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The Madness of Cthulhu #1
Szaleństwo Cthulhu
Szesnaście historii zainspirowanych jednym z najważniejszych opowiadań mistrza literatury grozy, Howarda Philipsa Lovecrafta – „W górach szaleństwa”.
Ekspedycja naukowa odkrywa ruiny starożytnego miasta, ukryte w niedostępnych górach Antarktydy, a w nim ciała zadziwiających istot. Przerażająca prawda o genezie dawno wymarłej cywilizacji wymyka się wszelkim wyobrażeniom i wiedzie naukowców na skraj poczytalności.
Zbiór pod redakcją S.T. Joshiego zawiera opowiadania tak znanych autorów jak Arthur C. Clark („Odyseja kosmiczna”), Robert Silverberg (cykl „Kroniki Majipooru”) czy Caitlín R. Kiernan („Tonąca dziewczyna”).
Ekspedycja naukowa odkrywa ruiny starożytnego miasta, ukryte w niedostępnych górach Antarktydy, a w nim ciała zadziwiających istot. Przerażająca prawda o genezie dawno wymarłej cywilizacji wymyka się wszelkim wyobrażeniom i wiedzie naukowców na skraj poczytalności.
Zbiór pod redakcją S.T. Joshiego zawiera opowiadania tak znanych autorów jak Arthur C. Clark („Odyseja kosmiczna”), Robert Silverberg (cykl „Kroniki Majipooru”) czy Caitlín R. Kiernan („Tonąca dziewczyna”).
552 pages, Hardcover
First published January 1, 2014
65 people are currently reading
398 people want to read
About the author
S.T. Joshi
793 books453 followersSunand Tryambak Joshi is an Indian American literary scholar, and a leading figure in the study of Howard Phillips Lovecraft and other authors. Besides what some critics consider to be the definitive biography of Lovecraft (H. P. Lovecraft: A Life, 1996), Joshi has written about Ambrose Bierce, H. L. Mencken, Lord Dunsany, and M.R. James, and has edited collections of their works.
His literary criticism is notable for its emphases upon readability and the dominant worldviews of the authors in question; his The Weird Tale looks at six acknowledged masters of horror and fantasy (namely Arthur Machen, Algernon Blackwood, Dunsany, M. R. James, Bierce and Lovecraft), and discusses their respective worldviews in depth and with authority. A follow-up volume, The Modern Weird Tale, examines the work of modern writers, including Shirley Jackson, Ramsey Campbell, Stephen King, Robert Aickman, Thomas Ligotti, T. E. D. Klein and others, from a similar philosophically oriented viewpoint. The Evolution of the Weird Tale (2004) includes essays on Dennis Etchison, L. P. Hartley, Les Daniels, E. F. Benson, Rudyard Kipling, David J. Schow, Robert Bloch, L. P. Davies, Edward Lucas White, Rod Serling, Poppy Z. Brite and others.
Joshi is the editor of the small-press literary journals Lovecraft Studies and Studies in Weird Fiction, published by Necronomicon Press. He is also the editor of Lovecraft Annual and co-editor of Dead Reckonings, both small-press journals published by Hippocampus Press.
In addition to literary criticism, Joshi has also edited books on atheism and social relations, including Documents of American Prejudice (1999), an annotated collection of American racist writings; In Her Place (2006), which collects written examples of prejudice against women; and Atheism: A Reader (2000), which collects atheistic writings by such people as Antony Flew, George Eliot, Bertrand Russell, Emma Goldman, Gore Vidal and Carl Sagan, among others. An Agnostic Reader, collecting pieces by such writers as Isaac Asimov, John William Draper, Albert Einstein, Frederic Harrison, Thomas Henry Huxley, Robert Ingersoll, Corliss Lamont, Arthur Schopenhauer and Edward Westermarck, was published in 2007.
Joshi is also the author of God's Defenders: What They Believe and Why They Are Wrong (2003), an anti-religious polemic against various writers including C. S. Lewis, G. K. Chesterton, T. S. Eliot, William F. Buckley, Jr., William James, Stephen L. Carter, Annie Dillard, Reynolds Price, Elisabeth Kübler-Ross, Guenter Lewy, Neale Donald Walsch and Jerry Falwell, which is dedicated to theologian and fellow Lovecraft critic Robert M. Price.
In 2006 he published The Angry Right: Why Conservatives Keep Getting It Wrong, which criticised the political writings of such commentators as William F. Buckley, Jr., Russell Kirk, David and Rush Limbaugh, Ann Coulter, Phyllis Schlafly, William Bennett, Gertrude Himmelfarb and Irving and William Kristol, arguing that, despite the efforts of right-wing polemicists, the values of the American people have become steadily more liberal over time.
Joshi, who lives with his wife in Moravia, New York, has stated on his website that his most noteworthy achievements thus far have been his biography of Lovecraft, H. P. Lovecraft: A Life and The Weird Tale.
His literary criticism is notable for its emphases upon readability and the dominant worldviews of the authors in question; his The Weird Tale looks at six acknowledged masters of horror and fantasy (namely Arthur Machen, Algernon Blackwood, Dunsany, M. R. James, Bierce and Lovecraft), and discusses their respective worldviews in depth and with authority. A follow-up volume, The Modern Weird Tale, examines the work of modern writers, including Shirley Jackson, Ramsey Campbell, Stephen King, Robert Aickman, Thomas Ligotti, T. E. D. Klein and others, from a similar philosophically oriented viewpoint. The Evolution of the Weird Tale (2004) includes essays on Dennis Etchison, L. P. Hartley, Les Daniels, E. F. Benson, Rudyard Kipling, David J. Schow, Robert Bloch, L. P. Davies, Edward Lucas White, Rod Serling, Poppy Z. Brite and others.
Joshi is the editor of the small-press literary journals Lovecraft Studies and Studies in Weird Fiction, published by Necronomicon Press. He is also the editor of Lovecraft Annual and co-editor of Dead Reckonings, both small-press journals published by Hippocampus Press.
In addition to literary criticism, Joshi has also edited books on atheism and social relations, including Documents of American Prejudice (1999), an annotated collection of American racist writings; In Her Place (2006), which collects written examples of prejudice against women; and Atheism: A Reader (2000), which collects atheistic writings by such people as Antony Flew, George Eliot, Bertrand Russell, Emma Goldman, Gore Vidal and Carl Sagan, among others. An Agnostic Reader, collecting pieces by such writers as Isaac Asimov, John William Draper, Albert Einstein, Frederic Harrison, Thomas Henry Huxley, Robert Ingersoll, Corliss Lamont, Arthur Schopenhauer and Edward Westermarck, was published in 2007.
Joshi is also the author of God's Defenders: What They Believe and Why They Are Wrong (2003), an anti-religious polemic against various writers including C. S. Lewis, G. K. Chesterton, T. S. Eliot, William F. Buckley, Jr., William James, Stephen L. Carter, Annie Dillard, Reynolds Price, Elisabeth Kübler-Ross, Guenter Lewy, Neale Donald Walsch and Jerry Falwell, which is dedicated to theologian and fellow Lovecraft critic Robert M. Price.
In 2006 he published The Angry Right: Why Conservatives Keep Getting It Wrong, which criticised the political writings of such commentators as William F. Buckley, Jr., Russell Kirk, David and Rush Limbaugh, Ann Coulter, Phyllis Schlafly, William Bennett, Gertrude Himmelfarb and Irving and William Kristol, arguing that, despite the efforts of right-wing polemicists, the values of the American people have become steadily more liberal over time.
Joshi, who lives with his wife in Moravia, New York, has stated on his website that his most noteworthy achievements thus far have been his biography of Lovecraft, H. P. Lovecraft: A Life and The Weird Tale.
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Displaying 1 - 30 of 49 reviews
October 28, 2016
Not bad at all.
Collections like this are always hit and miss, and this one does have some glaring misses. But in ‘Devil’s Bathtub’, ‘How the Gods Bargain’, ‘A Mountain Walked’, ‘Diana of the Hundred Breasts’ ‘Under the Shelf’, ‘The Warm’, ‘Little Lady’ and ‘The Dog Handler’s Tale’ we have some dame fine, scary fiction.
That’s half of the stories here, and to seriously begrudge there not being more is greediness.
At the Mountains of Murkiness or, from Lovecraft to Leacock by Arthur C. Clarke
Towards the end of his life Spike Milligan used to write pastiche versions of classic novels (Wuthering Heights; Frankenstein; The Hound of the Baskervilles) which were crammed full of puns, ridiculous names and references to by-gone popular culture. It’s amazing then to read that the same approach had been taken much earlier and on the work of H.P. Lovecraft, particularly when the author is no less a figure than Arthur C. Clarke – a writer I know more by reputation (and that TV show he had when I was a kid) than anything else. I somehow never thought of him as a playful writer.
