What do you think?
Rate this book
The Engines of Sacrifice
In hidden places, they sleep and dream, and through their dreams they touch humanity--but their touch brings only the stains of horror, death, and madness...until the day the Old Ones return.In The Engines of Sacrifice, acclaimed writer James Chambers delivers four nightmare novellas inspired by the Mythos of H. P. Lovecraft.Investigation 37: In the late years of the Vietnam War, Lavender May runs away from home to search for freedom and peace in New York City, but instead, she finds only a world of magic, witchcraft, and lies.The Ugly Only one thing could save Carmine Darabont's comics magazine from going publishing the next chapter of the hit series "The Otherworlders." But what dark secret drives its creator--Carmine's ex-fiancé--to refuse to deliver it?The Hidden At the height of the Cold War, Doctor Calvin Lenox is a member of the Nuclear Emergency Search Team. With his life spiraling into despair, he confronts the mystery of a runaway Soviet defector and the death of three men, only to find himself at the mercy of...the Faceless God.The Engines of What is the power of words? Can they control the fabric of reality? In a horrifying new world, underground author Rowley Cray struggles against a totalitarian government gone insane and the possibility that he can control the souls of the dead.Dark Regions Press presents The Engines of Sacrifice by James Chambers as part of Dark Regions Digital. Browse all of our digital titles by searching for "dark regions digital" or "dark regions press."Publishers Weekly Starred (Resurrection House) draws readers deep into H.P. Lovecraft's Cthulhu mythos with chillingly evocative writing and the clever integration of real-world events. Four interlocking stories take place at least in part in the Long Island town of Knicksport, where portals open into the uncanny dimensions inhabited by the elder gods. Could the emergence into our world of Azathoth, Shub-Niggurath, and Nyarlathotep be tied to the Wiccan enthusiasm of the 1970s, the strong presence of horror themes in 1980s indie comics, or the "accident" at Chernobyl? Can Cthulhu be reached through the transformative powers of fiction? Chambers's damaged characters cling to hope even as the world comes apart at the seams, making the insanity and despair of their circumstances poignant as well as deliciously creepy.
216 pages, Kindle Edition
First published January 1, 2011
5 people are currently reading
52 people want to read
About the author
James Chambers
62 books45 followersJames Chambers writes tales of horror, crime, fantasy, and science fiction. He is the author of The Engines of Sacrifice, a collection of four Lovecraftian-inspired novellas published in 2011 by Dark Regions Press which Publisher’s Weekly described as “…chillingly evocative….” He is also the author of the short fiction collection Resurrection House (Dark Regions Press, 2009). Most recently, Dark Quest Books published The Dead Bear Witness and Tears of Blood, volume one and two in his Corpse Fauna novella series. Volume three, The Dead in Their Masses, will be published in late 2013. In August 2005 Die Monster Die Books published his first short story collection, The Midnight Hour: Saint Lawn Hill and Other Tales, created in collaboration with illustrator Jason Whitley.
His short stories have been published in the anthologies Bad-Ass Faeries, Bad-Ass Faeries 2: Just Plain Bad, Bad-Ass Faeries 3: In All Their Glory, Bad Cop No Donut, Barbarians at the Jumpgate, Breach the Hull, By Other Means, Crypto-Critters (Volume 1 and Volume 2), Dark Furies, The Dead Walk, The Dead Walk Again, Deep Cuts, The Domino Lady: Sex as a Weapon, Dragon’s Lure, The Green Hornet Chronicles, Hardboiled Cthulhu, Hear Them Roar, Hellfire Lounge, In An Iron Cage, Lost Worlds of Space and Time (Volume 1), Mermaids 13, New Blood, No Longer Dreams, Sick: An Anthology of Illness, So It Begins, To Hell in a Fast Car, Walrus Tales, Weird Trails, and Warfear; the chapbook Mooncat Jack; and the magazines Bare Bone, Cthulhu Sex, and Allen K’s Inhuman.
His tale “A Wandering Blackness,” one of two published in Lin Carter’s Doctor Anton Zarnak, Occult Detective, received an honorable mention in The Year’s Best Fantasy and Horror, Sixteenth Annual Collection.
