Customer Reviews

Arkham Tales: Stories of the Legend Haunted City

5 star:		(2)
4 star:		(1)
3 star:		(0)
2 star:		(1)
1 star:		(2)

 

 

Arkham Tales is perhaps the beginning of a new venture for Chaosium, all original fiction set in the world of their Role Playing Game, Call of Cthulhu. Back in the day, before the internet, I was unaware of the small and (semi) thriving of small press mythos magazines. The only access to modern Lovecraftian fiction I knew about was through the cycle books, trade paperbacks by Chaosium. The most recent example of these was The Tsathoggia Cycle. Generally, these books featured reprinted stories gleaned and selected, usually by Robert Price, from these various magazines (Cthulhu Codex, Crypt of Cthulhu, Midnight Shambler etc). These were a definite mixed bag, with the books often containing a few winners, much mediocrity and a fair number of dogs. Alas, this was all that was available, except for an occasional fine quality hardback like Cthulhu 2000 (and even that had reprints). Lately, with improved on line connections and facilitation of book production by small presses the amount of books containing almost all new published mythos fiction has sky rocketed. Also, maybe it's only my imagination but this new generation of authors (not that the last one has moved off the scene) (maybe the 4th or 5th Lovecraft Circle?) is immensely talented so most of these collections have highly superior fiction. I always say we are in a golden age of mythos fiction, and point to books like Dead But Dreaming, Hardboiled Cthulhu, Horrors Beyond and the Delta Green books. And there is so much more in the pipeline, it is almost an embarrassment of riches. GW Thomas is set to release Cthulhu Express soon, and Rainfall Books has some titles in the offing, while Pagan Publishing has a new trade paperback collection of DG chapbooks planned. Elder Signs Press has stayed very, very busy, while Kevin O' Brien and Lindisfarne Press are getting back on their feet. Edward Lipsett has opened our eyes to Japanese mythos fiction via Kurodahan Press, John Pelan plans to issue The Cthulhian Singularity and Charlie Stross' The Jennifer Morgue is coming from Golden Gryphon. This is the golden age! Even so, we must admit our debt to Chaosium and Robert Price for keeping the eldritch fires burning.

And we also owe a debt to Chaosium for their role playing game, Call of Cthulhu. Actually I never played it; back when I had time for such leisure pursuits I was a D&D fan (but you gotta love a game where no matter how good you are, you eventually go insane or get eaten...). So here is my bias for the review: I do not know the source materials other than the stories by HPL and his legion of followers. And here is my assessment: you do not need to know their source material! Just like you don't need to know any of the Delta Green sources to really enjoy their books. Frankly, it's a wonder it took so long for Chaosium to elicit fiction based on their game world. After all there are tons of D&D based books. Delta Green, a version of CoC set in the modern era rife with secret government agencies and conspiracies, has been generating GREAT fiction for years now. Maybe the idea was germinating for a while but Chaosium was too broke to act on it, I dunno. Although set in or about Arkham, authors had free rein about all other content and setting, so there is no sense of repetition at all.

Someone will have to fill me in on the authors' reimbursement but I think it was peanuts plus 2 copies of the book, so truly these stories are labors of love. What I really like is there was a solicitation of stories and a culling process by the highly respected William Jones, from Elder Signs Press. This means the stories are notches above the cycle books. List price is $15.95 but it is discounted on Amazon to $10.37, and available for free shipping if you buy $25 worth of stuff (like Hardboiled Cthulhu!). The book itself is a good quality trade paperback, like all the cycle books. Page count is 288, not counting the editor's note, so very generous! The editor's note by William Jones is quite useful and details the setting for the anthology in Chaosium's world. Unfortunately there are no bios on the authors. Cover art is by Steven Gilberts. It shows a grizzled one eyed grounds keeper at Miskatonic University, shadowed by various critters. I am not sure about this, but I believe Mr. Gilberts did the artwork for some CoC game scenarios, so this is a very appropriate choice. This brings me to the biggest flaw in the book: there were at least a half dozen careless typos, mostly word substitutions. I did not jot them down as I was reading but, for example, p160 "fowl odors" (unless everything was supposed to smell like chickens). I think someone relied too much on a spell checker. Also in the story Burnt Tea by Michael Dziesinski busted was used as a descriptive adjective, "busted body." OK, I'll accept that a woman has a bust, or a narc conducts a bust, or you sculpt a bust. I'll buy that if you are writing colloquially in dialogue, or representing someone's thoughts, to say something was busted is appropriate slang, but in narrative detached from thoughts or dialogue it reads like the mistake of an ignoramus. Why not "broken body?" I saw this same mistaken usage twice in another story somewhere recently, maybe a chapbook, and I was equally put off by it. I won't say it killed the story, but goodness gracious it peeved me. I greatly enjoyed Eats, Shoots, & Leaves by Lynne Truss, so consider this my panda paw print.

