Night Voices, Night Journeys

Lairs of the Hidden Gods #1

by Ken Asamatsu, Robert M. Price (Introduction), Masaki Yamada

This massive collection of original stories and articles inspired by the 'Cthulhu Mythos' created by H.P. Lovecraft was published in Japan in 2002 as a two-volume set under the name Hishinkai. The list of contributing authors is a who's-who of Japanese horror fiction, featuring some of the finest writers in Japan today.In cooperation with Tokyo Sogensha, the Japanese publishers, and the anthology editor, Mr. Asamatsu Ken, we are proud to present these dark visions of the Mythos as interpreted by Japanese authors. You will find some stories that return like old friends, carrying on the Lovecraft tradition, while others will shock you with totally new and unexpected vistas of horror. Each story is accompanied by a thought-provoking introduction by Robert M. Price, the recognized master of the Mythos.The cover is by Yamada Akihiro, who has handled many of the covers for the Japanese-language editions of Lovecraft and other Mythos works, and has established a name for himself in the States as well.

Genres: Horror, Japanese Literature, Lovecraftian, Japan, Short Stories, Anthologies, Fiction

320 pages, Paperback

First published March 20, 2005

Reviews

[Carpentermt · Rating 5 out of 5]

n summary, Night Journeys, Nights Voices, subtitled Lairs of the Hidden Gods volume one, is urgently recommended to all serious mythos aficionados.

Night Voices, Night Journeys is a publication of Kurodahan Press, and is, I believe, POD. The page count is a VERY generous 363. However, 14 pages are taken up by introductions by Asamatsu Ken and Robert Price, and each story has its own title page and brief introduction, also by Robert Price. And from page 289 onward the material is factual discussion of mythos manga and Lovecraftian fiction in Japan, with brief notes about the authors and translators at the end of the book. Production qualities are good. My copy had one printing error on page 301 where a crease led to a flaw in the typesetting, but the print was still readable. The cover has a lovely painting by Yamada Akihiro of a Japanese sea demon hidden amidst flowering plants. This is really quite different than the art style I am used to seeing on mythos books from the western world. I found it quite striking; most mythos novels'
illustrations do not depict horror concealed in exquisite beauty. This book was written a number of years previously for the Japanese horror market and I guess the success (or perhaps the quality) was sufficient to prompt an English language version. Hence the anthology was edited by Asamatsu Ken, a Japanese author and HPL fan rather than one of the usual mythos crew here in the west. For such a book to succeed in the west it is extraordinarily important to have an excellent translation, one that can not just change the words into English but can also portray the atmosphere the author was trying to convey, that can appropriately bring off the rhythm of the dialogue and use of slang, puns or other word play. In many ways the translation is an expression of the interpretation of these intangibles by the interpreter, and the work in some ways becomes their own. I know from reading The Iliad that two translators can derive entirely different language out of the same source work. I confess I have only ever read a few works of fiction written by Japanese authors before (one book Miyamoto Musashi was from my days taking karate), so I don't have a great deal of experience in this forum. The success of this book in the US will stand or fall with the quality of the translation as much as with the stories themselves. Happily these seem to be superb translations. The stories read seamlessly, naturally, allowing us to readily enter the author's worlds. For once I have no complaints about the introductions by Price, which were thoughtful, well written and informative. I would follow his advice, however, and not read the individual story introductions until after you have read the work in question, to avoid spoilers.

In some ways this book is both frustrating and tantalizing. These are new stories, written specifically for this anthology, much like with Horrors Beyond or Dead But Dreaming. This means there are other works already extant in Japan that we know nothing about. Here is an untapped mythos resource that I will only ever see as it is translated. In a way that means I'll probably only see the cream of the crop, but I can't help wondering about jewels known only to Japanese fans. And it makes me wonder about mythos fiction from other countries. We have many stories from the US and the UK, and now we are seeing some Australian fiction. What about India or China, or any African nations? Heck what about Russia or non English speaking Europe?? One thing HPL fans do is write their own mythos contributions. This has kept the mythos alive and squirming over the years. The tradition dates back to the days HPL first ever wrote a story and his friends leaped over themselves creating new entities and tomes. As we only see fiction written by English speakers we are missing out!! And this cuts both ways. I would imagine very little mythos fiction beyond the hoary classics is translated into Japanese so the revisionist view of Derleth is not extant in Japan. In fact it is HPL, the Lovecraft circle and Derleth, with of course whatever mythos heritage is native to Japan, that forms the basis of the Japanese mythos fiction here. I wonder what Asamatsu Ken would think of the stories in Eldritch Blue or Dead But Dreaming.

Fortunately for us English speaking fans this is the first volume of a projected 4 volume series. I fervently hope that they sell well so we do, in fact, get to see all 4 volumes.

