember. He could not rightly conceive any other mode of existence. The holy hermit who dwelt at the head of the valley, a full hour's journey away, from whom he had heard the tale of the great cities where dwelt people -- poor souls! -- who had no sheep, gave him no knowledge of that early time, when, so he reasoned, he must have been small and helpless like a lamb.

It was through thinking on these mysteries and marvels, and on that horrible change to silence and decay which he felt sure must sometime come to him, as he had seen it come to so many of his flock -- as it came to all living things except the birds -- that Haita first became conscious how miserable and hopeless was his lot.

'It is necessary,' he said, 'that I know whence and how I came; for how can one perform his duties unless able to judge what they are by the way in which he was entrusted with them? And what contentment can I have when I know not how long it is going to last? Perhaps before another sun I may be changed, and then what will become of the sheep? What, indeed, will have become of me?'

Pondering these things Haita became melancholy and morose. He no longer spoke cheerfully to his flock, nor ran with alacrity to the shrine of Hastur. In every breeze he heard whispers of malign deities whose existence he now first observed. Every cloud was a portent signifying disaster, and the darkness was full of terrors. His reed pipe when applied to his lips gave out no melody, but a dismal wail; the sylvan and riparian intelligences no longer thronged the thicket-side to listen, but fled from the sound, as he knew by the stirred leaves and bent flowers. He relaxed his vigilance and many of his sheep strayed away into the hills and were lost. Those that remained became lean and ill for lack of good pasturage, for he would not seek it for them, but conducted them day after day to the same spot, through mere abstraction, while puzzling about life and death -- of immortality he knew not.

One day while indulging in the gloomiest reflections he suddenly sprang from the rock upon which he sat, and with a determined gesture of the right hand exclaimed: 'I will no longer be a suppliant for knowledge which the gods withhold. Let them look to it that they do me no wrong. I will do my duty as best I can and if I err upon their own heads be it!'

Suddenly, as he spoke, a great brightness fell about him, causing him to look upward, thinking the sun had burst through a rift in the clouds; but there were no clouds. No more than an arm's length away stood a beautiful maiden. So beautiful she was that the flowers about her feet folded their petals in despair and bent their heads in token of submission; so sweet her look that the humming-birds thronged her eyes, thrusting their thirsty bills almost into them, and the wild bees were about her lips. And such was her brightness that the shadows of all objects lay divergent from her feet, turning as she moved.

Haita was entranced. Rising, he knelt before her in adoration, and she laid her hand upon his head.

'Come,' she said in a voice that had the music of all the bells of his flock -- 'come, thou art not to worship me, who am no goddess, but if thou art truthful and dutiful I will abide with thee.'

Haita seized her hand, and stammering his joy and gratitude arose, and hand in hand they stood and smiled into each other's eyes. He gazed on her with reverence and rapture. He said: 'I pray thee, lovely maid, tell me thy name and whence and why thou comest.'

At this she laid a warning finger on her lip and began to withdraw. Her beauty underwent a visible alteration that made him shudder, he knew not why, for still she was beautiful. The landscape was darkened by a giant shadow sweeping across the valley with the speed of a vulture. In the obscurity the maiden's figure grew dim and indistinct and her voice seemed to come from a distance, as she said, in a tone of sorrowful reproach: 'Presumptuous and ungrateful youth! must I then so soon leave thee? Would nothing do but thou must at once break the eternal compact?'

Inexpressibly grieved, Haita fell upon his knees and implored her to remain -- rose and sought her in the deepening darkness -- ran in circles, calling to her aloud, but all in vain. She was no longer visible, but out of the gloom he heard her voice saying: 'Nay, thou shalt not have me by seeking. Go to thy duty, faithless shepherd, or we shall never meet again.'

Night had fallen; the wolves were howling in the hills and the terrified sheep crowding about Haita's feet. In the demands of the hour he forgot his disappointment, drove his sheep to the fold and repairing to the place of worship poured out his heart in gratitude to Hastur for permitting him to save his flock, then retired to his cave and slept.

When Haita awoke the sun was high and shone in at the cave, illuminating it with a great glory. And there, beside him, sat the maiden. She smiled upon him with a smile that seemed the visible music of his pipe of reeds. He dared not speak, fearing to offend her as before, for he knew not what he could venture to say.

'Because,' she said, 'thou didst thy duty by the flock, and didst not forget to thank Hastur for staying the wolves of the night, I am come to thee again. Wilt thou have me for a companion?'

'Who would not have thee for ever?' replied Haita. 'Oh! never again leave me until -- until I-change and become silent and motionless.'

Haita had no word for death.

'I wish, indeed,' he continued, 'that thou wert of my own sex, that we might wrestle and run races and so never tire of being together.'

At these words the maiden arose and passed out of the cave, and Haita, springing from his couch of fragrant boughs to overtake and detain her, observed to his astonishment that the rain was falling and the stream in the middle of the valley had come out of its banks. The sheep were bleating in terror, for the rising waters had invaded their fold. And there was danger for the unknown cities of the distant plain.

It was many days before Haita saw the maiden again. One day he was returning from the head of the valley, where he had gone with ewe's milk and oat cake and berries for the holy hermit, who was too old and feeble to provide himself with food.

'Poor old man!' he said aloud, as he trudged along homeward. 'I will return to-morrow and bear him on my back to my own dwelling, where I can care for him. Doubtless it is for this that Hastur has reared me all these many years, and gives me health and strength.'

As he spoke, the maiden, clad in glittering garments, met him in the path with a smile that took away his breath.

'I am come again,' she said, 'to dwell with thee if thou wilt now have me, for none else will. Thou mayest have learned wisdom, and art willing to take me as I am, nor care to know.'

Haita threw himself at her feet. 'Beautiful being,' he cried, 'if thou wilt but deign to accept all the devotion of my heart and soul -- after Hastur be served -- it is thine for ever. But, alas! thou art capricious and wayward. Before to-morrow's sun I may lose thee again. Promise, I beseech thee, that however in my ignorance I may offend, thou wilt forgive and remain always with me.'

Scarcely had he finished speaking when a troop of bears came out of the hills, racing toward him with crimson mouths and fiery eyes. The maiden again vanished, and he turned and fled for his life. Nor did he stop until he was in the cot of the holy hermit, whence he had set out. Hastily barring the door against the bears he cast himself upon the ground and wept.

'My son,' said the hermit from his couch of straw, freshly gathered that morning by Haita's hands, 'it is not like thee to weep for bears -- tell me what sorrow hath befallen thee, that age may minister to the hurts of youth with such balms as it hath of its wisdom.'

Haita told him all: how thrice he had met the radiant maid and thrice she had left him forlorn. He related minutely all that had passed between them, omitting no word of what had been said.

When he had ended, the holy hermit was a moment silent, then said: 'My son, I have attended to thy story, and I know the maiden. I have myself seen her, as have many. Know, then, that her name, which she would not even permit thee to inquire, is Happiness. Thou saidst the truth to her, that she is capricious, for she imposeth conditions that man cannot fulfil, and delinquency is punished by desertion. She cometh only when unsought, and will not be questioned. One manifestation of curiosity, one sign of doubt, one expression of misgiving, and she is away! How long didst thou have her at any time before she fled?'

'Only a single instant,' answered Haita, blushing with shame at the confession. 'Each time I drove her away in one moment.'

'Unfortunate youth!' said the holy hermit, 'but for thine indiscretion thou mightst have had her for two.'

[Abe Sargent]

Synopsis of An Inhabitant of Carcosa and Haita the Shepherd


Carcosa:

This story has a preface attributed to Hali. Our main character is pondering Hali’s words when he feels a cold breeze on his face and looks around him. Where is he? He is by an ancient graveyard whose stones are so old that most are beyond recognition.

He is a resident of Carcosa, that great and ancient city. He now remembers. He was ill and wanted to go outside for fresh air, but he family wouldn’t let him. He must’ve gotten out and away. But where? There’s no smoke on the horizon nor major signs of civilization.

He notices a lynx and tries to scare it away but it doesn’t notice him. Then he spies a half clad man with a hairy face and carrying a torch that came by. He tries to speak to him, but all that happens is the man spouts some unintelligible language and keeps moving. He wonders what is going on, and sits down under a tree. He notices a gravestone in the tree that has been protected by the weather. On it is his name, birth day, and death date. He stands up, and notices that the sun is peering over the horizon and casts no shadow of his body.


Haita:

Haita is a shepherd who lives and works in the valley beyond some cities. His entire life seems to be in this grove. He worships Hastur, the god of shepherds, and communicates with an old hermit on a hill. During the day, he plays music, and the beings of the forest listen. During a flood, he prays to Hastur to save the people of the city beyond, and knowing Haita is a youth who keeps his promises, Hastur turns the water into a sea.

Eventually, Haita ages and begins to question his place in the world. His sheep are less well tended and he wonders what is beyond. After a period of self-questioning, he finally decides to just be the best shepherd he can be, and he is truly content. Then a beautiful woman appears and asks to stay with Haita a while, but he begins to question her. She disappears.

That night he brings in the wolves and thanks Hastur for keeping the wolves away. She appears in the morning as he begins a new day. He agrees to keep her, but then, after a moment, he says that he wishes she were a man, so he could wrestle with her and run races. Then she leaves again.

Another storm has arrived, and he decides to go get the old man and bring him back to Haita’s home so he can care for him. As he decides this, the woman appears a third time. She says that everyone else has rejected her and once more wants to stay with him. He begs for her to stay, promising his ,love and devotion, if only she won’t run each time he says something inappropriate. At this she again leaves.

He arrives at the hermit’s house and relates this story of the thrice appeared woman. The hermit knows her, and names her. She is Happiness.



Lines I am enamored with include:

Scattered here and there, more massive blocks showed where some pompous or ambitious monument had once flung its feeble defiance at oblivion.


So beautiful she was that the flowers about her feet folded their petals in despair and bent their heads in token of submission

[Abe Sargent]

Review of An Inhabitant of Carcosa and Haita the Shepherd


Carcosa is a perfect short tale. The first time I read it, I wasn’t sure where it was going. Then it got there, and boom smacked me in the face. I think if it had lasted another two or five pages, I would have had enough time to question everything, but I didn’t because of how short it was – brilliant.

It’s a well-written tale, as the words used perfectly describe the story. You can tell that each word does the work of ten. His precision of language is breathtaking. I wish he had written more and critiqued less. As it is, he is my favorite worker of words. Some authors may be more imaginative, but when it comes to sheer craft, he is at the top. This was published in 1886 in a newspaper and in book form in 1891.


5 outta 5 for Carcosa


Haita is not a horror story, it’s a tale written like a legend. It appears to come right out of a textbook on Greek Mythology or something. It has the didactic story-telling of the great epics, and its peopled with characters and a world which breathes the old style of story. It’s almost like an Aesopian Fable, but without the moral at the bottom.

Haita does have some horror conventions in it, particularly the surprise ending that reshapes what you thought happened in the story. It’s not a horror tale, and it’s not Bierce’s best. I think Bierce is best at stories that surprise you – An Occurrence at Owl Creek Bridge, Carcosa, and many others. Published in 1893, this story is another solid entry by Bierce, but nothing outrageous or anything.

4 stars out of 5

[Abe Sargent]

Now that you’ve read these two Bierce works, we are moving to the work that I feel is the most like Lovecraft’s Mythos. We will be reading Robert W. Chambers’ The Yellow Sign.


http://www.eastoftheweb.com/short-stories/UBooks/YellSign.shtml

It has many parallels to Lovecraft’s writings, both in terms of details and looking at the big picture. See if you can find them as you read it!

In my copy of The King in Yellow, this is a 19 page story.




Robert W Chambers was a very popular writer in his day. He published a ton of books that were on the level of a Danielle Steele or Robert Grisham. It wasn’t literature, and it didn’t stand the test of time. He turned to romantic fiction and was a best seller. However, what has stood out was a publication from 1895 called The King in Yellow. It was a group of stories built around a common theme. That publication was massively influential to the horror genre generically, and the Cthulhu mythos specifically.

The King in Yellow has been so influential, you can feel it in lots of places. There are references to it or things in it all over the place – video games, novels, short stories, movies, tv shows, and more. Chambers just brilliantly captures the imagination and some nasty scary things in this book.

Here’s what Lovecraft said of the man in a letter to Clark Ashton Smith:

Chambers is like Rupert Hughes and a few other fallen Titans – equipped with the right brains and education but wholly out of the habit of using them.


So, let’s read the story that, in my opinion, is the closest to reading like a Mythos story, and is one of my favorites of the Gen 0 stories. Ready?

[Abe Sargent]

Synopsis of The Yellow Sign


The story opens with one main character, Mr. Scott a painter, and his favorite nude model, Tessie Reardon painting. He is relaxing by the window and taking a break when he spies the watchman for the adjacent church, and he is struck by the worm-ish look that the man has. Struck by this singular expression, he finds that he uses too much mustard in the skin of the arm he was painting, and it looks like corpse flesh. He feels the entire work is spoiled, as the corpse look is reading across the paining. In anger, he destroys the canvas.

While talking, Tessie tells Scott of a dream she has had a few times, where she is watching from a window down on a funeral procession. The watchman from the church Is driving the hearse, and inside the coffin she knows that its Scott. Scott tries to reassure her that it’s nothing, and suggests a week in the countryside to feel better

The next day, the bellboy for his property arrives in Scott’s apartment and they begin talking about the church next door , which was sold the owner of the apartment building thy are in. They discuss the watchman there and the bellboy tells a story where the watchman looked at him and his family queerly, and the bellboy confronted him, but the watchman sad nothing. The bellboy hit him, and he was soft. He grabbed the bellboy’s hand, and the bellboy had to pull to get away, and he pulled off the middle finger of one of the hands! Scott can see the nine fingers on his hands and a chill goes down.

Tessie arrives for work and Scott tells her of a similar dream he had the previous night where he was in a coffin and saw her in a window and the driver was the watchman. He tells her in order to demonstrate the power of suggestion, but she is worried more, and she tells him that she has feelings for him. He kisses her and their relationship changes.

The night arrives and Scott heads out for a dinner with a work colleague. Afterwards, while heading back to his apartment, he passes by the watchman, and he is asking, Have you found the yellow sign over and over again.

The following day, Tessie has arrived. She will model clothed now, due to the changes in their relationship. He gives her an outfit and a necklace, and she gives him a pin, with an onyx back and curious yellow letter on it. She says that she found it months ago, and put out an ad in the papers, but no one answered. She pins it to him.

While moving a frame, Scott falls and badly sprains his wrists and he can’t work. Tessie is sewing, and trolling to find something to do, he swings by his bookcases, and spies a tome he has never seen before. He asks Tessie if she put it up there, and she comes over, but she hasn’t; he discovers it’s the Yellow Sign, a play with a sinister reputation. He tells Tessie not to read it or touch it, so playfully, she grabs the book and runs off and hides while she read sit. He yells at her not so, but she doesn’t listen.

He finds her a half hour later having read the play. She is struck with horror, so he takes her to a couch and reads it as well. They have full knowledge of it now. She asks him to take off the Yellow Sign, but he can’t or won’t. In a few moments, the watchman arrives at the door. As he comes for Scott, Tessie faints dead. The doctor and priest are there, and they see three bodies, two dead and one dying. Scott sees the end, and overhears the doctor telling the priest that the dead man, the watchman, has been dead for months.

[Abe Sargent]

Review of The Yellow Sign

Unlike some other reviews, by its nature , this is spoiler heavy, and uses no spoiler tags.


Ah me. I love this story. Chambers builds a very believable world, with a bit of horror to it for the entire time, and then bends you right into the bizarre for just two pages and ends it. I respect that.


I hope you can see how Lovecraftian this story appears to be. If I were to tell you that it was written in 1945 by a Generation 2 author, you’d buy it. It was so ahead of its time in 1895. What elements do you see from it in the Mythos?

Consider – the mystic tome that has unhallowed information that taints the reader. Compare the King in Yellow to the Necronomicon. Another thing he did was to take things he liked from other writers and put them in his story. You’ll note that The King in Yellow is set in Carcosa, which has two suns and many moons. There is a character named Hastur, which they discuss, and the city is against Lake Hali, which was the name of the sage who was quoted in the Carcosa story.

Sure, Chambers creates a feeling of dark horror in the story, and it has many great horror elements. It also shows a writer borrowing elements from another writer and adding to it. This is very Lovecraft. In fact, he was so impressed that he adds Lake Hali to his stories, and August Derleth adds Hastur. In fact, we’ve already read a story where Hastur was mentioned as one of the ancient ones - The Lair of the Star-Spawn. Therefore, if you want to consider The Yellow Sign as a Gen 0 story that was absorbed into the Mythos, you would not be wrong.


With great writing, a knowledge of the genre belying his lack of experience writing in it, and great story, this is a classic of horror literature.


5 outta 5 stars

[Abe Sargent]

The next place we are going to go is Lord Dunsany, and along with Arthur Machen and Poe, is the greatest influence on Lovecraft. We’ve discussed him already. Lovecraft wrote many stories in a Dunsany style, and Smith’s Tale ….. Zeiros was very Dunsany in feel. Well, let’s read a Dunsany work.

A Shop in Go-By-Street

Lord Dunsany's Short Story: A Shop In Go-By Street (http://www.readbookonline.net/readOnLine/22644/)



It’s just 7 pages long, so read up, me hearties!

[Abe Sargent]

Who and what is Lord Dunsany?

After Poe, Dunsany is by far the biggest influence on Lovecraft. For years, he will write stories in a pseudo-Dunsany style. Lord Dunsany was the 18th lord of Dunsany, and your typical Victorian era dilettante aristocrat. He spent time safari’ing in Africa and n the Boer war. He also penned a large amount of correspondence and writings.

But in 1905, he published The Gods of Pegana, and everything changed. The Gods of Pegana married his writing style to the right subject matter – in this case, he created the myths and mythos for a group of people in far off Pegana. Each myth is in The Gods of Pegana, and the impact of this book cannot be overemphasized. (Some myths are longer than others).

Just to illustrate, allow me to give you the second myth in Gods of Pegana:

[Abe Sargent]

OF SKARL THE DRUMMER


When MANA-YOOD-SUSHAI had made the gods and Skarl, Skarl made a drum, and began to beat upon it that he might drum for ever. Then because he was weary after the making of the gods, and because of the drumming of Skarl, did MANA-YOOD-SUSHAI grow drowsy and fall asleep.

And there fell a hush upon the gods when they saw that MANA rested, and there was silence on Pegana save for the drumming of Skarl. Skarl sitteth upon the mist before the feet of MANA-YOOD-SUSHAI, above the gods of Pegana, and there he beateth his drum. Some say that the Worlds and the Suns are but the echoes of the drumming of Skarl, and others say that they be dreams that arise in the mind of MANA because of the drumming of Skarl, as one may dream whose rest is troubled by sound of song, but none knoweth, for who hath heard the voice of MANA-YOOD-SUSHAI, or who hath seen his drummer?

Whether the season be winter or whether it be summer, whether it be morning among the worlds or whether it be night, Skarl still beateth his drum, for the purposes of the gods are not yet fulfilled. Sometimes the arm of Skarl grows weary; but still he beateth his drum, that the gods may do the work of the gods, and the worlds go on, for if he cease for an instant then MANA-YOOD-SUSHAI will start awake, and there will be worlds nor gods no more.

But, when at the last the arm of Skarl shall cease to beat his drum, silence shall startle Pegana like thunder in a cave, and MANA-YOOD-SUSHAI shall cease to rest.

Then shall Skarl put his drum upon his back and walk forth into the void beyond the worlds, because it is THE END, and the work of Skarl is over.
There may arise some other god whom Skarl may serve, or it may be that he shall perish; but to Skarl it shall matter not, for he shall have done the work of Skarl.

[Abe Sargent]

Anyway, I hope you can see just how good Dunsany was at marrying his classic/epic style of writing and these works. Dunsany would go on to pen a lot of fantasy works, including a sequel to Gods. But you can see the strains of the beginning of Lovecraft here. In fact, Mana-Yood-Sushai may be a bit of Azathoth.

We have some anecdotal evidence to suggest that A Shop in Go-By-Street was reread by Lovecraft just before penning Call of Cthulhu. We’ll take a look at just how in the Review.

[Abe Sargent]

Synopsis of A Shop in Go-By-Street

The author wants to return to the Land of Dreams and rejoin his previous comrades he had adventured with previously along the river Yann and in the Bird of the River vessel. In order to facilitate this, he goes to Go-By-Street which is a unusual lane off the Strand, and finds an unusual shop, where the keeper is said to give you your dreams. The author eventually finds himself in the Land of Dreams again and moves to the river and waits for the ship to come sailing by. After three days, he explores the area and uncovers the long-dead wreck of the Bird of the River and realizes it has been around 200 years since he was last here, not the 2 in his real life. He says good bye and leaves.

[Abe Sargent]

Review of A Shop in Go-By-Street


Published in 1919 after his career was off, this was another of Dunsany’s classic tales. This is Dunsany’s sequel to a very popular story he wrote, Idle Days on the Yann, which can be seen in later works like Lovecrafts The White Ship and even CS Lewis Voyage of the Dawn Treader. Despite the quick pace, Dunsany gives this is full on style.

Take his description of a sunrise over the ridge in the Land of Dream:

Those indescribable dawns upon the Yann came up like flames in some land over the hills where a magician burns by secret means enormous amethysts in a copper pot.

That’s Dunsany for you.

There are two major conversations that really seem to have made an impression with Lovecraft. The last, when discussing the nature of reality, and the first with the shopkeep, when discussing the nature of gods, dreaming, and death.

Consider this line from Call of Cthulhu, quoted from the Necronomicon:

That is not dead which can eternal lie,
And with strange aeons even death may die.


Now compare it to this quote from the shopkeeper in this Dunsany story:

“But for three or four thousand years a god is worshipped and for three or four he sleeps. Only Time is wakeful always.”


The impact this story had on the mythos is quite significant.


3.5 stars outta 5, some of Dunsany’s stuff is a pure 5, or 4.5, but this one is not the best work of his or anything. (If you love fantasy, and the Gods of Pegana seems a bit too much, grab The King of Elfland’s Daughter instead).

[Abe Sargent]

Now, before we leave behind this idea of immediate impact, let’s take a look at another major element of impact to Call of Cthulhu, one you are likely already familiar with, but which we will reframe in a Mythos context.

Alfred Lord Tennyson’s great poem, The Kraken. Read it again for the first time.



The Kraken



Below the thunders of the upper deep,
Far far beneath in the abysmal sea,
His ancient, dreamless, uninvaded sleep
The Kraken sleepeth: faintest sunlights flee
About his shadowy sides: above him swell
Huge sponges of millennial growth and height;
And far away into the sickly light,
From many a wondrous grot and secret cell
Unnumbered and enormous polypi
Winnow with giant fins the slumbering green.
There hath he lain for ages and will lie
Battening upon huge seaworms in his sleep,
Until the latter fire shall heat the deep;
Then once by men and angels to be seen,
In roaring he shall rise and on the surface die.

The Kraken, a Norwegian myth, is clearly be seen in the nature of Call of Cthulhu. Is it just a coincidence that one of the major characters, the one who actually sees Cthulhu and survives, is Norwegian as well? The Kraken sleeps, far below the ocean, and will someday return.

Consider The Kraken against many of the other Gen 0 stories.

[Abe Sargent]

Alright, let’s do one more Gen 0 story for now, and then return. Lovecraft had a severe man-crush on Abraham Merritt. You may recall that Merritt was one of the five authors called in to write Challenge from Beyond.