Here are the contents (not otherwise listed elsewhere that I could find, so I typed the dang thing myself):

Mysterious Dan's Legacy - Matthew Baugh
Vaughn's Diary - Robert Vaughn
The Orb - Tony Campbell
The Nether Collection - Cody Goodfellow
Worms - Pat Harrigan
They Thrive in Darkness - Ron Shiflet
What Sorrows May Come - Lee Clark Zumpe
Arkham Pets - James Ambuehl
Small Ghost - Michael Minnis
Burnt Tea - Michael Dziesinski
Arkham Rain - John Goodrich
Regrowth - David Conyers
The Idea of Fear - CJ Henderson
Disconnected - Brian Sammons
The Lady in the Grove - Scott Lette
On Leave in Arkham - Bill Bilstad
Geometry of the Soul - Jason Andrew

Spoilers may follow so stop now if that bothers you *********

Mysterious Dan's Legacy - Matthew Baugh - This is a new author to me. In 1873 a Kansas cowboy (that was frontier territory right after the Civil War) comes to Arkham to collect an inheritance, which brings unwelcome knowledge, responsibilities and enemies. This was a very likeable story; I wonder if the protagonist, Daniel Hawkins, will become a regular character in Mr. Baugh's stories.

Vaughn's Diary - Robert Vaughn - Here is one story where my knowledge of the source material wasn't up to scratch and I couldn't remember if there was an antecedent story but HPL or someone else, so I don't recognize the name Timothy Erasmus Vaughn. Regarding this tale, never ever read the diary of a deceased relative who was an occultist in Arkham. Never! I hadn't read anything by Mr. Vaughn before, but this was a good read and I hope he is writing more mythos fiction.

The Orb - Tony Campbell - Tony Campbell wrote After the War which appeared in Horrors Beyond. I liked that story well enough but it didn't knock my socks off. That impression is confirmed in The Orb, which is also OK but doesn't stand up to the best in this anthology. A Miskatonic Unversity librarian's father has to match wits with the Hounds of Tindalos and Nyalathotep.

The Nether Collection - Cody Goodfellow - After the absorbing Cahokia in Horrors Beyond and the unreasonably entertaining To Skin a Dead Man in Hardboiled Cthulhu, and his sensational novels Radiant Dawn and Ravenous Dusk, Mr. Goodfellow can basically do no wrong. This was a change of pace, being a story of Harry Houdini and Lovecraftian ghouls. What can I say, I really liked it.

Worms - Pat Harrigan - This was a fascinating story by an author I never encountered before. It chronicles the rise of a man from office drone to fanatical rabble rouser, with terrific Lovecraftian touches scattered throughout. I loved that more subtle touches were used as opposed to the usual rub your face in the fact that there's a mythos out there.

They Thrive in Darkness - Ron Shiflet - With Unfinished Business in Hardboiled Cthulhu Mr. Shiflet now has two tales of Pickman and his ghouls in print. While I enjoyed the story, I confess to liking Unfinished Business better.

What Sorrows May Come - Lee Clark Zumpe - Mr. Zumpe wrote The Breach, a terrific story in Horrors Beyond, and has a few stories in mythos magazines. This effort was OK, sort of a reanimation tale with a protective ghost thrown in. I liked the prose but the story left me flat; I didn't dislike it, there was just better stuff here.

Arkham Pets - James Ambuehl - This very brief story by the ubiquitous Mr. Ambuehl concerned a boy who finds some crawly things in an Arkham swamp and decides to bring them home. Complications ensue. I found this amusing and diverting.

