The Dunwich Cycle: Where the Old Gods Wait (Cthulhu Cycle Books) [Paperback]

Robert M. Price (Editor)

Product Details

• Paperback: 276 pages
• Publisher: Chaosium (December 1996)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 156882047X
• ISBN-13: 978-1568820477
• Product Dimensions: 8.5 x 5.4 x 0.6 inches
• Shipping Weight: 15.2 ounces
• Average Customer Review: 3.6 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (5 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #1,856,450 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

4 of 5 people found the following review helpful:

3.0 out of 5 stars Space alien weds earth woman, child is Elvis-clone, July 31, 2004

By 

Alexander Scott (Birmingham, AL) - See all my reviews
(VINE VOICE)    (REAL NAME)   

This review is from: The Dunwich Cycle: Where the Old Gods Wait (Cthulhu Cycle Books) (Paperback)

Replace "Space alien" with "hideous eldritch being" and "Elvis-clone" with "Son of Yog-Sothoth", and you have WHERE THE OLD GODS WAIT. Apparently they are waiting for their turn in line at the brothel called "Earth".

The good:
"The Great god Pan", "The White People", and "The Dunwich Horror": Great classics. The first two are by Arthur Machen and appear in other collections by Chaosium. "The Dunwich Horror" is one of Lovecraft's finest, in my opinion.

The rest:
Some hideous monster has relations with a human woman and progeny anf horror result all around. It seemed mostly uninspired to me, although the monster at least varied sometimes.

Finally, I found "Wilbur Whately Waiting" to capture the spirit of HPL in a way I didn't imagine. Wilbur is brought back to this world in the modern day to finish what he started. However, the world has passed him by. Every "magick" store sells copies of the Necronomicon and humans more disturbing than Wilbur roam the street. To borrow from Lovecraft, we have become so jaded that Arthur Machen's "The Great God Pan" wouldn't even CAUSE a scandal. The soul of the modern world is too dead to even react to one such as Wilbur. But he does find purpose in a key . . .

You might purchase WHERE THE OLD GODS WAIT just to have two excellent stories by Arthur Machen, "The Dunwich Horror", and "Wilbur Whately Waiting" will give you something to consider. As a collection, I thought the filler fell flat and brought down the rest of the book.

3 of 4 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars A collection of stories from the rotting town of Dunwich, May 4, 2001

By 

Lane (Tacoma, WA USA) - See all my reviews

This review is from: The Dunwich Cycle: Where the Old Gods Wait (Cthulhu Cycle Books) (Paperback)

This book has a collection of stories that were inspired by H.P. Lovecraft's Dunwich Horror, including that famous story. It's an interesting book and if you are an avid reader of Lovecraft or of the Cthulhu mythos, this book is a must have.

2 of 3 people found the following review helpful:

3.0 out of 5 stars The Dunwich Horror and more..., October 4, 2001

By 

Wendy-Marie Chabot "The Bad Gwen" (Central CT) - See all my reviews
(REAL NAME)   

This review is from: The Dunwich Cycle: Where the Old Gods Wait (Cthulhu Cycle Books) (Paperback)

A most interesting experiment. "The Dunwich Cycle" is a collection of tales that influenced and where inspired by the late H.P. Lovecraft's "The Dunwich Horror". Editor Robert Price certainly includes a wide variety of tales, some more compelling than others.

Among the real gems in this collection are "The Dunwich Horror" itself and the story that most influenced/inspired Lovecraft's tale, 'The Great God Pan". Compared to some of the more recent tales in the collection, the writing style and vocabulary might seem too overblown, slow moving or ancient, but it is from these beloved tales that so many others have been inspired.

Given the unevenness of most Mythos tales, this collection makes a nice addition to a Lovecraft library, having at least one story that will charm the reader.