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A review by the_weirdling
Cthulhu Lives! by John Reppion, Tim Dedopulos
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.