She Walks in Shadows

by Silvia Moreno-Garcia (Editor), Paula R. Stiles (Editor), Gemma Files

They emerge from the shadows, to claim the night ….

Women from around the world delve into Lovecraftian depths, penning and illustrating a variety of Weird horrors. The pale and secretive Lavinia wanders through the woods, Asenath is a precocious teenager with an attitude, and the Ancient Egyptian pharaoh Nitocris has found a new body in distant America. And do you have time to hear a word from our beloved mother Shub-Niggurath?

Defiant, destructive, terrifying, and harrowing, the women in She Walks in Shadows are monsters and mothers, heroes and devourers. Observe them in all their glory. Iä! Iä!

TABLE OF CONTENTS
“Bitter Perfume” Laura Blackwell
“Violet is the Color of Your Energy” Nadia Bulkin
“Body to Body to Body” Selena Chambers
“Magna Mater” Arinn Dembo
“De Deabus Minoribus Exterioris Theomagicae” Jilly Dreadful
“Hairwork” Gemma Files
“The Head of T’la-yub” Nelly Geraldine García-Rosas (translated by Silvia Moreno-Garcia)
“Bring the Moon to Me” Amelia Gorman
“Chosen” Lyndsey Holder
“Eight Seconds” Pandora Hope
“Cthulhu of the Dead Sea” Inkeri Kontro
“Turn out the Lights” Penelope Love
“The Adventurer’s Wife” Premee Mohamed
“Notes Found in a Decommissioned Asylum, December 1961″ Sharon Mock
“The Eye of Juno” Eugenie Mora
“Ammutseba Rising” Ann K. Schwader
“Cypress God” Rodopi Sisamis
“Lavinia’s Wood” Angela Slatter
“The Opera Singer” Priya Sridhar
“Provenance” Benjanun Sriduangkaew
“The Thing in The Cheerleading Squad” Molly Tanzer
“Lockbox” E. Catherine Tobler
“When She Quickens” Mary Turzillo
“Shub-Niggurath’s Witnesses” Valerie Valdes
“Queen of a New America” Wendy N. Wagner

Genres: Horror, Short Stories, Fantasy, Anthologies, Fiction, Lovecraftian, Science Fiction

303 pages, Paperback

First published October 6, 2015

About the author

Silvia Moreno-Garcia is the author of several novels, including Mexican Gothic, Gods of Jade and Shadow and The Daughter of Doctor Moreau. She has also edited a number of anthologies, including the World Fantasy Award-winning She Walks in Shadows (a.k.a. Cthulhu's Daughters). Mexican by birth, Canadian by inclination.

Reviews

[K.J. Charles]

A cracking anthology with barely a dud among the long list. Very impressive stuff. Powerfully feminist and diverse (wouldn't ol' HP have hated that), creepy to scary, well edited, and a good variety. Standouts for me were The Thing on the Cheerleading Squad by Molly Tanzer (great title, horrific playout), the poetically creepy Bring the Moon to Me by Amelia Gorman, and Eight Seconds by Pandora Hope, which was one of the very few stories to have a message of anything other than the eternal darkness awaiting at the many hands of Nyarlathotep. I'm not saying it ends well, obv.

A terrific collection, highly recommended for lovers of horror/weird, and you don't have to be a Lovecraft freak to enjoy it.

[Fiona · Rating 3 out of 5]

Overall this is a strong collection of stories, diversifying Lovecraft's stories and managing to do it in a very natural way. For me, though, it could have used more variation in tone and mood to really shine.

There were some standouts that I absolutely loved - De Deabus Minoribus Exterioris Theomagicae, by Jilly Dreadful, plays with the idea of a woman performing a bibliographic study on a book that would have been better left unread. The tone shift over the course of the story is a masterpiece of storytelling.
The Cypress God, by Rodopi Sisamis, gave some literal teeth to a girl more used to being overlooked and underloved. It managed a lot in a very short time, and coming from quite a new author it's all the more impressive.
Shub-Niggurath's Witnesses, from Valerie Valdes, managed to pack a lot into a very short space, and did it with humour in abundance. One of the only stories to really let loose and have fun with Lovecraft, and I would LOVE to see more from these diabolical door to door worshippers.

It's definitely worth reading for anyone with some familiarity with Lovecraft, who'd like to see just a few more women and a lot less racism in the literature.

