Customer Reviews

Singers of Strange Songs: A Celebration of Brian Lumley (Call of Cthulhu Fiction)

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"~Singers Of Strange Songs is a book of short stories H. P. Lovecraft style. The difference is the authors have incorporated Brian Lumley's additions to the Mythos."~ to Force the Rhymes, by Benjamin Adams"~ Cement Surroundings and Spaghetti are well worth getting this collection. They scared the bejezus out of me. I'll never look at spaghetti the same again!

The first thing I noticed about the collection SINGERS OF STRANGE SONGS is that it is edited by Scott David Aniolowski. Right off the bat, this is a good thing. Scott is a humble editor, not getting in the way of the stories themselves. He doesn't endlessly expound on his own beliefs, nor does he give the ending away before each story. This put me in a mood to better enjoy SINGERS OF STRANGE SONGS.

This collection is a celebration of Brian Lumley, who has made important additions to the Cthulhu mythos, although many consider his later work to be non-canonical. Which is to say that his writing became less like HPL and more like a profitable author (here's to success!). His early work involved mythos monsters (chthonians), mythos tomes (Cthaat Aquadingen), and mythos deities (Yibb Tstll, Shudde M'ell), so you can imagine that these stories explore those themes and devices.

Some of these are cthonian stories. "Cement Surroundings", "Bad Soil", "Subway Accident", and "Shudder Wyrm", they're all about the burrowers beneath that come up to get you when you least expect it. Although, sometimes they don't get ALL of you (some gets left behind). This must have been a different experience before TREMORS was released. These stories didn't feel very original after seeing the movie, but then I remember when I was terrified to ride the lawn mower because there might be giant worms underground ready to eat me (I am not very proud of myself right now).

A couple of stories deal somewhat tangentially with Yibb Tstll - "Not To Force the Rhymes" and "The Nullity of Choice" by John Tynes. The former is a British-atmosphere story about saving the world. I thought it would have been good but the author wanted to introduce the idea of a "gestalt" that had an avatar - that broke my suspension of disbelief. Tynes story of a cultist trying to act out the perceived desires of his god was pretty goood, and filled me in on some aspects of Yibb Tstll I hadn't understood before. I'd really like to read THE CALLER OF THE BLACK to better understand this part of the mythos, but <heh>, good luck with that!

There were some other stories that dealt with tangential topics, some good, some merely okay. My favorite involved the Men from Leng, Ithaquaa, and the Reliable Vacuum Cleaner. The last story is a more obscure one by Lumley called "Spaghetti", and the atmosphere and buildup is great. You KNOW that the "spaghetti" is going to be something awful. Yeah, it was.

All in all, a good collection, some good authors, and a great editor. I wouldn't pass this one up if you can get it.

not bad. a pretty obvious one, but well written, by Burleson. Nicoll has a well written one, but very short. D'amassa has an interesting one. Lumley's spaghetti is the longest. an interesting pulpish haunted house- story. worth a read, but is perhaps lacking real greatness