Small Ghost - Michael Minnis - Mr. Minnis is very productive. Recently we've had A Little Color in Your Cheeks in Horrors Beyond (mostly good) The Prodigies of Monkfield Cabot in Eldritch Blue (OK), Salt Air (superb) in Dead But Dreaming and The Butcher of Vyones (great) Lost Worlds of Space and Time #1. Small Ghost was terrific, maybe the highlight of Arkham Tales. It was about Brown Jenkin, the rat-like witch's familiar and someone with the health department.

Burnt Tea - Michael Dziesinski- I already mentioned my problem with the typos. Otherwise this was a very nifty work by an author I never encountered before, about the Hounds of Tindalos and Japanese tea ceremonies in the 1920s.

Arkham Rain - John Goodrich - Mr. Goodrich is active on the mythos scene but I don't recall seeing his work before. I'll have to remedy that! Arkham Rain was a terrific story about the Innsmouth taint visiting an unwitting family. An old mythos trope? You bet! But this was a wonderfully original take.

Regrowth - David Conyers - I'm a big David Conyers fan. He is becoming well published in almost all the newer mythos anthologies. This story has some thematic similarity to False Containment in Horrors Beyond, and deals with unnatural melding of disparate species. Being a Conyers yarn it was a darn good read, although I've liked other stories by him better.

The Idea of Fear - CJ Henderson - We, of course, did need a hard boiled PI story in this book! Who better to do it than the masterful CJ Henderson? But this story was refreshingly different; the ending will catch you by surprise, as a PI and a medium try to find a ghost.

Disconnected - Brian Sammons - Mr. Sammons can also do no wrong, especially after One Way Conversation in Horrors Beyond. This is another winner. It is about the Mi-Go and Yuggoth, and a PI tracking down a missing relative. But like everything else by Brian Sammons, do not expect the usual mythos conventions or story format.

The Lady in the Grove - Scott Lette - Yet another new author to me and yet another auspicious introduction! An Irish enforcer is sent to Arkham to provide a little muscle for an MU professor.

On Leave in Arkham - Bill Bilstad - Ditto the above. This story has a complex construction with rapidly switching time frames and viewpoints, about WWI veteran/murderer. Very worthwhile read.

Geometry of the Soul - Jason Andrew - Also a new author to me, Mr. Andrew's story was only OK, about a MU expedition that goes horribly awry. The initial few pages in the Arkham sanitarium were much better for me than the last few pages.

So in summary, this is a terrific book of all brand new fiction. Even the stories that aren't the best are pretty good, and the best stories are first rate. The price is low and the page count is generous. Many of these authors are new on the scene and the rest are among the hot new mythos talents. Don't try to choose between it and Hard Boiled Cthulhu; order both of them discounted from Amazon! Together they are still less than Weird Shadows Over Innsmouth. Mythos fans should not hesitate.

I have read many, many of Chaosium's Cthulhu Mythos anthologies and have always loved the thematic approach and Robert M. Price's introductions to the stories. Sure, his lengthy background analyses often were a bit over the top and seem to force religious subjects into the context but a collection edited by Price was always a guarantee for classic and often rare material. With "Arkham Tales" Chaosium have taken a different approach and it started to dawn on me after reading a couple of stories. I started noticing that with the exception of James Ambuehl and C.J. Henderson none of the other authors really rang a bell. An I noticed how most of the stories seemed to have exactly 18 pages. A quick google search confirmed my suspicion that this collection was a series of commissioned pieces. Chaosium had invited writers to write 5000 word stories based on the "shared world" of Lovecraft's Arkham. Writers were asked to base their material on Chaosium's Arkham guidebook and use different time settings instead of just Lovecraft's twenties. Payment: 2 copies.

Well, that explains the rather dodgy quality of most of these stories. Rarely have I read a collection of Mythos tales that was - on average - so poorly written both stylistically as well as plot-wise, so full of typos, so enormously predicatble, downright silly (a Mythos entity called Hasad the Horrible?!) and in some cases so incredibly forcefully inserted in the Arkham surroundings. I mean, come on ... a Japanese deligation holding a weird tea ritual at the Miskatonic University? Can things get any sillier?
Most of the writers seem to be rather inexperienced, using quite a few pages for character and athmosphere building only to find out that they haven't got enough words left for a decent plot development and interesting twists. Some stories conclude in rushed endings and only rarely did they leave me with a satisfied feeling.