He has also written numerous comic books including Leonard Nimoy’s Primortals, the critically acclaimed “The Revenant” in Shadow House, and most recently a Midnight Hour story for the comics anthology Negative Burn.
He is a member of the Horror Writers Association and the current chairperson of its membership committee.
He lives in New York.
His short stories have been published in the anthologies Bad-Ass Faeries, Bad-Ass Faeries 2: Just Plain Bad, Bad-Ass Faeries 3: In All Their Glory, Bad Cop No Donut, Barbarians at the Jumpgate, Breach the Hull, By Other Means, Crypto-Critters (Volume 1 and Volume 2), Dark Furies, The Dead Walk, The Dead Walk Again, Deep Cuts, The Domino Lady: Sex as a Weapon, Dragon’s Lure, The Green Hornet Chronicles, Hardboiled Cthulhu, Hear Them Roar, Hellfire Lounge, In An Iron Cage, Lost Worlds of Space and Time (Volume 1), Mermaids 13, New Blood, No Longer Dreams, Sick: An Anthology of Illness, So It Begins, To Hell in a Fast Car, Walrus Tales, Weird Trails, and Warfear; the chapbook Mooncat Jack; and the magazines Bare Bone, Cthulhu Sex, and Allen K’s Inhuman.
His tale “A Wandering Blackness,” one of two published in Lin Carter’s Doctor Anton Zarnak, Occult Detective, received an honorable mention in The Year’s Best Fantasy and Horror, Sixteenth Annual Collection.
He has also written numerous comic books including Leonard Nimoy’s Primortals, the critically acclaimed “The Revenant” in Shadow House, and most recently a Midnight Hour story for the comics anthology Negative Burn.
He is a member of the Horror Writers Association and the current chairperson of its membership committee.
He lives in New York.
Ratings & Reviews
Friends & Following
Create a free account to discover what your friends think of this book!
Community Reviews
Displaying 1 - 8 of 8 reviews
December 27, 2019
“Lovecraftian” is a mythos that feels overly familiar to me and therefore has to be done really well for me to fall under its spell. By “done really well,” I mean take Lovecraft and portray it in a contemporary way that conveys the feelings of mystery, dread, and horror, without sounding hackneyed or borrowed. TRUE DETECTIVE played with the Yellow King mythos in just such a way. A more direct and just as powerful example is THE ENGINES OF SACRIFICE by James Chambers.
This novella collection tells four dark stories firmly rooted in the Lovecraft mythos but told in a rewardingly fresh, direct style. Imagine somebody took everything you loved about Lovecraft, pared out everything that made it boring or dated (like presenting male characters who are decidedly masculine but not toxic), and then made it fresh and contemporary; the result is James Chambers’ excellently poignant horror collection.
All four stories are remarkable, but my favorite hands down is the title novella, “The Engines of Sacrifice.” Like the other stories, it stems from Lovecraft’s mythos while taking it to an insane level and rolls out like a thriller with numerous psychological as well as physical twists and turns. In this story, writer Rowley Cray lives in a world slowly gone mad, controlled by a genocidal totalitarian government, and subsumed by Lovecraftian creatures. The dead tell him their stories to share, but they want more; they have a very special purpose for him. Unfortunately, so does the government. Navigating various parties who see his stories as the key to altering the reality they live in, Cray must capture the power of words and make the ultimate choice.
If you enjoy horror or Lovecraft in particular, there’s plenty in this collection to enjoy.
This novella collection tells four dark stories firmly rooted in the Lovecraft mythos but told in a rewardingly fresh, direct style. Imagine somebody took everything you loved about Lovecraft, pared out everything that made it boring or dated (like presenting male characters who are decidedly masculine but not toxic), and then made it fresh and contemporary; the result is James Chambers’ excellently poignant horror collection.