[soren karimi · Rating 4 out of 5]

مقدمه‌ی داستان اسرار گروه تشویق داستانک معرکه‌ای بود. کاش مقدمه‌ی همه‌ی داستان‌ها چنین چیزی بود. داستان چون جان از کالبدش برون رفت رو هم خیلی دوست داشتم.
خوبی این کتاب اینه که داستان‌هاش توی یه سطح کیفی قرار دارن و مثل کتاب قبلی آدم یهو با افت شدید کیفیت ر��به‌رو نمی‌شه.

[Alex · Rating 4 out of 5]

My horror book club is reading a selection of Lovecraft in October, and this anthology will follow in November as a well-crafted response to his works. This is a collection worth sharing with all your friends. There's so many great deconstructions of Lovecraft's work, along with some refreshingly new approaches. "Bitter Perfurme" is a great riff on "Cool Air" that is subtle and brings in entirely different fears of mortality. Additionally, on a closer second read, it includes some really interesting commentary on gender roles. There's a reclamation of Arthur Jermyn that *almost* makes reading the source material worthwhile. So many of these stories are relentlessly brutal. Not for the faint of heart.

“Eight Seconds” by Pandora Hope updates the Mythos with a delightful Hills Have Eyes vibe.

Wendy Wagner breathes new life into the Ancient Egyptian pharaoh Nitocris making the “Queen of a New America.”

“Lockbox” by E. Catherine Tobler is cloaked in the gothic and resonates with both the Lovecraft story with the unfortunately named cat and Barker’s “In the Hills, the Cities”.

"The Cypress God" gloriously unfolds back multiple layers to reveal something even more wrong and unwholesome until the next layer is pulled back.

Quite possibly my favorite of the collection is “Bring the Moon to Me” by Amelia Gorman. This combines programming, knitting, and non-Euclidean math into a viscous potion that infuses cosmic horror and chills the hope and optimism of the space race. It’s great flash that lands its punches and doesn’t overstay its welcome.

[Orrin Grey · Rating 4 out of 5]

I was lucky enough to read this book in manuscript form. The first of two long-needed all-women Lovecraft anthologies--both funded by Kickstarter, both of which I backed, both of which funded nicely, showing the demand for this sort of thing. The second, Dreams from the Witch House is coming from Dark Regions Press and editor Lynne Jamneck soon.

This volume shows that not only is there a demand for Lovecraftian stories by diverse writers, there's a wealth of great material to be mined there. Filled with solid stories, this attractive volume also boasts some delightfully different artwork, with Lovecraftian illustrations in a looser and often more anime-inspired style that opens up the book and works remarkably well.

With standout stories from Jilly Dreadful, Angela Slatter, E. Catherine Tobler, Gemma Files, Molly Tanzer, Selena Chambers, and many others, this is a book that belongs on the shelf of any fan of quality Lovecraftian tales!

[An Redman · Rating 4 out of 5]

I recommend this collection to everyone that enjoys Lovecraft (duh) but also for folks that want a very well rounded, diverse and thoughtful reading experience. The rich background of the writers has created a very compelling take on horror.

When I broke down my ratings of individual stories it worked out to 70.8% approval. Some of the medium-rare range stories (early middle to middle) didn't work with me. Upon finishing the book and some reflection I wish there had been more women adventurers, grave robbers and warriors featured in the stories.

Still, a marvellous read and a must have. Plus, I have a fucking nifty She Walks in Shadows bookmark. Sweet!

[Jessica · Rating 4 out of 5]

This is the first time in five years that I've read a short story anthology cover-to-cover. There were one or two stories that didn't really work for me, but the vast majority were enjoyable. I'll provide mini-reviews for the ones that I especially enjoyed.

There were also some Lovecraftian visual art pieces in the anthology. I read the paper copy of this book but I suspect they'd display better in the electronic version; the printing didn't do them justice.

De Deum Minoribus Exterioris Theomagicae by Jilly Dreadful - Loved! This was so much fun. Bibliographic horror. Funny, creepy, with a setting that will be familiar to anyone who's spent a lot of time in libraries or archives. And the end, with the insistence that the narrator consent to her own destruction? Brilliant.

Lavinia's Wood by Angela Slatter - Southern Gothic story of social ostracism, family dysfunction, and Yog-Sothoth. Sad, scary, horrible. (Or horror-ible? Is that a word?)

The Adventurer's Wife by Premee Mohamed - Lovecraftian consequences for colonialism. Darkly humorous.

Lockbox by E. Catherine Tobler - Creepy mindtrip at a mysterious abbey, with footnotes. I love well-utilized footnotes. And Gothic abbeys.

Bitter Perfume by Laura Blackwell - Multi-generational family unit; middle-age unemployment struggles; what is betrayal and what is loyalty when talking about end of life scenarios? Simultaneously haunting and grounded. It edged more towards social realism than I generally have a taste for, but was so skillfully done I was fully on board for it.