Here are the contents:

ASAMATSU Ken - Foreword: "Recollections of Tentacles"

ASAMATSU Ken "The Plague of St. James Infirmary" translated by R. Keith

ROELLER

HISADOME Kenji "The Cthulhu Mythos in Japan" translated by Edward

LIPSETT HOSHINO Satoshi "Cthulhu Mythos Manga List" translated by Ryan

MORRIS

INOUE Masahiko "Night Voices, Night Journeys" translated by Edward

LIPSETT

KAMINO Okina "27 May 1945" translated by Steven P. VENTI

MAKINO Osamu "Necrophallus" translated by CHUN Jin

MURATA Motoi "Sacrifice" translated by Nora Stevens HEATH

SHIBATA Yoshiki "Love for Who Speaks" translated by Stephen CARTER

YAMADA Masaki"The Import of Tremors" translated by Kathleen TAJI

YONEZAWA Yoshihiro "Four Decades of H.P. Lovecraft and Manga"

translated by Ryan MORRIS

I will briefly discuss the stories below, but not the nonfiction. As usual spoilers, small or large, may follow. When I relate my impressions of a story I like to place it in context with other related stories I have read. For reasons alluded to above I cannot do that here; all my very old Derleth paperbacks and books by other Lovecraft Circle authors are hidden away in boxes somewhere. I relied on Price's introductions to place each story in context, but only after I read it. I must also say that the tenor of the anthology was intangibly different than other anthologies I have read recently, perhaps relating to the Japanese approach? There was a sort of surreal, almost dreamy feel to many of the stories, even when they were graphic. In some ways the horror was more detached. And many of them were about love and had distinct, sometimes graphic, sexual overtone.

ASAMATSU Ken "The Plague of St. James Infirmary" - This is actually a lengthy novella, setting fire servants of Cthuga against water servant of Cthaat in gangland Chicago (an interesting setting for a Japanese author in a Japanese anthology!). Mr. Asamatsu uses a Japanese word "yoki" to good effect here; I doubt it translates well but it is rendered as gruesome feeling. Yoki suffuses the pages, no doubt as the author intended. Dreamlike, ghastly and compelling come to mind when reflecting on this story. This is the one work where I did detect a bit of lecturing to Americans. I mean the few paragraphs on the bottom of page 62-63, where American hypocrisy and lack of insight is paraded into the narrative. This is, of course, old hat. It was the only time I ever discerned anything like that, and I only bring it up for the sake of even handedness.

*********spoiler follows!!!***********

One very cool thing about this story was weaving into it some true historical figures and a venerable mythos fiction character of Henry Kuttner. I never would have known about the latter except for Mr. Price's introduction as it has been ages since I read the Book of Iod. Now we know the truth about Elliott Ness and Al Capone. I wonder if the Japanese character Hasegawa Kaitaro is similarly a real person adapted for this novella.

YAMADA Masaki"The Import of Tremors" - Oh what a good yarn this was, about some unspeakable entity trying to acquire a new host in the twilight of WWII. I knew some of the history without prompting, like the Kobe earthquake, but I did not realize that Kobe was fire bombed like Tokyo was.

KAMINO Okina "27 May 1945" translated by Steven P. VENTI - I would gather that the time of the military collapse in Japan in mid 1945 is used to good effect by horror writers in Japan. This time is related to the American assault on Okinawa, and uses it as a smokescreen to a confrontation between Hastur and Cthulhu, very Derlethian!! Also very well written!

INOUE Masahiko "Night Voices, Night Journeys" - Surreal, beautifully written, this story gives the anthology its name. Some night journeys are eternal.

MURATA Motoi "Sacrifice" - In this story a yuppie-type's wife gets caught up in a cult that may use her as a sacrifice to a soil god. Robert Price was right on the money when he compared it to the movie(and novel) The Wicker Man. I was a bit bemused because that is what I came up with myself before I read his remarks. Any way, this was perhaps the weakest story here, not bad just not as powerful as the others were for me.

MAKINO Osamu "Necrophallus" - Oh my, wonderful! For me this is the best story contained in the anthology. And Horror Between the Sheets purports to be about mythos sex. Hah! Makino's work was visionary! "Necrophallus" probably outdoes anything in Eldritch Blue for combining sex and true mythosian horror.

SHIBATA Yoshiki "Love for Who Speaks" - This is a marvelous tale of what are essentially The Deep Ones. They call to their own. A superb close to the superb fiction in Night Voices, Night Journeys.

The rest of the book is nonfiction.

Need I say that I thought this was a masterful collection?

