Editor Jim Turner has compiled a real page turner in Cthulhu 2000. His anthology of short stories based on the works of horrorist H.P. Lovecraft is a dark gem, and of superior stuff. Although they all have the coppery tang of the eldritch, the tales aren't strictly in the horror mien. Some of them are an alloy of horror with a sci-fi, humor, detective, vampire or even romance slant.
The very best are truly horrible, in the most complimentary sense of that word. "His Mouth Will Taste of Wormwood" (Poppy Z. Brite), "The Adder" (Fred Chappell), "Fat Face" (Michael Shea), "The Unthinkable" (Bruce Sterling), "Love's Eldritch Ichor" (Esther M. Friesner) and "On the Slab" (Harlan Ellison) are the keen standouts, but all the rest, practically, are of almost equal quality. However, there are a couple of tales that do not deserve to be amongst this company, and the tome would have been better and tighter by their absence. Certainly, at 398 pages, there's no lack of material.
In "His Mouth Will Taste of Wormwood," Poppy Z. Brite deftly invokes a vampric flavor to themes of decay and the forbidden, his writing style as ornate and refined as rococo and in the real spirit of the master. Fred Chappell's "The Adder" draws the dangerous and inimical from the ordinary in a tale delightful for its originality. Bruce Sterling also slings some fresh ideas around in "The Unthinkable," melding modernity and necromancy in a brief, effective story.
Horror gourmands will find a good meal here, but Cthulhu 2000 should have a bit of life outside its traditional genre, for the writing is strong, imaginative and entertaining. --Tamara Hladik
A Lot of Talent Between two covers (Rating 4 of 5)
» Alexander Scott
The trouble with most Cthulhu collections (meaning Lovecraft pastiche) is that the authors don't really know what they're imitating. Usually you see an invocation of the Necronomicon, some chanting (in italics! Ia!), and the summoning of some unpronounceable god. This at least approaches the game that HPL and his friends played, to make an ancient tome and monster and then to share them in a common literary world. To recycle what already has been done, though, takes out the spirit of fun and creativity that was the point of the game to begin with. Some of the humorous pieces in the genre, like "It's Only the End of the World, Again" can at least tap into that spirit of conviviality. Typical Lovecraft pastiche can almost be done by Mad Lib.
It's even harder to get at the real spirit of what Lovecraft was writing about. Most folks think it's about horror; Lovecraft, himself, said that was not what his stories were about. In a letter, he said that he tried to evoke a sense of wonder and awe about the universe. And since he didn't believe in anything but cold nature, he felt that man's proper response to wonder and awe is fear and horror. Think about it.
Fortunately, CTHULHU 2000 is not bad pastiche or shallow horror (mostly). There are some gag stories that fall flat, and some that try to redo a Lovecraft story in the modern day and lose all that made it worth remembering. And I'll even admit that the offering from Zelazny was over my head. But there is some astonishingly good writing here, like "The Barrens", or "The Last Feast of Harlequin", or "The Faces at Pine Dunes". A lot of that quality is that the writers are already accomplished authors, but the excellence comes from telling an authentic story, without trying to copy a style. There's a sense of awe and wonder at discovering something bigger and deeper and more ancient than we can imagine, and being changed by that. And that's how you find Cthulhu at the end.
Contents:
"The Barrens" F. Paul Wilson
"Pickman's Modem" Lawrence Watt-Evans
"Shaft Number 247" Basil Copper
"His Mouth Will Taste of Wormwood" Poppy Z Brite
"The Adder" Fred Chappell
"Fat Face" Michael Shea
"The Big Fish" Kim Newman
"I had Vacantly Crumpled It into My Pocket..." Joanna Russ
"H.P.L." Gahan Wilson
"The Unthinkable" Bruce Sterling
"Black Man With a Horn" T.E.D. Klein
"Love's Eldritch Ichor" Esther M. Friesner
"The Last Feast of Harlequin" Thomas Ligotti
"The Shadow on the Doorstep" James P. Blaylock
"Lord of the Land" Gene Wolfe
"The Faces at Pine Dunes" Ramsey Campbell
"On the Slab" Harlan Ellison
"24 Views of Mt. Fuji, by Hokusai" Roger Zelazny
You'll End Up Enjoying It (Rating 5 of 5)
» Linda Painchaud-Steinman
Okay, I admit that I approached this anthology with some trepidation, since I enjoy the "old-school" style of Lovecraftian stories.
But despite myself, I ended up enjoying this collection, and I think other readers will also. Here's why:
--there's enough diversity in the types of tales presented to insure that most readers will find at least several stories they enjoy.
--there are a few just plain wonderfully creepy and atmospheric yarns, such as "The Barrens" by F. Paul Wilson and "The Last Feast of Harlequin" by Thomas Ligotti.
