The Tsathoggua Cycle: Terror Tales of the Toad God (Call of Cthulhu Fiction) [Paperback]

Clark Ashton Smith (Author), Robert M. Price (Editor)

Product Details

• Paperback: 220 pages
• Publisher: Chaosium Inc. (January 1, 2005)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 156882131X
• ISBN-13: 978-1568821313
• Product Dimensions: 8.4 x 5.5 x 0.5 inches
• Shipping Weight: 10.4 ounces (View shipping rates and policies)
• Average Customer Review: 4.4 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (5 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #883,548 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

18 of 19 people found the following review helpful:

3.0 out of 5 stars Worth a look, typical for the Chaosium cycle books, October 21, 2005

By 

Matthew T. Carpenter (Peoria, IL, USA) - See all my reviews
(REAL NAME)   

Amazon Verified Purchase

This review is from: The Tsathoggua Cycle: Terror Tales of the Toad God (Call of Cthulhu Fiction) (Paperback)

Man oh man it's finally here. The saga of The Tsathoggua Cycle is very familiar to those of us who haunt the Lovecraft usenet groups regularly. This book was compiled in the late 1990s for a 1998 release when certain unfortunate financial realities kicked in for Chaosium. At last things turned around for the small press icon and after a lengthy delay we have the finished product. And it was actually finished back in 1997-1998; this is not an anthology of stories new in the last 5 years.

List price is $14.95 but Amazon's price is $10.17, and eligible for free shipping if you buy $25 worth of stuff. It is a standard trade paperback with 220 pages. This does not include a 6 page introduction by Robert Price but it does include an introduction to each story. Production qualities are reasonable. The cover art however, continues the dreadful, shameful tradition of the Chaosium cycle books, which have notably poor artwork. The picture looks like pitiful claymation of a dinosaur. After stunning artwork in modern mythos books like Hive, Horrors Beyond and Night Voices, Night Journeys this effort by Mark Achilles White leads me to wonder how much he got paid and that maybe I could become an artist too.

The introduction by Robert Price (the workhorse of the Chaosium cycle series) was actually very useful. It laid out the entire history of the creation of Tsathoggua by Clark Ashton Smith and also discussed various pronunciations. Best of all, there was a photo of a sculpture of Tsathoggua by CAS! This would have been a great cover! In fact more CAS artwork throughout the book would have been most welcome. I also think the individual story introductions, also by Price, were mostly good, although not as good as the book introduction. My advice, however, is to read them after each story as the do contain minor to major spoilers. I also get fatigued by Price's constant comparisons and allusions of mythos stories to Biblical authorship. Give it a rest for at least one book!

Here are the contents:

From the Parchment of Pnom (Clark Ashton Smith)
The Seven Geases (Clark Ashton Smith)
The Testament of Athammaus (Clark Ashton Smith)
The Tale of Satampra Zeiros (Clark Ashton Smith)
The Theft of the Thirty-Nine Girdles (Clark Ashton Smith)
Shadow of the Sleeping God (James Ambuehl)
The Curse of the Toad (Loay Hall and Terry Dale)
Dark Swamp (James Anderson)
The Old One (John Glasby)
The Oracle of Sadoqua (Ron Hilger)
The Horror Show (Gary Myers)
The Tale of Toad Loop (Stanley C. Sargent)
The Crawling Kingdom (Rod Heather)
The Resurrection of Kzadool-Ra (Henry J. Vester III)

My comments follow, with possible minor spoilers, so don't read any more if that bothers you.

I will say from the outset that I think CAS was a unique American prose master. I acquired his Hyperborea and Zothique from Ballantine many years ago, edited by Lin Carter. My favorite compilation is A Rendezvous in Averoigne from Arkham House. I urge everyone to get a copy of this title. I am eagerly awaiting the complete stories from Nightshade Books (yes I couldn't help preordering it). Rereading the Smith tales enclosed herein was like encountering old friends after a long separation. CAS had a gift for language, scene painting and shading horror with humor. But I must also voice a complaint. Any HPL collector likely already has A Rendezvous in Averoigne. I can understand the desire to get all the Tsathoggua stories in one volume but this was really needless duplication. On the other hand, except for Sargent's contribution the rest of the stories here were new to me. As for commentary on The Tale of Satampra Zeiros and The Theft of the Thirty-Nine Girdles, I simply must direct you to Dan Clore's brilliant discussion of timeline inconsistencies: search on Google Groups for alt.horror.cthulhu and then search that group for posts by Dan Clore. I will note that The Seven Geases made an indelible impression on me when I was a teen, first discovering CAS and HPL, with the fate of the protagonist giving me quite a shock, after all the happy ending fantasy I had been reading. I sometimes wonder if why I like CAS and HPL so much is I was swept off my feet by them in my formative teen reading years. I've been enamored ever since. Finally, I must also contradict myself. For me From the Parchment of Pnom was just about unreadable. I don't think CAS ever intended it for print. I really can't stand mythos genealogies. They don't ring true for me; at least I don't enjoy them at all.