Eight Seconds by Pandora Hope - The female protagonist/heroine is unlikeable in a lot of ways -- irresponsible, selfish, a "bad" mother -- but I couldn't stop reading. Its presentation of sacrifice and motherhood reflected and twisted a theme I noticed throughout this anthology, of protagonists voluntarily sacrificing their bodies in exchange for an external force granting them meaning -- or not.

Cthulhu of the Dead Sea by Inkeri Kontro - Science experiment Cthulhu. I liked the academic place setting (professional conference and research lab) and the uncertain-but-ominous ending really worked here.

Notes Found in a Decommissioned Asylum by Sharon Mock - While several of the stories made me want to read more by the author, this is the first where I wanted to read more in this world. The narrator, her presentation of/questioning of the defined categories we place people in, was... I don't know how to describe it. When I read fiction it's generally because I want an emotional engagement with a story; when I read nonfiction it's often because I want to expand my knowledge in a way that helps me think about the world differently. This allowed me to do both, and it's not often that I find a piece of writing that does that.

The Cypress God by Rodopi Sisamis - Another where I'd love to read more in this world. Frankly, if the author can bring this to novel writing, I'd be fully on board with a (YA???) series featuring Sorha and Marchosias. Despite (because?) Sorha is in her teens, Sisamis really goes there with the dark goddess themes, in a way i can't explain without spoiling it. I actually made a verbal exclamation at the ending. Delicious.


Warning, in case it's helpful: iirc 2 of the stories use the "n" word -- Ammutseba Rising (where I was totally caught off guard by it and thought the story could have done without it) and Queen of a New America (where it made more sense given the context). Also, horrible things happen to people in every story, including domestic abuse, murder, mutilation, and slavery.

[RJ · Rating 3 out of 5]

This became a bit of a slog to get through - especially when I was already despairing and dark-moody.

To its credit, none of the stories felt repetitive, which seems like a risk in a Lovecraft anthology - but I also didn't find anything particularly empowering or strikingly transformative of the source material. Maybe my expectations were too high, having recently read The Ballad of Black Tom, which was a knock-out.

Highlights for me were "De Deabus Minoribus Exterioris Theomagicae" by Jilly Dreadful (an archivist becomes increasingly affected by a mysterious tome as she records details about it), "Eight Seconds" by Pandora Hope (an Australian roughrider reluctantly investigates the cult that drew in her estranged daughter), and "Cthulhu of the Dead Sea" by Inkeri Kontro (an international team of scientists playfully name a strange new microbe with fractally recurring tentacle structures after the fictional Elder God; what could go wrong!).

I was initially really into "Magna Mater" - using a hypnotic glamour to recover the remains of one's ancestor from the British Museum, very up my alley! - but the implication towards the end that all blond-haired blue-eyed people are descendants of a non-human species and literally genetically superior reads unbelievably tone-deaf when playing with the lore of a infamously racist author. "The Thing on the Cheerleading Squad" was Buffyesque and awesome until the downer ending - but again, maybe just the wrong time for consuming despair.

[Tanvi · Rating 3 out of 5]

Part of my rating is due simply towards my apathy to the tentacled horrors and the self-consciousness of the bizarre in Lovecraftian weird fiction. Many of his tropes are such cliches that I read them as pastiche, along the lines of "And it was all a dream and she woke up", except more like "And she saw a many-tentacled, reeking creature rise up from the serpentine depths of the buried ancient temple of Xyzzzgz, and she went mad."

Not being familiar with Lovecraft, I probably missed most of the specific allusions, e.g. albinism and the white apes. If I’d known this was a weird fiction collection prior to reading it, I probably wouldn’t have touched it.

As it was, my top stories were the ones more rooted in human relationships than the eldritch.

Standouts:

1. The Thing on the Cheerleading Squad
2. The Energy of Your Body is Violet - excellent low-key horror
3. De Deabus Miniabus Exterioris
4. The Cypress God
5. Queen of a New America
6. Provenance - brilliantly written, and it was only one of two to creep me out (the other being The Energy of Your Body).
7. Shub-Niggurath’s Wife

I liked Magna Mater and The Adventurer’s Wife for their take on European colonialism. Turn on the Light was a good metafictiony response to Lovecraft himself.

Skipped:

* Ammutseba Rising. The vagueness was too generic for me. It was a clever format and I love a good rondel, but the best rondels and villanelles go somewhere. This didn’t seem to progress, it just seemed repetitive.
* Hairwork, Body to Body to Body, Cthulhu of the Dead Sea, The Opera Singer, Notes Found in a Ddcomissioned Asylum, The Eye of Juno - just too long and overwritten, or the style didn’t keep my interest

[Allison · Rating 4 out of 5]

A really strong collection!

