Cthulhu Unbound 3

Cthulhu Unbound #3

by David Conyers (Editor)

“Epic adventures, twisty plots, and surreal nightmares all get their Cthulhuoid due in these gripping tales of horror and mystery.”--John Scott Tynes, author of DELTA THE RULES OF ENGAGEMENT


The third volume of the CTHULHU UNBOUND series plunges deeper than ever into daring new visions of H.P. Lovecraft’s universe in four all-new novellas by five masters of the new weird tale.


This is cosmic horror as you've never seen it before. This is the Mythos in many colors, many guises. This is Cthulhu Unbound!


UNSEEN A half-Comanche bounty hunter tracks his diabolical superhuman quarry across the Wild West and into a lost subterranean city of madness and living death beneath the Oklahoma badlands.


A desperate patient seeking answers in therapy sessions for self-mutilators discovers he is incomplete in ways he never could have imagined.


NEMESIS A convict locked away in a maximum security prison has nothing left to fear, except the newest the man he murdered three years ago.


THE R'LYEH An Australian spy and a CIA operative join forces to uncover a global corporation plotting the new frontier of bio-weaponry research, using alien blood extracted from something lurking underneath the Pacific Ocean.


“Here is the latest flowering of the exciting new crop of genuinely new, genuinely Lovecraftian fiction. This is what I have been waiting for!”--Robert M. Price, editor of the CTHULHU CYCLE series

Genres: Horror, Lovecraftian, Cthulhu Mythos, Ebooks

260 pages, Kindle Edition

First published March 19, 2013

About the author

David Conyers is science fiction author and editor from Adelaide, South Australia. He has a degree in engineering from the University of Melbourne, and today works in marketing communications. David’s fiction has appeared in magazines such as Albedo One, Ticon4, Andromeda Spaceways Inflight Magazine, Book of Dark Wisdom, Lovecraft eZine and Jupiter, as well as more than twenty anthologies. His previous books include the science fiction Cthulhu Mythos blended thriller, The Eye of Infinity published by Perilous Press and the prequel The Spiraling Worm co-authored with John Sunseri. Previous anthologies he has edited include Extreme Planets, Cthulhu Unbound 3, Cthulhu’s Dark Cults and Undead & Unbound. His e-books include The Uncertainty Bridge and The Impossible Object.

Reviews

[Mike · Rating 4 out of 5]

Cthulhu Unbound 3 is a collection of four stories involving the Cthulhu mythos that take place outside the typical canon era (the early 20th Century typically) and involve unusual or different takes on the genre.


UNSEEN EMPIRE: Cody Goodfellow delivers a part-mythos, part-Western that finds a half-Native American bounty hunter (evidently a character first starring in the author's “Black Wind”) who finds himself on a collision course with an evil entity while investigating disappearances at an Indian reservation. The story is well-paced and written and I have to count this one as my second favorite of the book (though they are all good stories). I especially enjoy that the author was not afraid to involve a large cast of characters when the horror genre tends to inflict extreme circumstances on a small group to isolate them and thus enhance the tension. In a sense, all of the stories do this to one extent or another, though The R'lyeh Singularity also does a good job in similar circumstance to this story of making th reader feel that the situation is all the more horrible because there are so many involved yet none of them either individually nor as a group have the power to extricate themselves in the face of the mythos otherworldly powers. I would not hesitate to read Black Wind based on Mr. Goodfellow's efforts here.

MIRRORRORRIM: D.L. Snell places a young man at the center of increasingly bizarre circumstances following his joining an eccentric psychiatrist's group therapy sessions. I will not lie, this was my least favorite of the four stories, primarily because my interest in bizarro fiction is rather limited. The story makes an interesting point regarding the potentially nefarious uses for an increasingly technologically connected world beyond that of a Big Brother scenario, and to it's credit, this piece reminded me a bit of the movie Videodrome. All in all, the story is still well written, and for those of us who are not into the more odd side of horror, the story manages not to outstay its' welcome.

NEMESIS THEORY: Tim Curran delivers up a tale regarding the prisoners at a large penitentiary that begin noticing that not everything is right both inside and outside the walls of the jail. This is one of his usually well-crafted stories that like many of his, amps up the dread the reader feels for the characters more and more as the story goes along. Though totally different in content, this one reminded me of Clive Barker's Pig Blood Blues for some reason, which for me, is not an uncomplimentary thing. My third favorite, but by no means for any reason other than my personal proclivities.