All four stories are remarkable, but my favorite hands down is the title novella, “The Engines of Sacrifice.” Like the other stories, it stems from Lovecraft’s mythos while taking it to an insane level and rolls out like a thriller with numerous psychological as well as physical twists and turns. In this story, writer Rowley Cray lives in a world slowly gone mad, controlled by a genocidal totalitarian government, and subsumed by Lovecraftian creatures. The dead tell him their stories to share, but they want more; they have a very special purpose for him. Unfortunately, so does the government. Navigating various parties who see his stories as the key to altering the reality they live in, Cray must capture the power of words and make the ultimate choice.
If you enjoy horror or Lovecraft in particular, there’s plenty in this collection to enjoy.
January 21, 2018
The Engines of Sacrifice is a collection of four novellas by James Chambers and published in 2012 by the prestigious Dark Regions Press. Engines sees Chambers using his fictional Knicksport, Long Island New York City to tell four Cthulhu Mythos stories in not only various time periods, but in various genres as well.
The first novella in the collection, “Investigation 37,” is a detective story told in the fashion of a dossier. Detective and hard boiled stories have been a staple of Lovecraftian fiction for many decades, but Chambers spins the genre a little bit by placing the story in in the early 1970s. Instead of fedora, trench coat men and long legged femme fatales of the 40s and 50s noir, “Investigation 37” deals with hippies and the emerging occult circles, in an era immediately after Charles Manson. Detective Chuck Biro is hired to solve a missing persons case of Bonnie Mason, a flower child who wants to bring peace to the world. She winds up integrating into occult circles, in particular the Coven of the Right Stars, which winds up subverting her world view and she becomes entangled into more nefarious plans. Through the narrative, Chambers links Mason’s story back to H. P. Lovecraft’s “The Dreams in the Witch House” with “Investigation 37” acting as a distant sequel to that story.
The third story in the novella, “The Hidden Room,” is a military thriller that takes place in the mid 80ies Cold War. This story shares similarities in the investigative/solving a mystery fashion present in “Investigation 37,” though with higher stakes. Calvin Lenox is a military doctor, brought to an abandoned house that may have a radioactive weapon. Inside he happens upon a secret room with an basin and a mysterious crown. The experience leaves Lenox altered, seeing blank-faced people. Lenox embarks on his own detective story, which involves Russian-American projects with the Necronomicon into other realms, with the ever present, but unseen Nyarlathotep on the tip of many tongues.
The final story in the novella is the titular “The Engines of Sacrifice” which sees Chambers writing in a post-apocalyptic setting. In this story, the world has become aware of Cthulhu after a third of the population has dream of R’lyeh. The other two thirds have been rounded up and incinerated in various pyres constructed in many major cities. This story is Chambers’ most ambitious of the four and revolves around an underground writer who hears stories from the dead and translates those into his own stories. The Right Star Missionaries, resistance groups and others all want the author for their own ends, and he works to evade them as much as possible while learning more and more about the fallen world he lives in. Much as “Investigation 37” acts as a sequel to “The Dreams in the Witch House,” “The Engines of Sacrifice” acts as a continuation of Lovecraft’s “The Call of the Cthulhu” though many decades later, though it borrows elements from “The Shadow Over Innsmouth” as well.
Though “The Engines of Sacrifice” is the longest and perhaps most adventurous novella in the collection, the best story is the second one in the collection, “The Ugly Birds.” This story builds upon Lovecraft’s deity “The Black Goat of the Woods with a Thousand Young” and takes place in the early 80ies. The story revolves around a comic book publisher trying to work with his star artist/writer, Macy, to complete her current story and save his company. Macy though, has been using the medium to convey subversive elements about her predicament, in that her husband, an alcoholic archeologist, uncovered something unworldly, at an excavation at Irem. Chambers himself has written many comic books, and his knowledge of the medium and its process is conveyed in the story, giving it a dimension of expertise not usually found in many stories. “The Ugly Birds” is the most immersive and detailed of the lot while also being the most unique. This isn’t just excellent Lovecraftian pastiche going on in this story, it’s also excellent writing period.
