An adorable, heartwarming holiday romp with the Littlest Shoggoth. Not safe for children. Appropriately Lovecraftian ending. So cute! ( )

The Littlest Shoggoth is a chapbook published in 2008 by Super Genius Games. The story and art are by Stan! Stan! is the pen name of Steven Brown and a quick visit to his website (http://stannex.com/) shows he has a good deal of experience in cartooning and rpg publishing. Original list price was $12 for the first (and as far as I know only) edition; I imagine used copies will be rather more expensive now.

The Littlest Shoggoth doesn't aim too high. It is meant to be an amusing parody of the a Christmas story, maybe the Christmas classic The Littlest Angel, using Lovecraftian critters. This puts it in the same category as Kenneth Hite's more elaborate books, Where the Deep Ones Are and The Antarctic Express. It is perhaps a less successful effort than either of those books, which were perhaps more carefully planned. The chapbook is a very quick read, with about 50 pages of cartoon drawings and rhyming text. The verse seems to have been dashed off pretty quickly; the drawings are serviceable if not exceptional. I was briefly amused; the novelty wore off quickly and I doubt I'll read it again. For comparison, I recently looked at Where the Deep Ones Are again, because of the beautiful pictures. I imagine it sold pretty quickly as a novelty impulse buy by mythos fans or fans of the author, or maybe at conventions. I doubt anyone who bought it had expectations that were high or that anyone was disappointed.

Cthulhu mythos and Stan! completists either already have it or need to hunt down a copy. Anyone else needn't bother. ( )