In 1918 Merritt publishes a short story called The Moon Pool. He will follow with another, Conquest of the Moon Pool, and then edit them into his first novel which was also quite popular. We’ll skip the latter stuff, because the first is by far the best, and leaves behind the Lost World motif that the latter stuff mucks about with. Merritt began publishing in 1917, and this story really puts him on the map in the major way. From The Moon Pool will come a variety of major fantasy works, among them The Ship of Ishtar and Dwellers in the Mirage. Again, Gary Gygax cites Merritt as one of his favorite authors, and someone who also helped to establish D&D. We will be skipping that fantasy stuff, and focusing instead on this story, because first of how interesting it is and also how it shapes Merritt’s career, and has many proto-Lovecraft feelings.

Luckily, the story is not copyrighted and therefore is fully in the public domain.

I could not easily find just the first short story, apart from the Novelized version. Unfortunately, the novel version of these events is edited differently than the short story (which was designed to stand on its own). Frankly, the original short story is a bit better than the first five chapters of the novel because of that. (Both Lovecraft and Merritt himself agreed on that fact). So hopefully you have it anthologized somewhere and can read it there. Or maybes its online somewhere and my poor Google Fu will not discredit your ability to read the original story, which Lovecraft called one of the classics of horror literature.

Instead, we’ll have here the Project Gutenberg book in its entirety, and you only need to read chapters 1-5. That’s the Moon Pool’s original story. The rest moves away from that opening into other territory.


Moon Pools for Everyone! (http://www.gutenberg.org/files/765/765-h/765-h.htm)

[Abe Sargent]

Currently reading The Ship of Ishtar for the first time by Merritt too. When done, I'll let you know what I think

[Abe Sargent]

I read The Ship of Ishtar today, which is Merritt's best work, and also considered one of the classic fantasy novels. It's not even a little bit Lovecraft, but I'm glad to have read it.

I also read the Dealings of Daniel Kesserich by Fritz Lieber on Friday, and it was in the Lovecraft vein, but not in the Mythos, so we won;t be reading it here. There are a lot better things written by the master of the pen, good ol' Fritz-y - we'll talk about him and who he is later when we consider some of his Gen 2/3 stories.

So I wouldn;t think either was this amazing, eye-opening story. I'll not touch either one again, likely, but I was happy to have read them and opened my eyes in such a way.

[Abe Sargent]

Synopsis of The Moon Pool


A lot of plot happens in this short story. So I’ll skip some of the longer stuff and give a quick summary rather than go point by point through the tale.

In order to free Dr. Throckmarton’s reputation, one Dr. Goodwin has arranged to have these documents sent to Mr. Merritt to review and publish. Dr. Throckmartin sent a failed expedition to the Pacific to the Micronesian island of Ponape and investigate there the ruins of Nan-Matal. His wife and several others accompanied this excursion.

Dr. Goodwin runs into Throckmartin shortly after the expedition on a boat, and is acting strangely. Later that night Dr. Goodwin observes something odd in the moon light, a certain path that the moon is making on the sea. It appears to be chasing Thockmartin. Clouds pass over and the path is closed before it can pull Throckmartin fully and news come sin that the rest of the journey to Melbourne should be similarly cloud ridden. Dr. T. takes in Dr. G and begins to relate the tale.

Dr. Throckmartin begins by explaining that everyone that went with the expedition to Nan-Matal is now dead. He rips off his shirt to reveal a white ring around his chest, and in that ring, he cannot be burnt, bled, or touched – and its bitter cold. He is heading to Melbourne for the items needed to defeat it, to defeat the thing that killed them and is chasing him now – the thing that gave him that mark. After revealing a map of the area, Throckmartin explains there is a dweller in the moon pool in the ruins of Nan-Matal.

He goes back to explain the expedition. His wife and him were to make this their great work, the Venice of the Pacific, to reveal how these ruins got there and explore the customs and people that made them. They arrived, and began the archeology of their research.

Slowly a few more sensitive members of the expedition began to become aware of a strangeness of the place. The natives requested to leave the island for a festival for a few days and were granted it. That night, under a full moon, odd noise began to be heard from the ruins. Suspecting the natives were doing their rituals in the ruins, the others move out. Then something else is there. One of their number collapses after revealing there is something more sinister at work.

But they dismiss the night as the natives, and then dismiss the words of warning. Opposite the throne of the Sun King is a great moon rock, and behind it, the moon pool. They found the rock, and suspected it was a door, but were unable to open it. Lots of exploration and attempts to open the door fail.

They awaken the next morning with a nasty sleep and one of their number missing. An exhaustive search finds some of her hair and part of her handkerchief cut, right by the moon rock, which was opened. They knew they were going to wait until night, since it was likely only openable then, and gathered weapons and other things needed.

They spend the night in Nan-Matal.

The moon rose, and with it came a powerful slumber. “It was a sapping of all will to move.” The cry is heard of a creature, his wife is sleeping, and the last of their party has been transfixed by the now open door. The music swelled. After walking about transfixed for a bit, the other members is gone.

Thinking that he has solved it, Throckmartin believes there is a few minutes between the opening of the door and the activity of the creature beyond. That is the window of opportunity to strike and free their comrades or secure their own safety is that is not possible.

Night falls, and the door opens, and Throck flings himself through the door. In there is a glistening pool. Some radiant creature begins to form, and Throck shoots it with his pistol. It gurgles and the pool roils and bad stuff happens. Hearing the shots, his wife follows him into the room. The dweller in the pool sees this new person enter, and rushes her first. Edith moves to block it from her husband to protect him, and the creature absorbs her and takes her. The two disappear into the moon pool.

The rest of the story is Throck outlying his plan for action – buying dynamite. They may not be dead, just in the pool. He wrote a chart of the Pool and leaves Dr. Goodwin for Nan-Matal on Ponape, to make amends for his cowardice.

[Abe Sargent]

Review of The Moon Pool


The Moon Pool is a classic D&D story, (the stuff that happens later involves missing civilizations, frog men, odd deities, and more. ) It will turn into a very pulpy adventure yarn. That’s odd because the story here is a horror one, and yet it is turned into a Lost World one.


You can find tons of Moon Pool reviews online, but they focus on the book, not the short story.

“Goodwin,” he said,” do you know at all of the ruins on the Carolines: the cyclopean megalithic cities and harbors of Ponape and Lele , of Kusaie, of Ruk and Hogolu and a score of other islets there?


The writing is solid enough, although sometimes a bit too lurid. He never met an adjective he didn’t like. Nevertheless, this is a very fun trip through the Pacific. A common framing device in these stories is the publishing of documents or conversations after the fact. (The Call of Cthulhu does the same thing). When you have elements that are unnatural, it makes sense to try to make them seem as realistic as possible. From Bram Stoker’s Dracula to Merritt’s The Moon Pool, you use this as an effective story-telling device to enhance the level of horror.

Of course, that means the narrative has to pause for Throckmartin to wail around a bit every time something bad happens.

Anyway, one effective way this story works is because it’s mostly true:

Nan Madol - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nan_Madol)

The ruins are real, and actually on the island mentioned. That enhances the level of spookiness that is in effect.

As for the impact this story had on Lovecraft, it’s pretty evident. Is the area of Nan-Matal inspiration for R’lyeh? Merritt even uses the typical Lovecraftian word: “Cyclopean.”

The idea of something very ancient in the corners of the earth, something with a different set of rules, in the Pacific is quite resonant, and is one of the basic concepts of Lovecraft’s Mythos.


3 stars out of 5 for the book version, and 3.5 for this one the work does what it needs too, and the two maps are awesome (but missing from the book – boo hiss!).

[Abe Sargent]

Alright, let’s leave behind the Gen 0 stuff for a bit. There’s more to consider, the Archer Machen stuff is great, I agree with HP Lovecraft that The Willows by Algernon Blackwood really is one of the best horror stories of all time, and another Blackwood story, The Wendigo, is heavily tied into some other stuff we’ve already read by August Derleth. But let’s bench these folks for right now.

Let’s head back to Gen 1.

I’d like to do a trilogy of stories by Robert Bloch. To begin with, HP Lovecraft’s The Haunter in the Dark was written as a sequel to a Robert Bloch story. I’d like to begin with that story.

The Shambler from the Stars

Written in 1935, this story was published late, and then HP Lovecraft wrote Haunter the next month after publication. It’s just 8 pages in one of my collections. We’ll be reading this story, reminding you of Haunter from the Dark, and then Robert Bloch will pen a sequel and a side-story. He publishes a sequel to Lovecraft’s Haunter in 1950 called The Shadow from the Steeple. That creates a little trilogy with Haunter in the middle. But then Bloch is also fascinated by a bit of characterization in Haunter of Nephren-Ka, and ancient pharaoh. So Bloch will write the story of Nephren-Ka in a short story called Fane of the Black Pharaoh. We’ll be reading all three in this little side trip to Bloch land.

So we’ll begin with Shambler, which started everything off in 1935. Then Haunter is written in 35 and published in 36. Bloch will enjoy the info about Nephren-Ka and pen Black Pharaoh a few months later, to be published in 1937. And then write the sequel to Haunter in Steeple.


My apologies that I am unable to find any of Bloch’s stories online to link to. For authors who died later in their lives, their stuff was under copyright a lot longer and either there is an estate or there is a lingering copyright. In some cases, they have hurt the original stuff by keeping it out of people’s hands for cheaply (Clark Ashton Smith, Donald Wandrei, as examples). Bloch you can at least understand why, he’s a big name in the horror field.

But the nature of the Cthulhu Mythos, of everyone sharing and growing, feels anti-copyright to me. These stories should be available, for free, online, right now. They are not, and that saddens me. So again, hit up your library, collections, borrow from a friend, or just wait until I post the synopsis.


(Note some similarities between this one and The Space Eaters, by Frank Belknap Long we already read)

Who is Robert Bloch? Really, you don’t know? I suppose that’s how time can pass by some major names in the field. He started writing in 1934, so the stuff we are about to read is fresh from his pen, at the age of 18, and lacks some of the polish he’ll get later on. He is another avid member of the Lovecraft Circle of authors, and corresponded heavily with many of them

So, here’s what I expect you already know about Bloch – he wrote the book Psycho, which was turned into a movie by Hitchcock.

If you didn’t know that, now you’ll understand just why his estate is probably held onto so much. This is a major name in horror. He won a lot of awards in his lifetime, which Wikipedia said he published until his death in 1994.

Shambler is, in fact, a homage to Lovecraft, it is dedicated to him, and the main character seems very Lovecraftian. Bloch comes across more as a fan than a polished author like Frank Belknap Long.

Bloch published dozens of novels, hundreds of short stories, and had a real impact on the genre. His stuff, such as his take on Jack the Ripper. He also wrote a variety of screenplays in his later days, cashing in on his fame as the author of Psycho.

So let’s look at Bloch!

[Abe Sargent]

Synopsis of The Shambler from the Stars



The Narrator is an author of weird tales, because that is the only way he can earn a living, since his love of books and nature is such that little else suits him. Bored of the trite aspects of horror like werewolves and vampires, he wants to author a true work of art.

So he sets out to delve into the secrets of vari0us folks and encounters a friend in Providence who has read a few books, the Necronomicon and the Book of Eibon. He gives the narrator a list of people who may help him track them down but fails. So the narrator turns to scouring book stores for a forgotten copy here and there.

While he is unable ot find the books he wants, he does unearth a book called De Vermis Mysteriis, or Mysteries of the Worm, by Ludwig Prinn. Prinn lived for centuries and was a sorcerer, alchemist and necromancer who was entually jailed and killed. In jail he wrote this book in latin, which was surprssed and edited books made it into other languages.

Unable to read latin, he heads back to Providence to meet up with his friend. They read the book and there is a summoning ritual in Latin for a familiar from the stars. It is read, and something unseen appears from the stars. It kills the friend, draining all of his blood, and swells and becomes visible with the newly charged energy. It then leaves, and the narrator knows it will come back, unsummoned to kill him too.

[Abe Sargent]

Review of The Shambler from the Stars



There is no question that the narrator is actually Bloch and the friend is actually Lovecraft. Bloch write shim ahead of time and asks for permission to kill him off. Lovecraft provides the latin translation of the book and also the latin summoning ritual to put into the story.

We’ve seen the book before in Lovecrafts fiction – in both Haunter and Shadow over Innsmouth. Lovecraft really loved the idea of the book and it’s one of the major books in the Mythos. Bloch also creates this creature, called a star vampire for lack of a better term, which is used by other writers as well.

Nevertheless this is real fanfic. The 18 year old writer includes both himself and his favorite author in a story, they meet, the hero is killed, and he introduces his own book to the club as well. And yet, Lovecraft embraces it. Lovecraft is something else. He is so hospitable. He really transcends normal expectations for a decently well known guy. He doesn’t just reply nicely and politely to Bloch, but he outright encourages him, and helps him with the tale.

And what happens? Bloch turns around to be a highly influential writer in the genre for 60 years. That’s the sort of impact that Lovecraft had. What if Lovecraft had refused to return Bloch’s letter? Or asked kindly for Bloch to not include his aspect at all? And then Lovecraft uses Bloch’;s stuff in his own works, dedicates Haunter of the Dark to Bloch, and then kills off a character reminiscent of Bloch in his own story set in Providence.

It’s great stuff between the two of them.


It’s a dirty 2.5 stars out of 5. The writing style needs a bit of polish and work. Bloch will get there. But he’s really excited, and it shows.



Alright, next up ,The Shadow from the Steeple

[Abe Sargent]

Alright, next up ,The Shadow from the Steeple

This clocks in at 17 pages in my reader.

This story is a definite sequel to Haunter. It takes place 15 years after the first story, and a writer friend, Fiske, of the deceased Robert Blake and Lovecraft’s arrives in Providence. He has been investigating the events of the death of his friend, Blake, for some time.

After the death of Blake, one Dr. Dexter arrived on the scene, took the box and special hedron, and dumped them out in the bay. Then he absconded with the nasty works in the church to keep them out of the reach of others. Meanwhile, most of the folks in the area that were connected to the church are gone. The church was raised, and people have died, or fled Providence.

Dr. Dexter has too. He joined the lecture circuit and turned to physics. He was helping the US military during World War II and recently returned to Providence for a short period of time. Fiske comes back to Providence to visit Dexter after pinning him down.

Dr. Dexter provides the information Fiske seeks, but Fiske guesses that Dexter is really the Haunter of the Dark who took and possessed Dexter’s body. Dexter has given humanity nuclear weapons and the atomic bomb. In fact, the Haunter is Nyarlathotep, the messenger of the old ones, and trying to bring about the destruction of humanity. The Haunter/Dexter kills Fiske before Fiske can shoot him dead, and resumes his path.

[Abe Sargent]

Review of The Shadow from the Steeple


First of all, this is basically our first Gen 2 story. It was penned in 1950, and was a direct sequel to an earlier work. It also shares some similar things with other Gen 2 stories – it tones down Lovecraft.

Lovecraft’s concept of this stuff is creatures that are so nasty, so powerful, and so past humanity, that if they wanted to, humanity would be gone right now. To use, they are gods. Yet here, one is running around doing his best demon impression possessing the form of Dexter. (They merged to use the Bloch term). That’s a huge downgrade in power. The Haunter is just a normal Mythos creature, like the shoggoth, nightgaunts, star vampire, or hounds of tindalos. It’s not on the level of the super-nasties until Bloch comes along and bam!

I’m not a fan.

Now, having said that, I do like the writing better stylistically, plus the use of the previous story is a bit much if you’ve recently read it. He spends pages recapping Haunter of the Dark, and does so by adding in Lovecraft as a character in the story as well. Not the first time we’ll see that trick, and certainly not the last. Lovecraft is, indeed, a character in his own mythos. It’s both annoying and cool.

Maybe Bloch foresaw that in Shambler when he created a pseudo-Lovecraft character who dies. Now we have the real Lovecraft that follows. It’s appropriate from Bloch – no one else would get to pull that trick and have it come off genuinely.

I again give it 2.5 stars for weakening the mythos, making the cool Haunter just another incarnation of a named character, but better writing.




Anyway, there is one story left – Fane of the Black Pharaoh.

[Abe Sargent]

Synopsis of Fane of the Black Pharaoh



Captain Cartaret has returned from a long exposition away researching the dark rumored Pharaoh Nephren-Ka in works like De Vermis Mysteriis and the Necronomicon. He encounters a strange Arabic man, who reveals the Seal of Nephren-ka and offers to take the Captain to the tomb of Nephren-ka

The Captain relates what he knows. Nephren-Ka is related to be a long ago priest who took over Egypt and forced everyone to serve Nyarlathotep instead of the other gods. He raised up temples and other monuments to Nyarlathotep and outlawed other faiths.

He was ousted and all memory of him was removed from history. He fled to a place outside of modern day Cairo and created a tomb there, and ensconced most of his followers, leaving behind a small remnant to keep the faith and protect it, for in seen thousand years, he would return. Meanwhile, he slew the blood of 100 of his followers and painted with their blood on the walls of the great tomb a long time detailed pictures.

The Arab admits he is one of those priests. His ancestor placed a large tapestry on the future, and each day, the high priest pulls back to reveal the history of that date, as it relates to Egypt. Today, it was revealed that Captain Cartaret would descend into the tomb.

They head down, and the captain is astonished to see it is all true, especially the images and pictures of events. Eventually he sees himself, and as midnight hits, the priest pulls back another section of the curtain, and slays the Captain as he glimpses the picture. On the wall is the image of his death, painted there by Nephren-Ka thousands of years ago, identical to how he is dying.

[Abe Sargent]

Review of Fane of the Black Pharaoh


This is, by far, the best of the three works by Bloch, to my mind. It’s not nearly as derivative, and it has some clever moments. For example, at first, you think Bloch tells you about the cult that lasted, and will reveal that this magical Arab is one of that cult at the end as a surprise. But nope, he volunteers that information immediately – and plays with expectations of the readers, and perhaps with Captain Cataret’s as well.

The goal of this story was to flesh out the tale of Nephren-Ka. And it does. But not that much. Despite the length (18 pages), we just get a bit on the guy - ,much of which could be guessed. Here, we see Nyarlathotep being worshipped, but not in the picture – he’s not around granting boons to clerics. It just illustrates how much of a set of idiots we humans are with this stuff. So he is used better in this story than in Steeple.

Bloch has a better understanding of setting and mood than in Shambler, and it shows. So the better polish, with the nice plot and well thought out elements brings this story to a nice 3.5 outta 5.

[Abe Sargent]

What’s next?

Well, we’ve seen the Mythos in lots of places. Underground and in ruins. The Black Stone had us in Central Europe, and Thing on the Roof in Central America. We just finished a second tale in the Middle East after The Fire of Asshurbanipal. We’ve been in New England and Olde England. We been in the past and the recent past. From the South Pacific and even in Antarctica. So where are we heading next?


Sub-Saharan Africa!


I was thinking of using The Mound as our first of the revision/edit tales of Lovecraft, but instead I want to begin with a really good story – well written and fun. Not a lot of Mythos elements, but with a good amount of fun.

Winged Death, by HP Lovecraft and Hazel Heald

Hazel Heald did five such stories with Lovecraft. This have been referred to as revisions, edits, ghost-writing or co-writing assignments. We’re not exactly sure of how they occurred, but the result in this case is really good.

It clocks in at 26 pages in my novel of reprints, which is smaller than the bigger ones my collections usually are.


"Winged Death" by H. P. Lovecraft (http://www.hplovecraft.com/writings/texts/fiction/wd.aspx)

Let’s spend some time in the “Dark Continent”

Before we begin Winged Death, quick word warning. I don’t remember any Lovecraft story written solely by him using the N word. Just this and I think one other of the edits, ghost writings, revisions, co authorship stuff. Just so you are aware.

[Abe Sargent]

Synopsis of Winged Death


The scene opens with four men, a police inspector, a coroner, a doctor and a hotel manager looking over an odd scene in a motel room in South Africa. On the floor is a dead man, on the ceiling are odd signs, and in the room are odd accoutrements including an open inkwell, a container of nasty chemicals with a dead fly in it, and a few other bizarre things. The doctor picks up a journal and begins to read.


The journal is written by Dr. Thomas Slauenwite, who has decided to kill his colleague, Dr. Henry Moore. After writing some major works in the field of science and medicine, Dr. Moore discredited him somewhat by publicly revealing some letters than their tutor had written and come up with the same ideas, but died before he could publish. Slauenwite would no longer get the promised knighthood and major university position.

But he found a path to kill Moore. There is a local fly called the devil fly that bit one of his clients in Uganda. It came with an odd spectral looking purple ring around the bite. The natives claim that the devil fly sucks out your soul, and on death, your soul transfers to the fly itself. After giving the native some medicine he survives.

In gratitude, he agrees to show Slauenwite where the devil flies are. There was an outbreak of them a while ago, and killed thousands of locals, and they are in a few journals. They pass by some ruins in Zimbabwe that even the locals fear, but arrive at the place and Slauenwite captures several of the devil flies and some tainted meat for them to feed off of.

He decides to breed them with others flies ,the tsetse, to create a hybrid that Moore will not recognize. He even dyes their wings blue with a pigment, to further the disguise. He goes on holiday, grows a beard, and ships them to Moore claiming he is a fellow insect enthusiast who has this puzzle –an unidentified fly.

Sure enough, Moore loves the parcel, opens it, and eventually is bit by one of the flies. After a year or so of fighting it, he dies. There is some suspicion on Slauenwite, who decides to go into hiding with a new identity in South Africa.

After a short while, he encounters one of the blue flies, who must have been from his original parcel to Moore. It acts oddly and stalks him, eventually chasing him to his hotel, and even jumping into his inkwell and writing numbers. The fly bites Slauenwite who dies immediately from fright.

Up on the ceiling are words written by the fly, confirming that the flies are tainted, and that they are evil. He swoops into the container to commit suicide and kill the fly.

[Abe Sargent]

Review of Winged Death


I like the story a lot. It moves quickly, it’s set in an unusual place, It introduces an interesting element, and the idea of breeding a fly to kill someone is a lot of fun. It’s a good psychological piece, actually, and you could film it today with little variation.

The only Mythos element is this paragraph on the ruins in Zimbabwe they pass:

This jungle is a pestilential place—steaming with miasmal vapours. All the lakes look stagnant. In one spot we came upon a trace of Cyclopean ruins which made even the Gallas run past in a wide circle. They say these megaliths are older than man, and that they used to be a haunt or outpost of “The Fishers from Outside”—whatever that means—and of the evil gods Tsadogwa and Clulu. To this day they are said to have a malign influence, and to be connected somehow with the devil-flies.

And there you have it, that’s it. Because it just kisses the Mythos, I think that makes it a much better story. Shoot, if I could, I would have pulled the word cyclopean to reduce it even more and just used gigantic or titanic. Because the story doesn’t have to fit the Mythos, everyone is free to breathe and have fun with it.

So here you have a crazy scientist, cross breeding the devil fly to create a new species that is just as lethal, feeding it on the tainted meat, assassinating his colleague in this way, and then being chased by the same.

It’s written well, paced decently, and is quite an interesting yarn. Because it takes place outside and away from the usual Lovecraft places, it has some nice space. You also really want to know what those ruins mark, and what are the Fishers from the Outside. Lovecraft knows when to just drop a few hints and leave well enough alone!