The resulting tale is silly, but it has its moments. It’s also short, which is good as much more would have been distinctly wearying.
The Fillmore Shoggoth by Harry Turtledove
It never really occurred to me that if Lovecraft’s Old Ones had been real and had made their presence known, that human life would have continued pretty much as before. I probably thought that we’d be far too busy having our consciousness warped by mind-bending terror for there to still be a Vietnam or an LBJ. Certainly I wouldn’t have imagined that the vibes would be good enough for there to be acid-infused rock bands still gigging in San Francisco.
That’s the premise though of this amusing little tale, where one such band finds itself playing a gig in the middle of a horrific shoggoth attach. Clearly Kim Newman’s ‘Anno Dracula’ is a reference point here, and the late 1960s is well conjured and blended almost seamlessly with Lovecraft’s vision, but I just thought the story was a little insubstantial to truly succeed.
Devil’s Bathtub by Lois Gresh
A story that manages to take weird and off the wall Lovecraftian concepts and make something touching out of them. A simple story of a dog, a girl and her father in Antarctica, which despite its short length is beautifully affecting.
The Witness in Darkness by John Shirley
An elder one gives his own account of his race’s history, which turns out to involve a lot of cosmic battles. It’s an interesting idea, but the result just strips all the madness and dark romance away from the Lovecraftian mythos, and that surely can’t be the point.
How the Gods Bargain by William Browning Spencer
Ostensibly this is the tale in the collection, thus far, which wears its Lovecraft roots most lightly. But – and this is a really important but – it’s also the scariest tale this collection has served up thus far. The author understands that the point of this exercise isn’t just to namedrop concepts from ‘At the Mountain of Madness’ and to give knowing winks to the fans. No, the point of a Lovecraft story is to leave the reader not only scared, but uneasy to the point of disorientation.
An academic is forced to confront not only a Lovecraftian horror from his past, but also the heartbreak that’s dominated his adult life. Once again we have a story which proves that terror works best when combined with genuine feelings and emotions.
A Mountain Walked by Caitlin R. Kiernan
An archaeological dig unearths something more dreadful than they can possibly imagine.
As well as its Lovecraftian imagery, this has the dry narration (and love of archaeology) of a M.R. James story. It’s a coming together of masters which works superbly.
‘A Mountain Walked’ is a masterclass of suspense, of ratcheting up tension slowly and painfully, so that even the most hardened horror fan will find they’ve bitten their fingernails to the quick.
Diana of the Hundred Breasts by Robert Silverberg
There are some Belief versus Science stories that are brilliant and there are some Belief versus Sciences stories that are trite, but I don’t think I’ve ever read one where the Belief in question was the Belief in the Cthulhu mythos.
Stories like this are exactly why I like other writers taking on the Lovecraftian. As they can take genuinely scary ideas and concepts and work them into a well-constructed story, with real characters, good dialogue and sentences that don’t just crash into the dust through their own unwieldly verbosity.
Silverberg’s tale is in essence complacent young man gets comeuppance, but it’s done so brilliantly and so skilfully (with well-built up and earned scares) that it made me happy even at its dark conclusion.
Under the Shelf by Michael Shea
I did start reading this a couple of times, but each time my enthusiasm was tripped up by its unwieldy opening sentence:
“When at last they drew near the walls of the Ross Ice Shelf, the cloud-ceiling’s vast, grey fleece had begun to shred in the wind, opening ragged islands of pale blue sky whose light lent sharper definition to the towering rampart of its rim.”
Fortunately I persevered, as the story is far more clearly and urgently written than that sentence suggests, and is without a doubt the scariest story in this collection thus far and one of the scariest I’ve read in a long time.
Okay, it has a weirdly cumbersome opening sentence, but let’s be fair – there is something quite Lovecraftian about that.
Cantata by Melanie Tem
The idea of a person with such a phobia of music – such a dramatic allergic reaction to music – that they’d try to claw their own skin off if they heard it, is truly a terrifying one. The problems is that that one fearsome notion isn’t developed anywhere, and we end up with a fragmentary tale which is more insubstantial than scary.
Cthulhu Rising by Heather Graham
It was the names which first disconcerted me about ‘Cthulhu Rising’.
We have here characters called ‘Devon Adair’, ‘Michael Corona’, ‘Hampton Jones’, ‘Bridgette Sloan’, ‘Marnie Silver’ and ‘Grainger Whitby’. These shouldn’t be the names of characters in a horror story, this is surely a list of supporting characters in a series of ‘Dynasty’.
Shortly afterwards I encountered the dialogue, which is so bad it would have got a screenwriter of ‘Dynasty’ fired.
Ghost-hunters and scientists investigate a Titanic-esque ship which mysteriously disappeared on its maiden journey across the North Atlantic, and now has just as mysteriously reappeared.
Comically bad.
The Warm by Daniel Schweitzer
We have here arch and clever body horror told with a great deal of empathy. The best Frankenstein tales always feel for the creature and this is no exception. A short, amusing and yet nerve-jangling story, which shows again how flexible Lovecraft’s concepts actually are.
Last Rites by K.M. Tonso
There’s a curious paragraph in this tale, wherein a young academic comes home to find his fiancée in a drug-fuelled orgy with his best friends. The reader doesn’t know of her existence before this, and after the narrator has related quickly (and unemotionally) how heart-broken he was, this fiancée is forgotten within a page. So, why so graphic? Why not just have her cheat with one person, or dump him for other reasons? In fact, why introduce her at all when she’s so tangential to the narrative? The way its raised and then forgotten does point to the main flaw of ‘Last Rites’ though, that this horror at one remove story doesn’t have a sure enough grasp of people to truly be scary.
Little Lady by J.C. Koch
I’ve always had a penchant for the horror/western hybrid and this is a particularly fine example. A gang of desperados kidnap a young, beautiful woman and she leads them somewhere they can be ‘safe’.
I particularly enjoyed how, even as it escalates into fantasy, it does so in a way as to make the fantasy almost commonplace. By the end the story has pretty much slipped into a different reality, and yet it feels all of a piece with the hard, gritty cowboy stuff which went before.
White Fire by Joseph S. Pulver Sr.
An ‘in the moment’ thriller which, even as it shows off its intelligence and its literary pedigree, grips quite fantastically. Yes, its pretentiousness did irritate me somewhat, but I also admired it a lot.
A Quirk of the Mistral by Jonathan Thomas
One only needs to look at M.R. James to know that an academically minded short story can be brilliantly scary. This one though misses the mark. It’s plodding and seemingly unexcited by its own premise.
The Dog Handler’s Tale by Donald Tyson
With a blue-collar narrator and a folksy turn of phrase, there’s as much Stephen King in this one as H.P. Lovecraft. But just because a trick has been done before, it doesn’t mean it’s not a worthwhile trick. The narration grounds the story in a mundane world, which just makes the horror elements – when they inevitable start to happen – all the more horrific. This is a cracking story to finish the collection on. One which, even when you think its wrung out every ounce of terror from the concept, keeps going to a new dreadful twist.
Collections like this are always hit and miss, and this one does have some glaring misses. But in ‘Devil’s Bathtub’, ‘How the Gods Bargain’, ‘A Mountain Walked’, ‘Diana of the Hundred Breasts’ ‘Under the Shelf’, ‘The Warm’, ‘Little Lady’ and ‘The Dog Handler’s Tale’ we have some dame fine, scary fiction.
That’s half of the stories here, and to seriously begrudge there not being more is greediness.
At the Mountains of Murkiness or, from Lovecraft to Leacock by Arthur C. Clarke
Towards the end of his life Spike Milligan used to write pastiche versions of classic novels (Wuthering Heights; Frankenstein; The Hound of the Baskervilles) which were crammed full of puns, ridiculous names and references to by-gone popular culture. It’s amazing then to read that the same approach had been taken much earlier and on the work of H.P. Lovecraft, particularly when the author is no less a figure than Arthur C. Clarke – a writer I know more by reputation (and that TV show he had when I was a kid) than anything else. I somehow never thought of him as a playful writer.
The resulting tale is silly, but it has its moments. It’s also short, which is good as much more would have been distinctly wearying.
The Fillmore Shoggoth by Harry Turtledove
It never really occurred to me that if Lovecraft’s Old Ones had been real and had made their presence known, that human life would have continued pretty much as before. I probably thought that we’d be far too busy having our consciousness warped by mind-bending terror for there to still be a Vietnam or an LBJ. Certainly I wouldn’t have imagined that the vibes would be good enough for there to be acid-infused rock bands still gigging in San Francisco.