THE R'LYEH SINGULARITY: David Conyers and Brian M. Sammons tell the story of a rogue CIA agent and his Australian Army Intel turned NSA agent Harrison Peel friend's attempts to stop a global catastrophe brought about by a corporate monolith intent on beating the competition in the defense industry. This one is my favorite due to my own interests. Part-Tom Clancy, part-Lovecraft, this is the latest in what is apparently a series following Peel's exploits after the events of “The Spiraling Worm” and “The Eye of Infinity” The military lingo and equipment discussion is by no means 100% correct, but it is largely spot on and the pace is excellent. For those interested in seeing how the American government might handle national security threats of the Cthulhu-kind, I would say this one is worth the price of admission on its own. As with the Unseen Empire, I will certainly be picking up The Spiraling Worm and Eye of Infinity based on this story.

[Tarl · Rating 3 out of 5]

First off, let me state that at the time of writing this, the epub version sold by the Kobo bookstore (and most likely Smashwords as well), is buggy when it comes to the internal artwork. In Mirrorrorrim, the artwork actually overlaps the first page of a couple of the chapters, thus preventing anyone from reading those pages. I have seen this happen with another book, and after talking to that writer, it seems as if it is an easy fix. I am surprised that Permuted Press did not catch this when they went over the final electronic formats as they normally do exceptional work.

That aside, let's look at the stories:

Unseen Empire by Cody Goodfellow - I found this to be the weakest story in this collection, one that was easily forgotten once I was finished it. It was a hard tale to slug through, often making me put down my kobo or switch to a different story. With POV switches, continual flashbacks, far too much detail and description...it all made for a very confusing and hard to read story. I forced myself to finish this story just to see if the ending would be worth it, but the handling of the characters made them all completely unsympathetic and unrelatable. The core of the story is sound, and there was a lot of potential for the story.

Goodfellow has something here that could have been really interesting, but it got bogged down in too many details, and as mentioned above, too many flashbacks and POV shifts. The story could have been half its length and would have been far more streamline, and wouldn't have felt like so much word count filler.

Mirrorrorrim by D.L. Snell - This story was excellent and a pleasure to read, right up until the second time we encounter the cellphone in the elevator. Formatting issues aside with the artwork, everything after that point felt tacked on to the story and took what had been a well flowing tale and mashed it into what felt to me as a giant mess. The concepts put forward by Snell are interesting and haunting, and his characters were believable and I found myself wanting to know more about them. As we followed the main character, there was a beautiful sense that something was wrong and out of place, that he wasn't getting the whole picture. It was a nice build up, but the final reveal was just a mess to me, entirely mired in an over-saturation of detail where at points a subtle wrongness would have done just as fine.

Still, Snell produced a really interesting tale here, and it was one of my favorites in this collection. It was a new take on the whole mythos theme, and I would be curious to read more of his work in the future.

Nemesis Theory by Tim Curran - I have read Curran's work before in Hive and Fear Me, so I was curious to see what he would bring to this anthology. Much like 'Fear Me', this story takes place in a prison, something Curran writes really, really well. He does a good job presenting the setting and characters with their interactions. Everyone is fairly believable and interesting enough to keep the reader following the tale. But as things go on, Curran starts to present too much information in my opinion. Suddenly characters are talking about their experiences with drugs that allow them to understand what is going on, and then explain it all to the main character. Moments like these halt the natural flow of the story, and ruin any and all horror element in the story as we are suddenly presented with a flood of information. Had Curran kept things close to his chest, this story would have had a far more menacing build up.

One thing that really bothered me with this story was when Nemesis finally shows up, and all hell breaks loose. Had this stuck with the main theme I had thought it was building to (not going to say it here, but it involves brains), then it would have been perfect. Instead, the entire story erupts with things from pretty much all of Lovecraft's mythos in one place. Things that have nothing to do with each other suddenly show up if to say 'Hi' and then vanish again for no reason. It created a jumble of random elements that didn't seem to fit the story and completely ruined an ending that was scary enough as it was with the mutations and genetic regression/hallucinations.

If you want to see one of Curran's better prison works, and in my mind a far better horror story, I suggest you pick up his book Fear Me. It is far better done and contains an element of horror that will leave the hairs on the back of your neck standing on end.

The R'lyeh Singularity by David Conyers & Brian M. Sammons - This story was completely different than the other stories in this anthology, and one I rather enjoyed. The two spies were interesting and fairly deep characters, each with realistic flaws and character traits. Both had their own motivations that were understandable and easily related to. The action was handled well and with the right level of detail. The settings were varied with Sammons and Conyers doing a good job making the reader feel as if they were there, and in some cases, the horror was as horrific as it should be. All in all, Conyers and Sammons present a spy movie type story steeped in horror, and it works really, really well.

My one issue with the story was the ending. The foreshadowing up to it was handled really well, and I thought it worked fairly well. However, there was something about it that irked me, though that could just be personal choice. To me, it smacked a bit of deus ex machina and sort of felt that Sammons and Conyers possibly wrote themselves into an ending they couldn't write themselves out of. But again, that could just be my opinion, and given the level of foreshadowing, I don't think what I thought is the case.

