Customer Reviews

The Children of Cthulhu

5 star:		(6)
4 star:		(4)
3 star:		(3)
2 star:		(2)
1 star:		(3)

 

 

The authors of this collection do an excellent job of using Lovecraft's themes (alienation, atavism, family secrets, the true horrific nature of the cosmos) and his influences (Dunsany, Machen, Poe) while for the most part avoiding cliched devices and plots.

While there are stories set in Arkham or involving Shub-Niggurath (to cite two examples), the stories are interesting in their own right, rather than being excuses to add new lore. Horror is a constant element, with some stories sliding over into science-fiction or fantasy, and there's variation in how the narrative is structured, in the voice of the narrator and the prose styling.

This is going to be the anthology to beat in the field of Mythos fiction.

It's nice to pay homage to Lovecraft. Given his contribution to the horror genre, such consideration is well deserved. Lovecraft's approach to the supernatural, his contribution to what has become called the Cthulhu Mythos and his embrace of the weird has enhanced our collection of horror. So it's nice that people pay him the honor he merits as what many consider second only to Poe in macabre fiction.

There's a lot that can be done with Lovecraft offers. People turning into hybrid amphibian creatures, the opening of dimensional doors to strange vistas, self-destructive ennui, the nature of dreams and lost civilizations, one's own sense of alientation and dread, and perhaps most of all the existential idea that our religions are false and that the real Gods either don't like us, or don't care and our fate is to be little more than food. That's a lot to work with. The Children of Cthulhu tries to work with all of it. Sometimes it works, sometimes not.

Too much homage is not a good thing. As a collection of work dedicated or based on Lovecraft's Mythos this has some real fine stories. But it also suffers some fairly weak ones which is unfortunate. This could have been a finer volume of fiction than was finally published. It suffers for falling short of it's possibilities.

The first three stories are quite good. Details, by Mieville gets the collection off to a good start. I believe this is also available in his collection 'Looking for Jake'. Visitation, is also a fine story and I liked the historical fiction in The Invisible Empire.

Other enjoyable stories?
Foster's A Fatal Exception has Occurred, Dorr's Dark Side of the Moon. Patterson's Principles and Parameters suggest some modern horrors on the edge of science and academic exploration. Hodge's The Firebrand Symphony returns us to the idea that the arts can touch the horror within us in ways that philosophy and science cannot, and is perhaps the best story of the collection. Cardin's teeth reminds of the dangers of too much philosophy, that the monsters we seek may turn against us.

I found Kiernan's Nor the Demons Down Under the Sea to be spooky and enjoyable, invoking for me the dread of a haunted house. Ochse's Spectacle of a Man brought back good old urban dread. Chadbourn's Sour Places reminds us that there are places in decay that might be subject to more primal forces.

But many of the other stories just don't work as well as they could. Many stories are either weak in chills, low on atmosphere or seem to be trying to hard to be modern Lovecraft. This suggests that a bit more edit, better selection and polishing might have made this a better collection. Laymon's and Brite's contributions are just not that remarkable, which is true of others. It's hard to identify where the problem is. Pelan and Adams write a nice introductory essay to the volume and perhaps it's just difficult to appeal to every taste in a collected volume.

So expect a few gems along with a few rocks.

Most of the stories in this anthology adopt the trappings of Lovecraft's tales, but none of the style. The most loyal of the bunch is China Mieville's entry. The remainder of the tales drop names or refer to classic tales to remind the reader of the nature of the anthology. A few of the tales, such as "A Victorian Pot Dresser," begin well, but soon decend into stadard horror cliches, with tight little endings that follow standard movie logic. What's missing, what's forgotten, is that most of the dread that Lovecraft evoked in his stories came not from the events in themselves, but from the greater implications of those events -- the knowledge that humanity is supremely insignificant is the wider world and, despite the realization of this horror, we can never understand why, the very nature of reality being invisible to our inferior biology and intellect. Most of these stories skip such implications and head straight for the gruesome monsters and the spattering blood with a near-complete lack of subtlety.

Best to skip this one and stick with older material, if not Lovecraft himself. Most of the anthologies published by Chaosium are far superior.

The problem with reviewing books in this genre is that usually you've read a lot of them. And I mean a lot. After you've read 20 or so Mythos anthologies, they all blend together. You already know what you're getting before you open the book. Not that it's a bad thing; you are after all buying a very specific niche and there's not a lot of unmapped parameter space. Maybe it's just nice to evoke the spirit of the Old Man once again. Definitely understand that CHILDREN OF CTHULHU is a good collection of good stories. In the new millenium, the Old Ones are new again...