That’s the premise though of this amusing little tale, where one such band finds itself playing a gig in the middle of a horrific shoggoth attach. Clearly Kim Newman’s ‘Anno Dracula’ is a reference point here, and the late 1960s is well conjured and blended almost seamlessly with Lovecraft’s vision, but I just thought the story was a little insubstantial to truly succeed.
Devil’s Bathtub by Lois Gresh
A story that manages to take weird and off the wall Lovecraftian concepts and make something touching out of them. A simple story of a dog, a girl and her father in Antarctica, which despite its short length is beautifully affecting.
The Witness in Darkness by John Shirley
An elder one gives his own account of his race’s history, which turns out to involve a lot of cosmic battles. It’s an interesting idea, but the result just strips all the madness and dark romance away from the Lovecraftian mythos, and that surely can’t be the point.
How the Gods Bargain by William Browning Spencer
Ostensibly this is the tale in the collection, thus far, which wears its Lovecraft roots most lightly. But – and this is a really important but – it’s also the scariest tale this collection has served up thus far. The author understands that the point of this exercise isn’t just to namedrop concepts from ‘At the Mountain of Madness’ and to give knowing winks to the fans. No, the point of a Lovecraft story is to leave the reader not only scared, but uneasy to the point of disorientation.
An academic is forced to confront not only a Lovecraftian horror from his past, but also the heartbreak that’s dominated his adult life. Once again we have a story which proves that terror works best when combined with genuine feelings and emotions.
A Mountain Walked by Caitlin R. Kiernan
An archaeological dig unearths something more dreadful than they can possibly imagine.
As well as its Lovecraftian imagery, this has the dry narration (and love of archaeology) of a M.R. James story. It’s a coming together of masters which works superbly.
‘A Mountain Walked’ is a masterclass of suspense, of ratcheting up tension slowly and painfully, so that even the most hardened horror fan will find they’ve bitten their fingernails to the quick.
Diana of the Hundred Breasts by Robert Silverberg
There are some Belief versus Science stories that are brilliant and there are some Belief versus Sciences stories that are trite, but I don’t think I’ve ever read one where the Belief in question was the Belief in the Cthulhu mythos.
Stories like this are exactly why I like other writers taking on the Lovecraftian. As they can take genuinely scary ideas and concepts and work them into a well-constructed story, with real characters, good dialogue and sentences that don’t just crash into the dust through their own unwieldly verbosity.
Silverberg’s tale is in essence complacent young man gets comeuppance, but it’s done so brilliantly and so skilfully (with well-built up and earned scares) that it made me happy even at its dark conclusion.
Under the Shelf by Michael Shea
I did start reading this a couple of times, but each time my enthusiasm was tripped up by its unwieldy opening sentence:
“When at last they drew near the walls of the Ross Ice Shelf, the cloud-ceiling’s vast, grey fleece had begun to shred in the wind, opening ragged islands of pale blue sky whose light lent sharper definition to the towering rampart of its rim.”
Fortunately I persevered, as the story is far more clearly and urgently written than that sentence suggests, and is without a doubt the scariest story in this collection thus far and one of the scariest I’ve read in a long time.
Okay, it has a weirdly cumbersome opening sentence, but let’s be fair – there is something quite Lovecraftian about that.
Cantata by Melanie Tem
The idea of a person with such a phobia of music – such a dramatic allergic reaction to music – that they’d try to claw their own skin off if they heard it, is truly a terrifying one. The problems is that that one fearsome notion isn’t developed anywhere, and we end up with a fragmentary tale which is more insubstantial than scary.
Cthulhu Rising by Heather Graham
It was the names which first disconcerted me about ‘Cthulhu Rising’.
We have here characters called ‘Devon Adair’, ‘Michael Corona’, ‘Hampton Jones’, ‘Bridgette Sloan’, ‘Marnie Silver’ and ‘Grainger Whitby’. These shouldn’t be the names of characters in a horror story, this is surely a list of supporting characters in a series of ‘Dynasty’.
Shortly afterwards I encountered the dialogue, which is so bad it would have got a screenwriter of ‘Dynasty’ fired.
Ghost-hunters and scientists investigate a Titanic-esque ship which mysteriously disappeared on its maiden journey across the North Atlantic, and now has just as mysteriously reappeared.
Comically bad.
The Warm by Daniel Schweitzer
We have here arch and clever body horror told with a great deal of empathy. The best Frankenstein tales always feel for the creature and this is no exception. A short, amusing and yet nerve-jangling story, which shows again how flexible Lovecraft’s concepts actually are.
Last Rites by K.M. Tonso
There’s a curious paragraph in this tale, wherein a young academic comes home to find his fiancée in a drug-fuelled orgy with his best friends. The reader doesn’t know of her existence before this, and after the narrator has related quickly (and unemotionally) how heart-broken he was, this fiancée is forgotten within a page. So, why so graphic? Why not just have her cheat with one person, or dump him for other reasons? In fact, why introduce her at all when she’s so tangential to the narrative? The way its raised and then forgotten does point to the main flaw of ‘Last Rites’ though, that this horror at one remove story doesn’t have a sure enough grasp of people to truly be scary.
Little Lady by J.C. Koch
I’ve always had a penchant for the horror/western hybrid and this is a particularly fine example. A gang of desperados kidnap a young, beautiful woman and she leads them somewhere they can be ‘safe’.
I particularly enjoyed how, even as it escalates into fantasy, it does so in a way as to make the fantasy almost commonplace. By the end the story has pretty much slipped into a different reality, and yet it feels all of a piece with the hard, gritty cowboy stuff which went before.
White Fire by Joseph S. Pulver Sr.
An ‘in the moment’ thriller which, even as it shows off its intelligence and its literary pedigree, grips quite fantastically. Yes, its pretentiousness did irritate me somewhat, but I also admired it a lot.
A Quirk of the Mistral by Jonathan Thomas
One only needs to look at M.R. James to know that an academically minded short story can be brilliantly scary. This one though misses the mark. It’s plodding and seemingly unexcited by its own premise.
The Dog Handler’s Tale by Donald Tyson
With a blue-collar narrator and a folksy turn of phrase, there’s as much Stephen King in this one as H.P. Lovecraft. But just because a trick has been done before, it doesn’t mean it’s not a worthwhile trick. The narration grounds the story in a mundane world, which just makes the horror elements – when they inevitable start to happen – all the more horrific. This is a cracking story to finish the collection on. One which, even when you think its wrung out every ounce of terror from the concept, keeps going to a new dreadful twist.
October 16, 2014
About 3.5; a solid if not spectacular collection featuring a number of strong stories, including some downright excellent work from Caitlin Kiernan, Darrell Schweitzer, and William Browning Spencer. As was the case with Joshi's Searchers After Horror, the contribution from Melanie Tem came across as woefully out of place here and better suited to a different collection, and while paperback romance writer Heather Graham deserves props for trying her hand at a Lovecraftian tale, unfortunately it doesn't make a lot of sense and has a generic Twilight Zone-like quality; however, it did bring to mind the other Heather Graham, which is never a bad thing.
May 8, 2025
One of the best anthologies l've read. Starts with an excellent forward by Jonathan Maberry, unfortunately no story by him included.
A bunch of entertaining stories with very few klunkers.
Teka li li
A bunch of entertaining stories with very few klunkers.
Teka li li
December 30, 2021
Howard Phillips Lovecraft - prekursor fantastyki naukowej, ojciec mitologii Cthulhu, niekwestionowany król literatury grozy i weird fiction. Niedoceniany za życia, wyniesiony na piedestały po śmierci.
Prozaik, eseista, autor, ale przede wszystkim człowiek; człowiek o niezwykłych talentach, śmiało przekraczający granicę nieskończonej ilości światów i wszechświatów; iluminator najmroczniejszych zakamarków dusz, kreator najpotworniejszych potworności. Wybitny umysł, nieprzeciętna osobowość.
Proza Samotnika z Providence należy do tego rodzaju pisarstwa, które wyrywa się z jakichkolwiek ram. Zachwyca ono bowiem bogactwem słów, pięknem rozbudowanych fraz, cudownie posępnym klimatem; ogłusza sugestywnością kreślonych pejzaży, hipnotyzuje fantastycznymi wizjami, jednak również przeraża - tym co plugawe, obrzydliwe, niezbadane, wielkie ponad ludzką miarę.
Na kanwie ów niezwykłej twórczości powstało całe mnóstwo pomniejszych dzieł. Nie dziwi to szczególnie, zwłaszcza, gdy jest się świadomym fenomenu postaci Lovecrafta oraz jego wyjątkowych dokonań literackich. Także i u nas, na naszym rodzimym rynku wydawniczym znaleźć można pewien tytuł, który bez wątpienia przyciągnie entuzjastów wszelakich historii związanych z Wielkimi Przedwiecznymi.