Favorites:

“Lavinia’s Wood” Angela Slatter
“The Head of T’la-yub” Nelly Geraldine García-Rosas
“Provenance” Benjanun Sriduangkaew
“Cthulhu of the Dead Sea” Inkeri Kontro
“Cypress God” Rodopi Sisamis
“De Deabus Minoribus Exterioris Theomagicae” Jilly Dreadful
“The Eye of Juno” Eugenie Mora

[Ana Mardoll · Rating 5 out of 5]

She Walks in Shadows / B014NLK4EI

SWiS out of Innsmouth Free Press is an all-woman Lovecraftian anthology of original stories and art, and it is a lovely addition to any library. I read it over Halloween, dragging myself out of a particularly nasty reading slump, and was delightfully terrified by several of the stories. (I never before thought I would be terrified of corn, ya'll. Corn.)

Let's get the warnings and shopper-caveats out of the way first.

1. As with any anthology, some of the stories are great and some of them are not as shiny. I read all of the stories for my review, but would caution most folks to go in with a mentality that if a particular story isn't working for you, skip it. Come back to it later if you must, or not at all if you prefer. It's fine. Don't force yourself to read something you don't enjoy; there's no book report after.

2. If you're coming straight from a Lovecraft "short story" reading binge, these new stories will feel VERY short indeed; it's interesting how the standard length for the genre has changed over time. In some cases, the shorter length seems detrimental to the story; there's not room to indulgently spread out in the same way HPL could and did in order to really build suspense and weave terror into the mundane. In other cases, the story itself doesn't suffer from its brevity but the reader may—"BUT WHAT HAPPENS NEXT!" was regularly shouted at my kindle. Again, this is standard for anthologies, but something to be aware of; I wish and hope that some of these authors can be commissioned again for fuller stories in this genre.

3. Speaking of HPL, these stories aren't just forays into the "weird tales" genre; most of them are straight-up Lovecraftian in that they reference ~actual~ HPL characters. If you aren't familiar with the lore, I believe you can still keep up (I did, even though there are a few HPL stories I've yet to read); if you ARE familiar with the lore, there is always the risk that tie-in mentions may feel a bit... twee? This is going to be super subjective to the reader, but I wanted to mention it. (And I do question the editorial decision to place both of the Asenath stories NEXT to each other; that was weird and jarring and one of those moments where you're reminded that all this is make-believe, which is detrimental to the atmosphere, in my opinion.)

4. On a more delicate topic: Trigger warnings. I don't really know how to warn for a book without treading into spoiler territory, but I don't think it's too far out of line to state that this is a VERY DARK horror anthology. Children (both born and unborn), pets, women, and old ladies fare particularly badly in many of the stories, and sometimes in graphic ways. Several of the stories deal with domestic abuse. As a survivor myself, I found the stories to be vibrantly terrifying and I enjoyed them, but do be aware of your triggers and practice self-care wherever you can. (Also, to fellow survivors: please remember that you are brave and amazing and wonderful. <3)

Now for good things!

5. I won't review each of the stories individually, but quite a few of them rocked my world and left me wanting to cower under the covers. Violet Is The Color of Your Energy was horrifying in that special queasy-pit-in-your-stomach kind of way. De Deabus Minoribus Exterioris Theomagicae is ~amazing~ and I really need Jilly Dreadful to be commissioned to write all the things. Lavinia's Wood was a great pitch of creepy Lovecraftian evil. Chosen made me weep, as did Bitter Perfume and Eight Seconds, although I really wanted the latter two to be longer. The Eye of Juno was wonderful. And Provenance needs to be a full length novel and a movie and everything, because it was just so so good and wonderfully captures that Lovecraftian feeling of living out a mundane existence under a shadow of inescapable horror.

6. Wow, these stories are incredibly diverse, by the way! There are a lot of stories here about women of color, which is a very welcome addition to the Lovecraftian canon; another story includes a character who is either a gorgeous trans boy or a very dashing butch lesbian—either way, all the love to nu-Asenath in The Thing on The Cheerleading Squad. Older women are included here, as are women with various disabilities (including a woman who uses a wheelchair!). All of these characters are beautifully well-rounded and it's really wonderful to see an anthology which includes a wide variety of men and women, rather than sticking to the cis white men Lovecraft favored.