I think Cthulhu was handled really well in this story, and Conyers and Sammons did a good job keeping the big guy out of the screen, (as it were) and something that was merely glimpsed by the reader. At the end of everything, this story made me wish there were more spy fiction stories out there that included either a horror element or a Lovecraftian element. A really enjoyable story.


--In the end, this collection was alright. Fans of Lovecraft's work will most likely enjoy it, and as shown by some of the ratings, there were those out there that really enjoyed this anthology. Formatting issues aside, the stories in this anthology were fairly average as far as Lovecraftian stories go, and there are better anthologies out there that collect far tighter stories. Still, you may want to give this one a shot. A good price for what you get, you may fall in love with it where I didn't.

[Patrick D'Orazio · Rating 4 out of 5]

Cthulhu Unbound 3 consists of four novellas, each with their own slant on Lovecraft’s mythos. Overall, the writing and storytelling is solid and the stories are what you both desire and expect of tales told about the realm of dark gods and menacing monsters.
Unseen Empire by Cody Goodfellow is a western that takes place primarily on and beneath an abandoned Indian reservation in Oklahoma, where a half-Indian tracker must go beneath the earth to find out what happened to the people who suddenly disappeared from the reservation. As he and the detachment of U.S. soldiers go deeper into the underground lair where they suspect the Indians have fled to, the reader is treated to several flashbacks of the main character’s past life and it slowly becomes clear what dark forces he is being compelled to face within the dark depths.
Mirrorrorrim by D.L. Snell focuses on an odd therapy group and its even odder therapist. The main character has blank spots in his memory and another member of the group, a woman who he is drawn to, shares a very strange connection with him. They fit with one another like pieces of a puzzle, or like the title suggests, mirror image parallels.
Nemesis Theory by Tim Curran introduces the reader to a maximum security prison and a select group of inmates who are beginning to realize that they are on a crash course with a gruesome nightmare that none of them will be able to avoid. Death and far worse is creeping closer and closer to them all every night, from far out in the galaxy. If you are familiar with Tim Curran’s work, you know he is a maestro when it comes to describing gore in loving detail and this story is no exception.
The R’lyeh Singularity by David Conyers & Brian M. Sammons is a tale of espionage and the efforts of two spies to stop greedy governments and corporations from tampering with inter-dimensional ‘goodies’ they have discovered on earth, as well as preventing the end of all humanity when darkness tears through a rift at the bottom of the pacific ocean where a mega-corporation is drilling…not for oil, but for something far more menacing and alien.
I enjoyed each story for their unique spin on the Cthulhu mythos, with my favorite being the last member of the quartet. The story was high energy spy thriller that integrates the horror of the Cthulhu mythos effortlessly. My one critique of this story is that there were a noticeable amount of typos that weren’t as prevalent in the other three stories. It was a minor distraction but worth mentioning. The other three stories were equally entertaining, for different reasons. Tim Curran does an excellent job in his tale building the dread levels to an almost unbearable level for the inmates in his doomed prison, with both mysterious events and visions riddling them with newfound terrors on a daily basis. D.L. Snell has created an intimate tale of technology gone amuck and strange interpersonal relationships, while Cody Goodfellow’s plunge into the old west and an underground city of the damned felt like a diabolical quest that I was cursed to complete alongside the main character.
For fans of Cthulhu and Lovecraft, this is a solid contribution to the mythology and one worth checking out.

[Bruce · Rating 3 out of 5]

I was mixed on this book. The first story, Unseen Empire, takes place in the old West. Overall it was good, though the frequent jumps between time periods proved distracting. The next two stories, Mirrorrorrim and Nemesis Theory, just didn't grab my attention. However, the final story, The R'Yleh Singularity, knocks it out of the park with an engrossing tale of spies, quantum physics, the military and, of course, Mythos.

[Brian Sammons · Rating 5 out of 5]

Yes I co-edited it and have a novella in it (also co-written with my partner in crime, David Conyers) but as I have read this book cover to cover, many times, I do give it a score of 5 out of 5. Biased? Maybe. :)

[John · Rating 3 out of 5]

So this is a collection of Lovecraftesque short stories. I went with three stars because it was a bit of a mixed bag for me. The first story was probably the one that captured the tone of the originals the most closely, while I enjoyed the final story the most. I don't have my Kindle handy, and I'm blanking on the names of the stories right now, except for the one I didn't like, which was called Mirrorrorrim. I found that one just weird, so much so, I just didn't care enough to even finish it.

[Nathan Shumate · Rating 3 out of 5]

One terrific novelette, one fair one, one pretty good one, and one so poorly edited that I had to stop reading.

[Gevera Piedmont · Rating 3 out of 5]

I wanted to like this. I really did. I just couldn't get into any of the 4 novellas and the book suffered from lack of copy editing.