🕯️,,Szaleństwo Cthulhu’’, bo to o nim dzisiaj mowa, to pierwszy tom otwierający cykl opowiadań ,,Kronik Arkham’’. Antologia pod redakcją S.T.Joshiego, badacza prozy lovecraftowskiej, prezentuje szesnaście wybranych tekstów, szesnastu różnych autorów popuszczających wodze swej fantazji. Arthur C.Clarke, Harry Turtledove, John Shirley, Caitlin R.Kiernan, Robert Silverberg, Heather Graham i pozostali opowiedzą Wam kilka opowiastek osadzonych w klimacie ,,Gór szaleństwa’’.
Rzecz szalenie intrygująca, prawda?
Teoretycznie owszem, w praktyce... niekoniecznie.
🕯️Antologie mają to do siebie, że często przedstawiają niezwykle zróżnicowaną wartość. W każdym z takich zbiorów znajdzie się miejsce dla tekstów słabych, przeciętnych lub wybitnych. Czasem jednak jest też tak, że trzymają one jeden poziom i niestety w przypadku ‘Szaleństw’ z podobną okolicznością mamy wątpliwą przyjemność.
Piszę wątpliwą, piszę niestety, ponieważ pierwsza część ,,Kronik Arkham’’ stanowi dla mnie rozczarowanie. Nie wiem, czy to wina osobistych oczekiwań, czy też czegoś zupełnie innego, natomiast pewnym jest jedno – liczyłam na więcej; więcej klimatu, więcej odpowiedniego nastroju, więcej mrocznej aury, więcej samej esencji tej prozy.
🕯️We wstępie Jonathan Maberry pięknie mówi o dokonaniach Samotnika, o tym jak niesamowicie oddziaływały one na rzesze twórców i czytelników na całym świecie. Szczególnie do gustu przypadł mi fragment, w którym Maberry podkreśla wagę tego zdarzenia – mitologia Cthulhu była bowiem dla wielu przyczynkiem do chwycenia za pióro; nie tylko kreaowania własnych światów, ale także dokładania przysłowiowej cegiełki do tego, co Lovecraft już stworzył. Autor wypowiedzi wychodzi poniekąd z założenia, że każda opowieść jest odpowiednia, by wpasować się w to wyjątkowe uniwersum, rozbudowywać je jeszcze bardziej, kultywować mit.
Cudne, wzniosłe wręcz słowa i przyznam – ogłupiające. Sama dałam się im zwieść. Bo o ile w swym zamyśle brzmią nadzwyczaj dobrze, o tyle z rzeczywistością mają mało wspólnego, zwłaszcza po przeczytaniu samych ‘Szaleństw’.
🕯️Teksty w nich zawarte (w większej mierze) są po prostu przeciętne. Stylistycznie żadnemu z nich nie można nic zarzucić (napisane zwięzłym i prostym językiem), natomiast fabularnie często odbiegają od głównego motywu przewodniego bądź elementów charakterystycznych dla lovecraftowskiej prozy. W wielu na próżno doszukiwać się powiązań z mitologią Cthulhu i co przykre, jedynie nieliczne prezentują coś oryginalnego.
Całość ratują teksty Johna Shirleya (genialny sposób narracji, cudowny język stylizowany na archaiczny), Darrella Schweitzera (podobnie jak powyżej, choć z dodatkową nutką suspensu) oraz J.C.Kocha (tu pojawiła się odrobina upragnionej świeżości).
Te trzy wymienione faktycznie wyjątkowo mocno korespondowały z twórczością Samotnika, doskonale wpisując się w jej klimat i cóż… Choćby dla nich warto ,,Szaleństwo Cthulhu’’ przejrzeć.
Prozaik, eseista, autor, ale przede wszystkim człowiek; człowiek o niezwykłych talentach, śmiało przekraczający granicę nieskończonej ilości światów i wszechświatów; iluminator najmroczniejszych zakamarków dusz, kreator najpotworniejszych potworności. Wybitny umysł, nieprzeciętna osobowość.
Proza Samotnika z Providence należy do tego rodzaju pisarstwa, które wyrywa się z jakichkolwiek ram. Zachwyca ono bowiem bogactwem słów, pięknem rozbudowanych fraz, cudownie posępnym klimatem; ogłusza sugestywnością kreślonych pejzaży, hipnotyzuje fantastycznymi wizjami, jednak również przeraża - tym co plugawe, obrzydliwe, niezbadane, wielkie ponad ludzką miarę.
Na kanwie ów niezwykłej twórczości powstało całe mnóstwo pomniejszych dzieł. Nie dziwi to szczególnie, zwłaszcza, gdy jest się świadomym fenomenu postaci Lovecrafta oraz jego wyjątkowych dokonań literackich. Także i u nas, na naszym rodzimym rynku wydawniczym znaleźć można pewien tytuł, który bez wątpienia przyciągnie entuzjastów wszelakich historii związanych z Wielkimi Przedwiecznymi.
🕯️,,Szaleństwo Cthulhu’’, bo to o nim dzisiaj mowa, to pierwszy tom otwierający cykl opowiadań ,,Kronik Arkham’’. Antologia pod redakcją S.T.Joshiego, badacza prozy lovecraftowskiej, prezentuje szesnaście wybranych tekstów, szesnastu różnych autorów popuszczających wodze swej fantazji. Arthur C.Clarke, Harry Turtledove, John Shirley, Caitlin R.Kiernan, Robert Silverberg, Heather Graham i pozostali opowiedzą Wam kilka opowiastek osadzonych w klimacie ,,Gór szaleństwa’’.
Rzecz szalenie intrygująca, prawda?
Teoretycznie owszem, w praktyce... niekoniecznie.
🕯️Antologie mają to do siebie, że często przedstawiają niezwykle zróżnicowaną wartość. W każdym z takich zbiorów znajdzie się miejsce dla tekstów słabych, przeciętnych lub wybitnych. Czasem jednak jest też tak, że trzymają one jeden poziom i niestety w przypadku ‘Szaleństw’ z podobną okolicznością mamy wątpliwą przyjemność.
Piszę wątpliwą, piszę niestety, ponieważ pierwsza część ,,Kronik Arkham’’ stanowi dla mnie rozczarowanie. Nie wiem, czy to wina osobistych oczekiwań, czy też czegoś zupełnie innego, natomiast pewnym jest jedno – liczyłam na więcej; więcej klimatu, więcej odpowiedniego nastroju, więcej mrocznej aury, więcej samej esencji tej prozy.
🕯️We wstępie Jonathan Maberry pięknie mówi o dokonaniach Samotnika, o tym jak niesamowicie oddziaływały one na rzesze twórców i czytelników na całym świecie. Szczególnie do gustu przypadł mi fragment, w którym Maberry podkreśla wagę tego zdarzenia – mitologia Cthulhu była bowiem dla wielu przyczynkiem do chwycenia za pióro; nie tylko kreaowania własnych światów, ale także dokładania przysłowiowej cegiełki do tego, co Lovecraft już stworzył. Autor wypowiedzi wychodzi poniekąd z założenia, że każda opowieść jest odpowiednia, by wpasować się w to wyjątkowe uniwersum, rozbudowywać je jeszcze bardziej, kultywować mit.
Cudne, wzniosłe wręcz słowa i przyznam – ogłupiające. Sama dałam się im zwieść. Bo o ile w swym zamyśle brzmią nadzwyczaj dobrze, o tyle z rzeczywistością mają mało wspólnego, zwłaszcza po przeczytaniu samych ‘Szaleństw’.
🕯️Teksty w nich zawarte (w większej mierze) są po prostu przeciętne. Stylistycznie żadnemu z nich nie można nic zarzucić (napisane zwięzłym i prostym językiem), natomiast fabularnie często odbiegają od głównego motywu przewodniego bądź elementów charakterystycznych dla lovecraftowskiej prozy. W wielu na próżno doszukiwać się powiązań z mitologią Cthulhu i co przykre, jedynie nieliczne prezentują coś oryginalnego.
Całość ratują teksty Johna Shirleya (genialny sposób narracji, cudowny język stylizowany na archaiczny), Darrella Schweitzera (podobnie jak powyżej, choć z dodatkową nutką suspensu) oraz J.C.Kocha (tu pojawiła się odrobina upragnionej świeżości).
Te trzy wymienione faktycznie wyjątkowo mocno korespondowały z twórczością Samotnika, doskonale wpisując się w jej klimat i cóż… Choćby dla nich warto ,,Szaleństwo Cthulhu’’ przejrzeć.
July 20, 2022
This collection of Lovecraft-inspired stories vary in quality, with a couple of superb entries, a handful of underwhelming ones, and the majority being fairly adequate. Most successful when the author manages to successfully evoke Lovecraft’s particular style of literary prose, whilst conveying the impression of something unimaginably monstrous and immense. Arthur C. Clarke’s opener is hilarious.