Of the 17 stories in this collection there were only five I considered worthy of being included in a collection for fans of the genre: Harrigan's 'Worms', Ambuehl's 'Arkham Pets', Minnis' 'Small Ghost', Henderson's 'The Idea of Fear' and Sammons 'Disconnected'. These either take a fresh and original approach to the Lovecraft universe or hint at bigger, cosmic things outside the limits of the stories. They also use interesting story structures and sometimes offer interesting sequals to Lovecraft's classic stories. Overall though this collection is not really worth picking up with so much other quality anthologies to choose from.

Once when I visiting H.P.'s grave, I found a maunscript left by a fan. The enclosed letter said that the author knew his work was poor, but he was leaving it as a fan, and hoped it was appreciated. I read it, sitting by that grave. And he was correct; the work had promise, but needed a lot of work.

That's what this collection reminded me of. A bunch of works left at the grave of H.P.L. with very little to encourage them. There is a certain amount of promise in this work, but it is quickly buried under stories that never seem to go anywhere. The writing is cliched in most of the tales, and sometimes the mythos seems to be an afterthought to what's going on.

Poor editing contributed to the poor effect, but really, the quality of the stories does not match most of the "fan work" that has come before. It reads like a bunch of adventure intros for the "Call of Cthulhu" RPG, and not like a series of genre stories.

There are good stories and bad stories in this book, but fortunately, like most Call of Cthulhu fiction, there are more good than bad. I won't review story by story, since so much of that is subjective to the reader, but this collection is easily good enough to buy and the price is very reasonable.

I couldn't believe how bad this book was on so many different levels...especially after reading the glowing customer reviews, here!

First, there were unintentional bad syntax and misspellings throughout...which was both irritating and distracting. Did anyone even proofread or edit this collection before it went to press? I really wonder!

Second, most of the stories...with (if I remember correctly!) only two notable exceptions...were simply poor. The plots and writing "styles" reminded me of something straight out of a high-school campus magazine...and most were too predictable and not at all frightening. The rich imagery of Lovecraft and his best inheritors was totally absent. The results were, mostly, dull and unimaginative.

Third, too many of the stories dealt with different private detectives dealing with Arkham horrors...and these were written in a very corny, dated style that read like bad Mickey Spillane. I think that the Old Master, Lovecraft, would have cringed at some crap!

If you are a true Lovecraft Mythos fan who has enjoyed some of the really good spinoffs from some of the first generation of Lovecraft's inheritors, I would recommend that you bypass this book altogether.

Almost 70 years after his death, H.P.Lovecraft continues to cast a giant shadow over the horror genre with new books, films, and comics coming out every year that are inspired by his works. Chaosium is best known as the published of the outstanding "Call of Cthulhu" role-playing game but they also put out some great Lovecraftian fiction as well and their latest offering features 17 stories set in his fictional city of Arkham, Massachusetts. One of the most difficult things for modern writers to capture is that overall sense of dread, and the feeling of something dark and disturbing lurking just out of the way of your glance that Lovecraft was able to convey so well. While not all of the writers in this collection succeed, I'm happy to say that many of them do and contribute some fantastic stories. "Mysterious Dan's Legacy" by Matthew Baugh is set in 1873. Daniel Hawkins as traveled to Arkham from Dodge City to collect an inheritance left behind by a cousin, an old and very rare book. When Hawkins turns down an offer to sell the book, he'll find that there are strange people in town who will do anything to get their hands on this prize.

"They Thrive in Darkness" by Ron Shiflet is perhaps the best example of a book that captures that true Lovecraft feel and sense of helplessness. Owen Blake makes acquaintances with a jovial man in an Arkham pub who invites him to his home to see the mysterious door in his basement. It's what's behind the door that Owen should be concerned about.

In John Goodrich's "Arkham Rain" a man learns the horrific history of his family and the gruesome fate that awaits his brother, when he visits the accursed town of Innsmouth.

Other stand-out stories include "What Sorrows May Come" by Lee Clark Zumpe and "The Idea of Fear" by C.J. Henderson. My only reservation is that a few too many stories conclude with a rather clichéd happy ending. Overall, however, a very solid collection of Lovecraft-inspired stories.

reviewed by Tim Janson