Caveat to #6: I am a white cis woman and there are going to be things that fly under my radar or which I find questionable yet am not qualified to comment on. One of the early stories uses the N-word in reference to the HPL cat; yes, the cat is a reference that readers will recognize, but I don't know that the actual word needed to be used. One of the stories is set within the framework of a plantation and which I am not qualified to review; another is about a white explorer who marries a much younger native guide. One of the stories talks about blonde hair and blue eyes as markers of a specific type of supernatural ancestry. In short, there are places where the authors are engaging with the world lore that we have courtesy of HPL, his rampant racism included, but I'm not always sure when that engagement is successful or not. I don't think this is a mark against the anthology but (again!) it's something to be aware of going into your purchase and it's something to be aware of regarding my own review.

Bottom-line: Should you buy this anthology? I'm glad I did! I definitely recommend it for the kindle price if you (a) like the weird tales genre, (b) don't mind Lovecraftian characters being name-dropped in your stories, and (c) won't be triggered by the deliciously horrific content herein. Also, supporting lady-authors and artists (especially diverse ones!) and independent press is always a good idea in my book.

~ Ana Mardoll


--- TABLE OF CONTENTS ---

Ammutseba Rising | Ann K. Schwader
Turn On the Light | Penelope Love
Bring the Moon to Me | Amelia Gorman
Violet is the Color of Your Energy | Nadia Bulkin
De Deabus Minoribus Exterioris Theomagicae | Jilly Dreadful
Lavinia's Wood | Angela Slatter
The Adventurer's Wife | Premee Mohamed
Lockbox | E. Catherine Tobler
Hairwork | Gemma Files
The Thing on The Cheerleading Squad | Molly Tanzer
Body to Body to Body | Selena Chambers
Magna Mater | Arinn Dembo
Chosen | Lyndsey Holder
Bitter Perfume | Laura Blackwell
Eight Seconds | Pandora Hope
The Eye of Juno | Eugenie Mora
Cthulhu of the Dead Sea | Inkeri Kontro
Notes Found in a Decommissioned Asylum, December 1961 | Sharon Mock
The Cypress God | Rodopi Sisamis
When She Quickens | Mary Turzillo
Queen of a New America | Wendy N. Wagner
The Opera Singer | Priya Sridhar
Shub-Niggurath's Witnesses | Valerie Valdes
Provenance | Benjanun Sriduangkaew
The Head of T'la-yub | Nelly Geraldine García-Rosas (translated by Silvia Moreno-Garcia)

[Jayaprakash Satyamurthy · Rating 4 out of 5]

I didn't like every story in this collection equally well. Interestingly this doesn't mean it is an uneven collection - it is not. It just attests to the variety on display here.

There are so many Lovecraftian collections out there that suggest the genre is a boy's club. This collection amply displays that women writers have much to say and much to contribute to the eldritch tale. Many of these stories focus on female figures from Lovecraft's tales - Lavinia Whatelay, Asenath Whaite and memorably, Shub Niggurath, the goat of a thousand young.

My top tales from this collection:
“Turn out the Light” Penelope Love
“Notes Found in a Decommissioned Asylum, December 1961″ Sharon Mock
Magna Mater by Arinn Dembo
“De Deabus Minoribus Exterioris Theomagicae” Jilly Dreadful
“Cthulhu of the Dead Sea” Inkeri Kontro

I'd also like to congratulate editor Silvia Moreno-Garcia on assembling such a strong collection of stories - this is head and shoulders over the sort of Lovecraft pastiche being churned out elsewhere. This is not some half-baked affirmative action collection but a strong selection of tales with something for most Lovecraft devotees and weird fic fans.

[Brit · Rating 4 out of 5]

The cure, or at least a step in the right direction, for anyone who enjoys weird sci-fi/horror but has ever finished a Lovecraft story thinking "wow, that was pretty racist!" or "why were there absolutely no women in that entire story?"

[Frances · Rating 4 out of 5]

Reviews are hard for me to write, and I've been doing them more rarely than I'd like.

This book is really really good.

The stories have a huge range of setting, of style, of tone. There's the light humour of door-to-door evangelism for Shub-Niggurath, the bravery and horror in "Eight Seconds", the slow familial chill of "Bitter Perfume", the language and construction of "Lockbox"...

Oh my goodness, "Lockbox".

This is a book that brings the Mythos into everything from knitting to rodeo riding, cheerleading to librarianship, the ancient border of Hadrian's Wall to the slowly starving depths of space.

And on a purely shallow level, it's a gorgeous book.

My biggest complaint is that I wish a couple of the stories had gone on longer. This is a tiny, tiny complaint and tells you something about how good I found the stories.

Do yourself a favour and check it out.