So give this collection a try. Horror fans and/or Lovecraft afficionados alike will find quite a few pleasant surprises in the gems presented here.
--
Very good modern collection of Cthulhu short stories (Rating 5 of 5)
» Tim F. Martin
_Cthulhu 2000_ is (as one might guess from the title) a collection of recently written short stories set in the universe created by H.P. Lovecraft, none by Lovecraft himself but rather by a variety of different authors. Editor Jim Turner provides a nice introduction to the Lovecraft's writings, drawing attention to two themes in the Cthulhu mythos. One theme is that though Lovecraft is in many ways a horror writer, he did not see the universe in terms of some epic, Biblical struggle between good and evil. Turner writes that a conventional horror writer "presupposes an actively malicious universe;" Lovecraft saw the universe in his stories instead as profoundly indifferent, that the interaction of the laws of physics, chemistry, and biology are so universal and eternal a phenomenon that they are far beyond any meaningful relationship with any species so transient as man, located as he is on such an insignificant planet. Man is a speck, nothing at all, against the horrors in a true piece of Cthulhian fiction. The best he can hope for from the universe is profound indifference. Lovecraft's monsters aren't evil, they just exist, they are almost elemental forces.
A second theme, in many related to the first theme, is that the universe is vast and probably unknowable by man. Some of the horror from Lovecraft's writings comes from the "finite mind grappling with infinite reality," the results of which are often insanity and/or death. Lovecraft himself said humans live on a "placid island of ignorance" amidst "black seas of infinity," and that mankind was not mentioned to voyage far. Man is better off not knowing the true horrors that lurk in the shadows.
So how well do the eighteen short stories in this volume realize these themes? Pretty well overall I think. Many of the stories depart from Lovecraft's typical mode of writing; most of his short stories were tales (memoirs really) told by men after the fact - sometimes dead or insane at the end of the story - rather than actually accounting events as they happened, often lacking dialogue. Though a few of the stories are in Lovecraft's traditional style, most are not. To me this is quite refreshing.
Several stories to me were exemplary, centering on a seemingly normal person, perhaps an investigator, perhaps not, in what looks like a normal, mundane, mortal world, one that is revealed to be hiding untold horrors unknown to most of humanity. _Black Man with a Horn_ by T.E.D. Klein was an excellent page-turner (I wished it was longer though it was already almost a novella in length), an intriguing tale that wove together elements of Malaysian folklore, a retiring missionary, an elderly horror writer, and some mysterious disappearances in Florida. It had a wonderful atmosphere and the author did a great job of slowly, very slowly, revealing what the horror of the piece was. _The Last Feast of the Harlequin_ by Thomas Ligotti was similarly excellent, the protagonist an anthropological researcher (who specialized in studying the role of the clown in various cultures) traveling to the town of Mirocaw to research a Winter Solstice celebration that was rumored to involve a clown figure. The main character finds more than he bargained for, discovering that there was a great deal more to the festival that initially met the eye. _The Barrens_ by F. Paul Wilson focused on a researcher and his ex-girlfriend, the former obsessed with the phenomenon of pine lights (eerie will o'wisp like globules of light said to haunt the New Jersey Pine Barrens), an obsession that leads the main characters to view the world in an entirely different light.
Several stories were a bit more unusual and I am not sure I understood them. _Shaft Number 247_ by Basil Cooper appeared to be set in the far future, underground, in a highly mechanized and regimented society that either could not survive on the surface of the earth or was afraid to. The Cthulhic element was subtle, almost slight. _The Shadow on the Doorstep_ by James P. Blaylock was well-written, almost poetic, describing the author's encounters with mysterious aquarium shops in various places in California as well as what might or might not have been some horrid apparition on his doorstep late one evening, but the horror and mystery in this piece was very subtle, maybe too subtle.
A couple of stories were humorous, playing with the Cthulhu mythos but not much in the style of Lovecraft, not that they weren't enjoyable. _Pickman's Modem_ by Lawrence Watt-Evans dealt with as one might guess a demonic modem and its effects on its user and _Love's Eldritch Ichor_ by Esther M. Friesner was almost slapstick, the subject a budding young romance writer (!) with some rather unusual friends.
I enjoyed this book a lot, I find it a fairly quick read and a good continuation of Lovecraft's writings. I would love to see a sequel volume
attempts collection (Rating 2 of 5)
» jan erik storebΓΈ
this collection contains some stories that are almost good (wolfe, copper, wilson, campbell) but in the end are not good enough. i like good pulp. it's not here. some of the stories are really strangely uninteresting. kind of author-is-trying-to-be-inventive, and creates a story i am not impressed by
OK but not what I expected (Rating 3 of 5)
» Mark Peake
The stories in this book were in general rather dissappointing. There were a few good ones, but for the majority of stories were average at best. Very few of the stories were "modern" like I expected; nothing really about how the mythos has influenced our current lifestyle
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