I actually like this better than a lot of Lovecraft’s solo work. I give it a full 4 out of 5 stars. It’s my favorite of the revisions. Some others may be more important to the Mythos, (Horror in the Museum, The Mound, etc) but this is just the best of the lot. Good job HP Lovecraft and Hazel Heald!

[Abe Sargent]

Next will be The Tree-Men of M’Bwa, by Donald Wandrei.


Donald is a minor pulp writer in the 20s and 30s. After writing letters to Lovecraft and being a part of his circle, he hitchhikes from Minnesota in 1927 to meet Lovecraft, who shows him the sights in Providence and a few other places in New England.

All in all, over the course of fifteen years or so he published more than 30 stories, but just a trickle made it out after that, found poor markets for his stuff. Two of his stories are fully enmeshed in the Mythos – The Tree-Men and The Fire Vampires. Others hit it too - such as The Lady in Grey.

Donald Wandrei is more famous for founding publishing company with August Derleth, Arkham House, which helped to keep Lovecraft alive for decades. He encountered legal problems with Reggie Barlow, another writer who was given control of Lovecraft’s estate, and even later would sue his own company for rights and such. While Derleth freely added his stories to Arkham collections, Wandrei never did so.

Despite being a very minor author (who frankly, could have benefitted from the publicity of being in these Lovecraftian collections), Wandrei held onto his copyrights and stories very tightly, and only occasionally doled them out. Today, to buy one of two short story collections, you have to pay for a high prestige printing that costs a ton of money. Much of his stuff is either dream stories or sci-fi, horror is the minority

Now, I scoured and found Wandrei’s writing collections (which were published long ago) in the Detroit Public Library and checked them out and read them. You won’t find them, legally, online. And, due to the lack of people who care about him (in large part due to the lack of press by fighting against being anthologized), there are not a lot of people who would even care to.

Now, having said that, I actually like this story. I’m glad that I tracked it down to read. So let’s take another spin here in Africa, and read The Tree-Men of M’Bwa

(There is a fun youtube link of someone reading the story. Takes about a half hour. If you want - "The Tree-Men of M'Bwa," by Donald Wandrei - YouTube (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5i-79kLGFys)).

Anyway, if you want to buy one of his collections, The Eye and Finger, published waaaay back in 1944, here’s the page to do so on Amazon:

The Eye and the Finger: Donald Wandrei: 9789997541369: Amazon.com: Books (http://www.amazon.com/The-Eye-Finger-Donald-Wandrei/dp/9997541367/ref=cm_cr_pr_product_top)

[Abe Sargent]

Now, while we’re waiting for you to read Tree-Men, let’s look at another Lovecraft thing really quickly. Suppose you want to know more about the Fishers from the Outside and this outpost. Excellent! Lovecraft wrote a poem, that answers your desire

The Outpost
By H. P. Lovecraft

------=-O-=------
When evening cools the yellow stream,
And shadows stalk the jungle’s ways,
Zimbabwe’s palace flares ablaze
For a great King who fears to dream.

For he alone of all mankind
Waded the swamp that serpents shun;
And struggling toward the setting sun,
Came on the veldt that lies behind.

No other eyes had vented there
Since eyes were lent for human sight—
But there, as sunset turned to night,
He found the Elder Secret’s lair.

Strange turrets rose beyond the plain,
And walls and bastions spread around
The distant domes that fouled the ground
Like leprous fungi after rain.

A grudging moon writhed up to shine
Past leagues where life can have no home;
And paling far-off tower and dome,
Shewed each unwindowed and malign.

Then he who in his boyhood ran
Through vine-hung ruins free of fear,
Trembled at what he saw—for here
Was no dead, ruined seat of man.

Inhuman shapes, half-seen, half-guessed,
Half solid and half ether-spawned,
Seethed down from starless voids that yawned
In heav’n, to these blank walls of pest.

And voidward from that pest-mad zone
Amorphous hordes seethed darkly back,
Their dim claws laden with the wrack
Of things that men have dreamed and known.

The ancient Fishers from Outside—
Were there not tales the high-priest told,
Of how they found the worlds of old,
And took what pelf their fancy spied?

Their hidden, dread-ringed outposts brood
Upon a million worlds of space;
Abhorred by every living race,
Yet scatheless in their solitude.

Sweating with fright, the watcher crept
Back to the swamp that serpents shun,
So that he lay, by rise of sun,
Safe in the palace where he slept.

None saw him leave, or come at dawn,
Nor does his flesh bear any mark
Of what he met in that curst dark—
Yet from his sleep all peace has gone.

When evening cools the yellow stream,
And shadows stalk the jungle’s ways,
Zimbabwe’s palace flares ablaze,
For a great King who fears to dream.

[Abe Sargent]

Synopsis of The Tree-Men of M’Bwa

In this story, a man arrives in a Gold Coast town in West Africa and finds a dive. He intends to explore the inner area up the Congo river and past the Mountains of the Moon. He is warned off by a man missing both legs, wrapped deeply from where they were cut off.

The man warns him to head elsewhere, and reveals that he was the co-lead of an illfated mission earlier to explore the same route. He went with a scientist and himself a geologist looking for potential mining areas. He relates his story:

After splitting up, he heads into the Mountains of the Moon and quickly finds a pass through it with his local guides and porters. After a few days, they find a spot with an unusually shaped hill and they refuse to go on, telling him that this is the place of M’Bwa, and it brings bad magic. They flee after camping for the night and he pr3esses on after securing his things.

The hill opens into another hill around a circular impression, valley-like, in the earth. There is a ring of twenty-ish trees in unusual sizes but all man-shaped. In the middle is an odd red colored object that changes shape – first a cube, then a ball, then a pyramid and so forth. He pushes inwards, and one of the trees appears to look at him with human eyes. Then he notes a very old black man. He shoots him, but nothing happens. The black man finishes a battle with him, and forces a liquid down his stomach.

He awakens in the form of an unusual tree. He is given the story by another – M’Bwa has been here for centuries, before Atlantis and Egypt, and the creature M’Bwa controls is an old corpse. A few weeks later, the scientist comes looking for him and finds the area. After failing to shoot him, he grabs his machete and hews off the corpse’s head and then hacks the bottom, bloody, stump of the tree that still has a bit of the eyes and voice of the one found here. He runs off with the tree/man and eventually is attacked again by the corpse but splits the body in half.

He flees back, and unfortunately catches malaria and dies before the geologist awakens. The geologist refuses to return to Europe and stays in Africa. The man who arrived refuses to really believe that this crazy story is the case, so in anger, the geologist pulls the bandages off his legs where tree-like growths are still growing from his body, and claims he has to hack them off once a month.

[Abe Sargent]

Review of The Tree-Men of M’Bwa


I actually really like this story. A lot. The setting is fun, the idea is sharp, and the body horror in the end goes in a different direction than is normal for Mythos stuff. In my opinion, it is one of the creepiest elements of the Mythos Stories, and they have a lot of creepy moments – this is one of the best/worst for me.

This story stays with me. Now, this is not a massively impactful story. You’ll read about M’Bwa more in things like Call of Cthulhu role-playing books that explore Africa. There are no overt Mythos elements in the story at all – no mention of the Necronomicon, Azathoth, a Hound of Tindalos, or a Shoggoth. That gives the story room to breathe and grow – which I really like.

The story is also just long enough – at 10 pages total. I want to know more about M’Bwa and his mysterious object. Is It a space ship? What’s going on? Why are some of the trees very, very tall? Were they giant people who were converted? I like these sorts of questions.

And the writing is pretty keen too. This 1932 tale is much better than the next story. I give it a strong four outta five stars.



Alright, next up is the Fire Vampires, which feels more Mythos-y in a variety of ways. Ready?

[Abe Sargent]

Synopsis of The Fire Vampires


Published in 1933, in this tale, that begins in 2341, depicts the story of an unusual comet, detected by one Gustav Norby. The unusual comet is about 18 years out from our solar system and on a course that closes near Earth. Then its disappears for a few days and reappears on the edge of the solar system on the same course. It apparently accelerated past the speed of light. As it nears the earth it angles to veer towards earth, circles around, the Earth, and then heads back for Arcturus. Before it leaves, thousands of people die to an unusual form of spontaneous combustion that seems somewhat like ball lightning.

Norby is one of the few to connect these actions to intelligence. A few years later, the comet returns and another round of death occurs. This time fiery letters appear in the sky (in the language of the local folks), that tell Earth that they are now the property of the people of Ktynga, the comet that encircles them. They will return in a few years to harvest some more humans, and they demand that four specific people be among those killed.

They return a few years later and Norby, one of the four who was demanded, refuses to show, and they kill 100000 people instead in punishment. The red fire-like creatures dance about, harvesting souls. One blueish one hovers about, calling himself FTHAGGUA, LORD OF KTYNGA.

The comet leaves and returns a few years later, with Norby offering himself this time. The blue one bends down, but he captures it in a flame trap and then shocks it with massive amounts of electricity, killing it. As Fthaggua falls, the other fire vampires disappear. Ktynga becomes another satellite of Earth, much like the moon. It appears that there was never more than one creature, and the rest were like its fingers. Gustav Norby figured it out, and saved the world.

[Abe Sargent]

Review of The Fire Vampires


This is a particularly grim story. Gustav Norby intentionally keeps himself from submitting to the fire vampires, knowing they had pledged to kill a hundred thousand people in response. There are vast rebellions, banditry, looting, and devastations to the earth after the comet arrives. It’s a dark story.

It’s also not a very futuristic one. I’m not a fan of setting a story far into the future as a plot device, and then making no major changes to the world. You are a writer of weird fiction – you can easily add flying cards, or jetpacks, or people colonizing others worlds, but nope. People are still sailing by boat across the Atlantic and reading newspapers from stands. Come on, work a little, won’t you?

That comes off as lazy. At that point, just set it in 1941, eight years after publication, and move on.

Like Tree-Men, this work has no mention of any Mythos element – although it is incorporated into it later. Fire Vampire is the name given the race by Norby, not their actual name, but it stuck in the Mythos. The character of Fthaggua would be later made the high priest of a nasty creature that will be created by August Derleth in 1944 in a particularly uncreative moment.

Just 2.5 stars outta 5 for the reasons cited above.


Anyway, there are other works by Don that either are fully Mythos (The Lady in Grey mentions Hali, Carcosa, and Cthulhu) or feel that way (Spawn of the Sea). But these two are the only stops on the Wandrei mobile we’ll make before heading back into Gen 1 land.

[Abe Sargent]

Next Stop, Ithaqua, by August Derleth – this is either late Gen 1 or early Gen 2 (1941). It uses Gen 1 stuff and fleshes out his own creation in The Thing that Walked on the Wind. This story is very important because this is where Derleth solidifies his creation and makes it more tangible (by a bit at least). Ithaqua becomes one of the more popular additions to the Mythos in the 30s and 40s. I actually think Derleth handles this character better than Lloigar and Zhar (in Lair of the Star-Spawn, which we already read)or Cthugha or a few others. So let’s look at this story that delves into the nature of the character, and explore Ithaqua!

[Abe Sargent]

Review of Ithaqua

In Canada, the mounted police have been under heavy suspicion for failing to solve a disappearance by one Henry Lucas that happened in Cold Harbor eight years previously by Constable James French. However, the case was solved long ago, and the department chooses to reveal French’s last submission and report to the department.

When investigating the area, it appears that Lucas left his house and then the footprints in the snow show him disappearing some distance from his house, and nothing else is marked in the snow at all. The investigation into Locus showed that he was generally disliked, especially by the local Native Americans. One drunken night he went out and insulted their religion, which appears to have really upset him.

After drawing a blank in his investigation, a local Priest suggests that he head out into the woods to check out some unusual rock patterns. He finds three circles of stone out there, with central altars at each, and a lot of activity by local natives. But he also finds a shoeprint identical to Lucas that appears here, and he moves around frantically before being picked up again.

Suddenly, he begins to feel something, odd. He looks about and encounters a whirling shape that is formless, but with two haunting eyes. Scared, he runs back to Cold Harbor, and the priest confirms his thoughts. This was Ithaqua, who has been worshipped by the local natives for millennia – their Asiatic stock runs deep. He explains in detail who Ithaqua is believed to be.

The local natives sacrifice their own children to the altars to feed Ithaqua. Then suddenly Lucas’s body is found, still alive, but deathly cold. They watch over him for a few hours, but he dies, but near the end, begins to spout paranoid delusions. It appears Lucas saw much that Constable French observed as well. He was taken by Ithaqua.

French orders his documents prepared and purchases dynamite to head out and blast the altars and destroy them. He is not heard from for days. Another constable is sent to destroy the altars as planned and does so, but not before French is found again, in a similar state as Lucas. Even the local Native population is rounded up and dispersed among the provinces to break up their worship of Ithaqua.

[Abe Sargent]

Synopsis of Ithaqua

Derleth actually has a really good story here. Again, I enjoy the Canadian location, the interaction with Natives, and the weak presence Ithaqua actually has. The investigation by a Mountie is fun, fast paced, and the story is decent. There are some issues and questions.

What is with this Priest? I thought all of his information might have been explained away because he was working with the Natives or a secret admirer of Ithaqua or perhaps a hunter thereof and an enemy of Ithaqua, or whatever, but nope. That’s odd.

Again, Derleth’s prose is cleaning up, he really likes the subject, and he’s not putting his foot into his mouth with his normal fluff. There are no Enemies of the Old Ones to call down (such as in Lair of the Star-Spawn), and no pulling back the curtain to explain everything. Even the stuff on Ithaqua is kept suitably solid.

So therefore, I actually think this is the best Derleth story we have read so far, and I give it a pretty good 3.5 stars out of 5.

[Abe Sargent]

Alright, next I want to move back to the Master for another key Mythos tale, The Whisperer in Darkness. It’s very long, and in my anthology, it clocks in at an incredible 57 pages, just two shy of The Shadow Out of Time. In Shadow, Lovecraft introduced both the Flying Polyp and the Great Race of Yith. Now he is going to introduce another race, the Mi-Go to the Mythos. Expect to see them later.

Published in 1931, this story shares with much of his later stuff a tendency to be more a science-fiction based story, not your typical fantasy fare with cultists (or natives) and pseudo-demons that gain power due to sacrifices. Get ready to enjoy!

"The Whisperer in Darkness" by H. P. Lovecraft (http://www.hplovecraft.com/writings/texts/fiction/wid.aspx)

[Abe Sargent]

Synopsis of The Whisperer in Darkness


This story basically has two parts. The first accounts for two main characters and what is happening with them. The second is the subsequent story as things have shifted.

Dr. Albert Witmarth, at Miskatonic University, is a professor in linguistics and studies New England lore and culture. During a flood in 1927, a few odd things are seen in the waters in the first day washed out – in three places, odd crablike creatures are seen by backwoods folk. Dr. Wilmarth dismisses them as part of a collective myth-cycle that appears to everyone.

After he writes a particularly eviscerating article for a local paper, one Henry Akeley writes to him to detail some of his own person encounters with the creatures spoken of, and has evidence. They exchange letters for weeks, and during that time, Akeley reveals more and more about the Mi-Go, a crablike humanoid creature, with a set of wings. They have colonized part of Earth with mining colonies for minerals they don’t have on one of the local planets of Yuggoth. He shows pictures of footprints by the Mi-Go, a strange black stone goes missing when he sends it to Witmarth, and they have been attacking late at night.

As things look very rough, Akeley sends a letter letting Witmarth know that everything is now fine. He has established communication with the Mi-Go and learned so much from them. Apparently, a third party that serves Cthulthu and other old creatures have been attacking the Mi-Go, who are apparently fungoid in nature, and fly back to their outposts and planets with their wings in space. The Mi-Go just want to be left alone to mine quietly. They could take over Earth any time if they cared, but they want to mine in peace.

Witmarth is invited to Akeley’s farm and arrives to meet him, bringing the evidence to cross reference it. Akeley is falling badly, and speaks to him from a distance, and his face and hands look rather pale. There is an odd sensation in the air, but Witmarth can’t trace it. But it’s definitely Akeley, the face matches perfectly to the various pictures.

Akeley explains the universe and eventually tells Witmarth that the Mi-Go want to take them both with them to Yuggoth and beyond. They will surgically remove their brains, and then put them in these canisters, which are then hooked up to machines and sense, speak, and talk. They become immortal. He has Witmarth plug in the machine for one of the canisters and talks with someone from Tibet who has visited countless stars and planets.

Disgusted, after retiring for bed, Witmarth breaks out and seeks Akeley to find him, but cannot. He searches quietly, and searches the area. After he discovers what was on the chair he flees the place immediately. Behind was the area, lacking the sensation that he had before, and with Akeley’s head and hands, no longer attached to his body, and corpse-like. There is a container with his name on it.

[Abe Sargent]

Review of The Whisperer of Darkness

I don’t think any other Lovecraft story better demonstrates his view of the cosmos outside of Earth than this one. Allow me to demonstrate the universe, as per Lovecraft:

Even now I absolutely refuse to believe what he implied about the constitution of ultimate infinity, the juxtaposition of dimensions, and the frightful position of our known cosmos of space and time in the unending chain of linked cosmos-atoms which makes up the immediate super-cosmos of curves, angles, and material and semi-material electronic organization.

Never was a sane man more dangerously close to the arcana of basic entity—never was an organic brain nearer to utter annihilation in the chaos that transcends form and force and symmetry. I learned whence Cthulhu first came, and why half the great temporary stars of history had flared forth. I guessed—from hints which made even my informant pause timidly—the secret behind the Magellanic Clouds and globular nebulae, and the black truth veiled by the immemorial allegory of Tao. The nature of the Doels was plainly revealed, and I was told the essence (though not the source) of the Hounds of Tindalos. The legend of Yig, Father of Serpents, remained figurative no longer, and I started with loathing when told of the monstrous nuclear chaos beyond angled space which the Necronomicon had mercifully cloaked under the name of Azathoth. It was shocking to have the foulest nightmares of secret myth cleared up in concrete terms whose stark, morbid hatefulness exceeded the boldest hints of ancient and mediaeval mystics. Ineluctably I was led to believe that the first whisperers of these accursed tales must have had discourse with Akeley’s Outer Ones, and perhaps have visited outer cosmic realms as Akeley now proposed visiting them.


This is a thoroughly science-fiction story, and that makes wonderful reading in the light right now. One of the things you’ll note is the lack of true science fiction stories in many of the Mythos Stories. Sure, a knife, or rock, or entity might have once been from the stars, but then all you have to do is sacrifice a baby, innocent, virgin, etc on that altar, knife, etc and you gain power, summoning, etc. Or else you intone various words from an eldritch tome that leads to a summoning of some outer creature to punish you for your impudence. It feels very un-scifi. Even Lovecraft has stories like the evil Cultists of old (check out something prosaic, such as The Diary of Alonzo Typer by Lovecraft).

The dialogue in here is a bit tedious, and the story a bit long on the detail and short on the plot. Yet the language and content keep me going to the end breezily. I give it a 3 outta 5. Not Lovecraft’s best, but better than stuff like The Thing on the Doorstep or something)

[Abe Sargent]

Okay, next I want to do a group of stories by Henry Kuttner. Who is Henry, and how does he connect with Lovecraft?


At the young age of 20, in 1936, Henry Kuttner published his first short stories in the pulps, both of which were set in Lovecraft’s Mythos. He had been writing back and forth with Lovecraft for a few years, and it was Lovecraft that suggested he write to CL Moore ,a popular science fiction writer.

As you may recall, CL Moore is one of the early women authors in the genre of consequence ,and we’ve already read her a bit in The Challenge from Beyond, where she was probably the best actual author next to major name like Merritt, Howard and Lovecraft. Kuttner thought she was a man, and you can imagine the awkwardness of that! Anyway, both Moore and Kuttner were in the Lovecraft Circle and introduced by him. Eventually, in 1940, they would marry, and author a lot of stories together.

In fact, his pay was a bit better than hers, so sometimes they would publish her stories under his name to get the better pay. They would finish each other’s stories and help through writing block. He died early at the age of 42 in 1958.

Kuttner was an interesting author. He loved the Mythos, and wrote a variety of stories, some of which made some additions to the Mythos. He is an important Gen 1 author. He also began to write some Conan-inspired stuff with the character of Elak of Atlantis.

Now, after he cut his teeth on these homages, he began to move to hard sci-fi, and because a very talented author. His legacy is tarnished a bit by writing knock offs of Lovecraft and Howard at first (but even Lovecraft wrote knock offs of Dunsany and Poe in his early days). Some of his Sci-FI stories were downright classics that time has forgotten a bit. (Part of this reputation was covered by using a ton of pseudonyms)

Check out Mimsy Were the Borogoves, (co-written with Moore) which was so good, it made the cut by the Science Fiction Writers of America in 1965 in their Anthology of The Science Fiction Hall of Fame, 1929-1964.

CL Moore, despite living until 76 in 1987, slowed down and stopped writing soon after her husband’s death. She just wasn’t able to write anymore. She also never wrote a bunch of Mythos tales like her future husband would. (CL Moore made it in the 3rd class of inductions into the Science Fiction and Fantasy Hall of Fame). (A Merritt, by the way, made it in the 4th class).

We will be looking at a few Kuttner tales to examine this guy at the beginning of his writing, and see where he is, and what he gives the Mythos.

[Abe Sargent]

I picked up the Book of Iod, a collection with 13 stories, most of which were early Mythos tales by Kuttner. I want to start with a later story by him from 1939. It’s creepier and more flavorful than some of his earlier stuff, so let’s begin here, and then work our way back.

Bells of Horror

It’s a lovely story, that was never anthologized until the mid-80s. Some of Kuttner’s tales are online and available for free. Perhaps this one wasn’t. It wasn’t published under his name, so the general Lovecraft fan may not have had this in their collections since it was written in 1939 and then neither connected with Kuttner nor the Mythos generally. So unless your Google skills surpass mine (which wouldn’t surprise me at all) it’s not there. We’ll get some later stuff though, so yay!

The best I can do is a preview from Google Books that has the first three pages, and then a few here and there:

Tales of the Lovecraft Mythos - Google Books (http://books.google.com/books?id=tNBd5dG4cAMC&pg=PA88&lpg=PA88&dq=%22henry+kuttner%22+%22bells+of+horror%22&source=bl&ots=9REoUhXiVl&sig=1RpB8VztuXqP_rOlTup8kk5v9BQ&hl=en&sa=X&ei=TnVRU86oLqnMsQTJz4DgBw&ved=0CEcQ6AEwBQ#v=onepage&q=%22henry%20kuttner%22%20%22bells%20of%20horror%22&f=false)

[Abe Sargent]

Synopsis of Bells of Horror


The lost bells of the Mission San Xavier were found, and then destroyed before even being hung and rung. The California Historical Society has been accused of destroying old items without giving them their proper due. So the secretary, who was there, begins to relate the tale to end some of these whispers.

The Bells were uncovered in a cave in the Pinos Range, and there is a carving on the cave saying that no one should hang the evil bells of the Mutsune people. Some unusual things were happening, according to expedition leader Todd, and the secretary of the CHS leaves to arrive on the scene. Open arrival, the secretary notes some unusual things, including a frog who smashed his eyes out against rocks. His own eyes are itching terribly as he ascends the ridge. One of the workers stumbles down the hill having done the same thing to his eyes, gouged them out. He smashes into a tree while running full speed down the hill and dies. They suspect that gases released from the expedition are an irritant to the eyes.

