Scan barcode
the_weirdling's review against another edition
5.0
There is a lot to love about this collection of Lovecraft tales. Many anthologies are very uneven, but not this one. Every story is strong. Every story is on point with what the anthology is trying to do. There don’t seem to be any submissions that were accepted to add bulk to the volume.
I appreciate the way all of the stories are thematically Lovecraftian, but avoid repeating Lovecraft’s work after him. Mythos lovers will know what I’m talking about here. There’s only so many mythos tales you can tell that take place in New England in the 1920s. It gets tiresome after a while. Ms Jones seems to agree and has done a service in finding stories that offer new places and ways to be weirded out.
Another feature I liked is that most of the tales are relatively short. Again, it irks me when a tale looks like it’s adding bulk to meet a word count or page number requirement. They should be as long as they need to be to tell the story right. Some stories are very short. I think nearly any one of them could be read in about a half an hour or less. (G K Lomax’s story being the only possible exception.) It made the book perfect to bring along and read a chapter here and there as I carted by girls to their activities.
I would also like to add this: the book is almost worth purchasing alone for the excellent afterwords by Joshi. It’s one of the finest summaries of Lovecraft’s work and unique point of view.
I appreciate the way all of the stories are thematically Lovecraftian, but avoid repeating Lovecraft’s work after him. Mythos lovers will know what I’m talking about here. There’s only so many mythos tales you can tell that take place in New England in the 1920s. It gets tiresome after a while. Ms Jones seems to agree and has done a service in finding stories that offer new places and ways to be weirded out.
Another feature I liked is that most of the tales are relatively short. Again, it irks me when a tale looks like it’s adding bulk to meet a word count or page number requirement. They should be as long as they need to be to tell the story right. Some stories are very short. I think nearly any one of them could be read in about a half an hour or less. (G K Lomax’s story being the only possible exception.) It made the book perfect to bring along and read a chapter here and there as I carted by girls to their activities.
I would also like to add this: the book is almost worth purchasing alone for the excellent afterwords by Joshi. It’s one of the finest summaries of Lovecraft’s work and unique point of view.
eulaspiegel's review against another edition
3.0
A mixed bag of stories more or less inspired by Lovecraft. Some were really good and some were not good at all.
bookwomble's review
3.0
This review was written for LibraryThing Early Reviewers, where half-stars are available and I gave this book 3.5 stars.
I've been reading Lovecraft for 40 years, so I'm probably about to qualify as one of the Old Ones myself. While there's nothing here to touch the master at his best, nonetheless there are some very enjoyable stories in Cthulhu Lives!.
The Book Description says that we have here "Seventeen cosmic horror stories with a modern sensibility," which was not, to my mind, a good sign. To me the "modern sensibility" usually means excessive use of bad language, gore, sex and urban slang that is going to date very quickly. Happily, there is little of that here and the quality of writing is generally very good.
Lovecraft's allusiveness in describing the Old Ones was characteristic of the Mythos and any attempt to describe them in detail would have broken the spell. However, he often gave very detailed descriptions of the lesser races and use of some newly described horrors could have been made, but I guess that's a minor criticism.
The stories that really stood out for me were:
1884 by Michael Grey. An alternate history, steampunk story which I could easily see being expanded to a novel. Reminiscent of The Glass Books of the Dream Eaters by Gordon Dahlquist. Celebrity cameos: Benjamin Disrali and HRH Queen Victoria.
Hobstone by G.K. Lomax. Modern day urban setting, with an obsessional slow descent into madness theme. In addition to Lovecraft, I thought I detected something of an influence from the excellent film Quatermass and the Pit in this one.
On the Banks of the River Jordan by John Reppion. Nice use of epistolary narrative, with emails taking the place of letters and journals. The setting in modern-day Liverpool was attractive to me, living as I do only a 45-minute's journey from the site of the horrors described! But a very good story regardless of that personal link. Reppion's use of his protagonist's research into real and imagined folk-lore is a nice reflection of Lovecraft's use of the scholar-"hero".
Scritch, Scratch by Lynne Hardy is one of the more allusive stories of the collection and very atmospheric. An isolated village, an even more isolated "old dark house," shadowed woods, rats and an eccentric old geezer. I really liked this one.
The Highland Air by Gethin A. Lynes. A period piece that does homage to The Case of Charles Dexter Ward. Enough said.
If you like your horror less blood-splattered, then there will be something in here for you to enjoy.
I've been reading Lovecraft for 40 years, so I'm probably about to qualify as one of the Old Ones myself. While there's nothing here to touch the master at his best, nonetheless there are some very enjoyable stories in Cthulhu Lives!.
The Book Description says that we have here "Seventeen cosmic horror stories with a modern sensibility," which was not, to my mind, a good sign. To me the "modern sensibility" usually means excessive use of bad language, gore, sex and urban slang that is going to date very quickly. Happily, there is little of that here and the quality of writing is generally very good.
Lovecraft's allusiveness in describing the Old Ones was characteristic of the Mythos and any attempt to describe them in detail would have broken the spell. However, he often gave very detailed descriptions of the lesser races and use of some newly described horrors could have been made, but I guess that's a minor criticism.
The stories that really stood out for me were:
1884 by Michael Grey. An alternate history, steampunk story which I could easily see being expanded to a novel. Reminiscent of The Glass Books of the Dream Eaters by Gordon Dahlquist. Celebrity cameos: Benjamin Disrali and HRH Queen Victoria.
Hobstone by G.K. Lomax. Modern day urban setting, with an obsessional slow descent into madness theme. In addition to Lovecraft, I thought I detected something of an influence from the excellent film Quatermass and the Pit in this one.
On the Banks of the River Jordan by John Reppion. Nice use of epistolary narrative, with emails taking the place of letters and journals. The setting in modern-day Liverpool was attractive to me, living as I do only a 45-minute's journey from the site of the horrors described! But a very good story regardless of that personal link. Reppion's use of his protagonist's research into real and imagined folk-lore is a nice reflection of Lovecraft's use of the scholar-"hero".
Scritch, Scratch by Lynne Hardy is one of the more allusive stories of the collection and very atmospheric. An isolated village, an even more isolated "old dark house," shadowed woods, rats and an eccentric old geezer. I really liked this one.
The Highland Air by Gethin A. Lynes. A period piece that does homage to The Case of Charles Dexter Ward. Enough said.
If you like your horror less blood-splattered, then there will be something in here for you to enjoy.
More...