The Madness of Cthulhu (vol 1)

This is probably better than three stars, let's call it 3.5. Part of the problem is I'm kind of burnt out on the current glut of highly derivative Lovecraftian fiction. Some of it is very good, in that it is well written, but for my money only the stories that build on Lovecraft without being really derivative or repetitive, are the outstanding ones. Hence the problem here, almost all of these build, or maybe a better word is riff, on one novella, [b:At the Mountains of Madness|32767|At the Mountains of Madness|H.P. Lovecraft|https://d.gr-assets.com/books/1388341769s/32767.jpg|17342821], so there is particularly here a lot of repetition. Add to that a couple of so-so's and one totally misplaced story and I just found myself having to show more push myself to finish the book.

For those that just cannot get enough of what I call "hard" Lovecraft, there is a lot to enjoy. The stories are well written and the few exceptions are easily forgotten and forgiven. It is interesting to see the few out of genre authors take a whack at a Lovecraft story, unlike anything they've written before. I wonder how Joshi talked them into it.

Lovecraft is everywhere now. People that have never read a single story know who he is, or who Cthulhu is, or the Necronomicon, or one of his other creations. He has possibly eclipsed even Poe in both recognition and readership now. show less

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Title: The Madness of Cthulhu Vol. 1
Series: Cthulhu Anthology #3
Editor: ST Joshi
Rating: 3.5 of 5 Stars
Genre: Weird Fiction
Pages: 274
Words: 114K

Synopsis:

Table of Contents

Foreword by Jonathan Maberry

Introduction by S. T. Joshi

At the Mountains of Murkiness by Arthur C. Clarke

The Fillmore Shoggoth by Harry Turtledove

Devil’s Bathtub by Lois H. Gresh

The Witness in Darkness by John Shirley

How the Gods Bargain by William Browning Spencer

A Mountain Walked show more by Caitlín R. Kiernan

Diana of the Hundred Breasts by Robert Silverberg

Under the Shelf by Michael Shea

Cantata by Melanie Tem

Cthulhu Rising by Heather Graham

The Warm by Darrell Schweitzer

Last Rites by K. M. Tonso

Little Lady by J. C. Koch

White Fire by Joseph S. Pulver, Sr.

A Quirk of the Mistral by Jonathan Thomas

The Dog Handler’s Tale by Donald Tyson

My Thoughts:

Well, the collections by Salome Jones were definitely Cosmic Horror and were creepy and scary and thrilling. This collection by Joshi was not cosmic horror so much as it was Weird Fiction. Now, Lovecraft's work can be classified as both but after reading this collection, I find that I much prefer the cosmic horror over the weird fiction.

One thing that didn't work so much for me was that this had bits of humor interlaced with it and nothing about Cthulhu is humorous nor should it be. The opening story, At the Mountains of Murkiness, while an absolute genius piece of parody, set the tone for the whole collection and that was not what I was looking for. The second thing that bothered me was that in a couple of stories Cthulhu or his elder god brethren actually helped humanity. That is NOT how this mythology is supposed to work and the writers who did that should not only be ashamed of themselves but should jump off a cliff to expiate for their literary sins. Or I'd gladly chop their heads off as their bodies are torn apart by a tentacled monstrosity from the depths of utter darkness. But either way, somebody's gotta pay for that optimism.

I enjoyed this but not as much as I was hoping. I'll be prepared for the next volume so we'll see if expectations played as big a part as I think it did. Weird Fiction, here I come!

★★★✬☆ show less

A collection of stories of varying quality, varying between the almost unreadable to being quite good. None of this is essential Lovecraftian mythology, and those that are after groundbreaking cosmic horror probably won't find it here. There isn't as much pastiche work as I'd expect, but none the less a lot of this is unrewarding. The occasional gem does shine out however. For completists.

Like most anthologies: some good, some less good.