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

[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

[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.

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

[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!