Arthur Todd, the leader of the expedition, Denton is assistant, and some locals arrive at the scene. They refuse to help anymore with the expedition and leave. Todd, Denton, and the secretary head back to the three Bells of San Xavier. They found a scroll tube with parchment relating the story of the Bells – they were hung and rung, and an evil demon called Zuchequon was called from his dwelling in the darkness, and brought black night across the area. The bells were removed and hidden away.

The bells are taken down, but not before crushing another assistant dead.

The secretary does some research in the Book of Iod, translated by Johann Negus, from the Huntington Library. There is a passage from the Book that is transcribed and read, that includes the Dark Silent One on the shore of the Western Ocean. He can be called to the surface before his time, he is Zushakon to others, be he has no name.

The Bells are hung later on at the Mission of San Xavier. Soon an earthquake hits and one of the bells rings. The bells clang against each other, and soul-wrenching feelings emerge from everyone nearby, and the day begins to deepen and darken. Soon enough, light is totally exhausted. Denton leads the two to the Mission. They penetrate the church and head up the stairs, but all are feeling very disquieted. They are tempted to put out their eyes – darkness is soothing, and welcoming, and keeps one away from the bright lights and harsh sun.

Denton manages to unhinge the bells, and the darkness fades. They had nearly fallen to the suggestions of Zuquechon. The bells are destroyed soon after. A few months later, an eclipse hits California. The old sensations arise again, and Todd calls the secretary. He is succumbing to the feelings. The secretary grabs the car ,heads out, and finds Todd dead, having shot himself with his pistol after being forced to put out his own eyes. It seems like Zuchequon was not sent back as thought, but may already be here…

[Abe Sargent]

Review of Bells of Horror


One thing I don’t like about this story, and let’s get it out the way now, it the massive amount of blood and gore here. You have people [putting out their eyes, being crushed by bells, severed heads, and more. It’s not real horror, and I think its lazy writing. It hurts the story. Keep in the gouged eyes, remove the rest of the gore, and you have a better, more atmospheric story.

Kuttner will get a lot better after all, but here we see him as a decent writer. The piece has a nice mood, and it also introduces The Book of Iod to the mythos, as well as Zuchequon, who’s a minor character, but fun. Like many recent stories, it has no aspects of the old Mythos in it. There is no mention of Yog-Sothoth or Miskatonic University. But it’s fully in flavor and ensconced in the Mythos.

I like the story overall, its fun to be set in California, and have bells that ring in darkness. Fun idea. I don’t like the backstory that much of the Bells – that sacrifices were done to bring bad magic on them. Feh – too much of that in the Mythos. Nevertheless, Kuttner does a solid here.


3 stars outta 5.

[Abe Sargent]

Alright, next up will be interesting. I’m considering The Invaders, The Salem Horror, and others. But let’s shift genres a bit and move to The Eater of Souls. It’s a mighty 4 pages in my Book of Iod collection. I’ve never read it either! So let’s read Kuttner together, for the first time. I’ll even time myself!

It clocked it at 6 minutes and 14 seconds. Whoa ho! Alright, let’s discus this one quickly – it’s really a piece of flash fiction or mood writing:

[Abe Sargent]

Synopsis and Review of The Eater of Souls


This story, published in early 1937, was one of a few Lovecraft commented on that year before he died. Eater of Souls is a clear Dunsany throwback. If you like Dunsany, you’ll enjoy The Eater of Souls.

The piece is short. It begins in far off Bel Yarnak, beyond Betelgeuse and the Great Stars. A creature called the Eater of Souls has arrived, and it is the responsibility of a local ruler, the Sindara, to fight him off. After being prepared by the local hydromancers and necromancers with various weapons, he has a vision from the god, Vorvadoss, who predicts doom. After encountering the Soul Eater and losing, the Sindra gets a vision from Vorvadoss, and as he merges with the Soul eater, flings the creature and himself off the cliff and to their doom.


I was surprised by some of the well written phrases in this story. For example, take this:

“An intolerable agony ground frightfully within the Sindara’s bone and flesh; the citadel of his being rocked, and his soul cowered shrieking in its chamber”

It’s very evocative stuff.

This story introduces Vorvadoss, and is a quick stop on Kuttner Lane. I give it a surprising 3.5 stars out of 5.


I thought about swinging by his other major Dunsany-like tale, The Jest of Droom-Avista. It’s also four pages, and I’ve never read it. Let me read it really quickly, and see if I want to use it for this Mythos dynasty or not.

I actually do like it. A lot. So I’m adding it.

[Abe Sargent]

Synopsis and Review of The Jest of Droom-Avista


Set again on Bel Yarnak, a city and beautiful place of beauty, gold silver and jewels. This 1937 piece from him explores the Black Minaret, a power of the area that is worshipped and served by powerful magicians, who seek to create the philosopher’s stone and create the rarest of metals on Bel Yarnak. The most powerful mage, Thorazor, has quested his life, but failed and failed again. Frustrated, he calls:


“Not the little gods, nor the gods of good and evil, but Droom-avista, the Dweller Beyond, the Dark Shining One, Thorazor called up from the darkness.”

Droom-avista relents to the wizard’s request and leaves behind a gem. The Stone! Thorazor creates the Elixir in his golden pot, and screams in delight as the potion is completed, and turns into the rarest of metals on Bel Yarnak. It continues, and in a flash, the stand, the table are turned, as is Thorazor himself, and soon, the city of Bel Yarnak is turned, quickly and quietly, into the rare metal.

No longer Bel Yarnak, but now Dis, City of Iron.


So here we have Droom-avista and another Bel Yarnak story. Apparently there are just these two. I couldn’t find Droom-avista in my Encyclopedia Cthuliana, but the story is listed as a Mythos tale. Although Bel Yarnak is listed briefly, as are the events of this story.

Anyway, it’s another fun story, quick and easy to read, and a lot of fun.


I give it 3 stars outta 5. Not written quite as well, although I like the plot better.

[Abe Sargent]

Where to next? Let’s hit up the 18-pound gorilla. The Salem Horror.

None of Kuttner’s Lovecraft tales are as well known as this one. It was in one of the first anthologies, Tales of the Cthulhu Mythos. This book helped to launch the Mythos as a concept and kept alive a lot of names and people. Because of its inclusion in that work, it’s a seminal Mythos tale.

But before that, we need to grab something else instead. I want to swing by and pick up a Lovecraft story that The Salem Horror is evoking. We should read the master first.


So let’s interject this Kuttner fest with The Dreams in the Witch-House


You can find this work here:

http://www.dagonbytes.com/thelibrary/lovecraft/dreamswitchhouse.htm

Published in 1932, it also clocks in at 32 pages in my anthology, so it’ll take a while to read. Typical Lovecraft, eh?

[Abe Sargent]

Synopsis and Review of The Dreams in the Witch House


I wanted to show you Lovecraft at arguably his lowest (either this or Thing on the Doorstep) are among his worst Mythos works. It also has a Christianization of the Mythos, as Crucifixes work and the Black Man is arguably Satan with his black robe, coal black skin, and cloven hoofed feet. So before we see this move as purely non-Lovecraft authors, we need to see this story for what it is.

It’s a normal, haunted house story. From The House with Seven Gables or The Fall of the House of Usher through The Haunting of Hill House, this is a very common sub-genre of horror. And Lovecraft begins with the ideas of mathematics and physics as the foundation to explain these things. But then quickly he derails. The language is not there, the resonance is not there, and the story lacks realistic merit.

Even August Derleth was unimpressed, calling it a poor story to Lovecraft’s face in a letter. Lin Carter calls in unimaginative and one dimensional. Others have been equally unsympathetic. I completely agree. This story reads more like a bad Gen 1 story by another author than it does by Lovecraft himself.. That’s not a good thing. I expect more.

I gave it just 2 out of 5 stars.




Now, let’s compare it to one of Henry Kuttner’s most famous Mythos talks, The Salem Horror, which is an obvious homage to Dreams . So, which one will be better? The Master’s bad tale, or the Student’s good tale?


The Salem Horror is also online!


http://www.donaldcorrell.com/kuttner/shorror.html

[Abe Sargent]

Synopsis of The Salem Horror

Centuries before, a famous witch in Salem, one Abigail Prinn, was staked and buried in the local graveyard, but not before supposedly cursing the town. Her house was always hard to rent due to rat problems. A recent renter, Carson, is a popular author who has sold several light romance novels. He has come to get some isolation and write his next novel.

One day, Carson leaves to chase down a rat, who is acting very strangely. Ultimately, Carson forces the rat into a hole, and then crosses the spot in front of the hole to place a trap later. The rat refuses to come out, and he finds a ledge with an old handhold.

Pushing it open, he reveals a small hallways that ends at a room Carson labels the Witch Room. It’s beautiful, with many ornate gems, and such in a huge mosaic on the floor, centering on a large metal disk, with some ancient writings on the wall. Carson heads up, and phones his landlord, and gets wring and such sent here – it’s a perfect place to study.

A week later, an Occultist named Leigh stops by from California. He convinces Carson to let him see the Witch Room, which Carson has gotten tired of showing. He asks some questions “what happened to the rat” and quotes some etchings about something called Nyogtha. Carson admits that his writing has been much more lucid since using the Witch Room

Leigh suggests that the Room is sort of an echo chamber for something other than echoes, and concentrates and sends out thought. Leigh leaves. The next day, Carson awakes with a vivid dream that fades ,and meanwhile, someone has opened up the grave of Abigail Prinn and exhumed her body and killed a recent Polish immigrant. Carson uncovers the scene later that day.

Leigh suggests that Carson was controlled by the powers of the Witch Room, and now an undead Prinn is moving about. He looked up Nyogtha in the Necronomicon and has a passage quoted for Carson, who refuses to believe it. Leigh offers Carson $10,000 to leave the house, but Carson refuses. Leigh tells him that that’s because he has been hooked in.

Carson falls asleep and spends most of the day in bed. He awakens to find himself in the Witch Room as a black thing has emerged. A severely mummified creature is there, Abigail Prinn. She begins the summoning to pull Nyogtha into this world, but Leigh busts in with some sort of tincture and uses it to disrupt the ceremony, free Carson from his sleep paralysis, and send Prinn back.

[Abe Sargent]

Review of The Salem Horror


It’s not the best Kuttner work, but it does introduce Nyogtha. It was edited by Lovecraft, after the original script was rejected by Weird Tales. Lovecraft mentions that the work is a bit too fast with the horror elements, and does not build up tension. He also suggests that it’s hard to believe over centuries that no one else was in the room, so did this happen every time? He suggests making some changes. The only major changes Kuttner would make were about Salem itself, and making it more realistic after additional research.

And I agree with HP Lovecraft. Kuttner’s story lacks the pace and proper speed. For example, what was the rat? It’s an important plot point, and no mistake that the witch, Prinn, is kept back by a cross just as the rat was by a cross in the ground. Is the rat Prinn? But she was in the coffin at the time. Was it a manifestation of Nyogtha? Was it something else? Why did we drop that plot point after spending a few pages with the rat?

So, it’s not exactly barn storming. It suffices. I give it 2 out of 5 stars as well.

And which one is better? Really, I’m not a fan of either. So I’ll hit up just one more tale from this Gen 1 era, and then we’ll launch forward to the really strong stories that will come later.


I want to start hitting up really, really strong stories from later writers.

[Abe Sargent]

The last story we'll be doing in Gen 1 for a while is here for the historical interest. It's "The Black Kiss" which is written by both Henry Kuttner and Robert Bloch.

Now, recall that Bloch is a major writer of horror. His books were turned into films, and he is a big name for decades (among which is Psycho). He's a powerful and popular writer of his era. Bloch is.

Meanwhile you have Kuttner, another strong writer (later on for Sci Fi) who has more like pastiches of RE Howard and his Conan in one place, and Lovecraft and Cthulhu in others starting out. Both are still young, and this is among the first works ether will publish.

First published in 1937


Like many others, these two found each other by Lovecraft, who hooked them up. Lovecraft is, in my opinion, the 20th century's greatest epistolarian. There were times when he'd skip meals to afford postage to send letters. His letters were long, deep, usually about writing, and would often be 20, 40, or 75 pages long.



Anyways, I can't find a online copy of the story, so you would need it from various anthologies and such. Kuttner died a while ago, early on in his career, but Bloch was around for ages, and thus his family held onto his stuff longer and ,much of it hasn;t become free.

[Abe Sargent]

Synopsis of “The Black Kiss”


A young artist named Dean inherited an ancient house from his family north of San Pedro, along the beach, and near a small rocky cove. He finds the place brilliant for isolation and working on his art. He is meeting with a local Doctor after suffering very lucid dreams here. He tells the doctor the story of the house. His ancestor built it when California was still Spanish, and then went home to Spain before coming back with a wife, Morella.

Rumors are that Morella was a Moorish decent, from a strain of people that practiced black magic, and that she kept herself unnaturally young by performing foul rites. As his nightmares are of the sea, the Doctor believes that the legends about the house and Morella are pushing his dreams, and he prescribes some special drugs, and on the way out, Dean tells him that the dreams started before he found out about Morella.

On the way home, he gets the drugs and uses them. Then he finds a telegram at his house from a uncle Michael, a famous occult researcher. He tells Dean that he just heard he had inherited the house and was living ther,e and for him t ooove out for now, and see a Dr. yamada. The drugs ar estarting to work, it’s late at night, and the Dr lives far away. So Dean stays the night in his house.

Later that night he has a dream of heading into the cove at night, where there is a black unlit cave, nd heading in there, and will be kissed by some unknown, unseeable beautiful lips. The black kiss makes him feel a bit wrong and evil. He wakes later.

The next day, Dr Yamada arrives after getting a call from Michael, who is flying home from India to visit. He is an occultist, and he tells Dean about the history, and these dark and evil sea people that can shift forms, haunt boats, capture minds, and more. He suspects that Morella still lives, plying her trade in the bay, and has been the source of Dean’s nightmares. Dean lies about being kissed in the dream, but agrees to let the Dr stay with him. His uncle should be heading back soon.

That night hs falls asleep and awakens swimming in the bay. For three hours he is swimming with lizard/fish like creatures that have an odd language he understands and feels at home. Then he sees the Dr and himself walking to the beach, cautiously. He looks down at his body and realizes he is in the dark, twisted, form that mimic humanity, but has scales and such. He remembers that earlier the creature brought him to the cave, and again kissed him, this time switching minds.

He heads to shore a while later, and sees his uncle, Dr Yamada, and himself/Morella move. He spies Morella in the cave, slow and still trying to get adjusted to the new body. The others arrive, and she moves out from the cave and he arrives in her body. He sees her palpable evil in his eyes. The two occultists spy him coming to shore, and grab guns. He launches himself at his own body and bites down on her neck as bullets slam into him. He slays Morella in his body as he dies himself.

[Abe Sargent]

Review of “The Black Kiss”

All reviews are spoiler free, unless otherwise mentioned, except often for the first page or two.

This is another story with light Mythos elements, the basic core is here. Having read The Shadow Over Innsmouth, you probably already suspect that Morella is a Deep One hybrid as soon as he explains the history in the first two pages. Whether or not that’ll be the case is never stated, which is nice, but again, we won’t know.

I do like that Dr Yamada, a Japanese occultist, is never caricatured, in the middle of a Yellow Peril era of Asian stereotypes all over pulps. He;s actually pretty interesting as an expert on this stuff and explains it well.

The Black Kiss is an interesting thing. Standing on its own, it’s a story written by two major writers, in their youth. So the story lacks big ideas. It’s not like other stories that have really clever or interesting ideas. And the detail in places is intentionally missing to push home points of horror. It has some minor body horror aspects, I suppose, but it’s really just a decent horror story, using a lot of conventions of the genre.

With it’s lack of ideas, weak characterization of the lead, a tendency for too much talking and not enough seeing, and the plot needing a lack of details in places, the story isn’t one I’d put in a ist of the best horror stuff of all time. In fact, I’m including it here as an interesting historical picture of the combination of two major authors. But I do think it’s better that The Salem Horror. It has an earnestness to it that works and it avoids some issues that could have been landmines in other authors pens.

So I’m giving it a 2.5 star rating.

[Abe Sargent]

If you’ll recall, I’ve discussed before my view on the Mythos:

Generation 0 – Pre-Lovecraft stories that evoke, remind, and are adopted into the Mythos.
Generation 1 – Lovecraft and his immediate circle, up until a few years after his death around 1940.
Generation 2 – Built on Gen 1 stories, and the major pusher of this age is Arham House publishing and Auguest Derleth
Generation 3 – Starting around 1960, stories that push the genre, push against Derleth, and change the Mythos. Lin Carter kind of takes things and pushes them around and popularizes them again as editor.
Generation 4 - Today. From around 1980 through today.

Now I’m giving you my personal reviews of stories in the Mythos as well. I give them on a 5 star rating. For me, a 5 is a absolute masterpiece of fiction. 4.5 nearly so, with a few flaws. I rate Call of Cthulhu as 4.5 because I think there are some pacing things, and the racial aspects of the tribes can be a bit heavy. A 4 is a great story. Even a 3.5 is very trong, but starting to show flaws, and 3.0 is a good read.

Now I put most of the high quality Gen 1 stories early. You already read Shadow Over Innsmouth or The Seven Geases. I also loaded up the Gen 0 stuff with The Yellow Sign, another 5 start master.

So we’ve used up every 3+ star story from Gen 1 I know of by someone other than HPL himself. . There’s not that many writers in Gen 1, and they are writing for just about 10-13 years. It’s all Lovecraft’s assembled Circle of Writers. We’ve read most of those here. Some didn’t write a lot of Mythos stories (like Fritz Leiber or CL Moore) and others have been all up and down this list.

So what I really want to do is to push forward. The only stuff we’ve done so far is Gens 0-1 (except for one Gen 2 piece by Bloch that’s a sequel to a Lovecraft piece that’s a sequel to a Bloch piece).

By pushing forward, I can give you some of the best stuff moving forward.

Now I’m actually going to dance around a bit in Gens 2-4, as they are sometimes very similar in theme. Although Gen 2 is Derleth;s, 3 is Carters, and 4is no one’s, there are still similar, building-on-earlier-generations concept that’s quite strong. And there are good Gen 4 tales out there that don’t mention any later works after Lovecraft’s, and aren’t building off other writers in subsequent generations

One thing I thought would be fun is to fast forward to later story to show a major name, in a recent story, that is really, really good, and to see where things are right now. There have been times when the Mythos was sort of looked down on, and many writers were not writing authentic Lovecraft pieces, just stories of major genre-fication that have a few Mythos elements tacked on (often poor stories at that with tentacles, sacrifices, and the Necronomicon).

But there are lots of stories by major authors (and some major ones by lesser known talent) that are really, really good at doing what you want. Many won major awards.

So I want to start with a recent story, that really does something odd:

Say hello to 2004. Neil Gaiman writes a short story called, “a Study in Emerald”, which combines all of the fun of the Cthulhu mythos with the Sherlock Holmes one. A detective story, straight from Baker Street to you. This story won the Hugo Award for best short story of the year.

And the best thing?

It’s actually online!

Check it out and see for yourself:

http://www.neilgaiman.com/mediafiles/exclusive/shortstories/emerald.pdf


It's a great award winning story!


Now I did not give you that much time for the Black Kiss, as it's not reallly easily available. But for this? Man you all need to read it! SO I'm taking a few days for you to.

[Abe Sargent]

So here's what I'm seeing right now.

Gen 4 stories to push stuff around, and then roll back a bit:


Neil Gaiman's "A Study in Emerald"
Lawrence Watt Evans "Pickman's Modem"
Roger Zelazny's "24 Views of Mt. Fuji, by Hokusai"

And then these are in the queue sooner or later:


Basil Copper's "Shaft Number 247" or perhaps "Beyond the Reef"
Kim Newman's "Big Fish" or "A Quarter to Three"
Neil Gaiman's "Only the End of the World Again"
F. "The Barrens"
Maybe one or two stories by Alan Dean Foster
Stephen King's "Jerusalem's Lot:"

And then a few by lesser known authors that are good

And then I suspect a slide back to Gen 3 and a serous commitment to Ramsey Campbell for a bunch of stories.

And then Lin Carter, more Derleth, stuff like that.

Anyways, that's what I'm currently looking at right now.


And that is all very flexible as well. I could add stuff, move stuff, remove stuff, etc.


I looked at some other stories, like Harlan Ellison's or Barbara Hambleys, etc.

[Abe Sargent]

Synopsis of "A Study in Emerald"



Narrator, a retired army major, returns to Albion from Afghanistan, where gods and men are savages unwilling to be ruled by London, Berlin, or Moscow. The Afghan cave-folk tortured Major by offering him to a leech-mouthed thing in an underground lake; the encounter withered his shoulder and shredded his nerves. Once a fearless marksman, he now screams at night. Evicted from his London lodgings, he’s introduced to a possible roommate in the laboratories at St. Bart’s. This fellow, whom Major soon calls “my friend,” quickly deduces his background. He won’t mind screaming if Major won’t mind Friend’s irregular hours, his use of the sitting room for target practice and meeting clients, or the fact that he’s selfish, private, and easily bored.

The two take rooms in Baker Street. Major wonders at the miscellany of Friend’s clients and his uncanny deductive powers. One morning Inspector Lestrade visits. Major sits in on their meeting and learns that Friend is London’s only consulting detective, aiding more traditional investigators who find themselves baffled. He accompanies Friend to a murder scene. Friend has a feeling they’ve fought the good fight together in the past or future, and he trusts Major as he trusts himself.

The victim lies in a cheap bedsit, sliced open, his green blood sprayed everywhere like a gruesome study in emerald. Someone’s used this ichor to write on the wall: RACHE. Lestrade figures that’s a truncated RACHEL, so better look for a woman. Friend disagrees. He’s already noted, of course, that the victim’s of the blood royal—come on, the ichor, the number of limbs, the eyes? Lestrade admits the corpse was Prince Franz Drago of Bohemia, her Majesty Victoria’s nephew. Friend suggests RACHE might be “Revenge” in German, or it might have another meaning—look it up. Friend collects ash from beside the fireplace, and the two leave. Major’s shaken—he’s never seen a Royal before. Well, he’ll soon see a live one, for a Palace carriage awaits them, and some invitations can’t be rejected.

At the Palace, they meet Prince Albert (human), and then the Queen. Seven hundred years ago, she conquered Albion (hence Victoria—the human mouth can’t speak her real name.) Huge, many-limbed, squatting in shadow, she speaks telepathically to Friend. She tells Major he’s to be Friend’s worthy companion. She touches his wounded shoulder, causing first profound pain, then a sense of well-being. This crime must be solved, the Queen says.

At home, Major sees that his frog-white scar is turning pink, healing.

Friend assumes many disguises as he pursues the case. At last he invites Major to accompany him to the theater. The play impresses Major. In “The Great Old Ones Come,” people in a seaside village observe creatures rising from the water. A priest of the Roman God claims the distant shapes are demons and must be destroyed. The hero kills him and all welcome the Old Ones, shadows cast across the stage by magic lantern: Victoria, the Black One of Egypt, the Ancient Goat and Parent of a Thousand who’s emperor of China, the Czar Unanswerable of Russia, He Who Presides over the New World, the White Lady of the Antarctic Fastness, others.

Afterwards Friend goes backstage, impersonating theatrical promoter Henry Camberley. He meets the lead actor, Vernet, and offers him a New World tour. They smoke pipes on it, with Vernet supplying his own black shag as Camberley’s forgotten his tobacco. Vernet says he can’t name the play’s author, a professional man. Camberley asks that this author expand the play, telling how the dominion of the Old Ones has saved humanity from barbarism and darkness. Vernet agrees to sign contracts at Baker Street the next day.