Some of the stories are fairly predictable, like "Red Clay", "The Victorian Pot Dresser", and "The Cabin in the Woods". Some were able to evoke the spirit of HPL while standing on their own as a creepy tale, like "The Invisible Empire", "Details" and "Long Meg and Her Daughters" (the imagery in this story was VERY disturbing - and here I thought I was getting jaded), intentionally or unintentionally amusing like "A Fatal Exception has Occurred at...", and sometimes just very confusing (I won't name names here). Poppy Z Brite had an original composition in "Are you Loathsome Tonight?" I would have bet money it would be a romantic comedy involving Deep Ones. No, it's a short piece on Elvis. You really have to read it to believe it.

So, in the end, is this anthology worth your time and money? The writing quality is high, many of the ideas are original (if oddly developed?) or at least subtle in their derivation. And like anyone who has encountered the NECRONOMICON in some dusty bookshop, my final words are "What could it hurt?"

This new anthology is one of the best of recent Cthulhu Mythos literature, 21 exceptional stories that are fresh, imaginative and most of them quite witty. These are not run of the mill pastiches. The writers attempt to provide a different approach to the material, and for the most part are quite successful. Among the best ones are: "The Cabin in the Woods" by Richard Laymon, "Sour Places" by Mark Chadbourn, "The Firebrand Symphony" by Brian Hodge, "Princpals and Parameters" by Meredith L. Patterson and (if you like a good "joke" story) "Are you Loathsome Tonight?" by Poppy Z. Brite. The last one is an Elvis Presley Mythos tale. The recent, exceptionasl new book "The Complete H. P. Lovecraft Filmography" has a chapter on mythos tales that could be successfully adapted to the screen. Well some of the tales in this new anthology could also apply to this category as well. "Children of Cthulhu" clearly shows that the Cthulhu Mythos is not moribund, but is continuing to grow in new directions. Recommended!

When John asked us to write for the book, he explained that he wanted an anthology that would help bring Lovecraft more into the modern age. There were no rules, except that we could not write stories that were sexually explicit because Del Rey wanted to market the book to young readers. I think that John envisioned the book as the Cthulhu Mythos equivalent of Harlan Ellison's DANGEROUS VISIONS. It is certainly one of the finest modern anthologies of tales inspired by H. P. Lovecraft and I am honored to be within its pages, however lacking and uninspired my own story may be. The book was a huge success and sold well both as hardcover edition and trade paperback. If you want innovative and superbly written tales that explore Lovecraftian ideas and yet are utterly original and decidedly modern, this book is for you.

The aim of this anthology was to take Lovecraft's ideas into new realms (as the introduction puts it, the Mythos aren't something that need fixing, but that doesn't mean you can't play with them). While it's certainly not pastiche & has some clever moments, this collection doesn't quite succeed in taking the Mythos to brand-new places. Many of the stories follow tried-and-true Lovecraft conventions too closely. That's not necessarily a bad thing; they're still entertaining, but not what the book promises. Some others do succeed in escaping the boundaries of Lovecraft while keeping essential Mythos ideas intact. It's too bad they all didn't.

I would certainly recommend giving it a read (I found it at my local library) but don't expect it to be a revolutionary collection.

If you are expecting this anthology to be a collection of slavish imitations of Lovecraft's writing style or subject matter, this is not the collection for you. The stories are mostly not particularly Mythos-related; instead they are totally original takes on what actually constitutes "Lovecraftian:" namely, the cosmic horror of knowing something is very, very wrong with the universe. More than half of the stories in this collection accomplish their goal of creating in the reader a disquieting senastion, a sort of unease that isn't easily explained away. This, in fact, is really what "Lovecraftian" means. No monsters are needed to create a subtly disturbing atmosphere. No tentacles need appear to supply the horrors or the dread. A modern day setting is perfectly appropriate, even totally apropos, for an exploration of the natural laws beyond the bounds of science, religion, or reason. If you are looking for fresh, true cosmic horror not bound by Derleth's rules of the Mythos, this is the collection for you.

4 Stars due to uneven quality of content. Most stories are good, a few excellent, a few sub par.

It is about time that a superior Cthulhu anthology begins collecting stories from across the Pond. The stories and authors do Lovecraft proud and the fact most are set in contemporary times, is definately an added bonus. If you are a Lovecraftian as opposed to a Cthulhuian, this is the anthology for you and you are interest in updating the Mythos to near times, as opposed to the 1920s...GO BUY THIS BOOK, you will not be disappointed.

This is a superior anthology of cosmic horror, unspoiled that had me turning every page. I can only hope that we will see more.

The contributors, including China Mieville, avoid most of the pitfalls of Lovecraft's successors. If anything, they fall in the smae traps as he did! Writing Cthulhu mythos stories is very difficult. While no story exactly fails, very few bring you to the brink of insanity either. Some stories, like "Details", "Meet me on the other side", and "Parameters and Principles" soars. At its worst this book helps bring back memories of those magic days of terror when you could read the real thing, and for that I really like it.