Walter C. DeBill Jr.

It is hard for me to express how deep my disappointment was with this book. I had been looking forward to it for years. I had missed most of DeBill's fiction except for a few stories in the more modern anthologies and here was a chance to see the whole output of an early member of the new Lovecraft circle. This handsome trade paper back was released by Mythos Books (with their usual lack of fanfare) in 2006; it costs $20 but is heavily discounted by Amazon to $13.60. Page count was a show more generous 281, not counting Robert Price's 3 page introduction. Production qualities are high, like all of Mythos Books' offerings. The cover art was by PAW (no other designation given), and it was OK for the content but certainly had no wow factor. In general Mythos Books doesn't come up with the same great cover art like, say, Elder Signs Press. In a very useful listing at the front (which should be a model for such collections) we are given the publication history of all the titles. This work spans almost 4 decades, from the early 70s until the new millenium.

I started on The Black Sutra as soon as I got it, maybe a year ago? I rapidly got bogged down with it and only managed to slog through it a few pages at a time, separated by varying intervals. Even after I finished it months ago I could not bring myself to write this review until now, when I am in the midst of some really lousy books. I won't even go into the contents with my usual detail because for the most part the content was unmemorable. I so wanted to like it! I really want to like all of the Cthulhu mythos classics. Alas, most of the stories do not rise above pastiche or tired old mythos cliches. The prose and characterizations were not especially compelling either. There were a few stories I really liked, fortunately. "The Bookseller's Second Wife" and "What Sort of Man" were very well written and engaging. Unfortunately they both appeared in anthologies I already have. Notably, Mr. DeBill's best work was his most recent, as he has honed his craft over the years, and I can only hope he will release some more new titles in the same ichor filled vein; I won't shy away from his future offerings. Similarly to Gretchen's Wood by Ran Carter I can easily see where some mythos fiction fans might find this to be a more attractive collection than me, particularly new Lovecraft fans. I dunno, maybe I have been reading this genre so long that constant variations on the same theme just fill me with indifference. Give me someone who will shake things up a bit, like Cody Goodfellow or Caitlyn Kiernan, or a prose stylist like Willum Pugmire, or someone whose stories sparkle, like Brian Sammons. The Black Sutra may be safely recommended to diehard mythos fans. I'll give it 2.5 stars becuase it is better than Glasby's The Dark Destroyer or Lancett's The Iron Maiden, if not nearly as good as Webb's When They Came. show less