Eldritch Evolutions: 26 Weird Science Fiction, Dark Fantasy, & Horror Stories

by Chaosium Inc., Lois H. Gresh, Paul Carrick (Illustrator)

ELDRITCH EVOLUTIONS is the first collection of short stories by Lois H. Gresh, one of the most talented writers working these days in the realms of imagination.
These tales of weird fiction blend elements wrung from science fiction, dark fantasy, and horror. Some stories are bent toward bizarre science, others are Lovecratian Mythos tales, and yet others are just twisted. They all share an underlying darkness, pushing Lovecraftian science and themes in new directions. While H.P. Lovecraft incorporated the astronomy and physics ideas of his day ("e.g.," cosmos-within-cosmos and other dimensions), these stories speculate about modern science: quantum optics, particle physics, chaos theory, string theory, and so forth. Full of unique ideas, bizarre plot twists, and fascinating characters, these tales show a feel for pacing and structure, and a wild sense of humor. They always surprise and delight.

Genres: Horror, Science Fiction, Short Stories

320 pages, Paperback

First published March 21, 2011

Reviews

[Joe Clark · Rating 5 out of 5]

I've been a fan of Lois Gresh for years. This book collects 26 of her best stories. Science fiction, dark fantasy, humor, horror - you name it, Lois writes it. And she writes it well. I strongly recommend this book to anyone who wants to read fiction unlike any other fiction out there!

[Mike · Rating 1 out of 5]

I've never been so afraid...this book was full of the most horrible things imaginable! Bad stories. OK, I know, melodramatic, if not altogether corny. But these were bad. Part of my disappointment is the fact that this book was supposed to be a collection of Lovecraftian stories, and yet, only about four out of twenty-six stories were written in the vein of H.P. Lovecraft, and they weren't that good, though out of a bad lot they were some of the better offerings.

That being said two stories stood out as being very good. Though they weren't horror or even, technically sci-fi (well, one was about cloning but no one every really did more than talk about it so I'll let you decide). Geisha Black and Skinhead Bonehead were the only two out of more than two dozen stories that were really very good. Her other tales where mostly in the vein of biological computers and these were mostly filled with more technobabble than plot. And just so you know I'm a huge nerd so it takes a lot of technobabble to make me yawn. Also the implied design of her biological machines don't make a lot of sense to me, and again I've studied machine design so I'm not out of my depth.

Now one of the author's stories is about Lovecraft's insane, mindless deity, Azathoth. This monstrosity literally dreams the universe into existence and if he should ever wake our universe will be nothing more than a bad dream. Her story indicates that a greater power is a method behind Azathoth's madness. The problem I have with that is that the point of Azathoth in the context of Lovecraft's literary universe is to communicate to the reader that the universe is unfeeling and uncaring and nothing matters. To readers of HPL's time, many of whom believed that the universe was something like a clockwork made by an benevolent Creator, or at least had a purpose, this would have been terrifying. To suggest that there is an order behind the disorder undoes the terror of a meaningless universe.

On a final note, one of the stories is named CAFEBABE. This is interesting, at least to some of us. CAFEBABE is a hexadecimal number. This is a number system based on then number 16 and it uses the digits 0 to 9 and the letters A through F to represent values from 0 to 16 and so forth. This system is used heavily in computers. And in the Java programming language, this sequence of hexadecimal digits is used to indicate that a compiled program file is a valid program file. There's your computer lesson for the day.

[Matt Berg · Rating 5 out of 5]

I loved the two most recent books by Lois Gresh's. The two are Eldritch Evolutions and Blood and ice.
Eldritch Evolution is a collection of stories which I found brilliant. The book was highly recommended by SI FI
magazine. So do I.

[Jenn Gilmore · Rating 5 out of 5]

Very well written. Very unusual stories. I like weird fiction and this is one of the
best.

[Taddow · Rating 2 out of 5]

Similar to another reviewer, my interest in reading this book was based on the premise that it contained various Lovecraftian-ish stories. This turned out to not be the case (there are only perhaps four or five out of the twenty-six). This in itself would still have not been a big determent for a great book but I really only found about ten or so stories to be really good, some of the rest were okay and the remaining were not my cup of tea at all.

[Larry · Rating 2 out of 5]

Didn't finish.

20+ years ago, Chaosiuim did a really excellent job of collecting up the canonical Cthulhu Mythos, but in recent years, it feels like they are just mailing it in.

There was one story that was halfway decent towards the beginning. I just couldn't continue after she made Azathoth subordinate to Mandelbrot.

[Nora Peevy · Rating 5 out of 5]

One of the most enjoyable short story collections I've read in awhile. Inventive, dark with the mythos of Chtulu. Love it!

[Sheila · Rating 4 out of 5]

Dark, smart, and surprising! If you have triggers (especially sexual assault/violence to children) but still want to read some awesome horror, you might want to have someone pre-read it for you.

[Gabriel · Rating 2 out of 5]

not mad scientist enough