Customer Reviews

Tales of the Cthulhu Mythos

5 star:		(17)
4 star:		(12)
3 star:		(1)
2 star:		(2)
1 star:		(0)

 

 

MOST of the stories in this collection are not by H.P. Lovecraft: only 2 out of 22 are actually HPL's work! Nevertheless, this is a good collection of stories written by other authors who followed HPL in writing about the so-called "Cthulhu Mythos" that Lovecraft created. If you're looking for stories by Lovecraft himself, look elsewhere: there are other collections available composed entirely of his work. But if you want to read stories by the many authors who contributed what are felt by many to be the core of the Myhos, then this is a good beginning for you.

This is an excellent update of this volume (I have the 70s Ballantine 2-volume edition), and is recommended to fans of horror in general and of the Cthulhu Mythos in particular. Most of the stories contained herein would be familiar to even a casual HPL fan, though there are surprises like Joanna Russ' fine tale from the pages of F&SF, a Philip Jose Farmer tale, and Lupoff's sf reinvention. There isn't a clinker in the bunch! My personal favorite is Cold Print, but you can't go wrong with any one of these stories, in a variety of styles and settings neatly encompassing the range of the Mythos. A great book to introduce to those who aren't familiar with this unique shared universe.

To see work like this by so many authors who have been influenced by Lovecraft's writing is a wonderful thing - and when the list includes such names as Robert Bloch, Steven King, Philip Jose Farmer, Fritz Lieber, Brian Lumley and Ramsey Campbell, you know that you're dealing with a true force in literature.

The perspectives on Lovecraft's works are amazing in their diversity - Joanna Russ's "My Bost" is particularly different and beautiful, and Richard Lupoff's "Discovery of the Ghooric Zone" is one of the interesting things that a truely obsessed Lovecraftian scholar will ever read.

There are no bad stories in here - that's not easy to say about an anthology of work like this. My personal favorite is Fritz Lieber's "Terror From the Depths", but other stories like "Cold Print" and "Sticks" bring new dimensions to Lovecraft's great works. Every piece in this book is a wonderful additon to the Cthulhu Mythos.

If you're looking for original work by Lovecraft, this isn't it. But if you're trying to learn a little bit more about his work, and see some perspectives on his work by some of the great authors of our time, please do yourself a favor and pick this up.

It's hard to fault a "best of" collection - each story is, after all, there because it is the best in some way, or represents a vital contribution. There is no point to my going through the listing and mentioning which stories are my favorites; they are all excellent (or at least important). Collecting the out-of-print books that contain these stories individually would cost hundreds, even when searching for the most recent reprint, so this is quite a valuable addition to your library (although you may wish later to read more by the anthologized authors). The authors below are representative of the pool of literature that Lovecraft drew from for his own stories, his contemporaries who collaborated with him, his post-humous successors, and people like Stephen King who were motivated to begin a career from reading HPL's work.

"The Return of the Sorceror" and "Ubbo-Sathla" by Clark Ashton Smith
"The Hounds of Tindalos" and "The Space-Eaters" by Frank Belknap Long
"The Black Stone" by Robert Howard
"The Call of Cthulhu" and "The Haunter of the Dark" by Lovecraft
"The Dweller in Darkness" and "Beyond the Threshold" by August Derleth
"The Shambler from the Stars", "The Shadow from the Steeple", and "Notebook found in a Deserted House" by Robert Bloch
"The Salem Horror" by Henry Kuttner
"The Terror from the Depths" by Fritz Leiber
"Rising with Surtsey" by Brian Lumley
"Cold Print" by Ramsey Campbell
"The Return of the Lloigor" by Colin Wilson

The last 5 are farther removed from Lovecraft; probably the best is Stephen Kings' "Jerusalem's Lot"

More interesting than my opinion on the stories included is those left out; nothing is said of those authors wholly predating Lovecraft but who significantly influenced him. There is no Lord Dunsany, no Arthur Machen, and most signifcantly no Robert Chambers (and his King in Yellow, which seems to have been the archetype for Lovecraft's Necronomicon). I mention this merely for completeness' sake; this is a superb collection.

If you've ever wondered what the phrase "Lovecraftian horror" meant, read this book. Here you'll find a fantastic collection of works inspired by the mythos created by H.P. Lovecraft. Full of pyschological terrors, alien horrors, and mind-twisting frights, this book proves that Lovecraft's legacy lives on as he intended.

