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A review by naokamiya
Children of Lovecraft by Ellen Datlow
3.0
A solid compilation of gothic, cosmic and otherwise weird fiction that is unfortunately made uneven to a detrimental extent by a number of duds that drag down the collection's quality as a whole. "The Secret of Insects" is a boring and uninspired take on Nyarlathotep with little in the way of gripping prose, "Nesters" kind of just painfully *average*, and "Mortensen's Muse" - the worst offender of the bunch - is a dry, half-baked story which makes no attempt to hide being a shameless rehash of Lovecraft's "Pickman's Model". These stories did little to sway me and I found myself checking the page count of my Kindle whenever I was reading them.
However, I'm pleased that those three tales are the only notable drag-downs on this otherwise great collection. John Langan continues to impress me with "The Supplement", a non-horrific but very poignantly written tale of quiet grief that ties in both thematically and mythologically with "The Fisherman", and if "Frontier Death Song" didn't convince me already, Laird Barron's "Oblivion Mode" continuingly sells me on the man's writing chops when I hadn't been entirely convinced before; it's a deliriously wild, imaginative cosmic horror story set in an alt-Earth medieval fantasy backdrop. Caitlin R. Kiernan's contribution is also an expected highlight, working up their surreal and hypnotizing prose as well as their interest in portraying a climate change-wracked future to a fever-pitch in a story about a cursed, ancient relic from the dark depths of the ocean. Other highlights include "Mr. Doornail", a story told in charismatic fairy-tale prose, "When the Stitches Come Undone", a tale of disquieting folk horror, and "On These Blackened Shores of Time", a highly human, emotional, and terrifying tale that has in one story convinced me Brian Hodge is a name I should look out for.
So because of those stories this gets a recommendation from me, and the good entries really are good enough to warrant labeling this "great" and the stories I didn't mention are also well enough. Sadly, the uninteresting tales here do enough to slant the overall momentum of this anthology into a more middling direction.
However, I'm pleased that those three tales are the only notable drag-downs on this otherwise great collection. John Langan continues to impress me with "The Supplement", a non-horrific but very poignantly written tale of quiet grief that ties in both thematically and mythologically with "The Fisherman", and if "Frontier Death Song" didn't convince me already, Laird Barron's "Oblivion Mode" continuingly sells me on the man's writing chops when I hadn't been entirely convinced before; it's a deliriously wild, imaginative cosmic horror story set in an alt-Earth medieval fantasy backdrop. Caitlin R. Kiernan's contribution is also an expected highlight, working up their surreal and hypnotizing prose as well as their interest in portraying a climate change-wracked future to a fever-pitch in a story about a cursed, ancient relic from the dark depths of the ocean. Other highlights include "Mr. Doornail", a story told in charismatic fairy-tale prose, "When the Stitches Come Undone", a tale of disquieting folk horror, and "On These Blackened Shores of Time", a highly human, emotional, and terrifying tale that has in one story convinced me Brian Hodge is a name I should look out for.
So because of those stories this gets a recommendation from me, and the good entries really are good enough to warrant labeling this "great" and the stories I didn't mention are also well enough. Sadly, the uninteresting tales here do enough to slant the overall momentum of this anthology into a more middling direction.