Customer Reviews

The New Lovecraft Circle

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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.

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.

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.

My relationship with the Cthulhu Mythos has been on-going for many decades. There was a time I no longer wanted to de identify'd as a Mythos writer, and (as Bob Price mentions in his introduction to this book) when I was editing TALES OF LOVECRAFTIAN HORROR my editorial policy was that my magazine would contain no Mythos stories of any kind -- I wanted tales of pure Lovecraftian horror. I was being a boorish snob, and it is thanks to the really cool books of Mythos fiction edited by Bob Price that I outgrew this tiresome prejudice. I now call myself "a professional Cthulhu Mythos writer" at every opportunity, and I define my books as collections of Mythos tales. THE NEW LOVECRAFT CIRCLE is one of the collections that helped me to find a new fondness for the Mythos genre.

The original Lovecraft Circle were those friends and correspondents of Lovecraft's who fell under the spell of his fiction and wrote their own stories influenced by it. The finest representation of the Lovecraft Circle and HPL's influence on them is TALES OF THE CTHULHU MYTHOS, edited by August Derleth. There was, in Lovecraft's day, a sense of fun, almost of play, when it came to writing tales influenced by Lovecraft. Even Lovecraft seems far more playful than serious in his revision story, "The Horror in the Museum." I am usually violently turned-off when writers approach the Mythos as little more than an amusement, a jest. One writer who can convey that sense of playful humor and yet write a dead cool Mythos story is Peter H. Cannon, and his tale herein is a wonderful celebration of Lovecraftian madness.

I find it difficult to understand why someone would find this anthology "hugely disappointing," there are so many delightful and very good stories in this book. The complete contents are:

Preface, by Ramsey Campbell
Introduction, by Robert M. Price
"The Plain of Sound", by Ramsey Campbell
"The Stone on the Island," by Ramsey Campbell
"The Statement of One John Gibson," by Brian Lumley
"Demoniacal," by David Sutton
"The Kiss of Bugg-Shash," by Brian Lumley
"The Slitherer from the Slime." by H. P. Lowcraft
"The Doom of Yakthoob," by Lin Carter
"The Fishers from Outside," by Lin Carter
"The Keeper of the Flame," by Gary Myers
"Dead Giveaway," by J. Vernon Shea [who was also a member of the original Lovecraft Circle & a pen pal of HPL's!]
"Those Who Wait," by James Wade
"The Keeper of Dark Point," by John Glasby
"The Black Mirror," by John Glasby
"I've Come to Talk with You Again," by Karl Edward Wagner
"The Howler in the Dark," by Richard L. Tierney
"The Horror on the Beach," by Alan Dean Foster
"The Whisperers," by Richard A. Lupoff
"Lights! Camera! Shub-Niggurath!," by Richard A. Lupoff
"Saucers from Yaddith," by Robert M. Price
"Vastarien," by Thomas Ligotti
"The Madness out of Space," by Peter H. Cannon
"Aliah Warden," by Roger Johnson
"The Last Supper," by Donald R. Burleson
"The Church at Garlock's Bend," by David Kaufman
""The Spheres Beyond Sound (Threnody)", by Mark Rainey.

That's a LOT of Lovecraftian lore! Some of the tales are, admittedly, extremely minor and not very good, others are masterpieces of the weird tale. Mark Rainey's story is as much a masterpiece as is Ligotti's. This is a great book of fiction, some of it remarkably original in its approach to the Lovecraftian tale, others totally Cthulhu Mythos to the max. It's a great read, and an inspiration to those of us who strive to write our own Mythos fiction.

price follows up his tales of the lovecraft mythos, going to the newer pulp writers. still excellent. great stories. especially good as an introduction to pulp: good plots, not too weird, great descriptions. great stories. the best of the best. loved glasby and rainey. loved a lot.