The Engines of Sacrifice sees Chambers not just building off Lovecraft’s canon, but shaping his own Knicksport canon as well. The Right Stars making appearances in two of the stories, seeing the city progress through the ages really gives a unified sense of integration. Outside of The Engines of Sacrifice, Chambers also uses his fictitious town, so his pocket universe is really becoming more and more organic. The four stories of The Engines of Sacrifice are all well executed Lovecraftian stories. The combination of borrowing from Lovecraft’s universe while creating his own gives Chambers’ stories a personality not usually found in other “in-the-vein-of-Lovecraft” writing.
The first novella in the collection, “Investigation 37,” is a detective story told in the fashion of a dossier. Detective and hard boiled stories have been a staple of Lovecraftian fiction for many decades, but Chambers spins the genre a little bit by placing the story in in the early 1970s. Instead of fedora, trench coat men and long legged femme fatales of the 40s and 50s noir, “Investigation 37” deals with hippies and the emerging occult circles, in an era immediately after Charles Manson. Detective Chuck Biro is hired to solve a missing persons case of Bonnie Mason, a flower child who wants to bring peace to the world. She winds up integrating into occult circles, in particular the Coven of the Right Stars, which winds up subverting her world view and she becomes entangled into more nefarious plans. Through the narrative, Chambers links Mason’s story back to H. P. Lovecraft’s “The Dreams in the Witch House” with “Investigation 37” acting as a distant sequel to that story.
The third story in the novella, “The Hidden Room,” is a military thriller that takes place in the mid 80ies Cold War. This story shares similarities in the investigative/solving a mystery fashion present in “Investigation 37,” though with higher stakes. Calvin Lenox is a military doctor, brought to an abandoned house that may have a radioactive weapon. Inside he happens upon a secret room with an basin and a mysterious crown. The experience leaves Lenox altered, seeing blank-faced people. Lenox embarks on his own detective story, which involves Russian-American projects with the Necronomicon into other realms, with the ever present, but unseen Nyarlathotep on the tip of many tongues.
The final story in the novella is the titular “The Engines of Sacrifice” which sees Chambers writing in a post-apocalyptic setting. In this story, the world has become aware of Cthulhu after a third of the population has dream of R’lyeh. The other two thirds have been rounded up and incinerated in various pyres constructed in many major cities. This story is Chambers’ most ambitious of the four and revolves around an underground writer who hears stories from the dead and translates those into his own stories. The Right Star Missionaries, resistance groups and others all want the author for their own ends, and he works to evade them as much as possible while learning more and more about the fallen world he lives in. Much as “Investigation 37” acts as a sequel to “The Dreams in the Witch House,” “The Engines of Sacrifice” acts as a continuation of Lovecraft’s “The Call of the Cthulhu” though many decades later, though it borrows elements from “The Shadow Over Innsmouth” as well.
Though “The Engines of Sacrifice” is the longest and perhaps most adventurous novella in the collection, the best story is the second one in the collection, “The Ugly Birds.” This story builds upon Lovecraft’s deity “The Black Goat of the Woods with a Thousand Young” and takes place in the early 80ies. The story revolves around a comic book publisher trying to work with his star artist/writer, Macy, to complete her current story and save his company. Macy though, has been using the medium to convey subversive elements about her predicament, in that her husband, an alcoholic archeologist, uncovered something unworldly, at an excavation at Irem. Chambers himself has written many comic books, and his knowledge of the medium and its process is conveyed in the story, giving it a dimension of expertise not usually found in many stories. “The Ugly Birds” is the most immersive and detailed of the lot while also being the most unique. This isn’t just excellent Lovecraftian pastiche going on in this story, it’s also excellent writing period.
The Engines of Sacrifice sees Chambers not just building off Lovecraft’s canon, but shaping his own Knicksport canon as well. The Right Stars making appearances in two of the stories, seeing the city progress through the ages really gives a unified sense of integration. Outside of The Engines of Sacrifice, Chambers also uses his fictitious town, so his pocket universe is really becoming more and more organic. The four stories of The Engines of Sacrifice are all well executed Lovecraftian stories. The combination of borrowing from Lovecraft’s universe while creating his own gives Chambers’ stories a personality not usually found in other “in-the-vein-of-Lovecraft” writing.