[Steven · Rating 4 out of 5]

When you delve into Lovecraftian territories, it's often difficult to please everyone. Perhaps you enjoy the Mythos stories, but not the Dreamlands types of tales, or vice versa. Perhaps you're reading for the language, or for the ideas, or for the horror. 

It is supremely difficult to deliver on all of them.

This book does a pretty good job of walking that line. 

The stories here are all creepy in a very Lovecraftian way, though some are quiet and intimate tales, while others are death and destruction.

Regardless, this book's central thesis - that the ouvre of Lovecraftian tales can, and should, include female authors - is well borne out by the book itself.  Quite recommended.

[Victoria · Rating 3 out of 5]

3,5 Sterne

[K.T. Katzmann · Rating 3 out of 5]

I can instantly name the story that blew my socks off. Trouble is, I have a hard time naming another one.

She Walks in Shadows is a collection of Lovecraftian tales by women about women. That's a great premise; it instantly earned my dollar, and probably always will. There's a story I'm praised over Twitter quite a bit, the amazing The Thing on the Cheerleading Squad by Molly Tanzer. She said she could write a whole series spun off of this, people; start throwing money at her until she does. Hell, make it a webseries and it could be the next Carmilla.

Also, I want more of Angela Slatter's version of Lavinia Whateley.

My issue is, after that, I had a hard time recalling the stories inside. Sure, they're entertaining during the reading, not much stayed with me afterwards. I had to check the table of contents to job my memory.

One noticeable differences here is in the repeating motifs. The way most Cthulhu collections have buckets of tentacles, this has body-swapping. That might be Asenaith's influence coming through, or just a coincidence.

I love the stories that authors chose to riff on. Most Lovecraft anthologies have many variations on a handful one stories. This one has a wide variety, include some that I rarely or never see riff on (Cool Air? Arthur Goddamn Jermyn?!). There was one story of which I couldn't quite see the Lovecraft collection, but that's not bad for this kind of anthology. Hell, its above the average.

Also of note, there's some really cool artwork sprinkled through the book.

I want to give it up to Silvia Moreno-Garcia; she is a class act. The book was slightly late from the projected pre-order date, so I got a free e-copy of Jazz Age Cthulhu, which I very much look forward to reading. That was neither expected nor required, and it was a nice surprise. We're dealing with a professional, people; check out her company with my recommendation.

Look, if you've ever enjoyed one of Chaosium's anthologies (like The Ithaqua Cycle or Cthulhu's Heirs: New Cthulhu Mythos Fiction), get this book. I'd pre-order the next volume right volume now, if I could. There's promise here, and I'm willing to see it grow.

I have a friend who constantly reminds me, "My tastes are simple. I like Dune and Star Wars; I read every Dune and Star Wars book, and I enjoy them because they're Dune and Star Wars." If that's anyway near the way you feel about Cthulhu, click here now.

[SmartBitches · Rating 5 out of 5]

Full review at Smart Bitches, Trashy Books

This collection has adventure and horror, sex, violence, and some very dark humor. The one thing missing from this anthology is any romance – that’s not surprising, since the Lovecraft style is not terribly conducive to romance. There are examples of lust, and there are crushes (including lust between men and women, women and women, and men and men), but there aren’t any romantic relationships that I would describe as truly loving.

The stories have diverse characters in diverse situations, but they share that common Lovecraftian atmosphere of dread and wrongness. Most of them aren’t scary like a jump scare is scary. They are horrifying in the sense that there is so much wrongness. Lovecraft was a master at conveying the idea that things are just not right, and that this not-rightness is all that is required to cause characters so much distress that they go crazy. The writers in this anthology do a great job of running with the idea of not-rightness.

This is a great anthology for Halloween, as long you are in the mood for horror as opposed to romance. As a bonus, the anthology is illustrated with drawings that run from grotesque to adorable. I had a great time reading this although it’s just barely possible that I slept with the light on one night. Now if you’ll excuse me, I have to eat all the candy I bought for trick-or-treaters (I shop early and often) while I read “Eight Seconds” again.

- Carrie S.