The editors of this book obviously made a very pointed effort to pick those stories that are not only tied to the Cthulhu Mythos, but are actually worth reading. The stories by Lovecraft, Derleth and Bloch are the best in the book, and even Stephen King gets a short tale in. There probably should be a couple more Cthulhu Mythos follow-ups to this as there are several good selections that didn't make it into the book.

The first edition of TALES OF THE CTHULHU MYTHOS was published by August Derleth in 1969 -- this newer edition was edited by Jim Turner in 1990. Two stories from the original version, "The Haunter in the Graveyard" by J. Vernon Shea and "The Deep Ones" by James Wade were dropped from the book (the James Wade story will be reprinted this year in a Mythos anthology that S. T. Joshi has edited for Mythos Books). Vernon's tale was a lot of fun; he told me that he was in the middle of writing it when Derleth sent him a letter asking for a story for his original anthology, and so Vernon dragged in the Mythos/Lovecraftian element and sold the story to Arkham House. It's not a great story, but it's fun. Two of Robert Bloch's stories, "The Shambler from the Stars" and "The Shadow from the Steeple," form a trilogy with Lovecraft's "The Haunter of the Dark," and it was editorial genius to publish all three stories in sequence in this book. Bloch's first tale included a character based on Lovecraft, and thus when Lovecraft wrote his sequel, he dedicated "The Haunter of the Dark" to Bloch. Years later, Bob wrote one of his finest tales, "The Shadow from the Steeple," in memory of Lovecraft -- it remains my favourite Mythos tale by an author other than Lovecraft. The two tales by Derleth are among his better Mythos tales, and Robert E. Howard's "The Black Stone" remains a fine tale in this tradition. When Jim Turner re-edited the book, he included some tales not found in the original edition -- and two of these are extremely fine and important works: Fritz Leiber's "The Terror from the Depths" and Karl Edward Wagner's magnificent "Sticks." It was reading the original edition of this book that made me want to become a professional Mythos writer -- a dream that, coming true, has given the great joy. Mythos fiction that is authentic homage to Lovecraft, that pays tribute to him in an original way without ripping off his ideas, is a very cool thing. There is still so much that can be done within this genre -- but this is the book that shews how it all began, and it is a fantastic anthology.

I knew very little about H.P. Lovecraft and his world when I purchased this book. I shamefully did not know a thing about Cthulhu and I admittedly believed that the "Necronomicon" was purely Sam Raimi's invention, well, maybe I thought Bruce Campbell helped make it, too.
I was actually playing the popular game World of Warcraft when my friend off-handedly said, "The boss is Yog-Saron? They keep stealing stuff from Lovecraft!" I didn't know who that was or what he wrote about, but decided to read into it on wikipedia. There I read "The Hound" and was quickly ready for more. It seemed so different than anything I had read before. There was no hero to aspire to, no fate that seemed desirable. It was a showcase of the reality of man's fleeting presence here delivered with pure fantasty. I really enjoyed it.
So I came to amazon.com to find the best starting point for this author and eventually determined that this was the one, despite the fact that it is not entirely H.P. Lovecraft originals. But it did deliver all the creeping darkness I had waited for, indeed. I found myself staring at the shadow's in the corner of my room on the nights that I read.
However, about three of the stories are just straight-up misses. "The Boat" comes to mind immediately. They left me slightly confused and not at all entertained.
HOWEVER (again), the vast majority are great, fitting like a puzzle-piece into Lovecraft's written world.

This is my favorite of the Lovecraft anthologies. I enjoyed the interaction between the stories of Bloch, Lovecraft, and Leiber. It is great to see how writers have bloomed stories from the works of previous authors. With Stephen King adding a story to the mix, this book is a must for Lovecraft fans.

One of my best friends is a huge Steven King fan. I loaned him this book and he returned it the next day, he said he couldnt read it because it gave him the creeps. I greatly enjoy Lovecrafts writing and stories in the Cthulu Mythos are by far my favorite. Lovecraft and the "Lovecraft circle" of writers blur the lines between the fictional world and the readers real world better than anyone else.
These stories are wonderfully writen and truely entrancing.