Goat Mother and others

by Pierre V. Comtois, Victor Leza (Illustrator), Charlie Krank (Editor)

THE COMPLETE MYTHOS FICTION OF PIERRE V. COMTOIS In the glory-days of pulp magazines many editors abused and exploited their writers. They would hand a writer a piece of cover art and ask for a story crafted to match that art. Some of these authors were quite skilled at writing marketable tales, but the prize must go to the extraordinarily versatile Pierre Comtois always happy to craft a story for any occasion, in any sub-genre, to go with any wacky title. Pierre Comtois embeds his horror stories in the midst of real historical and personal circumstances. His devotion to pulp fiction is evident on every page but, like other skilled pulp writers, he shows the influence of classic literature. In these nineteen stories of Lovecraftian horror, he takes us from the farm country of Dunwich to the darkest corners of Central Asia, from Arkham to the Russian steppe, from the Arizona desert to the frozen landscape of Antarctica. Here is a gateway to the disturbing, the horrific, and the shuddery strangeness that gripped you the first time you discovered the off-trail fascination of the Cthulhu Mythos!

Genres: Horror, Anthologies

448 pages, Mass Market Paperback

First published February 13, 2015

Reviews

[David · Rating 3 out of 5]

Rounded up from 2.5.

This is, overall, NOT a good collection of Lovecraftian stories. Some are pretty good (I particularly enjoyed "The Secret Name" and "Goat Mother") but many fail even as enjoyable pastiches. The King in Yellow stories (reconstructions of the play, something already done--to greater success--by James Blish) are particularly awful.

This book is nearly 450 pages long and is obviously an attempt to introduce us to a longtime Mythos writer. He would have been better served by selecting his better stories and leaving out the (somewhat exhaustive and derivative) filler. Not recommended, unless you are a fanatical completist.

[Chris McMillan · Rating 3 out of 5]

Enjoyable collection of Lovecraft Mythos tales, written in traditions and boundaries set by Lovecraft and his disciples (to paraphrase the author in his introduction).

That’s not a bad thing, as the stories are imaginative and well written. The problem is several of the tales rely upon the worn out tropes of pulp stories, such as the narrator who can’t be conveying the story because of the ending, and the main character doing something so colossally stupid that their fate seems more karmic than tragic.

Yeah, I know, sometimes characters in a horror story have do to something that the reader knows is wrong. But, after all, we KNOW it’s a horror story and would never do that. Still, there are tales in this collection where the characters will disregard any common sense they would apply to a non-horror setting, just to get to the conclusion. And, I have to say, one example left me thinking that anyone so stupid should also earn a Darwin Award, along with a horrible fate.

Still, as I mentioned earlier, it’s an enjoyable collection, as long as you can overlook an occasional dependency on standard horror cliches.

[Dan McCollum · Rating 3 out of 5]

This one was a mixed bag for me - as many Mythos collections are. There are some rather interesting stories in this collection, and a few that border on the very interesting (the King in Yellow stands out in this regard - as someone who has spent a fair bit of his life reading academic articles and journals, I had to appreciate how well the different 'plays' were strung together by the author's essays. It leant it all a good feel of realism). Others, however, leaned more towards the clunky - one could always expect a protagonist to have a mysterious dream just when it was needed to heighten tension or deliver exposition. Still, I'd suggest it - Comtois is a good author and he obviously had a great deal of fun writing these stories, and that enthusiasm seeps throughout the works.

[Tom the Guvnor · Rating 3 out of 5]

These are tightly focused pastiche of Mythos fiction a la HP Lovecraft. They are good. But very repetitive and quite deliberately conservative in style and content. Best dipped into now and then. Goat Mother is best.

[Sean Kingston · Rating 3 out of 5]

Bought in a sale. Somewhat variable quality, but lots of fun stuff from an author I wasn't previously aware of. Some of the images stay with you (always a good sign), and lots of material to plunder for rpgs.

[David · Rating 4 out of 5]

A very good collection of classic Lovecraftian tales - all the main themes are there - and a couple of interesting variations of the Robert Chambers "King in Yellow" stories. Very enjoyable if you like this sort of thing.

[Dan Johnson · Rating 4 out of 5]

Overall, a very enjoyable collection, faithful to what might be called the "old" Cthulhu mythos.