Gary Myers (1) (1952–)

Dark Wisdom is a single author collection of stories by Gary Myers, newly published by Mythos Books. I very much liked the stories and thus recommend the book, but I have one very great reservation that I will explain a bit later. I don't know much about Gary Myers except that he was born in 1952. He actually has a small entry on Wikipedia where it lists this fact and says that his occupation is short story writer. Not to be too presumptuous, but he must have another day job because his show more output has not exactly been prolific. He wrote The House of the Worm, a collection of short stories set in Lovecraft's (and others', especially the author's!) Dreamlands, published by Arkham House in 1975. I have a copy of this slim volume but have never read it (all right, I just picked it up a few months ago and it's still in my to-be-read stack along with a huge mound of other books). This is his first book since then. Maybe he has been more active in other genres? Since 1975 he has had a few stories crop up in magazines and anthologies devoted to Lovecraftian tales. Dark Wisdom lists for $15.00 but is discounted to $10.20. It is a good quality trade paperback, up the usual standards of Mythos Books (who really, really need to make their website more user friendly, particularly for fans who want to search out upcoming titles). Here is my major gripe and one which may give some readers pause before buying this book. It is only 120 pages of text. Pugmire's The Fungal Stain from Hippocampus Press for the same price was about 160 pages. Arkham Tales and Hardboiled Cthulhu were listed at about $15, and were > 200 pages. Regardless of the quality of the prose (and this was high quality prose), this slender book is not a particularly good bargain. I listen to classical music and if there is show less

A thin volume of Lovecraft pastiches, some with definite Dunsanian influences. The at times tortured syntax is perhaps also the result of trying to imitate the style of the latter. Mostly set in the Dreamlands as we know them from Lovecraft's The Dream-Quest of Unknown Kadath.

It's fairly forgettable really, not bad, but certainly not great either. The best of the component tales is the last one, "The Maker of Gods".