August 21, 2023
Vesper traci na jakości. Książka ma kilku tłumaczy, ale tłumaczenia Macieja Machały i Macieja Wacława są po prostu kiepskie - odnosi się wrażenie, że tłumacze mają problem z językiem polskim, chociaż z angielskim też. Cały tom sprawia wrażenie braku porządnej redakcji, są problemy z gramatyką, szykiem zdań, czyta się bardzo nieprzyjemnie.
I sam tom jest nierówny. Wstępy Maberry'ego i Joshiego można sobie odpuścić, są nudne i nic nie wnoszą, chociaż Joshi dodaje przynajmniej kilka informacji związanych z historią publikacji "W górach szaleństwa" HPLa, które zresztą jest załączone w tomie jako myśl przewodnia antologii.
Tutaj dochodzimy do sedna sprawy - sama idea "W górach szaleństwa", czyli ekspedycji naukowej na Biegun Południowy, która odkrywa tajemnicę życia na planecie w kontekście kosmicznego horroru i walki obcych nam cywilizacji jest bardzo ciekawa i ma potencjał. Zmiany klimatyczne i topniejące lodowce jasno wskazują, że z biegunów przyjdzie nie wiedza o naszym początku, ale o końcu. Podniesienie poziomu wód, ukryte w lodzie wirusy i bakterie zniszczą ludzkie życie na Ziemi i to całkiem niedługo. Nie trzeba długo myśleć, żeby na bazie HPLa stworzyć obraz prawdziwej grozy. I żadne opowiadanie w tym tomie nie jest straszne. To wręcz żenujące. Ba, tylko nieliczne są ciekawe.
"Czarcia wanna" Gresh wprowadza rodzinny dramat, bardzo intymną narrację właśnie w moment wielkich odkryć i topniejących lodowców. Zdecydowanie najlepsze opowiadanie w tomie, chyba jedyne godne uwagi. I świetna konkluzja opowiadania.
"W symbiozie z bogami" Spencera jest trochę pomiędzy thrillerem a horrorem, coś jak "Stranger Things" i byłoby lepsze jako książka. Zmarnowany potencjał.
"Góra, co ruszyła z posad" Kiernan to drugie najlepsze opowiadanie w tomie. Świetne opisy, monumentalna wyobraźnia, plastyczność wizji. Tutaj nawet można się bać. Poczucie osaczenia bohaterów, izolacji, narastającej paranoi. Czytałam z przyjemnością.
"Artemida o Stu Piersiach" Silverberga jest interesująca ze względu na kontekst mitologiczno-religijny.
"Ciepły" Schweitzera to prawdziwy fan fik i do tego dobry. Tym bardziej, że naprawdę lubię opowieść o Pickmanie, więc miałam z tego tekstu wiele radości.
Ale jednocześnie w tomie jest taki rasistowsko-mizoginiczny wysryw jak "Panienka" Kocha, po której było niedobrze, nie dlatego, że są w niej ohydne opisy potworów, ale przez stężenie rasizmu na stronę. Wylewało się. Można to uznać za specyficzny hołd dla HPLa, ale można też mieć standardy.
Antologia, z której dobre są dwa teksty. Nie polecam.
I sam tom jest nierówny. Wstępy Maberry'ego i Joshiego można sobie odpuścić, są nudne i nic nie wnoszą, chociaż Joshi dodaje przynajmniej kilka informacji związanych z historią publikacji "W górach szaleństwa" HPLa, które zresztą jest załączone w tomie jako myśl przewodnia antologii.
Tutaj dochodzimy do sedna sprawy - sama idea "W górach szaleństwa", czyli ekspedycji naukowej na Biegun Południowy, która odkrywa tajemnicę życia na planecie w kontekście kosmicznego horroru i walki obcych nam cywilizacji jest bardzo ciekawa i ma potencjał. Zmiany klimatyczne i topniejące lodowce jasno wskazują, że z biegunów przyjdzie nie wiedza o naszym początku, ale o końcu. Podniesienie poziomu wód, ukryte w lodzie wirusy i bakterie zniszczą ludzkie życie na Ziemi i to całkiem niedługo. Nie trzeba długo myśleć, żeby na bazie HPLa stworzyć obraz prawdziwej grozy. I żadne opowiadanie w tym tomie nie jest straszne. To wręcz żenujące. Ba, tylko nieliczne są ciekawe.
"Czarcia wanna" Gresh wprowadza rodzinny dramat, bardzo intymną narrację właśnie w moment wielkich odkryć i topniejących lodowców. Zdecydowanie najlepsze opowiadanie w tomie, chyba jedyne godne uwagi. I świetna konkluzja opowiadania.
"W symbiozie z bogami" Spencera jest trochę pomiędzy thrillerem a horrorem, coś jak "Stranger Things" i byłoby lepsze jako książka. Zmarnowany potencjał.
"Góra, co ruszyła z posad" Kiernan to drugie najlepsze opowiadanie w tomie. Świetne opisy, monumentalna wyobraźnia, plastyczność wizji. Tutaj nawet można się bać. Poczucie osaczenia bohaterów, izolacji, narastającej paranoi. Czytałam z przyjemnością.
"Artemida o Stu Piersiach" Silverberga jest interesująca ze względu na kontekst mitologiczno-religijny.
"Ciepły" Schweitzera to prawdziwy fan fik i do tego dobry. Tym bardziej, że naprawdę lubię opowieść o Pickmanie, więc miałam z tego tekstu wiele radości.
Ale jednocześnie w tomie jest taki rasistowsko-mizoginiczny wysryw jak "Panienka" Kocha, po której było niedobrze, nie dlatego, że są w niej ohydne opisy potworów, ale przez stężenie rasizmu na stronę. Wylewało się. Można to uznać za specyficzny hołd dla HPLa, ale można też mieć standardy.
Antologia, z której dobre są dwa teksty. Nie polecam.
April 19, 2023
Strasznie nierówny zbiór opowiadań, dla których podstawą było opowiadanie "W górach szaleństwa" Lovecrafta. Nie wiem dlaczego zdecydowano się na rozpoczęcie (pomijając wymienione już opowiadanie samotnika z Providence) od najsłabszych i najdziwniejszych opowiadań. Po przeczytaniu historii o naćpanych rockmanach byłem o krok od porzucenia całości, ale jako wielki fan Lovecrafta zdecydowałem się na 'przemęczenie' reszty. No ale właśnie im dalej w las, tym ciekawiej. Poza kilkoma wielkimi rozczarowaniami znajdziemy tutaj kilka perełek, w niektórych ciężko znaleźć nawiązania do Gór szaleństwa, w innych są one bezpośrednio powiązane z postaciami występującymi w pierwowzorze - i to właśnie te są najciekawsze. Do mojej ścisłej czołówki zaliczam opowiadanie o opiekunie psów, który towarzyszy naukowcom w wyprawę w 1930r., poznajemy historię trochę z innej strony, bardziej przyziemnej, dodatkowo dostajemy opis bardzo ciekawej i czułej więzi między psem a człowiekiem. Kolejną taką perełką jest na pewno opowiadanie-notatka człowieka, którego umysł został przejęty przez potwora z "Gór..", będące jednocześnie przestrogą przed tym, aby nie zapuszczać się ponownie w rejony z opowiadania-matki. Jest też bardzo ciekawe opowiadanie o synu jednego z uczestników wyprawy z 1930r., który ostatecznie poświęca się dla większego celu (te opowiadanie w pewien sposób zamyka furtkę, stanowi stricte zakończenie historii). Znajdziemy tu nawet bardzo ciekawe opowiadanie w stylu starych westernów.
Tak więc zbiór opowiadań dosyć ciekawy, ale kolejność ich moim zdaniem już całkowicie bezsensowna, łatwo zrazić czytelników tymi słabymi, zostawiając te najlepsze na koniec. Sięgnę po kolejne zbiory i mam nadzieję, że tam też znajdę kilka perełek, dla których stwierdzę, że było warto.
Tak więc zbiór opowiadań dosyć ciekawy, ale kolejność ich moim zdaniem już całkowicie bezsensowna, łatwo zrazić czytelników tymi słabymi, zostawiając te najlepsze na koniec. Sięgnę po kolejne zbiory i mam nadzieję, że tam też znajdę kilka perełek, dla których stwierdzę, że było warto.