Friend hushes Major’s questions until they’re alone in a cab. He believes Vernet’s the “Tall Man” whose footprints he observed at the murder site, and who left shag ash by its fireplace. The professional author must be “Limping Doctor,” Prince Franz’s executioner—limping as deduced from his footprints, doctor by the neatness of his technique.

After the cab lets them out at Baker Street, the cabby ignores another hailer. Odd, says Friend. The end of his shift, says Major.

Lestrade joins our heroes to await the putative murderers. Instead they receive a note. The writer won’t address Friend as Camberley—he knows Friend’s real name, having corresponded with him about his monograph on the Dynamics of an Asteroid. Friend’s too-new pipe and ignorance of theatrical customs betrayed that he was no shag-smoking promoter. And he shouldn’t have talked freely in that cab he took home.

Writer admits to killing Prince Franz, a half-blood creature. He lured him with promises of a kidnapped convent girl, who in her innocence would go immediately insane at the sight of the prince; Franz would then have the Old One-ish delight of sucking her madness like the ripe flesh from a peach. Writer and his doctor friend are Restorationists. They want to drive off man’s Old One rulers, the ultimate act of sedition! Sating monsters like Franz is too great a price to pay for peace and prosperity.

The murderers will now disappear; don’t bother looking for them. The note’s signed RACHE, an antique term for “hunting dog.”

Lestrade initiates a manhunt, but Friend opines the murderers will lay low, then resume their business. It’s what Friend would do in their place. He’s proven right—though police tentatively identify Doctor as John or James Watson, former military surgeon, the pair aren’t found.

Major consigns his story to a strongbox until all concerned are dead. That day may come soon, given recent events in Russia. He signs off as S____ M____ Major (Retired).




Synopsis Courtesy of Tor.com

[Abe Sargent]

Review of "A Study in Emerald"


Holy Crap!


Are you serious?



That's a good story. All reviews are spoiler free, and there is no way I can discuss this story as the first page opens with major stuff happening, and things continue from there.


I will say that this story is highly evocative of the Mythos. And the Holmes one as well, and our good detective does a very good job chasing down the core mystery of the story.

Gaiman plays well with the two. He balances the sort of dual relationship between the Lovecraftian side and the Doyle-esque one. And as someone who has read both, I know the very few people I'd trust in this role. Gaiman is well suited for it. I'd trust Kim Newman, modern-day Ramsey Campell, and maybe one or two more. And that's it.


Anyways, with a great mood, story, and world crafted, Gaiman hits every single note. This story is a masterpiece, and it's one of my favorite short stories of the Cthulhu Mythos of all time.


5 out of 5 for the Hugo Winner.

[Abe Sargent]

Next let’s do another Gaiman story, “Only The End of the World Again”. Written in 1994 for the collection Shadows Over Innsmouth, commemorating the pivotal story, by Del Rey, Gaiman writes a story that’s around 15 pages or so in the collection. It’s actually the major selling point, and the first story listed on the back of the cover, for the best tales included.

This story was liked so much that it was adapted to comics by Oni Press.

So let’s read it up!


https://humblebundle-a.akamaihd.net/misc/files/hashed/d0d2473802f9b06ad10b9ee9f4f545ed331aa3c1.pdf

[Abe Sargent]

Synopsis of “Only the End of the World Again”


This story is set in the city of Innsmouth in the mid-90s, after a bunch of people moved in in the 80s, and then left again. The city and the main character are very squalid.

The main character awakens after a night of transformation, and then vomits up a dog’s paw and a few fingers of a small child, and then flushes them. He heads out to a local bar, and meets with the locals. A barkeeper is there, reading Tennyson. Our werewolf has been in Innsmouth for just a couple of weeks, and various folks are talking to him about remedies for lycanthropy.

After knocking back a few shots, he heads to his office where is is an “Adjuster” and finds an old fat man on the room, talking about the history of the town and the new day. He leaves, there is a salesman who calls trying to sell him siding, and then a woman who wants to hire him to track down her missing infant and dog. (These folks also tell him what to do with his werewolfism)

After refusing, he finds a young woman’s tarot card reading, and after concentrating on the tarot cards like a lover as she asks, the cards change and warp. The first one is the Warwolf, the second the Deep Ones, and the others are all blank. She forces him out and believes he damaged her card.

He heads back to the bar, downs some drinks, and the barkeeper quotes Tennyson’s Kraken poem. Then they head down to observe the commotion that people have been talking about, and the rise of the Deep Ones. After arriving, the woman, the fat man, and the barkeeper reveal they are the leaders of the movement, and need to sacrifice something better than normal to bring back the Deep Ones.

They move to slay him with a silver knife as the bright eldritch moon risers, and unexpectedly, he turns into a werewolf again (normally you only can once/month) and slays her, kills the barkeeper and then leaves to kill some deer, stopping his sacrifice and the rise of the Deep Ones.

[Abe Sargent]

Review of “Only the End of the World Again”


Written as an homage and honor of the recently deceased Roger Zelazny, a major friend of Gaiman’s, this short story is also written in the ouvre of a sort of Lovecraft/Cthulhu homage or pastiche. It takes one of the basic core concepts of the Mythos, and puts it out there as the basic conceit of this story. And when it is stopped at the end, it’s clearly just a matter of time before the End of the World comes again.

The story itself uses the core concept of stories like The Dunwich Horror and such, and paints a suitably squalid view of Innsmouth, the town first seen by Lovecraft. Now, unlike Lovecraft, Gaiman’s visit here is okay, but it’s hardly the piece de resistance that Lovecraft’s was. It’s not Gaiman;s best work, but it does work as a central conceit that knowingly winks at the worst of the Mythos stories as it evokes them in a different way, and even has that wink in the title. You can’t escape it.

I give it 3.5 stars out of five.

[Abe Sargent]

Next I have a real treat!

So I researched and found that a short story by Gaiman, “I, Cthulhu” was written, and while its not in any of my collections, like others, it’s online at Gaimans own website. So I thought I’d read it right now for the first time. Most of the stories I’ve selected for here I already read elsewhere and then brought them here for their value to this project. So how will this story work out? I don’t know! But I’m excited to find out:

Neil Gaiman | Cool Stuff | Short Stories | I Cthulhu (http://www.neilgaiman.com/p/Cool_Stuff/Short_Stories/I_Cthulhu)

[Abe Sargent]

It’s very short, and it took me 16 minutes to read just now.


Synopsis of “I, Cthulhu”



We open with Cthulhu telepathically telling Whateley his history and story. He begins with his birth in the dark swamps of his old planet and the eating of his parents. Then he hid from others and ate for around 2000 years when Uncle Hastur arrived and took some of the family to another plane. They ultimately arrived in this plane, and were talking and finding places like Carcosa and such before Cthulhu arrived on Earth, set up a nice little empire, and waged war against these dim Old Ones that arrived with their 5 sided heads, and then eventually was forced to move, and then fell underwater and has just this little island left of R’lyeh, but he’ll rise some day, and reestablish his domain.


Review of “I, Cthulhu”

As a reminder, all reviews are spoiler free, save for the first few paragraphs or page.


Anyways, I was hoping for a more, serious, story. It’s a Cthulhu Mythos parody. Cthulhu is telepathically speaking with his minion Whateley, about his history, his time on the planet, and more. It’s delivered in a manner of frank way, using a variety of common modern Earth slang, and then has Cthulhu telling jokes and such.

Clearly, it’s not what you think. It’s pretty quick as a read, and the core concept is obviously as well. Overall, it’s hard ot rank, so I’m giving it 3 stars only, sorry Gaiman! But it’s tonally odd at times, and while it tries to be funny, I never laughed, and I prefer a Kim Newman sense of humor I suppose.

[Abe Sargent]

Next is Pickman’s Modem, by Lawrence Watt-Evans, published in 1992 in Isaac Asimov’s Science Fiction Magazine.



6 pages long, very quick read, and I can't find it online. Sorry.


So let’s talk about Lawrence Watt-Evans first. LWE is one of my pet authors. By that I mean that he’s someone for whom I have an affection and follow his stuff, even though he’s not a guy I’d put up there as one of the best writers of his era, or top of his craft.

He tends to have dark humor all over his works, and you can see that here in this story as well. He also has won some modest awards, like a Hugo for best Science Fiction short story in 1988 for Why I Left Harry’s All-Night Hamburger Stand, a story about a dive-bar in Sutton , WV that is the only place in every alternate earth, and many ships, aliens, and people from different worlds come there to eat. It was nominated for a Nebula award as well. S oit’s not like he’s never done nothing.

Anyways, he loves lesser known non-heroic “heroes” like a wizard apprentice who only knows one spell when his master died (he can set something that’s flammable on fire) in With a Single Spell or stuff like that. One of his early fantasy series, leading with the Lure of the Basilisk, was very, very formative on me, particularly the 2nd – 4th books of the series, and definitely the 2nd book the most – The Seven Altars of Dusarra. Again, Watt-Evans has a career as a writer I’d kill for, and you probably never even heard o him, you know? He went to Princeton, sold stories as soon as he sent them out, and more. He ran the Horror Writers Association for a while, he was one of the heads of the Sci Fi Writers of America, ad such. He was one of the first to write serials online for fans who paid for them direct, and began that in 2005. He’s published 46 novels, including two Star Trek ones, and Spider Man and Predator stuff. More than 100 short stories. So he’s not some chump. And I certainly enjoy him, although, again, he’s not anyone I would toss out there as this definitive writer of his time or others.

Anyways, that’s Watt-Evans

[Abe Sargent]

Synopsis of “Pickman’s Modem”


A long time contributor, Pickman, is back on the internet after being away for a while. His modem has died and he had to get a new one. After getting another one second hand, the Miskatonic Data Systems one, he logs back on, and in perfect English (very much not his forte) welcomes back to the forum he haunts.

A day later, an imagined slight by another person from Kansas City about something in his welcome back post is viewed as anti-Mid West. He lays into Pickman, and a flamewar begins. Pickman’s attacks are perfect English and extremely gross, vile, and beyond the norm. After a while the flamewar grows, and the inventive goes to a whole new level.

Not sure what happened, our narrator heads to Pickman;s house ot meet up. Pickman shows him the used modem he got, and that the messages and such the modem showed him showed his flamewar opponents were misquoting him and such. After exploration, they realize that the Modem is cleaning up his English. So he decides to try his hand at writing, his posts becoming more and more florid and archaic, and then he is never heard from again, save for one e-mail to the narrator about how he turned off the modem and is sending a quick e-mail about it, and the modem is still on, and connecting to someone, and then the message cuts off. There is a fire in the apartment and Pickman never heard from again.

[Abe Sargent]

Review of “Pickman’s Modem”

This is a short piece, just six pages in my collection. It’s the sort of quick piece you use to bulk up a collection, and it’s by a guy who’s got a reputation for this stuff.

this story is inspired by a non-Mythos story by Lovecraft called “Pickman’s Model” . I won’t spoil that for you, in case you ever want to read it. (It’s good too). But this work certainly is in the Mythos, with the light elements in the Modem’s details. And that’s it. You wouldn’t expect too much in here, right? Right!

Now due to my predilection for LWE, I need to make sure that I honestly evaluate this short. It’s good, moody, funny in places, and solid story. But it’s framed in an era when modems and phone connections will obviously evoke some time-laced stuff. But that’s how fiction works. Any fiction using technology of the day looks dated later. From the antiquated views of Antarctica from Lovecraft’s At the Mountains of Madness (despite his massive research) through the telegram arriving too late in The Salem Horror to matter. Obviously, a text from your iPhone would arrive in plenty of time. But still, given that, I think it’s a solid quick piece.

I give it 3 stars out of 5. But I do like the moodiness. This is a good example of a Gen 4 story that basically ignores the other stuff, and has light elements from the original Master himself.

[Abe Sargent]

Alright everyone, it's time.


Time for the Z

Roger Zelazny. One of the greatest writers of fantasy. Winner of many awards. Nebula. Hugo. A bit of a legend himself. The Z.


In 1986 he wrote the novella, "24 views from Mt. Fuji, by Hokusai". It won the Hugo.

If you can find it somewhere, you need to. This is a major work of art. It's beyond the normal stuff, and I'm going to give you a hint, that's it's going to get 5 stars in a review from me, right up front. I's around 60 pages in one of my collections.

The Z regualrly experimented with form of the stories, and pushed teh boundaries of what was expected and accepable. He is a discovery and a devotee of Michael Moorcock.

And this is amn anazing work.

I know people who think his magnum opus, the Chronicles of Amber, is overated or without a lot of action, but who just love this. This is just mythic. It's good good.

Orginally published in Isaac Asimov's Science Fiction Magazine, and was nominated for a Nebula, and lost, and won the Hugo., It's also in Frost and Fire, The New Hugo Winners, Volume II, Urania #1199, The Last Defender of Camelot, and Cthulhu 2000.

Find a library. Get it. Read it. Love it.


Oh, and while you are looking for Zelany's stuff, do yourself a favor and pick up "A Night in the Lonesome October", his last novel, published in 1993. It's his best, my favorite, and one of my favorite novels by anyone ever. It's set in the Mythos, and I'll tell you now, that the main character is Jack the Ripper's dog. Grab it. Love it. Thank me later.

[Groundhog]

I'm a big Lovecraft fan but this is the first time I've seen this thread... looks like I've got about a decade's worth of posts to catch up on. :D

I don't believe I've ever read any non-Lovecraft fiction actually set within his "universe" - just stuff heavily influenced by it. I saw a book titled Lovecraft Country on the shelves by Matt Ruff that seems to have good reviews - if I could buy the ebook down here in Australia I would've read it by now.

[Abe Sargent]

That doesn't sound too bad, just a decade! :)

I'd recommend just doing A Study in Emerald as your first non-Lovecraft Mythos work. Skip my synopsis, check i out online on Gaimans homepage, and then read it and enjoy.

Then you can head back and do anything else. Gen 1 stuff like Howard, Smith, or Long, or later stuff, whatever your heart wants, you know?



Or nothing at all. There's no pressure here. (Until you read A Study in Emerald :) )

[Groundhog]

I'll track it down tonight, I'm a big fan of Gaiman too, especially the first couple of volumes of Sandman. In hindsight, I can definitely see some of the Lovecraft influence there.

[Abe Sargent]

Synopsis of “24 Views of Mt. Fuji, by Hokusai”

This Novella is around 50 pages in my oversized collection, and would be larger in a normal sized world by far. Therefore I’ll be briefer with this review that with others due to the length.

Our heroine, Mari has arrived in Japan to do one final service for one Kit, who has recently died. She has a book of 24 of the 48 views of Mt. Fuji, which she adores, and she’ll be going from one place to another in these views, comparing them to the real life scene, and she imagines that the spirit of dead Hokusai is her companion for this quest. Her goal is to reach the mountain, where she will complete that final task she has do do for kit. Each View is listed as a sort of quick little page or 4 and has one story, day, or section.

As the story progresses, we find out more and more about her and her world. She is attacked by electric creations that are made from electronic devices, and she has to fend them off. She deals with personal attacks as well as her own body, racked with a deadly disease.

Using the Views as a spiritual Rorschach, we find out that she was married to Kit, and he was obsessed with living forever, and translated himself to the internet and died physically. He took her there as well, but she demanded her return because she was pregnant (which he never knew). He has become unhinged from any form of conscience, so she moves off the grid, raises her daughter, and trains for the day she’ll be needed.

After gathering power and learning how to make those constructs, she notices that he has been using his powers behind the stage to push things into the proper angles and avenues for control. She has created a weapon that should take him out, and she leaves her daughter and flies to Japan.

Eventually she passes an era with a legend of monks that gave up Shinto for worshipping dark forces in R’yleh, and the island sank beneath the seas. Soon a pair of monks of unknown and uncertain features will begin to track her.

At the end, she will find the two monks attack her, and they have webbed hands (reminiscent of the Deep Ones). She takes them out, and then Kit sees her, jumps out from his various electric possessions to enter her and begin to transform her to energy so she can enter the internet, just like before. As he dies, she drops her staff, with the circuitry, and it cuts off the power from others and keeps them from connecting. Kit is trapped in her body, albeit only temporarily until something electronic arrives. Then she commits suicide in a Japanese tradition in order to ensure that Kit will die with her. And she is most sad that she failed to make the 24th and final view of Hokusai in her abbreviated collection

[Abe Sargent]

Review of “24 Views of Mt. Fuji, by Hokusai”


This is, without a doubt, the single most unusual Cthulhu Mythos story I’ve ever encountered. For those unaware, Roger Zelazny is a highly respected writer who won a variety of awards for fantasy and sci fi. He’s a big name, and was a progeny and mentee of Michael Moorcock in the 60s when Moorcock published a British New Wave Sci Fi book and created a new form of Sci Fi that abandoned a lot of the traditional accoutrements of the genre.

Roger has a lot of famous works, but one of the things he is best known for is mythology. This guy studied other mythologies with a great zeal that just ignites much of his work. And he’ll set a story in the right mythology based on the needs of the story. He’ll write stuff in Chinese, Greek, Hindu, Egyptian, whatever. He gets it. And while not all works are suffused with a mythic feel, most of the ones I’ve read certainly are.

So he does not use the Cthulhu Mythos elements just off the cuff. This is not some story of maiden sacrifices. And the only Mythos elements in here are very light, and in places, are inferred. But they are here. Why?

Because he had to. The story required it. And there are times, not many, where he’ll do it again. He’ll embrace the Mythos as a needed part of the story he is telling. Because he is a craftsman.

Now Zelazny is never known as the best wordsmith, but he gets more and more on point as he ages, and this story even has lines, paragraphs, and concepts that just deliver.

This is unique. It’s award winning. This is one of the best written stories we’ve read, on of the most interesting, and totally different than anything that came before.

And yes, I;m giving it a 5 out of 5. Enjoy!

[Abe Sargent]

Alright, let’s do Kim Newman Next:

How about the short quick story first, right after the novella of Roger’s?

A quick 6 page short, written in the early 90s, for a small magazine, and then published elsewhere in a few places. Here is, “A Quarter to Three”

The entire story is on Google Books:

Shadows Over Innsmouth - Google Books (https://books.google.com/books?id=hVU4CgAAQBAJ&pg=PT363&lpg=PT363&dq=kim+newman+%22a+quarter+to+three%22&source=bl&ots=-aA5FbpBr_&sig=eEgMUQGuFKSe3MwH6LBbT9_JRZ8&hl=en&sa=X&ved=0ahUKEwiBuIahmOPNAhXB5YMKHe0OAT4Q6AEIJzAC#v=onepage&q=kim%20newman%20%22a%20quarter%20to%20three%22&f=false)

[Abe Sargent]

So let's talk a little of Kim Newman for those who don't know him. He's published a variety of works out in the UK for a while, including the Anno Dracula series which is very popular. I haven't read all of his works, but there is one novel of particular note.

Life's Lottery. It's a choose your own adventure novel for adults that's dark, somber, and philosophical. At the first choice, you can choose free will or destiny, and then go down a variety of choices down those paths. if you choose otherwise, you can read the book straight from beginning to end, and skip the choices, and you'll get another poltline. It's just so well written and conceived.

So I'd recommend Life's Lottery to anyone.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Life%27s_Lottery

[Abe Sargent]

Synopsis of “A Quarter to Three”


It’s quiet here in the fish food joint that’s open all night here in the ‘Mouth. There’s no one here at Cap’n Cod’s 24 Hour Diner. The narrator is working, and reading Moby Dick for his test tomorrow. Then he looks up and a pregnant young lady had walked in and sat down. She’s egregiously angry at the monster growing in her belly, and the end of any future she’ll have.

The narrator feeds her and gives her some alcohol under the table (illegally) since it’ll go strait to her child. Then the father walks in, half amphibian, wabbles to the table, and orders some fish. And she moves over to him, and sits beside him, and then orders another drink for her baby and one for her companion.

[Abe Sargent]

Review of “A Quarter to Three”


Hey look, you just need to go into this story knowing what Kim Newman does. He’s a serious dark humor kind of guy. And there are no laughs here for me, but some groans and smiles and stuff certainly follows. That’s who he is.

The story starts with you thinking one thing, and then it slides to something else entirely, which is suitably fun, moody, interesting, and again, that’s a flash of Newman-esque writing.

So having said that, there are a few lines I really like, and the concept is good enough to warrant a 3.5 star rating from me.

But get ready…


The Big Fish is next

[Abe Sargent]

Synopsis of “The Big Fish”

Set in World War II right after the bombing of Pearl Harbor on the west coast in CA, our detective of the noir persuasion. He’s got a strong sense of irony, and will note the irony of the good and productive Japanese being taken away while Italian mob bosses are tearing into people and living in mansions.

Anyways, he has just been hired by a powerful movie starlet, Ms. Janey Wilde, a starlet in the movies, her big name producer//mobbie Mr Brunette, and his even bigger name mobbie Mr Pastore. She hired the detective to find Brunette, who hadn’t been seen in a while especially after pushing her out for a younger up-and-coming starlet named Ms. Janice Marsh.

He arrives at an old building of Pastores, and eventually finds him drowned, dead, in a bunch of water that stinks of old fish with some suspicious elements. Then a trio of people come in, hold him at gunpoint and take in the scene. A French woman, British man, and USA man introduces themselves, after verifying his identity, as members of high level secret services, such as the FBI, investigating the case. They chose not to kill the detective, but pay him to get him off the case.

He returns, reports his findings to Ms .Wilde, and agrees to continue to find Mr. Brunette, after finding out that she had, hush hush, born his baby. Brunette took the baby, and she thinks something awful is happening. She had mentioned a mysterious cult, named the Mysterious Order of Dagon. He researches it, and finds out that it has two headquarters, one here in Bay City and the other in Innsmouth, and that’s its leader is Janice Marsh, the decent of the Cap’n Marsh who founded it.

He heads to its headquarters, has an odd conversation with Marsh where she kisses him for a while, and then he gets warned off the case by various police and others. He finds out that Mr. Brunette is on his own floating casino, and heads over on a motorboat.

He ties it up, looks around, finds Brunette have crazy and talking about blowing up their place, and suddenly these half fish people begin to emerge from the water on the boat. He finds Ms Marsh here as well, with the baby, who is talking, and is apparently not to be sacrificed or anything like Janey Wilde feared, but instead is the next generation’s incarnation of Cap’n Marsh.

After some gunplay, and a major attack on the vessel by the military, they head out. He rescues the baby, is pulled in by the agents and such ,and they defeated the Deep Ones for a time, just off off the reef in Innsmouth back in the 20s. The baby is secured, and they discuss that they knew what happened to it, and it’ll be fine.

[Abe Sargent]

Review of “The Big Fish”

It’s important to know up front what the genre of this piece is. This is a detective film noir style. It’s set in the 40s, and Newman is at his best here. His details of the piece are amazing, and moreover, he doesn’t explain anything. For example, when talking about the details of an actress in a movie serial, the narrator doesn’t think to explain what that is. He just gives a few bits of information and moves on. But that genre of visual media died out in the 50s, and hasn’t been around sense. Another is that one actress followed Crabbe to Hollywood. Well, if you don’t know who Buster Crabbe is, then that is just a quick in and out line you may not get. If you do, it fleshes out the story. So I like that Newman researched this hard, or just knew about the era already, and he just nails it.