Shadow of the Sleeping God by James Ambuehl - You may know of James Ambuehl's other story in the Satampra Zeiros canon, In the Court of the Crystal Flame found in Lost Worlds of Space and Time volume one. That story was very enjoyable. Alas I just didn't find this (written earlier?) 1998 effort to be nearly as good. This story is a direct sequel to The Theft of the Thirty-Nine Girdles. I don't like it when the story bludgeons you over the head with the fact that it is mythos, and that there is a mythos, instead of the mythos entities/trappings being props for the story. Also there is no way the avatar of Tsathoggua would not have consumed all the protagonists. In the intervening years Mr. Ambuehl's prose has become much more polished. Check out The Pisces Club, for example.

The Curse of the Toad (Loay Hall and Terry Dale) - The premise of this story was pretty good, with a disdainful great white hunter cursed by a shaman of Gua (Tsathoggua for short...). Unfortunately the execution was not so hot. Writing a sentence in upper case does not give it more weight any more then the old trope of the italicized ending. The prose here was fair at best but I'll admit to enjoying the denouement, nicely concealed by indirection.

Dark Swamp (James Anderson) - In this tale, HPL makes an appearance as himself, at least one of his experiences does; the setting is a place where HPL actually spent an afternoon looking, unsuccessfully perhaps, for Dark Swamp. Price's introduction was particularly useful spelling all this out for those of us unfamiliar with all the details of HPL's life. Years later the protagonist wants to walk in HPL's footsteps and to his chagrin manages to find the swamp. He then wonders if HPL had actually seen the denizens of the swamp and if this inspired his fiction. I really find the appearance of HPL and his fiction inside mythos stories to be a tiresome plot device, particularly when the implication is that his fiction wasn't really fiction. The prose was OK, the denouement was OK, none of it jazzed me. And I'll have to reread beacuse I missed just where Tsathoggua makes an appearance and how the story fits in this anthology...

The Old One (John Glasby) - Oh well, another typical HPL pastiche type introduction about a scientist/archeologist warning us all about the veil of reality and how he wished he never peeked behind it, yadayadayada. In this case the ancient city Yuth is discovered on the ocean floor near Bimini, and so is a temple of Tsathoggua. Some intrepid (or mostly trepid...) scientists investigate, including one who knows the awful truth... You know, this was a perfectly agreeable story with perfectly agreeable writing. I mostly enjoyed it. It just wasn't very original.

The Oracle of Sadoqua (Ron Hilger) - I really like Roman times mythos stories. Others I can think of offhand include the novel The Gardens of Lucullus (used copies available on the internet) and The Golden Keeper by Ian R. MacLeod (available in the collection Eternal Lovecraft from Golden Gryphon). The friend of a Roman lieutenant stationed in Gaul disappears. Suspicions run high against the druids who are the guardians of the Oracle of Sadoqua (I actually enjoyed the use of different names/spellings for Tsathoggua in this book; it nicely dovetails with the uncertainty, blurred distinctions, contradictions, human inability to completely perceive these Lovecraftian type entities. I liked the construction of the story, the setting and the prose. Keep up the good work, Mr. Hilger.

The Horror Show (Gary Myers) - I am unfamiliar with Gary Myers but I have to fix that. The Horror Show was a gem, clearly my favorite in the anthology (of course, not including the CAS stories). Great prose well developed tension, great plot. A chance encounter in a pretentious and contrived Goth club causes a young lady to accept the persuasions of a young man to see a real horror show...

The Tale of Toad Loop (Stanley C. Sargent) - Ancient Exhumations was originally published by Mythos Books in 1999; the new edition, Ancient Exhumations +2 (with a real cool cover!) was published by Elder Signs Press in 2004. This is where The Tale of Toad Loop made its first anthology appearance. The basic plot is very familiar mythos territory. A sorcerer or dabbler in sorcery opens a gate to allow an outré being to impregnate his wife (as usual for very obscure reasons), Toadaggwa in this case. Sargent spins a fine yarn with this common premise, with deft plotting, nifty prose and an unexpected ending.

The Crawling Kingdom (Rod Heather) - Another well written story cleverly plotted. A professor studying toads in the woods inadvertently observes a rite of worship of Tsathoggua. A nosy college reporter uncovers what the consequences were to the professor, and maybe to himself from that unhappy chance.

The Resurrection of Kzadool-Ra (Henry J. Vester III) - More CAS like than HPL like, this story was set in Zothique, where an acolyte inadvertently discovers an alter dedicated to Zathogwa. He decides to resurrect worship to the dread god... A very agreeable read.