June 24, 2024
Dwie gwiazdki tylko i wyłącznie za opowiadanie Lovecrafta, na którym ponoć miała "bazować" cała reszta (i za okładkę!). Jestem w stanie docenić to opowiadanie, mimo że do mnie całkowicie nie trafiło - zdecydowanie zbyt wolne, nudne, zawierające za dużo niepotrzebnych szczegółów, a brak dialogów mocno mnie zmęczył. Reszta opowiadań miała być przedłużeniem tego pierwszego lub opowiadać o świecie w nim stworzonym. Zamysł fajny, ale mam wrażenie, że większa część z nich to wręcz parodia. Nie było jednej historii, która by mnie zaciekawiła. Niestety kolejny raz książka z wydawnictwa Vesper mnie zawodzi.
March 22, 2022
A mediocre anthology at best, loosely themed around the mountains of madness, the long lost Arthur C. Clark story should have remained lost (yeah it was that bad). Other than that, there were like 4-5 out of 16 stories that were good but the majority was below average, most anthologies are swingy when it comes to quality, but this one was pretty lame because the bad ones were really bad...
Best stories were, "Warm" by Darrel Schweitzer, "A mountain walked" by Caitlin Kiernan, "the dog handle's tale" by Donald Tyson and "Diana of the hundred breasts" by Robert Silverberg.
Best stories were, "Warm" by Darrel Schweitzer, "A mountain walked" by Caitlin Kiernan, "the dog handle's tale" by Donald Tyson and "Diana of the hundred breasts" by Robert Silverberg.
October 16, 2025
2025 Book #24:
The Madness of Cthulhu (2014), edited by S. T. Joshi
There are a couple good stories in here (by reliable weird-fiction writers Caitlín Kiernan and William Browning Spencer), as well as some gems of historical interest (an early Lovecraftian parody by Arthur C. Clarke). But besides that, the majority of the tales are painfully average.
The Madness of Cthulhu (2014), edited by S. T. Joshi
There are a couple good stories in here (by reliable weird-fiction writers Caitlín Kiernan and William Browning Spencer), as well as some gems of historical interest (an early Lovecraftian parody by Arthur C. Clarke). But besides that, the majority of the tales are painfully average.
January 5, 2019
I enjoy every single chapter of it...one of the best Lovecraftian books that I`ve ever read specially because it had so many short stories about the Shoggoth, my most favorite weird things in this World! :D and ofcourse, for the C.Clarke Short Story which was super amazing! XD
January 5, 2018
Solid selection of short stories, a number of other views of The Mountains of Madness. Really enjoyable, worth the time, give it a read.
July 8, 2020
A lovecraftian anthology that varies in style with stories that range in style from M.R James, Hubert Shelby Junior and Steven King within Lovecraft's mythos
March 21, 2015
I had a lot of fun reading this. A couple of the stories fell a little flat but when you're reading a collection, there's likely to be some that you don't enjoy. I like how the majority of them expanded on stories by Lovecraft, answering some questions, asking more.
December 1, 2021
"Szaleństwo Cthulhu" to zbiór 16 opowiadań inspirowanych twórczością Lovecrafta, a konkretnie powieścią "W górach szaleństwa".
Przed rozpoczęciem myślałam, że będę musiała poświęcić dodatkowy czas na przypomnienie sobie oryginału. Na szczęście w tym zbiorze już jest ono uwzględnione na samym początku, co jest według mnie świetnym pomysłem, mimo że zajmuje aż 30% objętości. Pozwala to poznać lovecraftowy klimat nowym osobom.
Jeśli nie wiecie, o co chodzi z Górami szaleństwa, to w skrócie traktuje to o ekspedycji na Antarktydę. To, co znajdują tam naukowcy, doprowadza człowieka do szaleństwa. Powieść zawiera również odniesienia do twórczości Edgara Allana Poe.
Pierwsze opowiadanie "W górach pomroczności" rozwaliło mnie totalnie, szczególnie kontrastując z oryginałem przeczytanym tuż przed nim. To taka pokręcona parodia, która nie zatrzymuje się ani na chwilę. UWIELBIAM! Tak bardzo postawiło poprzeczkę, że reszta już niestety mu nie dorównała.
Co nie znaczy, że pozostała zawartość to słabizna. Ani trochę. Autorzy użyli wielu perspektyw (np. psa czy samego Przedwiecznego) oraz form (zapis nagrania, dziennik), przez które uwolnili do naszego świata jeszcze więcej grozy. Niektórym poszło tak świetnie, że mogliby robić za ghostwriterów samego mistrza horroru. Na samym końcu jeden z nich nawet sprawił, że się wzruszyłam. To było bardzo dobre zamknięcie całości.
Miałam też problem z niektórymi z nich, bo totalnie nie widziałam tam inspiracji Górami szaleństwa. Może ogólną twórczością Howarda tak, ale tym konkretnym tekstem nie.
Jeszcze jednym zgrzytem jest nieprawidłowa numeracja w spisie treści. Oprócz tego nie mam więcej zarzutów.
Przed rozpoczęciem myślałam, że będę musiała poświęcić dodatkowy czas na przypomnienie sobie oryginału. Na szczęście w tym zbiorze już jest ono uwzględnione na samym początku, co jest według mnie świetnym pomysłem, mimo że zajmuje aż 30% objętości. Pozwala to poznać lovecraftowy klimat nowym osobom.
Jeśli nie wiecie, o co chodzi z Górami szaleństwa, to w skrócie traktuje to o ekspedycji na Antarktydę. To, co znajdują tam naukowcy, doprowadza człowieka do szaleństwa. Powieść zawiera również odniesienia do twórczości Edgara Allana Poe.
Pierwsze opowiadanie "W górach pomroczności" rozwaliło mnie totalnie, szczególnie kontrastując z oryginałem przeczytanym tuż przed nim. To taka pokręcona parodia, która nie zatrzymuje się ani na chwilę. UWIELBIAM! Tak bardzo postawiło poprzeczkę, że reszta już niestety mu nie dorównała.
Co nie znaczy, że pozostała zawartość to słabizna. Ani trochę. Autorzy użyli wielu perspektyw (np. psa czy samego Przedwiecznego) oraz form (zapis nagrania, dziennik), przez które uwolnili do naszego świata jeszcze więcej grozy. Niektórym poszło tak świetnie, że mogliby robić za ghostwriterów samego mistrza horroru. Na samym końcu jeden z nich nawet sprawił, że się wzruszyłam. To było bardzo dobre zamknięcie całości.
Miałam też problem z niektórymi z nich, bo totalnie nie widziałam tam inspiracji Górami szaleństwa. Może ogólną twórczością Howarda tak, ale tym konkretnym tekstem nie.
Jeszcze jednym zgrzytem jest nieprawidłowa numeracja w spisie treści. Oprócz tego nie mam więcej zarzutów.
December 13, 2024
When I discovered the works of H.P. Lovecraft around 2010 or 2011 I instantly became fanatical for the Old Gent and his sprawling Mythos. One of the greatest joys I had after finishing his works was finding out that he had a line of acolytes that started with his closest friends immediately after his death and is still going strong to this day almost 80 years later. There are a seemingly endless number of collections of short stories by those who identify with that mold, and I've read most of them. While I usually am able to wholeheartedly recommend these collections for any Lovecraft fans, this one is little difficult because of a single story. Before we get to that, I have to say that I enjoyed the rest of stories in this collection. None of them are world beaters but they're competently written and scratch that Mythos itch that every Lovecraft obsessive experiences. The one that nearly killed this entire collection for me was "Cthulhu Rising" by Heather Graham. I was familiar with her name because I saw her books populate the romance novel section of the Barnes & Noble that I worked at (incidentally, this was not another of the treasures I mined while working there; I picked it up at a local second hand book store) and so was confused when I saw her name in the table of contents. I got to that story and, though it was not particularly long, it still stands as one of the worst reading experiences I've ever had. To put it bluntly, she writes like the kind of author that pumps out books on cheesy romance novel labels. The character names in particular reek of romance writing. If I recall correctly the ship captain's surname is "Steele", and I'm reasonably confident that by law at least one character has to be named "Steele" in every straight-to-mass market American romance novel ever written. The characters speak in such a way that it makes me question whether Graham has ever participated in or even heard an actual human conversation. This is another one I want to revisit so I'll come back with any standouts I find after the reread.
So, as usual I'm going to leave my original blurb unaltered, but I am going to actually explain why I do that. These initial blurb reviews are based on my extremely imperfect memory of books I've not read in years. I've only really learned the joy of rereads recently (as I've mentioned in other reviews), so I've had to relearn a lot of things about a lot of the books populating my shelves. I like to leave my original, hazy thoughts in full view because it reminds me that I'm human, that that's perfectly ok, and that it highlights all the more why rereads are so important. That said, I have no further background to add, so let's jump into the review.