[Νατάσα Παυλίτσεβιτς · Rating 5 out of 5]

A great collection with very nice artworks. My absolute favorite was "Violet is the color of your energy" but I also loved the following:

Eight seconds
The thing on the cheerleading squad
Cthulhu of the dead sea
Turn out the light
Bring the moon to me
The adventure's wife
Body to body to body
The cypress god
The opera singer

[Lori · Rating 3 out of 5]

Favorite stories :
Bring the Moon to Me by Amelia Gorman
De Deabus Minoribus Exterioris Theomagicae by Jilly Dreadful
Lavinia's Wood by Angela Slatter
Lockbox by E. Catherine Tobler
Magna Mater by Arinn Dembo
Shub-Niggurath's Witnesses by Valerie Valdes

[Johan Haneveld · Rating 4 out of 5]

8+ I thoroughly enjoyed this collection of weird fiction and cosmic horror in the style of H.P. Lovecraft. The creator of the Cthulhu-mythos was a racist and a bit of a misogynist (at least he didn't feature many female protagonists in his stories). According to the introduction in horrorfandom the idea had long festered that this kind of horror was the domain of male authors. The editors went out to prove these voices wrong and collected Lovecraftian horrorstories by women about women. There's a lot of diversity here, in story themes and in writing styles, and as in all collections not all stories deserve five stars. Some were predictable, and some kept too close to the Cthulhu-mythos, using characters and gods Lovecraft invented, leading to an air of familiarity. There were even some stories featuring the samen character names. I liked the stories more that kept away from too obvious allusions to Lovecrafts original creations and that used new horrors or used the old tropes in totally unexpected ways. I also liked a few of the more experimental stories, that used footnotes to tell the story, or were written in the way of a book report.
Some great stories were 'Bring the Moon To Me' by Amelia Gorman - a very short story that has a woman learning to program an incantation in computer language ...
Jilly Dreadful's 'De deabus minoribus exterioris theomagicae' - expermental in form, but still leading to a chilling conclusion.
'Lavinia's Wood' by Angela Slatter followed close in Lovecrafts footsteps, but managed to create an eary atmosphere none the less. Some great descriptions.
'Hairwork' by Gemma Files takes the reader to the American South and to the all to real horrors of slavery. Digging for remnants of the past turns out not to be a good idea. Some great evocation of time and place.
'Bitter Perfume' by Laura Blackwell was weird in the right way, not giving conclusive answers, but with a literally chilling fate for the protagonist, who lives in a family with some strange traditions ...
'Eight Seconds' by Pandora Hope took me to the Australian outback and a rodeo rider trying to save her estranged daughter from a cult. A great voice for the narrator.
'Cthulhu of the Dead Sea' by Inkeri Kontro was one of my favorites. It described the life of an academic well: the conferences, work in a laboratory. And it's about a weird bacterium found in a dead sea ...
'The Cypress God' by Rodopi Sisamis took place in an alternate world with different gods, demanding different sacrifices ...
'Shub-Niggurath's Witnesses' by Valerie Valdes was a strong satirical tale.
All in all some great stories, and no clunkers in between. The black and white art included between the stories added to my enjoyment. Recommended for fans of weird fiction and Lovecraftian horror.

[Jessica · Rating 4 out of 5]

This is a very solid collection, so much that I felt that "page-turning" urge even between stories like I do when a good novel grips me - and that's a hard to get feeling from me when it's the question of an anthology from different authors. But almost every one was so well done!

I wasn't prepared for how directly they would spring off the source material - this wasn't just Lovecraftian (or cosmic horror, or Weird), most were direct retellings or retwistings of specific stories by Lovecraft. I haven't read that many, so some of the context was lost on me. That said, there were some I wish they went harder on the interrogation of the source material - Lovecraft's misogyny is well argued against here, but his racism much less so.

Overall, this was a readable collection despite how much HPL you'd read. My personal favourites were:

"Cthulhu of the Dead Sea" by Inkeri Kontro - I loved the cultural tensions for a Finn in Denmark, the deep dip into a hard science research lab, and the mix of Lovecraftian horrors into it. I wish this one had a whole novel, but I guess the author mostly is a short story writer, alas.

"The Thing on the Cheerleading Squad" by Molly Tanzer - fun but painful high school story about how people change... and things like that.

"Bring the Moon to Me" by Amelia Gorman - coding as knitting! And other more mind-bending stuff too.

[Monica · Rating 3 out of 5]

This was a interesting collection of short stories inspired by H.P.Lovecraft but I do wish we could have had just a little bit more than what we got. The stories themselves weren't terrible but some of the stories took too much exposition or were a bit of a let down especially coming from stories based on Lovecraft's work. The changes that were made to the stories did fit very well and even added a bit to each story. A difference in tone could have helped this book as well, it just felt like all the stories had a continuous dark tone and didn't break up the dark tone with anything else. Those are just my personal opinions though but I still really enjoyed the book regardless.