[David · Rating 5 out of 5]

Cthulhu Unbound 3 , edited by David Conyers & Brian Sammons, is a collection of four stories set in the Cthulhu Mythos playground, each by a different author or authors.

"Unseen Empire", by Cody Goodfellow, is a successful melding of the Cthulhu Mythos with the Old West tradition of stories. This story is driven by its characters, and I particularly liked Goodfellow's characterizations: the highly prejudiced Major Cawthorne of the Union Army, all too certain that the "goddamned savages" are up to something; the softhearted, naïve, and ineffectual Oliver Stickney, the government Indian station agent; the mercenary Tobin Roherty; and, of course, Inigo Hull, the half-Comanche scout, truly fitting in nowhere until the end. The characterizations for the time and place rang very true. Goodfellow also shows mastery in the proper atmosphere for a Cthulhu Mythos story. He should, as he's written several pieces in that vein. Not much of a plot, really, but again, the story is character driven.

My one nit is that at the first flashback, I had to go back to the start and set the dates straight in my mind. That was annoying but minor. I think those place-and-time headers work great for changes in POV, but for flashbacks they're a little lacking. A proper prose bridge to the earlier setting would've been more effortless for the reader.

Overall, well done.

"MirrorrorriM", by D L Snell, certainly has the "weird" in the Cthulhu Mythos down pat. If it were less organized, the story would be stream-of-consciousness. It still has that feel. I'm not adept at reading steam-of-consciousness writing, so I found the pace of this story hard to follow, but it did hang together, so I'm going to say I'm not prepared to judge the story definitively: just that it hung together. Definitely in the super weird subcategory. I give it a shaky thumbs-up. :)

"Nemesis Theory", by Tim Curran, was a solid in the win column. Very nicely done. I've read other works by Curran and enjoyed them. The sense of impending doom, the building hysteria in its various forms, and the inevitable hammer-fall were very satisfying. The story's antagonist, Eddie Sloat, was creepy. The hard-boiled con, Johnny Coogan, and the cosmically philosophical Latin gang enforcer, Luis Cardone, were enjoyable to read.

"The R'lyeh Singularity", by David Conyers & Brian Sammons (no profile picture, Brian? :) was another solid win, and a good story to anchor the collection. It read like a Tom Clancy, Trevanian, or Robert Ludlum plot dropped into the Cthulhu universe. It reminded me of the Laundry Files series somewhat. Good secret-agent writing, some action, good build-up to the final clash, and a nice twist or two on the ending. Solid work. Cheers!

[Bandit · Rating 3 out of 5]

This collection just didn't wow me. Didn't know what to expect, haven't read the previous two in this series. Basically, there were four novellas inspired by the same mythos, written by different authors. Different styles as well. The first one was a western, second one more psychological, third was a story set in prison, it's by Tim Curran and (no surprise there) the best in the book and the last one is the longest and the lightest in the bunch, in vein of the uber popular supernatural detective/spy/action hero of choice serialized fiction. The first story was by Cody Goodfellow, well written, but didn't really interest me, quite possibly due to my general indifference to westerns. Second story was pretty well written, but plot wise lost my interest half way through. Tim Curran's one would have been even betetr has it lived outside of the mythos (which of course would defeat the purpose of its inclusion here), but there was just something too much like description over subtance if that makes sense. It's sort of like when a sentence gets too overwhelmed with adjectives. Still a good and eerie story, though. Worth tracking down for Curran's fans.

[Fatman · Rating 3 out of 5]

Four Cthulhu Mythos novelettes with an apocalyptic bent.

Two of the stories were both interesting and well-written, although one of them suffered from too many adjectives (probably an homage to HPL's own writing style, so I didn't mind). Of the other two, one was nicely written but nebulous, the other had a promising premise but the execution left a lot to be desired, and the text desperately needed editorial attention. Overall, a decent read from five talented authors.

[Matt · Rating 2 out of 5]

In my opinion, only the last story is good. The other 3 were ok. While all authors wrote in very Lovecraftian style, only the last one took a chance and brought it into a familiar context so that the reader could feel immersed instead of as an external observer. That's the tough thing about writing horror in this vein. So much of this mythos is alien that the reader can't get to the proper emotional and imaginative state unless first having a strong connection point to draw them in.

[Katharine (Ventureadlaxre) · Rating 4 out of 5]

Katharine is a judge for the Aurealis Awards. This review is the personal opinion of Katharine herself, and does not necessarily reflect the opinion of any judging panel, the judging coordinator or the Aurealis Awards management team.

To be safe, I won't be recording my review here until after the AA are over.

[J · Rating 3 out of 5]

The Cody Goodfellow story is fantastic. The second story is good as well. The third story is so rife with typos, misused words and cliche I had to struggle to finish reading.