I'll just say this up front: I owe this book an apology. There were far more good stories in this book than I remembered, and two outright misfires, which I'll discuss later. As far as standouts go, I did manage to narrow it down to three: "At the Mountains of Murkiness" by Arthur C. Clarke, "A Mountain Walked" by Caitlin R. Kiernan, and "Diana of the Thousand Breasts" by Robert Silverberg. "At the Mounts of Murkiness" is a delightfully absurd spoof of both one of Lovecraft's most famous stories and of Lovecraftiana in general, written by a famous author that's very heavily tied to the Old Gent, much like "Old Shoggoth's Peculiar" by Neil Gaiman from The Book of Cthulhu Vol. II. Not a lot to analyze here, just a great story that made me smile the entire way through. "A Mountain Walked" is, once again, the kind of Mythos story that I live for. It's an epistolary story set in the late 19th century, a diary of an archaeological dig taking place in Wyoming. Naturally this dig is in the middle of the territory of an Indigenous tribe, and the white men running the thing end up encountering something well beyond their experience. I love this because it tones down Kiernan's over the top prose, because of the the historical setting and because she once again uses Mythos trappings in an original way. "Diana of the Thousand Breasts" is a story about a man spending time with his brother in the Mediterranean. His brother is a brilliant but arrogant man doing archaeological work in Turkiye, and ends up uncovering more than he bargained for. It's a pretty classic Lovecraft story hook but with a slight but very distinct difference. Lovecraft frequently combined real world mythologies with his Mythos, but not, typically, Greek mythology. It was a really clever use of a lesser known member of that pantheon and made for a really unsettling climax. There were two clunkers for me in this book, however: the aforementioned "Cthulhu Rising" by Heather Graham and "White Fire" by Joseph S. Pulver Sr. My take on "Cthulhu Rising" is effectively unchanged but will I say that I was incorrect about there being a character named Steele in the story. There was no such character, but all the names were as rote and poorly written as the rest of the story. Given how good most of the stories were in this book, it makes it all the more shocking that this story was included. "White Fire", meanwhile, is one I still have trouble wrapping my head around. I get the basics of it. It's a kind of sequel to At the Mountains of Madness but written in a style that reminds me of slam poetry. The language is just bizarre. Every once in a while the author has a genuine gem in his writing but mostly it just feels like he's trying too hard. It was the only other story besides "Cthulhu Rising" that was a chore to get through. It's not outright awful like Graham's story but it's certainly not as enjoyable as the rest due to how difficult it is to read.
My first impression on finishing this book for the second time at just shy of 4 AM this morning is that I hate "Cthulhu Rising" all the more for making me forget how good the rest of the book was. Most of the rest of these stories have great concepts (though I will say that lot of them are retellings of or sequels to At the Mountains of Madness; you'd think that would become tiresome but each story has a surprisingly unique take on the core concept) and generally competent execution, particularly compared to the lion's share of the stories from Cthulhu Lies Dreaming and Lovecraft Unbound. Incidentally, those two books were the last two entries in my reread project, which is now complete, and due to how disappointing those books were I expected this one to follow suit. Instead I got an excellent way to end this project and another excellent lesson as to why rereading is so important for getting the most out of a book.
So, as usual I'm going to leave my original blurb unaltered, but I am going to actually explain why I do that. These initial blurb reviews are based on my extremely imperfect memory of books I've not read in years. I've only really learned the joy of rereads recently (as I've mentioned in other reviews), so I've had to relearn a lot of things about a lot of the books populating my shelves. I like to leave my original, hazy thoughts in full view because it reminds me that I'm human, that that's perfectly ok, and that it highlights all the more why rereads are so important. That said, I have no further background to add, so let's jump into the review.
I'll just say this up front: I owe this book an apology. There were far more good stories in this book than I remembered, and two outright misfires, which I'll discuss later. As far as standouts go, I did manage to narrow it down to three: "At the Mountains of Murkiness" by Arthur C. Clarke, "A Mountain Walked" by Caitlin R. Kiernan, and "Diana of the Thousand Breasts" by Robert Silverberg. "At the Mounts of Murkiness" is a delightfully absurd spoof of both one of Lovecraft's most famous stories and of Lovecraftiana in general, written by a famous author that's very heavily tied to the Old Gent, much like "Old Shoggoth's Peculiar" by Neil Gaiman from The Book of Cthulhu Vol. II. Not a lot to analyze here, just a great story that made me smile the entire way through. "A Mountain Walked" is, once again, the kind of Mythos story that I live for. It's an epistolary story set in the late 19th century, a diary of an archaeological dig taking place in Wyoming. Naturally this dig is in the middle of the territory of an Indigenous tribe, and the white men running the thing end up encountering something well beyond their experience. I love this because it tones down Kiernan's over the top prose, because of the the historical setting and because she once again uses Mythos trappings in an original way. "Diana of the Thousand Breasts" is a story about a man spending time with his brother in the Mediterranean. His brother is a brilliant but arrogant man doing archaeological work in Turkiye, and ends up uncovering more than he bargained for. It's a pretty classic Lovecraft story hook but with a slight but very distinct difference. Lovecraft frequently combined real world mythologies with his Mythos, but not, typically, Greek mythology. It was a really clever use of a lesser known member of that pantheon and made for a really unsettling climax. There were two clunkers for me in this book, however: the aforementioned "Cthulhu Rising" by Heather Graham and "White Fire" by Joseph S. Pulver Sr. My take on "Cthulhu Rising" is effectively unchanged but will I say that I was incorrect about there being a character named Steele in the story. There was no such character, but all the names were as rote and poorly written as the rest of the story. Given how good most of the stories were in this book, it makes it all the more shocking that this story was included. "White Fire", meanwhile, is one I still have trouble wrapping my head around. I get the basics of it. It's a kind of sequel to At the Mountains of Madness but written in a style that reminds me of slam poetry. The language is just bizarre. Every once in a while the author has a genuine gem in his writing but mostly it just feels like he's trying too hard. It was the only other story besides "Cthulhu Rising" that was a chore to get through. It's not outright awful like Graham's story but it's certainly not as enjoyable as the rest due to how difficult it is to read.
My first impression on finishing this book for the second time at just shy of 4 AM this morning is that I hate "Cthulhu Rising" all the more for making me forget how good the rest of the book was. Most of the rest of these stories have great concepts (though I will say that lot of them are retellings of or sequels to At the Mountains of Madness; you'd think that would become tiresome but each story has a surprisingly unique take on the core concept) and generally competent execution, particularly compared to the lion's share of the stories from Cthulhu Lies Dreaming and Lovecraft Unbound. Incidentally, those two books were the last two entries in my reread project, which is now complete, and due to how disappointing those books were I expected this one to follow suit. Instead I got an excellent way to end this project and another excellent lesson as to why rereading is so important for getting the most out of a book.
July 5, 2023
A solid collection of stories with the exception of the old chestnut from Arthur C. Clarke that kicks things off. Highlights included Harry Turtledove's "The Fillmore Shoggoth" (I love imagining an aged HP Lovecraft catching the HPL band at that venue!); Melanie Tem's incredibly disturbing tale of music-induced self-harm, "Cantata"; Pulver's atmospheric, poetic prose in "White Fire"; and J.C. Koch's weird Western, "Little Lady." Spencer's "How the Gods Bargain" had a lot of promise but wrapped up too quickly, so what should have been narrative resolution felt more like punchline. Other so-so stories were Darrell Schweitzer's "The Warm," which had a creepy take on "Pickman's Model," but it didn't do much new; Heather Graham's weird tale meets reality TV felt oddly outdated, but was a cool premise. Caitlin R. Kiernan's "A Mountain Walked" was one of the best in the whole collection, atmospheric, unsettling, and somehow simply beautiful in a way that most of these types of stories are not. Will read this story again.
March 1, 2017
"Lovecraft created a great big, albeit insanely warped, canvas and let anyone and everyone paint or scribble or splash or draw on it."
This is a very high quality anthology. I picked it up from my local library expecting some light, wholesome tentacled fun and it exceeded all my expectations. All sixteen stories are inspired by Lovecraft's novella The Mountains of Madness, which gives the volume cohesion and incorporates a spectrum of retellings to tangential reimaginings. Fourteen of these stories were commissioned for this volume, so there was a lot of fresh modern material. Each story had its own merits and there was no filler. One of my faovurite authors of all-time, H.P. Lovecraft would have been pleased I think.
My personal favourite was Last Rites by K.M. Tonso, which told the story of the son of Professor William Dyer, the scientist whose expedition to Antarctica culminated in death and academic disgrace as his true account of Elder Beings and shoggoths was not believed. The author really captured the relatability of Lovecraft's immortal pentagonal Elder monsters, who have created forces they can no longer control through disregulated curiosity. The creation of the shoggoths is a premonition of a very human future. It seemed a necessary post-script for the son of William Dyer to return to Antarctica if only to let the Elder Beings know; "'I forgive you.'"