Another is that the lines and sentences in her are just downright graet at times. Here’s just one example.

“She’d hired me for five days in advance, a good thing since I’m unduly reliant on eating, drinking, and other expensive diversions of the monied and idle”

The story just reeks of flavor, detail, research, and characters. They are all very well fleshed from Shadow over Innsmouth, and the story shows it. In fact, there is an obviously continuation in a lot of places.

This story is a lot better than you might think. Especially if you’ve not really encountered Kim Newman before. Again, it has his dark humor in full display, although often more subtly than “A Quarter to Three”. Also, that piece used music and lyrics to set the various tone of what was happening, and this one does as well, although a little loosely.

Anyways, due to the sheer atmosphere, drama, fun, and details, this story gets a very, very strong 4.0 stars from me out of 5 and I put it on a level better than some Lovecraft stories (although it’s like a good 60 years later being written, so there’ that too)

Alright, now let’s leave behind all things British for a bit.


How about Stephen King instead?


Let’s start with “Jerusalem’s Lot!”

[Abe Sargent]

Synopsis of “Jerusalem’s Lot”

Set in 1850, this story is told by a variety of letters by the new owner of an old house in Maine, Charles Boone, who inherited the house, and goes with his manservant Calvin, out in Chapelwaite Mansion, near Preacher’s Corner, a small town, and little farther away from an abandoned town called Jerusalem’s Lot.

The mansion has a ton of character, and lots of old oddities. As they settle and try to find people to help, they refuse unless it’s the middle of the day. There are odd sounds from the walls at night with Charles puts down to rat.s One older woman who’s worked there for three generations of Boones onc a day tells about how it’s a bad house, and lots of bad thing happen to folks who live here. She also mentions a variety of legends.

That night Calvin hears a crazy sound behind the walls and starts looking for secret doors or passages that would explain it. He finds a small room behind a bookcase that they didn’t know about before, and brings Charles Boone to the room. They find an old map of Jerusalem’s Lot, from decades ago, with the name “The Worm That Doth Corrupt” over the church on the map.

The next day they head to the small town, and arrive at noon. They explore, and find out that the town was abandoned long ago ,but unlike other places that are rumored to be haunted, this one has never been vandalized. It has a lot of stuff left behind, and nothing disturbed, and many expernsive items are left. The town has a old smell of rot and mold.

They arrive at the chapel and step in. Inside is a foul group of art, the smell of the rotting tomb, golden cross upside down, and an old manuscript on the lectern called “De Vermis Mysteriis” or Mysteries of the Worm. Boone takes it, and then a bunch of noise begins, and they flee the town.

The people in the village begin to fear and push back from Boone. Crazy sings have happened in the last week. One person gave birth to a child with no eyes, and other signs have occurred. The old lady who works in his mansion pleads for him to move away out of Chapelwaite. The book they found is confirmed to be his ancestors’ who built the mansion. Calvin opens the lock and the book is ready to be deciphered.

Boone begins to be physically disturbed by the house and the book and everything. He thinks he sees a ghost of one of the dead Boones who hanged himself in the basement. Blood is calling to blood, and Charles can’t leave the manse now. Calvin finds the code for the book while cleaning another bedroom far away in Chapelwaite. He checks it out himself first, to make sure that there is nothing bad in it. An earlier ancestor founded a nasty cult of inbred women in the town of Jerusalem;s Lot long ago. He begins to get a full history of what happened back in 1789.

They head back out to JL to inspect it and to head to the church. They find it badly disheveled form before, with broken pews and floorboards and such. They find a sacrifice of a goat back here, and blood in a few places. Pulling out De Vermiis, our Boone begins to see and feel the ghosts of his family that were here, and then blood calls to blood and chants and intones things from the book. After a bit, Calvin knocks him around, he he regains his senses . He ignites the book, the pulit bursts, and great giant worm below is attacking, just one part of the great creature he was about to summon. It swallows Calvin and then he sees someone come into the church. It’s the original flounder and his ancestor, who founded it in 1714, long ago, still alive. Seeing as he is the last of the Boones, he commits suicde

Later a descendant from another line he didn’t know existed inherits the house in 1971, and reads the letters, chuckles at it. As the church they found never had the damage described there. Only the rats in teh walls are similar.

[Abe Sargent]

Review of “Jerusalem’s Lot”


This is a very Mythos-ish story. New England. Aspects of the Mythos. Inherited mansion. And a lot more that will be revealed later. (No spoilers in my reviews)

This short story is a prelude to the novel ‘Salem’s Lot, that he published back in 1975. ‘Salem’s Lot is not in the Mythos (I don’t think, maybe there’s a random mention here or there, but I don’t recall). This short story was written first in college, but not published until post-novel. There’s another short story set here as well.

Anyways, the various elements are here in full scope. This is a story that doesn’t really get outside of the basic concepts of the Mythos story much. So the only interesting things are in King’s style. But this is early King. So it’s a fun diversion, but this isn;t Gaiman or Newman or Zelazny. Three stars.

Also, there is an obvious question to ask of King’s works due to this story. It’s also a question we asked of RE Howard’s Conan and such. Here is is:


Take Conan. His time is set in the past on Earth. And there are nations and people that exist during the era of Conan or Kull. Some of those are mentioned by Lovecraft himself as the history of the world in his own Mythos stories. As are Clark Ashton’s Smith’s stuff, and vice versa. So you have, in the mythos, a connect with the world of Conan and the world of Mythos. Therefore, loosely, every Conan story is in the Mythos (certainly those originally written by Howard can be saidof)

Remember the whole point is that everyone is sharing everything

So now here’s the thing. Jerusalem;s Lot is in this story, ‘Salem;s Lot, and other stories. It’s mentioned in other King works and is a part of his fictional Maine area. It’s his Miskatonic River and University and his Arkham, Massachusetts. So if all of those stories take place in the same universe and place as this one, with the various accoutrements of the Mythos and everything, then King’s stuff, in this area at least, certainly could be called loosely Mythos, just like Conan. That’s how it goes.

[Abe Sargent]

Next let’s do his “Crouch End”

This was written in 1980 as part of a Lovecraft Anthology. King reprinted in some of his stuff later as well. Now this will be fun, because I’ve never read it before. So we can sort of read it together if you wish.








In my anthology, about 50 pages, took around 45 minutes to read.

[Abe Sargent]

Synopsis of “Crouch End”

After a woman leaves the local police station in Crouch End, a suburb of London, the two interviewing officers, the older Vetter and the younger Farnham are discussing the oddity of the case. The young man, Farnham, thinks she is lying ir deceived, and the older one, Vetter, discusses some odder cases in Crouch End that have gone back a while, and suggest that Vetter check out older open cases for examples.

They flashback to the woman’s story, Doris, and her husband Lonnie. Doris and Lonnie take a taxi cab to Crouch End, where they are trying to meet up for dinner with a business associate of Lonnie’s. They get lost and call from a phone booth, and after they do, the taxi had pulled away and left them . They start to walk, as a pair of local children chide them and make fun of them as American tourists.

After a while, they begin to struggle to suss out where they are, and then there is a maoing from behind a giant, closed, hedge. Lonnie pushes himself through the hedge, and after a moment, Doris hears him shouting, screaming, and then fleeing. He pushes himself back out of the hedge, and he’s disheveled, and something is on his jacket. They flee down the street

They keep fleeing, as as they do, things get odder. He tosses aside his coat, he begins to look older, they refuse to talk, and even the stars begin to feel like others. They arrive at an overpass, and head under, and arm grabs her shoulder as they cross under he disappears, and as she tires to find her location, various names and words are spoken, and she’s accosted by the two children who imply that she and her husband met a powerful ancient power, and they are at another place. After a bit of seeing elements like carved names such as Nyarlathotep and R’lyaeh and trying to returned, she finds street lights, cars, and the main thoughoughfare in Crouch End.



She finds the local police station, and then arrives to tell her story, and then heads back ot their hotel o meet with her children. Meanwhile Officer Farnham, totally unbelieving, steps out looking for others and is lost that night as well. Neither Lonnie nor Farnham are ever heard from again, and a few months later, Vetter takes early retirement, and then dies from a heart attack while Doris goes crazy, and spends a year in an insane asylum before emerging a bit better.

[Abe Sargent]

Review of “Crouch End”


I like Crouch End better than Jerusalem’s Lot. It has a lot to offer. You have a moddy setting outside of the norm, you are taking place in streets in a major city, and there’s no massive accoutrements of the Mythos.

And yet, the elements are there, clearly and obviously. But this is a nice, mature, Generation 4 story. It has the important stuff – that sense of atmosphere, disdainment, and an odd combination of unreality, horror, and a bit of wonder as well. Here, I’ll quote you a quick example. This is, technically, a spoiler, so I’m putting it in tags:

“The buildings leaned. The stars were out, but they were not her stars, the ones she had wished on as a girl or courted under as a young woman. These were crazed stars in lunatic constellations.”



That’s a good line at the end there.

Anyways, you get the idea. Fully Mythos in the important ways, and yet also in new places and territory and not in the previous overly-evocative style of Jerusalem’s Lot.

So I’m trying to figure out if its 3.5 stars or a full 4. I do like it. Hmmm. How about giving this a solid 3.5 stars. It’s close to four, but I save 4 and above for true strong stuff, and this feels short of that mark a bit

[Abe Sargent]

Ramsey Campbell Time!


Who is Ramsey Campbell?

This guy was obsessed with good, quality, fiction, and horror, in the Lovecraft ouvre, and he is arguably the best of the Generation 3 writers. He devoured works at a young age. By age 8 he read The Colour out of Space in a Sci Fi anthology, and by 12 he had read all of the works of Arther Machen, Algernon Blackwood, most of Poe, and such. He found two more Lovecraft stories in a horror anthology – The Dunwich Horror and The Rats in the Walls. And he was hooked. Over the next few years he wrote a ton of juvenilia and aborted some novels that were deep. Then at the ge of 15 he wrote and submitted a short story to Arkham House in the Mythos, called The Church on High Street. August Derleth bought it, published it in the next Arkham House collection, and began to mentor and tutor Campbell on writing and style and such.

For the next decade, Campbell wrote short stories, collections of them, and more. His singular work in 1969 called “Cold Print” was one of the best works he does, and sort of signifies his transition. He moves to a full time horror writer, disowns his Lovecraft and Mythos works for a while as he embraces his own, mature voice, and then publishes a ton of novels. More and more he becomes a guy with a sense of awe and horror, much like Blackwood and Machen, and less like Lovecraft.

By today, at the age of 70, Campbell has penned 38 novels, hundreds of short stories, still has written the occasional Mythos short story for collections here and there, collected and edited several Lovecraft anthologies, as well as others, and has won an epic ton of horror awards, and a Lifetime Fantasy one in 2015. He had a prolific rate of novel production in the 80s and 90s. His works are extremely popular in Britain, and he just dominates the charts and horror stuff there. He is, basically, the British Stephen King, if that makes sense. Only a better writer. (No disrespect to King, we’ve read some of his stuff here. But Ramsey has polished a very gifted style of writing. Take a novel like Midnight Sun and it’s just so much better. )

In my opinion, Campbell is the best of the widely known modern and living horror authors. Now I think there are some lesser known talent (Thomas Ligotti) that you could argue is better. Maybe, if he’s your style, Poppy Z. Brite. (He’s not mine, but I hear you if you like him) But that’s about it.


So let’s go ahead and start with his first short story, “The Church in High Street” written when he was 15. Despite that, it’s a frequently anthologized story. Written in 1961, and published in 62, I have this in multiple anthologies I own.

[Abe Sargent]

Synopsis of “The Church in High Street”


Arriving at the village of Temphill to find out what happened to his friend, Richard Dodd arrives at a dilapidated broken down town. Letters stopped weeks ago, and worried ihe arrives. He finds his friend’s house with the door open, cobwebs across the doorway, and no one in sight.

He talks to a neighbor first, who tells him that his friend is gone to another world and was taken by them. The church in high street is connected to another temple and that temple to another world’s. His friend saw it, went into the church, was marked by them, and then was taken.

Richard Dodd thinks the man crazy, and enters the house of his friend. After a bit he finds his friend’s research into a deep pre-man myth of creatures and such that settled from afar to Earth to take it as it’s own, and of dark and eldritch powers. He finds a link to the church, and that some still believe this happens. Dodd follows his friend to the Church to see if he can find him

After pushing aside some pews, he finds a way down, and grabs his flashlight from the car and begins to head down. Countless time passes, and he arrives through some arches at a huge tomb, cyclopean in size, with various charnel areas of corpses, and a variety of odd architecture. As he watches, a ritual begins, ends, and a large doorway to another world opens up, and 13 gelatinous creatures leap across the void and arrive in that large room. One moves near him, and he cries out and passes out.

He awakens and dashes up the stairs, and tries to get out, but whenever he tries to leave by a road, he winds up back at the church. A doctor passing through the town hits him in a panic and takes him to a nearby hospital. He is diagnosed as hallucinogenic. He feels connected and is drawn to return. He asked to be placed in jail or prison, but they refuse to. So he decides to take things into his own hands. Better death than what awaits him.

[Abe Sargent]

Review of “The Church in High Street”

Welcome to Severn Valley, one of the most detailed fictional areas in the Mythos, created and inhabited by the characters and concepts of Ramsey Campbell. Temphill, the location of the setting here in his first story, is one of many towns, villages, and creepy places here in the area, near the border between Wales and England. The River Severn is an actual river, but he places fictional locations along it.

Derleth told him to move the setting of this story out of New England, so he did. Welcome to Gloucestershire!

This is a very derivative tale. All of the elements are previous elements of the Mythos. Tiny little town, check. Rundown church, check. MANY OTHER THINGS I can’t tell you due to spoilers, check, check, and check. But the story does have an energy and verve . An innocence. So I give the guy 2.5 out of 5 stars.



And now let’s head to the story that shows his growth, “Cold Print”. He’s written lots of stories in between by the way.

[Abe Sargent]

Synopsis of “Cold Print”

The bibliophile Sam Strutt arrives in the cold snowy day of the big city ,and is looking for more books that meet his interest. He arrives at another shop, only to find that they don’t have the special books he likes. He heads out to another. As he leaves, a tramp who was looking at the book he had with him, The Caning-Master by Hector Q from Ultimate Press, is something the tramp recognizes. There’s a book store that sells other books like those, and he lists Adam and Evan as one title and Take Me How You Like as another. They head out into the snow, and Sam stops to give the tramp some beer.

They arrive at the bookstore, hidden away in a back alley. After the store initially looks unfulfilling, there is a clerk who pulls out a book he thinks that Sam will like – The Secret Life of Wackford Squeers. He agrees, and tries to pay, is told to pay when he comes back, but forces the man to take the 2 pound and heads out.

He arrives home to find that his landlady has put two copies of his books, Miss Whippe, Old Style Governess inside of Prefects and Fags, with the one straddling the other. He unwraps the book he has and relaxes. He decides to head back tomorrow for some more Ultimate Press works, since he’ll need more for the upcoming holidays.

He arrives, it’s closed, and the actual bookseller is here, and lets him in after he introduces himself. After some talk, he pulls down an ancient manuscript of the Revelations of Glaaki. Sam reads a few pages pointed out to him and they are about a high priest needed for an entity called Y’golonac. The bookseller and him talk for a while, and he’s not interested in the rare book. The bookseller tells him that he is offering him the role of the High Preist, and that if he refuses, he will be killed. He refused, and after a moment, threatens to burn the Revelations, still in his hand. He does so, the script ignites.

Angered, and without anything to keep him away, the bookseller moves on him, grabs him with his hands, opens the mouths on those hand, and then begins to feed.

[Abe Sargent]

Review of “Cold Print”

This is a better story for a bunch of reasons. Firstly, although clearly with Mythos elements attached, it’s different. It’s set in a modern day city, in a few locations but mainly a bookshop. Not some quiet den, not some disquieting tunnel found beneath that den, not some long lost cultic site or temple/church/shrine, etc. None of the typical areas, This is a modern city.

Secondly, the main character is gay. It’s never mentioned outright, and not a major part of the script, but it’s there. If you read it and didn’t see it, head back to my synopsis, because I included the details of a lot of minor plot points but skipped some major ones. Those very, very minor ones are points of homosexuality.

Thirdly, and this is very important – Ramsey Campbell has learned a very important lesson as a writer. Showing, not telling. Not only is this an issue with his own first story, but it’s a problem in the Mythos generally, with his heavy fascination for all things adjective. Homosexuality is one. He never states that the character is gay. You figure it out. Another is the first page. You see him on a bus on a cold day. He takes a book out of the plastic wrap that he uses to protect it, and then reads it without touching it, using the bookmark to follow. But maybe that’s just one book or because its snow or it’s a sentimental book? So then when he steps off the bus and sees a magazine press, with soft cover novels in a section that’s not quite closed, and a bit of snow is heading in and dusting the covers, he makes sure he heads up and tells the person about it. When the seller doesn’t seem to care, he gets rather snarky. Ramsey Campbell shows you that Sam is a lover of books and can’t allow people to damage them. He doesn’t tell.

The more adult, fleshed out, different, mature story definitely shows. When you read Gen 2 stories, you’ll see that they tend to really embrace the Mythos elements tightly. In Gen 3 you have that, but you also see folks sort of breaking out of that mold, although it’s until Gen 4 that this really happens.

So Church in High Street is sort of like a Gen 2 story, coming in the early part of 3, and this one is fully ensconced in the Gen 3 era of the Mythos. It’s a better story. 3.5 stars.


Two years later, after Church was published and at the age of 18, Campbell publishes a collection of Lovecraft stories in the same vein, set in the Severn Valley. I thought about doing a few of those tales, and we still could, but they are roughly of the same quality and value as many others here. So I’m heading out for now, and what I may do is return to Campbell later for stories later in his life.

[Abe Sargent]

How about Alan Dean Foster – Did you know that his


“Some Notes Concerning a Green Box,” 1971 –

This is the first professional “story” Foster sold. In fact, it’s not even a real story. He read and really liked some Lovecraft’s Cthulhu works the previous day. The next day, as a joke, he wrote this letter and sent it to August Derleth. Derleth knew a good thing when he saw it, and Foster was shocked when that joke turned into an actual sale.

So let’s look at the first story penned by Foster, a guy who goes on to have a healthy career writing sci fi and fantasy.

It's a short short story, so I'll run the thing today.

[Abe Sargent]

Synopsis of “Some Notes Concerning a Green Box”


A letter is written by a grad student about a green box that captured his fancy in the lower level of the library. He heads over to it and three is a lock to it. He;s in an area only accessible by grad students and prof.s The lock is not secured, and he opens it, and finds there to be letters, pictures, and more in here. As it is a bit related to his own work, he moves to begin copying it, but is interrupted by a librarian before he does too much. They take the stuff from him, and he lies about the copies.

In the copied stuff are some letters back and forth, experts in the fields of archeology and anthropology. They decided to go an research sabbatical together to Easter Island and near by. They were on an island by Easter Island, and returned with a bunch of rare and valuable items they found. They quit their jobs as faculty, and then left for another expedition, sending back letters.

They are looking for something in the water south of Easter Island, where nothing could be. They don’t seem to find it. They are looking for something from various sources are mentioned, including the name Cthulhu. They are never heard from again.

Our grad has done some investigations. He checked various newspapers and with local authorities. He has found a story that an earthquake in Chile was caused by one of the Professors and the mountain by him got up, walked over, and stepped on him, killing him. Another story is of their boat taking a lot of damage and needing highly unusual repairs. He includes all of the copies, and everything he found, in this letter. And he’s moving because he feels he is being stalked by someone.

[Abe Sargent]

Review of “Some Notes Concerning a Green Box”



This is a letter penned from an archeological grad student at a university. It sums up all of the research he did regarding a green box and it’s contents he found. It’s basically a sequel of sorts to Call of Cthulhu. In fact, the author of the letter researches what’s happening by reading that short story. The only major mythos mention is from that story.

Basically, we have a grad student mucking about where he shouldn’t investigating where he shouldn’t. Now this is a really interesting framing device, as the author is just talking about what he found, what he read, what he could research, and more. It’s done matter of factly, much like a professional letter that does precisely what is stated here.

I also get that Alan Dean Foster read The Call of Cthulhu, and pens this letter, where the main character is reading the same story. I get the self-referential stuff. But this is a surprising early Mythos story. Most first Mythos elements tend to be very Mythos heavy, and evoke the highly derivive stuff. But this is light and doesn’t. It’s not written by someone who read a ton of Mythos fiction. And despite the first work, this is more realistic and refined than the first Mythos/first works by others we’ve read, like Kuttner or Bloch or even Campbell. I can see why it sold.

I think part of it simple – this was not written to be a story. It was just written a a fun little letter. Because of that, I think the story is surprisingly free of the accoutrements of stories and such. It’s better than you’d think, and I give it 3 stars.


While on a Foster kick, let’s hit up his “The Horror on the Beach”

Written in the mid 70s.

[Abe Sargent]

Synopsis of “The Horror on the Beach”


Dave and his family purchase a secluded house and set of land next to a beach in Santa Barbara. There are few n neighbors out here. Rumors about the house abound, and it used to be owned by grim merchants and travelers. Dave confronts and finds out about them, and even the real estate agent relents and gives them some info. Then they begin to hear drums out on a peninsula near the harbor each night. Both Dave and his wife imagine that the house is moving in sympathy with the drums and the cultists.

A few nights later, one of their neighbors calls hastily. Their house is under attack. They head out, with the police, and see their neighbor’s house flattened by something that came from the sea. Another neighbor mentions that Cthulhu was involved and is leaving to head back home to Massachusetts. Dave finds an biologist buddy of his from college, Pedro, and tells him everything. Pedro becomes worried, recognizing the name and what is happening.

Later that day their house is attacked while they are there, and they flee to the wine cellar and hide out, and only a sacrificial run by their pet to head outside distracts the attacking creature. Their house is denuded and he flees to Pedro;s. They have seen the creature.

After summoning a military officer from a nearby base as an ally,they head to the peninsula, the cultist sare invoking a ritual, Pedro paints the elder sign on him and heads out, counter-invokes them, but Cthulhu is sort of teleported from his prison, but Pedro works, stops the ritual, the leader of the cultists is killed by Cthulhu, who heads back.

[Abe Sargent]

Review of “The Horror on the Beach”


Meh. This is not nearly as good as Some Notes. Maybe because it was intended to be a Mythos story. We have an old house, with a creepy history, leading to cultists trying to summon everything, and a few pages of one character telling everything that’s happening to another instead of leaving it hidden. Meh.


Heavy handed plots. Rotate the characters. Not really something that moves me. The writing was fine, the pacing was a bit slow and I wanted to get to the good parts, and so forth. Anyways, there you are. Just 2 stars. Sorry!


How about Donald Burleson's "The Eye of Hlu-Hlu" next?

[Abe Sargent]

Synopsis of “The Eye of Hlu-Hlu”


The author, Charles Hutchinson has inherited his grandfather’s estate in New Hampshire. His grandfather was a famous professor of archeology and linguistics who was researching an uber-myth about Hlu-Hlu, or Cthulhu. He discovered that one of the myths that people had, no matter where, was that in the north, in a forest, there was a lingering Eye of Hlu-Hlu, tha was the only physical part of hi. To look at that is to go mad.