My favorite stories were: Shub-Niggurath's Witnesses, ( The dark humor was a very good choice and I loved watching the antics of these door to door cultists.) De Deabus Minoribus Exterioris Theomagicae, ( A tale of a woman slowly succumbing to madness as she studies a book that shouldn't be studied.) and the Cypress God ( A story of a young girl who is finally pushed to her limit after being ignored by others for too long.)

[Eleanor · Rating 3 out of 5]

Personally I found this collection to be very lacklustre. Short stories is not a form I read often, I must admit, and so I am not used to critiquing the genre. However, I just found most of the stories in here to spend 90% of their time in exposition, only for the plot to suddenly hit and escalate in the final paragraph. Having now read this formulaic structure many times in this book, I am beginning to realise it is likely a feature of this genre of story. Unfortunately this just was not for me. The stand out story of this collection for me was 'De Deabus Minoribus Exterioris Theomagicae' by Jilly Dreadful, but most of the stories I found forgettable or simply blended into one another, being so similar in structure. The writing of each author, however, was without fault, and I have no issue with the quality of work; perhaps I have simply found a genre that doesn't fit my tastes.

[rebecca · Rating 3 out of 5]

Highlights: Turn Out the Light; Violet is the Color of Your Energy; The Thing on the Cheerleading Squad

this started out really strong but by the end i was forcing myself to finish the stories. i have a hit or miss relationship with short story/anthologies and this one was kind of a miss. i should say that i have little knowledge about lovecraftian monsters so a lot of this went over my head and were just confusing. if you are familiar with lovecraft i imagine this would be a fantastic read! there are quite a few gems in there though, even for someone like me who has only a little background with lovecraft's monsters.

[Carol · Rating 4 out of 5]

Really enjoyed these stories. I've always had a problem with Lovecraft, because while I love his lore I don't love his writing. So seeing cosmic horror stories with a more modern take, and on top of that written by women was absolutely fantastic.
In here, we get to see Lovecraft's women like Asenath as rebellious teenagers, a cult that goes around asking people if they have a moment to talk about their Mother Shub-Nigurath, a laboratory where a species found in the Dead Sea called H. Chtuhlu is being grown, and lots of tales where things lurk on the shadows to either eat people or drove them mad. They feel fresh and unique, and for me it was a great new approach to cosmic horror.

[Arka Chakraborty · Rating 3 out of 5]

3.9*

This took me a while to finish, but a decent collection, and some of the finest Lovecraftian re-writes. Though I was expecting "Cthulhu of the dead sea" to be a knockout, but it turned out to be a solid dud!

[Amanda · Rating 3 out of 5]

A few of these stories were fantastic. I particularly enjoyed "DE DEABUS MINORIBUS EXTERIORIS THEOMAGICAE" by Jilly Dreadful and "Violet Is the Color of Your Energy" by Nadia Bulkin. The rest were creepy and interesting but not overly interesting.

[Bjorn · Rating 5 out of 5]

This entire book shows how creative you can get through Lovecraft's legacy, without following his own hateful ideology. Suspenseful, horrifying, but also quite ingenuous! Personal favorite is 'De Deabus Minoribus Exterioris Theomagicae' by Jilly Dreadful - the subtle build-up of an analytical account to a horrifying revelation was amazing.

[Sophie Yorkston · Rating 4 out of 5]

There’s an outdated perception that women, either as characters or writers in the Lovecraftian realms, don’t belong. She Walks in Shadows comes off the back of a quite successful Indiegogo campaign, suggesting that the reading public are looking for this myth to be dispelled.

Editors Silvia Moreno-Garcia and Paula R. Stiles of Innsmouth Free Press looked at the disparity in this well-loved section of speculative fiction and put together a list of authors with ties to Lovecraftian mythos from all over the globe, and a significant inclusion of writers of colour.

The anthology begins with a short but on point introduction from the editors about the lack of representation in the mythos, due to some preconceptions. Twenty-five short pieces follow, with a largely diverse cast of characters and settings.

Interspersed between the stories are some quality graphics from a team of talented artists, representing a diversity of styles. While none of them are seemingly inspired by any of the shorts, each is additive to the overall atmosphere of the collection. While each was rendered well, perhaps my favourites were Lisa A. Grabenstetter’s Cthulhu and Diana Tang’s Sea.

What I love more than anything about this collection, and which I think blows out of the water that Lovecraftian fiction belongs to a certain niche, is the varied settings, characters and mythical interweaving into such a variety of cultures of this collection. There’s Egyptian mythology in downtown America, if you don’t find the gods between corn fields in the prairie lands; the pawns of Elder Gods in English backwaters; replicating in the laboratories of Europe; demon acolytes stickering stock in the bodega.

Read the rest at: http://sqmag.com/2015/08/31/edition-2...