15 of 16 people found the following review helpful:
4.0 out of 5 stars
Uneven but plenty of chills for horror aficionados, May 17, 2004
The world that Howard Phillips Lovecraft created continues to exert its spell decades after his death. This collection brings together twenty-five tales by authors spinning their own variations and extrapolations of Lovecraft's Cthulhu Mythos, which postulates the existence of an ancient, evil race of beings outside the generally known dimensions of time and space that lurks in the shadows, constantly waiting and watching for its chance to reconquer the earth and destroy humanity.
It's a creepy thought, and the best tales in this collection are those that filter this paranoia in new and unexpected ways: "The Horror on the Beach," by Alan Dean Foster, for example, transplants the monster to the sunny California coast. "The Stone on the Island" by Ramsey Campbell is a masterpiece of understatement, all the more terrifying for its low-key, economical prose. "The Kiss of Bugg-Shash" by Brian Lumley is more in the classic Lovecraftian vein of the disgusting, slimy, implacable enemy, but chilling for all of that. Less successful are entries that ape Lovecraft's over-the-top and frankly dated writing style, or that stick too closely to his original concepts and geographical settings. Nevertheless, as a whole this collection offers plenty of skin-crawling reading. Don't read it when you're alone, or during a power outage.
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15 of 20 people found the following review helpful:
2.0 out of 5 stars
Hugely disappointing, January 31, 2007
I've been trying lots of the new Lovecraft inspired anthologies over the last year, having been a Lovecraft fan for more than 25 years, and have just finished this most recent.
Now unlike the majority of the Lovecraft fan world, I think R.M. Price is hugely over-rated. Yes he knows Lovecraft, and literature but he is pompous, self-absorbed and a turgid writer. As editor of by far the worst of the Lovecraft anthologies, The Tsatoggua Cycle, he made me know fear; fear of Lovecraft pastiche and his overblown literary criticism. But I loved his reading of The Dunwich Horror, and based on positive reviews of this book I tried it, and am deeply sorry I've wasted my time on it.
While at least it stays away from the Clarke Ashton Smith type of fantastical imitations, I ploughed through exactly half the book before I came on something good in The Keeper of Dark Point, by John Glasby. By good, unfortunately I mean in comparison to the drivel before it. So many of the stories here finish with the dreaded <last line of horror in italics> that you realize just how poor Price's editorial skills are. (Not to mention his writing in his own story). There are average stories, bad stories, awful stories, attempts to do something different that completely fail ( Richard Lupoff's Lights! Camera! Shub-Niggurath! great title, unbelievingly long and unfunny lead-in)and by my count 2 out of 25 very good stories, Thomas Ligotti's Vastarien and David Kaufman's The Church at Garlock's Bend.
Skip this, save your money. "Cthulhu 2000" is the best of the Lovecraftian anthologies with "The New Mythos Circle", "Shadows Over Baker Street" * "Shadows Over Innsmouth" seems ok so far but I've read little of it yet.
Go back and buy the new Penguin releases of Lovecraft with editorial by ST Joshi, a better editor and writer.
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1 of 2 people found the following review helpful:
5.0 out of 5 stars
amazing stories for the Lovecraft fan, August 25, 2009
i think this book is great for the Lovecraft fan.it's hard to find good stories containg Cthulhu himself but it's not a problem in this book!Cthulhu aside, all of the stories are rich in mythos content and details which makes it most enjoyable.
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