After doing research, he found a circle of stones and a similar place in Southern New Hampshire, and he bought an old hous,e some woodland, and the stone circle. Fixed up the house. He dug it up and found something nasty under, and covered it up. He passed away shortly thereafter

After grabbing some spades, Charles heads out, uncovers a stone well that heads down, and secures some stuff and goes down this great well-like structure. 3 hours pass and he hits bottom. Hre’s nothing here but a tight tunnel that you have to crawl through. Two hours of that brings him to a huge giant, vast cavern.

In the cavern he finds a great pool, but it’s not water, but an undulating eyelike structure, that moves and looks at him,and summons these blind, grey, eyeless humans living in the cavern to attack him. He runs from them flees down the tunnel and up the well, co vers up everytig, and move sto New Hampshire. The end

[Abe Sargent]

Review of “The Eye of Hlu-Hlu”


Written in 1993, by a guy who is more of a critic than a writer, he’s written many shorts, but only one novel, and more non-fiction and critiques. Anyways, I chose this story for the Mythos Dynasty collection because I was looking over one of my Mythos collections. I read it in one sitting in an airport, so some of the stories are a bit fuzzy. I mined it for stories for this Dynasty, and the editor, Robert Price, says this of our good writer:

“Don, along with a very few others, is able to invoke a sense of the classic model of weird fiction narrative that we savor in Poe, LeFanu, HPL, Machen, and the other Old Ones.”

So with that recommendation in hand, I felt okay grabbing this story again! Normally I try to cherry pick the better stuff from these anthologies. Big names, different ideas, that sort of thing. But, um, nope. Sorry. That didn’t work here.

I get it I do. But this is 1993 and Gen 4. I don’t expect an inheritance/big tunnel, something dark under it anymore. That was overly derivative when King did it with Jerusalem’s Lot in the 70s, 20 years prior. It’s overdone. Going underground in vast spaces has been done in everything from Ramsey Campbells, Church in High Street when he was 15 to many, many others. So sorry for that.

I give it just 2 stars. Nothing new is here. Nothing. And it’s not even that interesting in the language details, word smithing, etc.

Robert Price lied to us! :0

[Abe Sargent]

I wanted to divert to Gen IV again for an interesting story. Let’s hit up Frank Belknap Long again. Now if you forgot who he was, Long is one of the protégées and inner circle of Lovecraft’s Group of Writers. The Inner Circle is Robert Bloch, Henry Kuttner, Long, Clark Ashton Smith and Robert Howard. All successful long-lived writers. Long wrote the first non-Lovecraft piece in the Mythos with the Hounds of Tindalos in the late twenties.

Long continues a decades long career by continuing to move to new forms of written media as the pulps, where he cut his teeth, begin to fade. As his career came before many awards were given, he was given a lot of lifetime achievement awards instead, and he has a Stoker, World Fantasy, and such. He passes away at the age of 92 in 1994.

This guy published poems, 30 novels, short stories, comics, a play, and more. He wrote comics for Green Lantern, Superman, and Captain Marvel all in the golden age.

Anyway, in 1980 he is asked to contribute to the New Tales of the Cthulhu Mythos, an anthology put together by Ramsey Campbell. I just got it, and I wanted to check it out.

So let’s read “Dark Awakening” and see where Long is as a writer at the end of his career vs his start back in 1920s.

[Abe Sargent]

Synopsis of “Dark Awakening”


After arriving at a New England beach in the summer time, our narrator notices an attractive mother of two, with no man around, and they exchange glances while shes’ caring for her children. He heads over when she asks for help, as she recently cut her hand, and he uses his handkerchief to bandage it.

She is Helen, and her children are John, age 8, and Susan age 6, whom the mother describes as an avid dreamer. They exchange some small talk, and then John suddenly stands up and moves out very quickly, heading to a very dangerous place over deep waters from a damaged and rotten board.

They head out, and John has a listless gaze about him, and won’t respond, staring at something in his hand. The board breaks, he falls down into the surf. After failing to surface, the narrator dives down to find him and does, still calm searching the bottom for something, and pulls him up.


John arrives, and tells he story that he was forced I nto the water, and pulled. He is still tightly clenching some unseen object in his right hand and can’t let go. The narrator opens his hand for him, and inside is an odd amulet with a sort of humanish fish thing in the art. Suddenly he feels the same compulsion, leaps for the sea intoning that the Deep Ones are rising, and more.

The children risk themselves to stop him, and bring him back, and the object was collected by some odd, creepy occultists later, and our narrator is convalescing in an asylum as others talk about what they think happened.

[Abe Sargent]

Review of “Dark Awakening”


This is a very moody piece. It’s not a major atmospheric one, like others we’ve read (Including Shadows Over Innsmouth, which this certainly resembles) but it’s not bad. From the beginning, I was in. I read it in around 15-20 minutes, so it wasn’t overly long.


At the end, I felt there was less that happened than the piece should have had. There’s a lot of dialogue about questions over what has happened and such. Flirting. Guesses. Interrogations. It seems to take up a lot of the story. But it’s also totally devoid of all of the typical (by this time) flaws of a Mythos story as well. Only New England beaches remain. No caves, no sacrifices, no otherworldly objects, no moldering tomes, and such. There are only two Mythos elements here – the object and what it was, and the end of the guesses of what might have happened. And frankly, you could have cut that guess out.

Anyways, the story works, the writing is solid, and the narrator suitably interesting. My own guess as to what was happening didn’t happen. Which was good. So I’m giving It a solid 3.5 stars. Slightly better than the Hounds of Tindalos, but not the best work by far. I think Tindalos had a better idea, but this was better written. (I also think Hounds has a bit of timelessness than this story lacks.)

[Abe Sargent]

I think it’d be cool to head back to the Gen 1 and pick up another story I’ve never read by someone, and then see how I like it.

Say hello to Manly Wade Wellman, arguably the coolest name in writing history. Manly Wade Wellman in a big name in the pulps, and was the major force to join the Weird Tales cast of writers as others left, like HPO Lovecraft and Robert Howard. He was a prolific writer with fantasy, sci fi, horror, and other genres to his credit. He wrote comics in the 40s, and was the first writer for the CaptaiN marvel Adventures comic out at Fawcett, the first solo series starting the 40s best selling and most iconic superhero. Manly is also in the famous Appendix N, in the first Dungeon Master’s Guide, of people and stories that Gygax felt were heavily influential on the game and the genre.

Manly Wade Wellman is incredibly interesting. Born in Mozambique as the son of an army doctor, and was an adopted son, for a time, of a local powerful chief. Part American Indian. Star professional football player, then a law degree from Colombia Law. Expert folklorist. This guy’s life was a pulp hero!

Anyways, he was another of the cadre of folks who wrote to Lovecraft, although not as many letters or as prolifically as others did. I recently found out that he penned a couple of short stories in the Mythos in the late 30s, one as an homage to Lovecraft after he had died. I think it’d be fun to read it!

And it’s online as well. So let’s start with

“The Terrible Parchment”, 1937, to the memory of HP Lovecraft


LINK:

https://en.wikisource.org/wiki/The_Terrible_Parchment

[Abe Sargent]

Synopsis of “The Terrible Parchment”


When getting a copy of the magazine, Weird Tales, Wellman and his wife Gwen they find inside an old piece of parchment with Arabic writing, and a Greek title, the Nekponomikon.

They think it’s some sort of joke, stuck into the magazine to thrill subscribers, but it’s well made, and looks old, with an odd reptilian skin back. The set it down and move away, and it blows off the table. It’s getting clammy. They notice the words re actually in English after all, and its an incantation to summon Cthulhu.

Of course that’s nonsense, Lovecraft made it all up.

They argue about it for a bit, and then head to bed. The parchment begins to act as if it had a mind of its own. It dodges a water glass tossed at it. He stabs it with a nearby umbrella, and then the page reacts and the characters shift/ He sees something dark and powerful. He eventually burns it. Then holy water from a local priest finishes it. And the parchment was finally ended.


That took 11 minutes to read.

[Abe Sargent]

Review of The Terrible Parchment

I always find these quick stories hard to figure out, from a review standpoint. The story might be the first place where Lovecraft appears as a character in the Mythos itself. We’ve seen characters based on writers before, like Robert Bloch or Clark Ashton Smith on some of Lovecraft’s stuff of Lovecraft in Bloch’s. And many later stories will incorporate this idea of Lovecraft actually writing, creating this work of horror, but there was something real to the story. It’s a common Mythos motif, and Manly Wade Wellman might have started it!

Anyways, it’s solid, but I’m not a fan of the final way they deal with the problem. While it’s happened just a bit before, I’m not a big fan of the Christian-ization of the Mythos. But that’s probably just me!

So I like it, but it’s hard to give this quick read anything more than 3 stars.

[Abe Sargent]

What about the next story?

“Letters of Cold Fire”

Originally published in 1944 for Weird Tales, and anthologized in three Manly Wade Wellman works, as well as one Cthulhu anthology (Acolytes of Cthulhu).

It’s in the John Thunstone series, a sort of supernatural detective. A scholar, playboy, and investigator.

Back in 1976, an editor asks Wellman for anthologizing a a story of his for Cthulhu Anthology. Wellman writes back that only The Terrible Parchment specifically references the Mythos elements. He writes of the Lovecraft influence is not huge, not like other writers, but certainly is there. He lists about 4 or 5 stories that were inspired by Lovecraft. Although he claims not to have corresponded with Lovecraft, it doesn’t seem like that’s the case, as evidence of small letters are elsewhere. (It would be easy to forget that you wrote a few letters back in the mid 30s 40 years later in the mid-70s at the end of your career). (I can’t remember all of my work e-mails 40 days later sometimes  )

I don’t have access to Acolytes of Cthulhu or the other works, and I can’t find it online, so no Letters of Cold Fire for now, sorry!

[Abe Sargent]

So let’s head back to Gen 4.

One of the stories I was most looking forward too in that New Tales of the Cthulhu Mythos that I’ve used for stuff like Crouch End and Dark Awakening was a short story by an author that I own a few books on my fantasy bookshelf – David Drake’s “Than Curse the Darkness” a short story in this collection published in 1980.

So who’s David Drake?

He’s a prolific publisher of science fiction (mostly). He’s one of the best known military sci fi space opera writers currently out there, having served in the Vietnam War. That service in combat and the military informs his stuff. Soe of this stuff has been turned into RPGs or board games. His stuff, particularly the Hammer’s Slammers stuff, is very influential on things like the BattleTech universe.

He also writes some fantasy. In 1997, he began a 9 novel series with Lord of the Isles, and some of those novels sit on my bookshelves


Anyways, let’s look at his short story, “Than Curse the Darkness”

[Abe Sargent]

Synopsis and Review of “Than Curse the Darkness”



Due to the nature of this story, and my visceral reaction which I’ll give you below, I cannot separate the spoilers from the review.



Wow. That’s a hard story to ummm….deal with. Here’s the basic synopsis in a paragraph:



These nasty people in Congo, during the days of King Leopold’s darkest and most vile Belgian Congo, are doing some really dark things in the Congo against natives, and sometimes other whites. The stuff these Belgian, Germans, and others are doing is so evil, that the local natives have apparently turned to worship an old god called Ahtu, the local name for Nyarlathotep. A female scholar arrives, and breaks down a local rebellion, and stops the ritual after it has begun, and Nyarlathotep is taken down. At the end, they wonder at what drove these natives to do something to set the world on a path to destruction.

These people were extremely dark, wrong, and vile, and yet here they are, ganging up to save the world.

David Drake made the unusual distinction to focus on race almost entirely. Not only do you have white people calling natives “niggers” and worse, but you also have not real irony of how things should be. For example, you have no character who acts as a voice of reason or conscience. No one even mentions that the evil down to these locals leads to the worship of Ahtu. It’s not even stated by the narrator. Meanwhile, local natives are often described as cannibals by the narrator, and there is no defense given for the other natives.

The story evokes Conrad’s Heart of Darkness as well as Drake’s time in the jungles of Southeast Asia, and it certainly feels real. But the story reads like one of the bad Robert Howard works written back in the 10s, 20s, and 30s, not the story of someone in 1980. If I had written this, and I decided to keep the same basic plotline, I would have made it more ironic, and made the natives more sympathetic in some places. But they aren’t.


Anyways, as a clear Mythos story, it shares with other Gen 4 the laudable goal of getting out of the same settings and places. Here we are, in the deep jungles of the Belgian Congo during the height of the rubber trade. That’s certainly not your normal Mythos story, and I give David props for that. And yet the story lacks the nuances that I want from a Gen 4 story, especially one that’s more than 20 pages long. Characters aren’t very well fleshed out, they play into old archetypes that are unfortunate (Savage black cannibals, dark African natives that are subhuman) and it just doesn’t feel like the ironic, serious, look at evil and darkness and horror that I think Drake was looking for.

It’s hard to rate. There are pieces by Lovecraft and other writers back in Gen 0 and 1 that are of the times, and have typical non-roles for women and minorities, and often little positive views of either. So that’s unfortunate to read. I found it stifling here. And even though the story is trying to evoke that language, that view, and such from that era, there are better ways to do so. I get what Drake is trying to do, but man did he ever miss.

So again, hard to give a rating for. 3.5 for the story and writing and setting, and 1.5 for the characters and stereotypes. I am giving it a 2.5 as an average.


Wow.

[Abe Sargent]

Next up?

I picked up an anthology called A Starry Sky, put together in the 90s by Ramsey Campbell. It’s got some major writers like JG Ballard, Alan Moore, William Burroughs and Grant Morrison in it, so I thought that would be something really, really good. His goal was to unhinge the sexual aspects of the Mythos. And frankly, I don’t like any of the stories I’ve read yet (well, other than Ballard’s, but that one is not in the Mythos anyway, it’s just in the “Spirit of Lovecraft” instead)

Anyways, due to the overt sexual nature and shock value of a lot of those stories, I just don’t see them here. In this dynasty.

But if I come across one laters, I’ll let you know.

Actually, there’s one major story I was looking forward to that I hadn’t read yet. Lt’s check it out blind and see if I do.

This is Alan Moore”s “the Courtyard,” which he will later turn into a comic, and that will create more comics in the Mythos by the freaking Alan Moore.

I’m assuming you know who Alan Moore is, but if you don’t he wrote a ton of popular and influential comics like The Watchman, V for Vendetta, From Hell, The league of Extraordinary Gentlemen, and tons more. That Alan Moore!

[Abe Sargent]

Synopsis of “The Couryard”

Welcome to 2004. Our narrator is a officer for the federal government tracking down some major crime. They give him cases that are a bit hard at figuring out as he is good at creating and seeing patterns that others miss. Some people have been killed, and parts of their bodies taken away. All of the culprits who confessed to some of them were unrelated, and yet did very specific, similar places. After investigating them, he finds some odd things about them – a bookmark for Club Xothique, some low level drugs known as The White Powder, and a local NY band.

He is in red Hook, tracking down what has been happening. He heads to the Club to find a band is about to play. Their opening act is the Yellow Sign, and once of their songs is Leng. The main band arrives, their lead singer is Ramsey Campbell, and they are singing songs that quickly move into spouting gibberish, and some of the crowd is joining them as they took a drug called aklo.

He finds a local drug dealer, Johnny Carcosa, and follows him home to get some of his drugs, and finds them talking to his ancient mother. He is forced to use the White Powder first, because he is told that aklo won’t take without it. He snorts it, and then Carcosa speaks three words of nonense, and understands them. Aklo is not a drug, it’s a language, and new words are added to his vocabulary.

He heads home, and wants to use the new concepts and words on his housemate, and begins to do to her the same things that the murderers did to others. And he spouts gibberish

[Abe Sargent]

Review of “The Courtyard”

Wow Alan Moore.

At first I felt that the beginning of the story felt a bit like Harry Harrison’s “Make Room, Make Room” which was turned into the Soylent Green movie. The book’s a lot better and more complex, but it has this heavily populated place in the future where people are forced to share space with strangers they hate.

The main character is living in a future world of squalor. And Moore writes what he thinks, and he iis calling people fags, spics, kikes, and niggers. He also sometimes uses very vile language and concepts to get a point across. But it’s very well written when he does. Here’s an example that has no spoiler attached:

Outside the Pachinko arcade coloured condoms bask in the blue moonlight and drool a potentially dangerous venom.

Here’s another sample:

Hypodermics crunch underfoot, frosting the cobbles with glass in a scintillant Disney-dust, one thousand points of light.

I can’t fault him for the great writing. But the heavy use of the pejorative terminology is something I could do without. The end is great, and he does some strong things and speaks of an important aspect of the Mythos that I can’t recall anyone else ever really exploring, and I like that. He also fully gives us a strong feel for the area.

So I liked it a lot.

I give it four stars.


I’m going to order the graphic novel for a squeal to this, Neonomicon, by Alan and see if I like that too. He’s doing a sequel to that called Providence and writing that right now.

So next up is the Graphic Novel, Neonomicon, a sequel to Courtyard.

[Abe Sargent]

Synopsis of Neonomicon


In this follow up, two agents, Lamper and Brears, are investigating the cases of the various murders, as a follow up to Aldo Sax, the narrator from the previous story, who’s now in a jail at a mental health prison and facility. He’s still talking a pseudo-language and they have a copycat killer out there right now on the loose.

They make a raid on the Club Zothique, and try to get Johnny Carcosa, but he flies, and they chase him to his place out on Court Street. His mother committed suicide, and he melts into the wall after telling the cops that he has to go.

The lead detective begins to put together the literary aspects of the case, club named after Clark Ashton Smith’s world, Carcosa from Bierce, the Yellow Sign, the popular singer Randolph Carter, the White Powder from Arthur Machen, and so forth. All of these details in real life are following from literature. Here at Red Hook, where the original case occurred in the 1920s, there is every connection to the writings of HP Lovecraft.

They follow a lead out to Salem to check out a store that sells porn and adult toys in the Cthulhu Mythos, and for fans, go undercover, and connect with the local populace. The male cop is killed, the female is repeatedly raped by a Deep One down in some orgy below the store they were at. After a while, they begin to connect, and the Deep One and her escape and head out, and she is released by it. SWAT team attacks, and destroys the group, and kills the Deep One underground in the shrine, and kills it too.

Afterwards, Merril Brears, the surviving agent, heads to see Aldo Sax again in custody. She speaks the aklo back to him. He gives her answers like Johnny Carcosa is an avatar of Nyarlathotep. She’s realized why the Deep One let her go. She;s pregnant with him and R’yleh is inside of her.

[Abe Sargent]

Review of Neonomicon


So let’s start. I would not recommend this graphic novel to anyone. The sheer amount of nudity, porn, people jacking off Deep Ones, and more, just pushes this book into an unfortunate territory. With that said, there is a clever connection here. But again, everything is up front and in obvious places. Not only should the curtains be kept back for mystery, but I appreciate that you don’t see people having sex in basement scenes with Deep Ones in Shadows over Innsmouth or something. This is worse. It’s like anime porn scenes, but of a very disturbing nature. I don’t like it, I don’t recommend it, and I only decided to finish it because I bought it and I wanted to finish it for this project.


Therefore I am not rating this graphic novel. Sorry. Now, it’s won an award. It won the Stoker award for horror in 2012. But I’m not ranking it.

[Abe Sargent]

Alright, it’s time for one of my favorite Gen 4 stories, written in 1980, and anthologized many times in major Cthulhu works, here is Basil Copper and his “Shaft Number 247”


So who is Basil Copper?


A part time writer for much of his career, he finally became full time in 1970 with a penchant for penning stuff on horror and detective mysteries. Since he didn’t become dedicated to the craft until later in his life (he was born in 1924, and turned pro at the age of 46) he didn’t write a lot. About 10 novels, some short story collections, and that sort of thing. He has been mildly awarded in his career before passing a few years ago. Most people aren’t going to notice his name, and that’s fine.


This story we are about to read is one of the most popular works. It’s made it in the cut of collections that are trying to show what modern authors can do, and has been printed alongside some of the biggest names in the world, and there’s no drop off in quality. I have met many Mythos readers about whom this story holds a special place. So I wanted to get to it now.


I led with a lot of big name writers for the Gen IV part of this dynasty – Neil Gaiman, Stephen King, Roger Zelazny, and even folks like Lawrence Watt-Evans, Kim Newman, Alan Moore, and Alan Dean Foster are no jokes to most. Soon enough we’ll delve into great stories that I like from folks whose names you may not recall, and it may be time for that.


In the mean time, let’s get us some Shaft Number 247!

[Abe Sargent]

Synopsis of “Shaft Number 247”


This short story is long, but it has a bunch of dialogue in the middle, where one character is telling another stuff, and I think I can do the synopsis shortly.

The main character, Driscoll, works for Control, as the manager of the night watch shift for a large mining complex with hundreds of shafts. There are nearby cities and more. There is a person on the shift with him, Wainwright, who is struggled and hearing things in the shafts after his best friend was pronounced dead a few months back .

It’s been getting worse, and a few other folks look oddly suspicious of his friend, Deems, and what is happening. So Driscoll tries to research Deems, and it’s been deleted, so he heads to Wainwright’s apartment to find out what has been happening. It turns out that shaft number 247, the first shaft dug and used to explore the area, has been badly rusted, corroded, and water and such is getting in. There are signs that the doors are opening from the outside, which implies that something is out there, turning them. Deems went to there and headed out, up, to live Out There.

After hearing this, a few days later, Driscoll hears an alarm, knows its coming from 247 instinctively, and rushes to head there. He finds water cascading in, some foul smelling stuff, and begins to invoke some dark primal urging of living outside and such in him. He sees some small humanoid creature reaching for him, but it’s flushed away. Wainwright has left.

He;’s placed on administrative leave for a week pending an official hearing. He decides to head out, and he break cameras, lights, and more, on his way out, and then again gets the visions as he closes with 247, and then opens the door to head Out There.

[Abe Sargent]

Review of “Shaft Number 247”

I’m not precisely sure on the setting. When I first read this story in college around 20 years ago or so, I thought it was set in a mining colony in the future. But reading it a second time, I think instead it has more of a dystopian, Logan’s Run feel to it. It doesn’t matter, it’s just a short story after all, and basil is more interested in the characters.

It’s certainly a science fiction story.

Control is never told –could be the government, could be a company, we don’t know. We never find out what happens. Sort of like Abraham Merrit’s “The Moon Pool” from the zero generation we read earlier. Once they go through the pool, the story ends. This story almost reads like the first chapter of a book we’ll never read

When I was in college, I wrote a short story that was intentionally set in the Cthulhu Mythos. But I didn’t include any obvious signs. No creatures, no books, no langue, no names, nothing. But I was trying to evoke the sense of total screw-ment with something happening beyond human ken. It was set in a coal mine back during the Company Town/Company Store era. Anyways, the story was set in the Mythos by intent of the author, and not because of the details that I saw. Does it count?

Basil does that here. You keep expecting for some Mythos element to drop – Cthulhu, the Necronomicon, the Lliogor, the Mi-Go , the Hounds of Tindalos, a place like Innsmouth or the Plateau of Leng. Not Ithaqua. But nope. Nothing. And that desire to keep the story clean of the obvious adoration for those elements makes this a very interesting story.

This is an opaque, dense, place. It’s oppressive, and the story is very, very subtle. And I think that’s really good. Campbell in the prelude says, “one of our tales hints at the ultimate event of the Mythos without ever referring to the traditional names”. Campbell later writes that this was the best story of the written for the novel, which makes it better than Crouch End, Then Curse the Darkness, or Dark Awakening.

I’m giving it four stars.