June 2, 2016
The three first stories in this collection are some of the very best post-Lovecraft Cthulhu Mythos stories I have read. They are built on the thing I love most about the Mythos: The feeling that there are vastly greater forces in the universe, terrifying forces against whom Man is helpless. The tone is delightfully misanthropic and life-denying.
Chambers manages to match Lovecraft's effectiveness at painting this atmosphere of cosmic horror, and he does it without copying Lovecraft's style. The prose is different (except in a few descriptions), the characters are very different and the setting is more modern and hence feels more "real" in a way.
"Investigation 37" is a kind of sequel to "The Dreams in the Witch-House", set in the 1970s amid hippies and New Age "magicians" - where, of course, a few turn out to wield real dark magic. "The Ugly Birds" features a comic book artist who has been to Irem, the City of Pillars, and has brought something from the elder world with her. "The Hidden Room" is set during the cold war among intelligence agents and features an interesting take on the concept of the court of Azathoth where the Ultimate Gods dance to hidden flutes.
The problem is the fourth and last story, "The Engines of Sacrifice". It is set in a near-future dystopia where the world has been taken over by a Cthulhu cult. It is very interesting if not exactly subtle. It reminds me more of Warhammer 40.000 than Lovecraft. The ending of this story is piss-awful. Absolutely dreadful. It is much too hopeful, far from the delightful bleakness and misanthropy of the first three. Regardless, the story is still a very interesting experiment and worth reading if you can turn a blind eye to some flaws and try not to think about the ending.
The first three stories are definitely enough to justify five stars. Great collection. Go read it.
If you like this, I can also recommend the Cthulhu Mythos fiction of Tim Curran - another writer who has managed to bring cosmic horror into a modern setting.
Chambers manages to match Lovecraft's effectiveness at painting this atmosphere of cosmic horror, and he does it without copying Lovecraft's style. The prose is different (except in a few descriptions), the characters are very different and the setting is more modern and hence feels more "real" in a way.
"Investigation 37" is a kind of sequel to "The Dreams in the Witch-House", set in the 1970s amid hippies and New Age "magicians" - where, of course, a few turn out to wield real dark magic. "The Ugly Birds" features a comic book artist who has been to Irem, the City of Pillars, and has brought something from the elder world with her. "The Hidden Room" is set during the cold war among intelligence agents and features an interesting take on the concept of the court of Azathoth where the Ultimate Gods dance to hidden flutes.
The problem is the fourth and last story, "The Engines of Sacrifice". It is set in a near-future dystopia where the world has been taken over by a Cthulhu cult. It is very interesting if not exactly subtle. It reminds me more of Warhammer 40.000 than Lovecraft. The ending of this story is piss-awful. Absolutely dreadful. It is much too hopeful, far from the delightful bleakness and misanthropy of the first three. Regardless, the story is still a very interesting experiment and worth reading if you can turn a blind eye to some flaws and try not to think about the ending.
The first three stories are definitely enough to justify five stars. Great collection. Go read it.
If you like this, I can also recommend the Cthulhu Mythos fiction of Tim Curran - another writer who has managed to bring cosmic horror into a modern setting.
February 3, 2016
What an amazing book!
I have read so many H.P. Lovecraft pastiches over the years, and I can likely count on one hand the number that merited putting pen to paper. Most are filled with obscure chanting, shadowy creatures, and the mandatory reference to The Necronomicon. Of course, Lovecraft's stories are so much more than that kind of surface-level narrative.
This book, however, was quite different. It evokes the Lovecraft tone (without the weighty, obscure prose) to create a truly eerie mood.
It is a collection of four short stories that continues Lovecraft's "Old Ones" mythology into the present day. It contains all of the references that the reader would likely expect, and it builds on them to create logical extensions of the original premise. The writer even weaves a bit of Lovecraft's life into the happenings.
The result was a special treat. On several occasions, I was certain where the story was headed, only to be pleasantly surprised by an inventive and appropriate twist. Even the third story, which I liked the least, had much going for it as it advanced the mythos with a truly unnerving revelation.
James Chambers, the writer, put a great deal of thought, research and energy into this work. When the last story was finished, I had been transported.
