Made in Goatswood (Chaosium Publication) [Paperback]

Chaosium (Author), Ramsey Campbell (Author), Scott D. Aniolowski (Editor)

Product Details

• Paperback: 279 pages
• Publisher: Chaosium (December 1996)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 1568820461
• ISBN-13: 978-1568820460
• Product Dimensions: 8.2 x 5.4 x 0.7 inches
• Shipping Weight: 11.4 ounces
• Average Customer Review: 2.2 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (5 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #1,719,552 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

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Most Helpful Customer Reviews

3 of 4 people found the following review helpful:

2.0 out of 5 stars For Completists Only, June 9, 2007

By 

Zen Druid (Aloha, OR USA) - See all my reviews

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This review is from: Made in Goatswood (Chaosium Publication) (Paperback)

It took me a full 3/4 of the way through this book before I found a decent story. Most of the stories suffered from one or more of the following: 1) could have been set anywhere remote. The particulars of the Severn Valley locale played no role in the story. Have these authors even read anything by Ramsey Campbell? 2) bizarre or disjointed writing styles that only detracted from the plot 3) non-endings or endings that did not follow from the story. In several of the stories it seemed as though the author decided it was time to go to the pub and just wrote anything to end the story (or came back from the pub and finished drunk).

I liked Szymanski's "Random Access" as a nice expansion of "The Insects from Shaggai" with a computer program saving the day. Robert Price has a decent piece, if you can ignore a gaping hole or 2 in the story line. Campbell's own contribution is fine, and is perhaps the only story to actually USE the Severn Vally mythos and expand upon it in any significant way. C.J. Henderson's piece is also good and happily can be found in the fine anthology "The Occult Detectives of C.J. Henderson" so you don't need to buy this book to read it.

I'd recommend this book only to folks like me who just have to buy all of the "Call of Cthulhu" books for their collection. Feel free to buy it and put it on your shelf unread, you will be missing very little. Then go read some Campbell and Henderson elsewhere.

3 of 4 people found the following review helpful:

3.0 out of 5 stars A mixed bag, August 3, 2005

By 

Nicholas R. Hunter (Houston, TX United States) - See all my reviews
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This review is from: Made in Goatswood (Chaosium Publication) (Paperback)

Like most Chaosium books, this collection seems intended more as background material for Chaosium's line of fantasy role-playing games than as a stand-alone collection of short fiction. The quality of the contents varies from accomplished journeyman to fan fiction. The exception would be Kevin A. Ross' "The Music of the Spheres". Enschewing the usual compendium of obscure references and self-consciously purple prose employed by other would-be mythos authors, this story evokes truly Lovecraftian cosmic horror. For me this story is one of the best examples of modern mythos fiction and deserving of a place in one of the canonical Arkham House collections.

4 of 7 people found the following review helpful:

2.0 out of 5 stars Still seeking stories which will make Goatswood come alive, July 14, 2003

By 

Charles Lewis "vagabond, wargamer, military h... (Van Nuys, ca United States) - See all my reviews
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This review is from: Made in Goatswood (Chaosium Publication) (Paperback)

I wasn't impressed with this collection, though I had looked forward to reading it. I think the Goatswood mythos has possibilities, but these stories didn't light me up and slap my emotions and imagination around the way most of the Chaosium fiction series collections do. Chick says you can miss it.