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A review by otterno11
She Walks in Shadows by
adventurous
dark
medium-paced
- Plot- or character-driven? N/A
- Strong character development? N/A
- Loveable characters? N/A
- Diverse cast of characters? Yes
- Flaws of characters a main focus? N/A
3.0
She Walks in Shadows is an anthology of short horror stories written by women exploring Lovecraftian themes and the Cthulhu Mythos through a feminine lens, one that has all too often been ignored or marginalized in the genre. Lovecraft and his followers and imitators included few women in their work, mostly as a few inconsequential extras or particularly disturbing antagonists, but the writers included here take his themes and explore them in ways Lovecraft, stuck in his own stunted and bigoted worldviews, could never have imagined.
Edited by Silvia Moreno-Garcia, who has since become a prolific and interesting author tackling these themes throughout her work, these stories represent some of the early critical and creative reevaluations of Lovecraft’s opus as authors grapple with the intractable racist and sexist themes endemic in it, taking it to new and thought provoking places. In other ways, though, this remains a pretty typical Cthulhu Mythos story anthology in which the authors riff on the old tropes, with some writing more straightforward homage (and tedious Mythos poetry) while others try to engage with these themes on a deeper level. Whether retelling some of Lovecraft’s stories from flipped viewpoints, such as Lavinia Whatley (The Dunwich Horror), Asenath Waite (The Thing on the Doorstop), or even Marceline (from Lovecraft’s most infamously racist story, Medusa’s Coil), or taking us to the far future, Roman Britain, or farther afield to confront the colonial and gender ramifications of the themes, there are some clunkier works and some stronger ones. All in all, a fairly strong collection worth checking out if you are craving more contemporary rethinkings of cosmic horror.
Edited by Silvia Moreno-Garcia, who has since become a prolific and interesting author tackling these themes throughout her work, these stories represent some of the early critical and creative reevaluations of Lovecraft’s opus as authors grapple with the intractable racist and sexist themes endemic in it, taking it to new and thought provoking places. In other ways, though, this remains a pretty typical Cthulhu Mythos story anthology in which the authors riff on the old tropes, with some writing more straightforward homage (and tedious Mythos poetry) while others try to engage with these themes on a deeper level. Whether retelling some of Lovecraft’s stories from flipped viewpoints, such as Lavinia Whatley (The Dunwich Horror), Asenath Waite (The Thing on the Doorstop), or even Marceline (from Lovecraft’s most infamously racist story, Medusa’s Coil), or taking us to the far future, Roman Britain, or farther afield to confront the colonial and gender ramifications of the themes, there are some clunkier works and some stronger ones. All in all, a fairly strong collection worth checking out if you are craving more contemporary rethinkings of cosmic horror.