Other stand-out tales included. Lois H. Greshs' Devil's Bathtub which recast the shoggoths as all-engulfing magnetosome bacteria. Robert Silverberg's rediscovered story about the arrogance of dismissing any truth behind religion and spirituality (Diana of the Hundred Breasts) was also very potent and original "'He looks upon all as cults. He regards religion as a conspiracy by the powerful elite to stay on top at the expense of the masses.' 'The poor man. The poor empty-souled man!'" Which brings me to Cantata by Melanie Tem which uses the torment of an amusical person to gruesomely highlight the universality of lyrical communication throughout the history of sentience. "Surely she was the most inhospitable of hosts, so it seemed to her there must be something in intentional about it, some purpose, if only to be cruel. The itching response had soon developed, and her need to read it out." Although I was drawn to this volume by the more well-known names, such as Arthur C. Clarke, Robert Silverberg, and Michael Shea, I have found several new authors whose work I would be interested to pursue (like a million-eyed amorphous blob creature assimilating all in its path).
Every short story had merit, and I can see any of the others being a firm favourite with a different reader. The petulance, neuroticism, and greed of academia is portrayed as astutely as in Lovecraft's original, telling that this genre still has a relevant comment to make on the disharmonous persona of science and particularly success in science. A very well edited volume, I am interested to read more Lovecraftian anthologies from Titan Books.
This is a very high quality anthology. I picked it up from my local library expecting some light, wholesome tentacled fun and it exceeded all my expectations. All sixteen stories are inspired by Lovecraft's novella The Mountains of Madness, which gives the volume cohesion and incorporates a spectrum of retellings to tangential reimaginings. Fourteen of these stories were commissioned for this volume, so there was a lot of fresh modern material. Each story had its own merits and there was no filler. One of my faovurite authors of all-time, H.P. Lovecraft would have been pleased I think.
My personal favourite was Last Rites by K.M. Tonso, which told the story of the son of Professor William Dyer, the scientist whose expedition to Antarctica culminated in death and academic disgrace as his true account of Elder Beings and shoggoths was not believed. The author really captured the relatability of Lovecraft's immortal pentagonal Elder monsters, who have created forces they can no longer control through disregulated curiosity. The creation of the shoggoths is a premonition of a very human future. It seemed a necessary post-script for the son of William Dyer to return to Antarctica if only to let the Elder Beings know; "'I forgive you.'"
Other stand-out tales included. Lois H. Greshs' Devil's Bathtub which recast the shoggoths as all-engulfing magnetosome bacteria. Robert Silverberg's rediscovered story about the arrogance of dismissing any truth behind religion and spirituality (Diana of the Hundred Breasts) was also very potent and original "'He looks upon all as cults. He regards religion as a conspiracy by the powerful elite to stay on top at the expense of the masses.' 'The poor man. The poor empty-souled man!'" Which brings me to Cantata by Melanie Tem which uses the torment of an amusical person to gruesomely highlight the universality of lyrical communication throughout the history of sentience. "Surely she was the most inhospitable of hosts, so it seemed to her there must be something in intentional about it, some purpose, if only to be cruel. The itching response had soon developed, and her need to read it out." Although I was drawn to this volume by the more well-known names, such as Arthur C. Clarke, Robert Silverberg, and Michael Shea, I have found several new authors whose work I would be interested to pursue (like a million-eyed amorphous blob creature assimilating all in its path).
Every short story had merit, and I can see any of the others being a firm favourite with a different reader. The petulance, neuroticism, and greed of academia is portrayed as astutely as in Lovecraft's original, telling that this genre still has a relevant comment to make on the disharmonous persona of science and particularly success in science. A very well edited volume, I am interested to read more Lovecraftian anthologies from Titan Books.
March 16, 2019
Good so far. Devil's Bathtub is definitely going to be a favorite of mine-short and simple yet very effective. The opposite of Cthulhu Rising. Diana of the Hundred Breasts is another gem with a fantastic ending. While Last Rites initially had me interested, I had to skip it once it got to the girlfriend's orgy scene. The character describes feeling betrayed but the story does a poor job of establishing that she's important to begin with, let alone for readers to feel sympathy for the character when she cheats on him. As another reviewer said, it was unecessary and frankly felt like it was thoughtlessly slapped on.
I'll just follow the other review here and skip ahead to The Dog Handler's Tale.
I'll just follow the other review here and skip ahead to The Dog Handler's Tale.
February 3, 2025
3.5
To be fair, a collection of short stories is always a mixed bag. Some stories are so visual and haunting, you’d read the next one right away hoping for the same feeling. But some are… I’m not sure. It’s like they don’t want to be read. My mistake in is this book is starting this without reading any Lovecraft first. I find myself googling tons of details. But now I have better appreciation of where modern writers probably got the idea to write a cosmic horror so vivid that characters end up being paralyzed or defeated.
I’ll probably read sone Lovecraftian short stories first before going for another collection of modern writers, but I enjoyed this kind of horror, surprisingly!
To be fair, a collection of short stories is always a mixed bag. Some stories are so visual and haunting, you’d read the next one right away hoping for the same feeling. But some are… I’m not sure. It’s like they don’t want to be read. My mistake in is this book is starting this without reading any Lovecraft first. I find myself googling tons of details. But now I have better appreciation of where modern writers probably got the idea to write a cosmic horror so vivid that characters end up being paralyzed or defeated.
I’ll probably read sone Lovecraftian short stories first before going for another collection of modern writers, but I enjoyed this kind of horror, surprisingly!
March 27, 2019
So I bought this book thinking that it is purely of horror genre. I don't even know who is H.P. Lovecraft so I don't know about anything in this. So in the 1st stories, I admit that I was disappointed because I thought I would read about ghosts and folklores but instead I dive headfirst into H.P. Lovecraft's world of Ancient Aliens. At the end, I kind of loved it, specially the last story, "The Dog Handler's Tale", my favorite.
August 5, 2022
Overly reliant, like many recent Mythos anthologies, on the same fairly limited pool of authors. In addition, kicking off an anthology like this with a shallow fanzine parody story about how silly the whole Cthulhu Mythos thing is doesn't exactly sell the reader on the collection, even if it does happen to be by Arthur C. Clarke. Full review: https://fakegeekboy.wordpress.com/202...
September 12, 2023
There were only two stories here that I really didn’t enjoy (and both were proper stinkers), but the good far outweighs the bad here. The real standouts for me were "The Witness in Darkness" by John Shirley, "A Mountain Walked" by Caitlin R. Kiernan, "Cthulhu Rising" by Heather Graham, and by far the best, "The Dog Handler's Tale" by Donald Tyson, a great retelling of At the Mountains of Madness with a particularly touching ending. That one will stay with me for a very long time.
September 7, 2019
Mja, en ganska intetsägande samling, tyvärr. Det intressantaste är nog att de inkluderat både Arthur C. Clarke (vars bidrag är riktigt bra) och Robert Silverberg, som knappast brukar associeras med genren. Den får tre stjärnor för Clarke, Schweizer och Pulver som sina vanor trogna levererar med bravur och Kiernan.
August 18, 2022
A mostly enjoyable and pleasingly mixed bag of eldritch horrors, ranging from the negligible (Clarke's woeful pastiche) and the baffling (Graham's sappy soap-opera inflected offering) to some remarkable considerations from such genre stalwarts as John Shirley, William Browning Spencer, Caitlín R. Kiernan, and—most especially—Michael Shea.
March 14, 2023
Big three for this collection because the theme is on point, and there are a couple real bangers. A few bad ones too, but ST Joshi rarely lets me down.
All but one or two of these stories are based on HPL’s seminal “At the Mountains of Madness,” which is my favorite work of his and is fertile ground for mythos fiction.
All but one or two of these stories are based on HPL’s seminal “At the Mountains of Madness,” which is my favorite work of his and is fertile ground for mythos fiction.
September 19, 2021
A great collection if you enjoy At The Mountains of Madness. Some of these stories act as sequels, prequels, or even AtMoM told from a different perspective. Standout stories from Clarke, Fresh, Kiernan, Shea, Schweitzer, Pulver and many more.
March 7, 2023
Good varied Mythos stories
Mostly based on the Mountains of Madness storyline but with more than enough variety to keep your interest. Some big names but mostly authors unknown to me.
Mostly based on the Mountains of Madness storyline but with more than enough variety to keep your interest. Some big names but mostly authors unknown to me.
October 5, 2017
From the farcical to the creepy, S. T. Joshi brings us a fascinating selection of Lovecraftian stories. I was surprised to see one from Arthur C. Clarke! I'm looking forward to reading Volume 2.
March 15, 2020
Like all Cthulu stuff this is absurd and yet often a good read. This particular anthology had more than its share of duds. It was chewing sawdust in places, very so so.
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