[Abe Sargent]

So let’s move to an interesting option next. T.E.D. Klein. He’s very interesting. Klein is a horror aficionado, with a post-grad degree in English Lit from Brown University, doing his thesis on Lovecraft, changing his name ot add “Eibon” to it so his initials would spell TED, his nickname (Eibon is from the Clark Ashton Smith story that we read earlier), he’s done non-fiction, written critiques, and edited scripts.

He’s written a bit here and there. Two novels. Some collections of stories. And yet, when he does write, he’s a dense, meticulous writer, much like an Ambrose Bierce.

Anyways, he’s written some horror stuff in the Mythos. We’ll be reading “Black Man with a Horn” from the 1980 New Tales…. That I’ve been reading. It’s also published later as well, in one of his own collections.

[Abe Sargent]

Synopsis of Black Man with a Horn

Our writer is discussing the power of the past narrative. He is a writer of horror fiction, and one of the younger sort of acolytes of Lovecraft. Although he wrote more and longer, he has always been seen in Lovecraft’s shadow. His name is not given, but it appears that he is likely Frank Belknap Long.

Our writer is flying back from a Lovecraft Convention where he is realizing that despite his long work, he has become just his relationship with Lovecraft. On the way back he meets Rev. Mortimer on the plane from Heathrow to NYC where our writer lives. Our good Rev. is a recently returned missionary from Malaysia and is coming back. He feels that he was chased home and tells our narrator that he was sent to set up another missionary base deep in the inner jungle of the Malay peninsula. He was sent to these nasty Chuacha people where they were one of the nastiest people he had ever met, despite the friendliness of other natives he worked with.

Our narrator gives him his sister’s address in Miami and they meet up there. Meanwhile, our writer does a little investigation on his own as he visits a local natural museum in NYC where he finds a nasty discovery. That the Tcho-Tcho people actually exist, and are likely the same ones that Rev. Mortimer ran into. The Tcho-Thco are a race of evil people that was believed to be created by Lovecraft as one of the Mythos Elements, but apparently not.

An article runs in the Miami Herald about Rev. Mortimer going missing. He writes the local police but they tell him they already know about the threats on his life and that they treating it as a murder. Another Miami Herald story follows, this time one for a Malay citizen wanted for questioning of the disappearance of Rev. Mortimer. It was the same face as someone on the plane and he recognizes it.

He does some more investigating and finds out that the Tcho-Tcho are believed dead and that a great black man playing a horn is considered the Herald of Death, although the miniature made by the people in the museum is more akin to death itself and was attached to the horn. One story calls this character the Shoo Goron, a sort of local boogeyman. He flies down to Miami after the detective tells him they found some lung tissue in Rev. Mortimer’s room.

A local young person working at a local restaurant has also gone missing, his sister has fallen ill, and then she passes. He is living at the same hotel that the previous folks disappeared from. His neighbors disappeared after reporting that a large black man wearing a scuba mask came near their bungalow the previous night. He remains where he is to meet his death.

[Abe Sargent]

Review of Black Man with a Horn

All reviews are spoiler free, save for the first opening page.

Black Man with a Horn has one of the best openings of any horror short story I’ve ever read:

“There is something inherently comforting about the first-person past tense. It conjures up visions of some deskbound narrator puffing contemplatively up a pipe amid the safety of his study, lost in the tranquil recollection, seasoned but essentially unscathed by whatever experience he’s about to relate. It's a tense that says, “I am here to tell the tale. I living through it.””

He'll finish the into paragraphs with,

“A comforting premise, perhaps. Only, in this case, it doesn’t happen to be true.”

I love that move.

Klein’s “Black Man with a Horn” is a very popular tale, one told multiple times in various collections. It’s evocative.

Klein is a very good writer, despite his two books and small number of shorts, he is considered high quality, not unlike Ambrose Bierce.

As one example, take this review from Tor.com

Please Tell Me John Coltrane Never Read This: T. E. D. Klein’s “Black Man With a Horn” | Tor.com (https://www.tor.com/2016/02/24/please-tell-me-john-coltrane-never-read-this-t-e-d-kleins-black-man-with-a-horn/)

“Let’s start with full disclosure: I love love love T. E. D. Klein. I wish I could say a spell to relieve him of his long writer’s block in the same way I wish I could use Joseph Curwen’s method to resurrect Jane Austen. I want more stories, more novels, epic series that would make Brandon Sanderson blanch! But alas, to paraphrase Gaiman, Mr. Klein is not my bitch, and I’ve yet to perfect the Curwen method. Soon, soon….”

There is a strong reason why this story has resonated and been included in multiple collections since it’s original printing in 1980 It works. It’s well written, and well-conceived.

I give it 4 out of 5 stars.

[Abe Sargent]

Lin Carter is a very important figure in the history of fantasy, science fiction, and horror! But not as a writer. Instead as an editor.

As a writer, his many works in the mid and late 60s through 70s are incredibly derivative. He has characters such as Thongor the Barbarian, and books that are intending to evoke Edgar Rice Burroughs or Lord Dunsany or RE Howard or HP Lovecraft.

His works are not really inspired. They aren’t really his own. They are very, very derivative.

However…

He was a big, big big editor.

The small Mom and Pop publishing house of Ballantyne Books wanted to move into fantasy, science fiction, and horror publishing. Tolkien’s works were selling like mad cakes and they were looking at picking up that genre. After expressing his interest, they made the best choice conceivable. They hired Lin Carter as their editor.

Lin Carter loved context. He had gone back and found many great writers that had been forgotten. He used this heavily printed series that could be found in many a book shop to put many big name writers on the map. He reprinted Clark Ashton Smith and Lord Dunsany. Many of the best fantasy and early influences were published. He also publishes Lovecraft initially his Dunsany inspired Dream World stuff like the Dream Quest of Unknown Kadath. But then he’ll move into publishing Cthulhu Mythos stuff as well starting in 71.

The first book is Spawn of Cthulhu - The Spawn of Cthulhu - Wikipedia (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Spawn_of_Cthulhu)

Here he has 12 tales, including one by Lovecraft, as well as Robert Howard, CAS, Ramsey Campbell, Derleth, Lord Dunsany, Robert Chambers, and many more. This style of book began in the early 60s with Arkham House a smaller publisher, but Carter brought it to the masses. This is the first Mythos collection in the series, although he did 5 other collections in the series before this one, including:

The Young Magicians - Wikipedia (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Young_Magicians)

Dragons, Elves, and Heroes - Wikipedia (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dragons,_Elves,_and_Heroes)

Golden Cities, Far - Wikipedia (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Golden_Cities,_Far)

New Worlds for Old - Wikipedia (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/New_Worlds_for_Old)

He also used his editorship to find a number of big name writers and to give them their break, such as Katherine Kurtz’s Deryini series. He pushed many women writers to the top shelf of fantasy in his series and is known as normalizing women writers in a big way. In fact, most fantasy writers today, are women.

Carter was a very important editor for these reasons. By the end of the Adult Fantasy line’s run, every major fantasy story and author was republished. everything from 1891’s Khaled by F. Marion Crawford to the Worm Ouroborus from the 20s was republished by Ballentyne.


Lin Carter was a big editor.

But, as you’ll soon see, he wasn’t as skilled as a writer.

The series wasn’t a big money maker for Ballentyne, but they wanted to bring forgotten works of old to a new generation. They remained committed to the series and label until they sold their publishing company in the mid70s to Random House, who shut it down as it wasn’t making money, and they moved all of their new stuff to the newly made Del Rey imprint. They only published new stuff from here on out.

[Abe Sargent]

Let's begin with Lin Carter's "The Fishers from Outside", which is probably one of his better Mythos pieces. It's been anthologized in a few places. I own a copy with my edition of "The New Lovecraft Circle" from 1996. This is written in 1988 and came in late in Carter’s career.

It’s set in the same place as Winged Death and The Outpost that we looked at earlier in those ruins of Zimbabwe that are mentioned briefly in Winged Death and then referred to in The Outpost.

As a reminder, this is The Outpost:

When evening cools the yellow stream,
And shadows stalk the jungle’s ways,
Zimbabwe’s palace flares ablaze
For a great King who fears to dream.

For he alone of all mankind
Waded the swamp that serpents shun;
And struggling toward the setting sun,
Came on the veldt that lies behind.

No other eyes had vented there
Since eyes were lent for human sight—
But there, as sunset turned to night,
He found the Elder Secret’s lair.

Strange turrets rose beyond the plain,
And walls and bastions spread around
The distant domes that fouled the ground
Like leprous fungi after rain.

A grudging moon writhed up to shine
Past leagues where life can have no home;
And paling far-off tower and dome,
Shewed each unwindowed and malign.

Then he who in his boyhood ran
Through vine-hung ruins free of fear,
Trembled at what he saw—for here
Was no dead, ruined seat of man.

Inhuman shapes, half-seen, half-guessed,
Half solid and half ether-spawned,
Seethed down from starless voids that yawned
In heav’n, to these blank walls of pest.

And voidward from that pest-mad zone
Amorphous hordes seethed darkly back,
Their dim claws laden with the wrack
Of things that men have dreamed and known.

The ancient Fishers from Outside—
Were there not tales the high-priest told,
Of how they found the worlds of old,
And took what pelf their fancy spied?

Their hidden, dread-ringed outposts brood
Upon a million worlds of space;
Abhorred by every living race,
Yet scatheless in their solitude.

Sweating with fright, the watcher crept
Back to the swamp that serpents shun,
So that he lay, by rise of sun,
Safe in the palace where he slept.

None saw him leave, or come at dawn,
Nor does his flesh bear any mark
Of what he met in that curst dark—
Yet from his sleep all peace has gone.

When evening cools the yellow stream,
And shadows stalk the jungle’s ways,
Zimbabwe’s palace flares ablaze,
For a great King who fears to dream.


What are these Fishers from Outside? Let's find out!

[Abe Sargent]

Synopsis of The Fishers from Outside

We begin in Zimbabwe as Prof. Mayhew and his assistant, the narrator, are undergoing digging to uncover the secrets of the ancient people that once lived in here in inner Zimbabwe. Prof. Mayhew had studied the people rumored to be here in various occultic texts, such as the Book of Eibon, the Necromonicon, and the Ponape Scriptures.

They eventually find the object of his quest – an ancient black crystal that is said to summon Gorgorgoth, whom the Fishers apparently worshipped, according to ancient legends. Each of the sides of this black crystal object have these undecipherable hieroglyphics on them that are hard to figure out.

They head back to New England to look up some more information at local universities. After some studying, they realize that the fishers from outside from the local myth have a strong physical resemblance to people mentioned in the ancient text of Ponape in the Pacific on the other side of the world. Why would that be the case?

After investigating more, Prof. Mayhew can interpret the crystal and they are the summoning rites. One night he sends the narrator away, and then incites the ritual to see what happens. He summons these half avian and half apterous shapes, all slimy and scales where feathers should be arrive, and they eat his body and then disappear.

[Abe Sargent]

Review of The Fishers from Outside

All reviews are spoiler free.


This is an odd tale. Carter can, at times, have some goods lines in him. Take this description of Zimbabwe’s jungle:

“The jungle, I somehow knew, had not surrendered, but had merely retreated before superior force, and was biding its time, waiting for the puny, ephemeral children of men to leave that it might inexorably regain its antique dominion over the mighty walls and towers.”

That’s a strong image. It’s well crafted. Carter can have a few lines like this here and there that give point to the fact that’s he not a mere hack. But at the same time, Carter is not something relevant. His work is fully derivative. While setting a Mythos story in Zimbabwe is nice compared to others, it’s still in an identical location as two Lovecraft stories. The work is fully derivative and there’s not a clever or unknown plot line or twist here at all.

Nothing that happens is unpredictable. Carter is setting out to tell a Mythos story, not a story that happens to be in the Mythos. He hits many elements hard, and does not that has not been done before or sense. Carter doesn’t care. He was criticized for enjoying genres that never grew up, and then challenged the point that they had to. Reading them was fun! Writing them was fun!

This is Carter at that. His story intends to be fun, he doesn’t care that it’s hitting the exact same notes. Was is fun for you to read it? Great! He’s happy.

As this is coming near the end of his career as his writing style has honed, I am giving it a 3.0 rating out of 5 stars.


Next let’s say in 1988 and do Carter’s “Dead of Night”


I have a copy in my collection called “The Book of Iod” as edited by Robert Price and published in 1995. This story is set in the same place as Robert E Howard’s River Street District that was inhabited by his Steven Harrison detective series of stories.

[Abe Sargent]

Synopsis of Dead of Night


This story opens in the River District as Dona Teresa di Rivera seeks out famed occultist Anton Zarnak, and meets him in his house. She tells him of her uncle, who is now fearing the dark. They owned a ranch in California and found some ancient native burial grounds. Her uncle opened them, and brought some items out. He was chastised by a local Indian cleric after doing so, with this obsidian tablet being the object of scorn. Soon thereafter the man began to fear the dark. Fearing persecution, he fled halfway around the globe and is now obsessed with researching the occult.


Anton Zarnak researches the local native tribe and finds they worshipped a demon named Zulchequon. He finds and researches it in the Book of Iod. Zulchequon is known as the dark and silent one. Many of the details were expurgated from the translations he was able to find.

He visits the uncle and is shown his collection. He has showed the obsidian object and cannot decipher it’s language, although it does strike him as odd. He takes rubbings back to examine for later. After trying and failing a number of languages, they are the same language as the Aklo characters from ancient Germany. The interpretation says to keep this from the light, or else Zulchequan will take you.

As soon as darkness engulfs the amulet, the uncle will be taken, but thus far, it’s always been light, lanterns, and other lights that have been around it. He heads back with a case.

Just then a power outage is caused at night by an odd electrical storm…

A giant breath breathes out the candles in the room of the uncle as Anton reaches it. He pulls a star-stone wand out and incants something from Cthugha (The fire big bad). Light is pushed back, and the demon of darkness retreats, but the uncle has passed.

[Abe Sargent]

Review of Dead of Night


In his introduction to this piece, Bob Price had pointed out that Carter had told him and ST Joshi of his idea for this story while they were in his house one day, and how it would end. They both pointed out that this was identical to the Haunter of the Dark from Lovecraft, but Carter submitted the piece as is to a magazine, Crypt of Cthulhu, and it was published there.

This is who Carter is. His super power is he is Derivative Man. He writes derivative stores.


The entire setting has an off-putting “Oriental Flare” from the earlier era, and feels wrong. It’s not as bad as the David Drake story, but it’s not good. Let’s put it that way. Again, this story is very derivative of others. But it’s not one that sticks with me. The ending is precisely something you’d expect, as is everything else about this story.


Captain Mythos strikes again.

I give it a 2.5 star rating.



The next story is “Out of the Ages,” from 1975, which introduces Zoth-Ommog and other minor characters to the mythos. As Robert Price pointed out, Lin Carter was more interested in finding out areas of the Mythos that were missing, and then putting them out there, rather than doing something new and interesting.

[Abe Sargent]

Synopsis and Review of Out of the Ages


In my book this is more than 20 pages long, but due to very little happening, I can give you a quick one paragraph synopsis.


Dr. Blaine, Curator of Manuscripts at the Sanborne Institute in CA, is reviewing the manuscripts and research of one Prof. Copeland, who was famous as one of the key force of Pre-History Asia but who went increasingly off the rails and has been in an asylum for 8 years, having written books such as 1906 Polynesian Mythology with a Note on the Cthulhu Legend Cycle. After reviewing and investing the 12 objects found and kept by Copeland, and reviewing his works and researching his evidence, Dr. Blaine comes to accept that this has been happening as he is taken over at night by dreams sent from beneath the Pacific. He is then, himself, sent to the sanitarium.


That’s it.

This story is classic Carter. He wants to introduce things like the children of Cthulhu, and he writes something like this that takes a deep, deep, deep dive into the Mythos, where almost every paragraph is steeped in it. The first 80% of the story is just telling what someone else had done, not seeing it. The last are the 7 or so dreams, but each is a paragraph long and quickly you wrap up the story, and then move on. This is heavily derivative.

It’s not even good with the details. You’ve read Call of Cthulhu. Do you ever the character being known a that the time as part of the myth cycle of Pacific only to find out that it was all true? Nope! This was lost history, so they had to track it down in Greenland and New Orleans and elsewhere. No one knew who Cthulhu was. So how the “Cthulhu Legend Cycle” mentioned is the title of a book in 1906? The details of Carter don’t even line up with the stories he is trying to emulate.

2 stars.

[Abe Sargent]

Let’s do one more Carter story, and then call it.

Why don’t we do “Zoth-Ommog”, as it was originally published, in 1976. It’s been published later as “The Horror in the Gallery,” which is itself derivative of the Lovecraft story, “The Horror in the Museum.”

The reason I want to do this story I because it’s a direct sequel to “Out of the Ages.” The character who takes over from the previous one, Dr. Blaine, on the final page is the main character here, and Dr. Blaine is a secondary character now.

So I think reading this will have some interesting places, and as we have invested in this story, place, and context already, it makes sense to continue.

[Abe Sargent]

Review and Synopsis of “The Horror in the Gallery”

Again, despite the length here, Carter tells more than shows.


In this story, narrator Arthur Hodgkins, the new Curator for the Museum, takes up the Prof. Copeland bequest and is chasing the Blaine and Copeland notes. He delves deeply into the Ponape Figurine that the other two considered, and after meeting with Blaine at the Sanitarium, begins to try to find a way to destroy it. This quest takes him to Miskatonic University in Arkham where he meets with Dr. Henry Armitage who shows him the Necronomicon and they discus ways to destroy the statue. They give him a star rock with the Elder Sign. He heads back to CA after hearing that the statue is about to be displayed, where he stops a Deep One discussed as a fisherman from stealing it and uses the Star rock to destroy the statue. He is suspected for the murder of the guardsman who was killed by the Deep One, but is deemed mentally in component and sent to the sanitarium


This story is about twice as long as the first one, but again, it’s so classic Carter that’s not even funny. For example, he has our main character take Prof. Copeland’s copy of the Nameless Cults and reads it on they way to east coast, and for page after page you get the entire Mythos from the rebellion of the Great Old Ones to whom everyone is, and it’s just putting it all out there for you. Carter wants to answer this stuff for you. What did Nameless Cults include? Now you know! He also has his main character meet with the hero of the Dunwich Horror. He’ll spend pages giving you quotes from the Necronomicon rather than just summing it up, or the key points. And the Necronomicon has never been seen as a tool to fight the Great Old Ones, yet it is here. Again Carter wants to tell you everything. If you think that Derleth erred in pulling back the curtain then you will just flip out reading Carter.


Carter is just too enmeshed in the mythos when he’s writing it. As a result, I’m not a big fan. I give the work 2.0 stars as well. I’ll be leaving Carter behind. If he is to your taste, then great!

[Abe Sargent]

Let’s read two stories from Lovecraft, “The Nameless City” from 1921 “The Hound” the next year. In many ways these are the beginning of the story as he includes various elements that are Mythos-ized later. Such as the Necronomicon as well as the plateau of Leng. After seeing what Carter did, let’s pull back and review the Master at work, shall we?


HP Lovecraft,s the Hound – written in 1922 and published two years later. You can find them both online here:

"The Nameless City" by H. P. Lovecraft (http://www.hplovecraft.com/writings/texts/fiction/nc.aspx)


"The Hound" by H. P. Lovecraft (http://www.hplovecraft.com/writings/texts/fiction/h.aspx)

Nameless has 5000 words but Hound rocks fewer than 3000 words in it, so it shouldn’t be too much to read.

[Abe Sargent]

Synopsis of The Nameless City:


Deep in the Arabian desert lie ruins ancient beyond all cities of men. The Arabs shun them, though Abdul Alhazred dreamed of them and wrote his famous couplet: “That is not dead which can eternal lie, and with strange aeons even death may die.” Nevertheless, our narrator seeks the city, accompanied only by his camel; he’s always sought the strange and terrible.

He finds the ruins at night but waits to enter until dawn, when the sun rises through an oddly local sandstorm and a metallic clash seems to reverberate from deep underground to greet the day. The crumbled foundations offer little illumination into the history of the city, for time and blasting sand have long obliterated any carvings. Night comes with a chill wind that raises another local sandstorm amidst the gray stones.

The next day the narrator discovers a cliff riddled with low-ceilinged temples. He explores on hands and knees, more and more disturbed by the disproportionate lowness of the temple fixtures—disproportionate, that is, for human use. Night finds him still in the city. While attending to his suddenly edgy camel, he notices that the sand-stirring evening wind issues from a particular point in the cliff. Though troubled by a spectral presence, he goes to the spot and finds a larger temple with traces of painted murals, altars with curvilinear carvings, and an interior door opening onto a flight of curiously small and steep steps.


Equipped only with a torch, the narrator crawls feet-first down innumerable steps and through low tunnels. His torch dies. He keeps crawling, cheering himself with snippets from the daemonic lore he’s read. At last he comes to a level corridor lined with wood and glass boxes like coffins. Here he can kneel upright as he scrambles onward. Subterranean phosphorescence begins to light the scene, and he sees the boxes are indeed coffins containing not the human makers of the place but the preserved bodies of vaguely anthropomorphic reptiles, richly arrayed.

These must be totem animals of supreme importance to the ancient people, since they also take the place of people in the fantastic murals that cover the walls and ceiling of the passage. The narrator can’t read the script, but the pictures tell him the whole history of the race from its nomadic youth to its heyday to the coming of the desert that drove it deep underground, to a world foretold by its prophets. Death is shown only as the result of violence or plague, yet the allegorical reptiles seem gradually to be wasting away and growing more fierce in their hatred of the outer world—the final scene depicts them tearing apart a primitive-looking human. Some foreign tribesman, no doubt.

The narrator reaches the source of the phosphorescence—beyond a great brass door lies a descent into a vast space of misty light, the entrance into that promised inner world. He rests on the threshold in uneasy speculation, then starts at the sound of moaning coming from the coffin-lined passage. But it can only be the wind, returning home with the dawn.

He braces to withstand its force. The wind seems animated by a vindictive rage that claws and drags him toward the misty-bright underworld. Somehow he withstands it. As it passes over him, the wind curses and snarls in an unknown language, and he thinks that against the lit portal, he sees a rushing crowd of semi-transparent reptilian devils—the true inhabitants, after all, of the nameless city.

The wind dies with the last of the creatures to descend, and the great brass door clangs shut, leaving the narrator in utter darkness.
(Courtesy of Tor.com)

[Abe Sargent]

Review of The Nameless City


All reviews are spoiler free unless otherwise noted.


Written early in his life and published in 1921 when he was just early in his writing career, this introduces the Arabian city in the title, as well as it’s antediluvian inhabitants and the mad Arab Abdul Alhazrad as well as the couplet that returns in the next story The Hound as well as Call, which begins here.

By the by, in his book, Lovecraft: A Look Behind the Cthulhu Mythos by Lin Carter, he assigns 12 stories and one poem of Lovecraft’s to the Mythos, and this is the first one. Of course, Carter only believes those stories that add something to the Mythos are a part of the Mythos, so he doesn’t include stories like The Colour out of Space or The Case of Charles Dexter Ward, both of which are in the Mythos proper but not mentioned by Carter.

This story is written well and it lacks some of the embellishment of language that Lovecraft will use later, such as the adjective “cyclopean” or “non-Euclidian.” It suits this story a little better and I think does it well as it breathes on it’s own.


Because it introduces Abdul, it also sort of introduces the Mythos writ large in the Lovecraftian story.

I give it 3 stars out of 5. It’s short but good.

Next, let’s do The Hound.