I highly recommend this book for any fan of H.P. Lovecraft.
I have read so many H.P. Lovecraft pastiches over the years, and I can likely count on one hand the number that merited putting pen to paper. Most are filled with obscure chanting, shadowy creatures, and the mandatory reference to The Necronomicon. Of course, Lovecraft's stories are so much more than that kind of surface-level narrative.
This book, however, was quite different. It evokes the Lovecraft tone (without the weighty, obscure prose) to create a truly eerie mood.
It is a collection of four short stories that continues Lovecraft's "Old Ones" mythology into the present day. It contains all of the references that the reader would likely expect, and it builds on them to create logical extensions of the original premise. The writer even weaves a bit of Lovecraft's life into the happenings.
The result was a special treat. On several occasions, I was certain where the story was headed, only to be pleasantly surprised by an inventive and appropriate twist. Even the third story, which I liked the least, had much going for it as it advanced the mythos with a truly unnerving revelation.
James Chambers, the writer, put a great deal of thought, research and energy into this work. When the last story was finished, I had been transported.
I highly recommend this book for any fan of H.P. Lovecraft.
September 7, 2013
I have a confession. I love horror, but I've never been a huge fan of H.P. Lovecraft. While I admire HPL's ideas and his influence on horror literature, I had always found his writing to be rather florid and ponderous. So it was with some trepidation that I began to read the Lovecraft-inspired THE ENGINES OF SACRIFICE, a book highly recommended to me by a friend who is a major HPL aficionado.
I needn't have worried.
If you're looking for an imaginative, compelling, frightening and all-out entertaining horror read, THE ENGINES OF SACRIFICE is a book for you.
Divided into four exceptionally well-written novellas grounded solidly in the HPL mythos, the author's prose is a pleasure to read and full of surprises. You get all the slimy, tentacled, malevolent creatures you'd expect AND starkly original storytelling that is fast-paced and fascinating. I particularly enjoyed "The Ugly Birds" but all the stories are top-notch.
This really is a stellar, impressive work, a must-read for all horror fans. It has even persuaded me to revisit the seminal works of H.P. Lovecraft, an outcome which I'm sure would delight the author.
I needn't have worried.
If you're looking for an imaginative, compelling, frightening and all-out entertaining horror read, THE ENGINES OF SACRIFICE is a book for you.
Divided into four exceptionally well-written novellas grounded solidly in the HPL mythos, the author's prose is a pleasure to read and full of surprises. You get all the slimy, tentacled, malevolent creatures you'd expect AND starkly original storytelling that is fast-paced and fascinating. I particularly enjoyed "The Ugly Birds" but all the stories are top-notch.
This really is a stellar, impressive work, a must-read for all horror fans. It has even persuaded me to revisit the seminal works of H.P. Lovecraft, an outcome which I'm sure would delight the author.
April 28, 2015
Engines of Sacrifice is Lovecraftian fiction at its best. In these stories Chambers evokes the palpable atmosphere of dread that Lovecraft is infamous for but also updates the mythos and adds more action. I certainly appreciate the inclusion of many female characters since they are almost completely missing from Lovecraft's work. And they are not just tokens but often have a driving force in the narrative.
As you might expect, hope and hopelessness are themes throughout as well as isolation. But I particularly liked the way Chambers interweaves that with thoughts on artistic creation. For instance The Ugly Birds features a comic book illustrator trying to come to grips with the strange dark powers that her husband has awakened. In the title story this theme is even more widely explored through the trials of an author whose stories are so powerful they can shape reality. These stories are filled with striking images and highly quotable lines which I will not soon forget.
As you might expect, hope and hopelessness are themes throughout as well as isolation. But I particularly liked the way Chambers interweaves that with thoughts on artistic creation. For instance The Ugly Birds features a comic book illustrator trying to come to grips with the strange dark powers that her husband has awakened. In the title story this theme is even more widely explored through the trials of an author whose stories are so powerful they can shape reality. These stories are filled with striking images and highly quotable lines which I will not soon forget.
November 29, 2022
Tedious.
Displaying 1 - 8 of 8 reviews