So what is... Read more ›

8 of 10 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Ia ! Ia ! Zhothoqquah, September 13, 2005

By 

Vulpine ""Ex Ignorantia Ad Sapientiam; E ... (Fort Worth, TX) - See all my reviews

This review is from: The Tsathoggua Cycle: Terror Tales of the Toad God (Call of Cthulhu Fiction) (Paperback)

The long and the short of it...I loved the book. Ok, that was the short...
here's the long

Here are my opinions on the tales.
From the Parchments of Pnom: Clark Ashton Smith
The first tale is more of a setup for the other Tsathoggua tales, the idea
of how he came to earth, his relatives and other bits of tale that gets
more detail in the stories. Never read this one before now, but I knew all
the data already. Still, nice to read it in CAS's own words.

The Seven Geases: Clark Ashton Smith
First tale that Saint Toad actually shows up in, a hunter is cursed to be a
snack for Tsathoggua, but instead he's sent on a series of weirder and
weirder geas meeting various critters of ancient Hyperborea. Amusing tale.

The Testament of Athammaus: Clark Ashton Smith
How the city of Commorian was rezoned for amorphous beings. Not the best
tale, but still worth the read. Proof that loosing your head over some
things is a bad idea *wink*.

The Tale of Satampra Zeiros: Clark Ashton Smith
First appears of Satampra Zeiros, thief of Hyberborea. Why stealing from
the temple of a nearly forgotten god can really disarm you. ;)

The Theft of the Thirty Nine Girdles: Clark Ashton Smith
Not really a Tsathoggua tale, but staring Satampra Zeiros and set in Hyperborea.
More like one of Fritz Leiber's Gray Mouser tales, but enjoyable.

Shadow of the Sleeping God: James Ambuehl
Third tale of Satampra Zeiros, a wrap of the other two tales, plus with a nice
heart to heart with Tsathoggua.

The Curse of the Toad: Loay Hall and Terry Dale
Basic Mythos tale of why travelling can be bad for you. Not the best of
the stories in the collection, but amusing.

The Dark Swamp: James Anderson
Follow up to a real roadtrip taken by HPL looking for a swamp in
Rhode Island,that he never talked about afterwards. So, the
author filled in the blanks. Not really about Tsathoggua or kin,
other than swamps = toads I guess.

The Old One: John S Glasby
I found this one interesting, since it's framework is about a archaelogist
looking for proof of a prehistorical civilization, like Atlantis, Lemuria or...
Hyperborea ;) Other than that, it's a fairly normal Mythos tale.

The Oracle of Sadoqua: Ron Hilger
This was my favorite tale, set in CAS's Averoigne (France) in Roman times. The
idea is cool, sorta like a demonic Oracle of Delphi. Kind of predictable in the
ending, but it's a Mythos tale...most of the endings are fairly obvious what's
going to go horribly wrong ;)

The Horror Show: Gary Myers
Creepy tale, short, sweet, to the point...and leaves you wondering what happens
to the poor Goth girl ;) For those in Dallas, it would make you wonder about
going to the Church anytime soon ;)

The Tale of Toad Loop: Stanley C. Sargent
Tsathoggua meets Dunwich Horror. While it's a common tale in the Mythos,
Elder God meets Girl, Elder God fathers unspeakable offspring on Girl, Girl
looses mind...but Mr Sargent does it rather well.

The Crawling Kingdom: Rod Heather
You'll never hear the chorus of frogs and toads calling the same way again.
Fairly long build up to the story, but it works fairly well, though the
narrator being fairly insane by the end is a little overdone.

The Resurrection of Kzadool-Ra: Henry J. Vester III
One of CAS's other worlds is Zothique, the last continent on Earth many years
in the future. The author added Tsathoggua into this world, with his one
remaining worshipper, and why when a god gives you some advice on what not
to do, why you should listen.

There wasn't a 'bad' tale in the bunch, some seemed to fit better than
others, but all in all it was one of the better collections from Chaosium in
a while. My favorites were The Oracle of Sadoqua, The Tale of Toad Loop and
Shadow of the Sleeping God. If you like weird fiction, give it a shot.

4 of 5 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Not Just for Game Players, October 26, 2005

By 

Giuseppe Lippi ", Weirdtalesman" (Milan, Italy) - See all my reviews
(REAL NAME)   

Amazon Verified Purchase

This review is from: The Tsathoggua Cycle: Terror Tales of the Toad God (Call of Cthulhu Fiction) (Paperback)

This is one more (and belated) addition to a series of fantastic fiction titles merchandised by Chaosium as a background for their celebrated role-playing game about the Cthulhu mythos. The books, however, stand on their own and may be considered -- to a certain extent -- "serious" weird literature. The problem, as always, lies with the selection, and while the original Clark Ashton Smith tales about the transuranic toad-god Tsathoggua are still quite enjoyable, not all the contemporary stories that have been added to complete this offering are up to their standards. All in all, a "must have" for Smith completists and players of the game, but not just for everybody's taste.