Congratulations to Mr. Asamatsu and his authors. And thank you to Mr. Lipsett for bringing it to us. Really, everyone should read it.

[Nancy Oakes · Rating 4 out of 5]

My standard caveat for books like this is that they are a mixed bag, so you really don't know what you're getting prior to opening the covers. This was my first foray into the Japanese Lovecraftian world, although according to the chapters in the back of the book, the Japanese have been into the mythos for some time. There are mangas based on the work of HPL -- I took down the titles just in case I bump into them. Luckily I can read Japanese! Anyway, most of the stories in this book were quite fun to read, and I spent a couple of entertaining hours going through this first volume. I can definitely recommend the book to fans of Lovecraft and his imitators; the Japanese just have a different take on things.

Here's the contents list:
1. Ken Asamatsu -- "The Plague of St. James Infirmary" -- in which we discover who really runs the bad guys in Chicago. This one involves an occult detective known as Michael L. It's actually more novella sized, longer than any of the other stories. Fun.

2. Masaki Yamada - "The Import of Tremors" -- In running from incendiary firebombs in Japan at the end of WWII, two men take refuge at a shelter at a house owned by a man known only as "the white Russian," and end up wishing they hadn't. Another good one.

3. Okina Kamino - "27 May 1945" -- a very spectral and eerie story about the US and Japanese armies in a face off on Okinawa. The atmosphere in this one is awesome.

4. Masahiko Inoue - "Night Voices, Night Journeys" -- more of an erotically-charged story about a woman and the men she calls master. Very good, but read slowly. I had to do it twice.

5. Motoi Murata -- "Sacrifice" -- in which a couple move to the country for the wife's health and discover that organic living isn't all it's cracked up to be. This one was rather creepy.

6. Osamu Makino -- "Necrophallus" -- well, let's just say that Robert Price's introduction touts this one as the story that Lovecraft would never write. There's a reason. Definitely not one of my favorites.

7. Yoshiki Shibata -- "Love for Who Speaks" -- A young woman gets engaged to a young man, then finds out things about his past that she probably shouldn't know. This one's a bit predictable from the outset if you've read of lot of Lovecraft.

Overall, a good collection, and it's off to Vol. 2 for me now.

[Charles · Rating 3 out of 5]

H. P. Lovecraft’s Cthulhu Mythos was introduced in the story “The Call of Cthulhu” in the February, 1928 issue of Weird Tales. Other stories followed and this first phase of the developing “Mythos” was directed by Lovecraft himself, although members of the so called “Lovecraft Circle” contributed. This included works by Clark Ashton Smith, Robert E. Howard, and Robert Block among others.
The second phase of Mythos development was headed by August Derleth, who championed Lovecraft’s work and also expanded the concept with new stories of his own. In the third phase the Mythos became a world wide phenomenon and numerous writers began to contribute, including some, such as Brian Lumley, who established their careers by working within the Mythos universe.
The current collection illustrates how widespread and influential Lovecraft’s initial idea has become. It consists of new Mythos stories written by Japanese authors and translated into English. Some of these authors, including the editor of the collection, Asamatsu Ken, have virtually made a profession out of pursuing Lovecraftian themes.
While I was eager to see a Japanese take on the Mythos, I found this collection to be uneven. Some stories brought new elements into the Mythos while others failed to engage my interest. Let me stress, however, that my comments refer to these stories only as English translations. I don’t read Japanese and can’t separate any problems in the originals from problems that might have developed in translation.
The collection’s initial story is “The Plague of St. James Infirmary” by Asamatsu Ken, translated by R. Keith Roeller. Although Ken is a widely published and respected author in Japan, I found this story the weakest in the anthology and an unfortunate choice for opening tale. It’s extremely long for one thing, more than twice as long as any other story in the book at over 100 pages. This is simply too long to maintain suspense with a tale that is focused on atmosphere and is low on action. Also, the story is set in Chicago rather than Japan. This was probably a good setting choice for a primarily Japanese audience, but it leaches away some of the exotica that might have made the story more interesting to Americans.
Story two is “The Import of Tremors” by Yamada Masaki, translated by Kathleen Taji. The setting is primarily Japan, 1945, after an American bombing raid on Kobe City, but the story is told in disjointed flashbacks that weaken any tension the story might have produced.
After the first two stories, however, the quality and inventiveness of the tales picked up dramatically. “27 May 1945” by Kamino Okina, translated by Steven P. Venti, is based on a great idea that the Japanese and American armies of World War II are “mere proxies for the ever-warring factions of Hastur and his half-brother Cthulhu.” There were a few jarring sequences for this American reader, but the story is inventive, gory, and with an effective ending that promises more horror.
Had I been putting the book together the lead story would have been the title tale, “Night Voices, Night Journeys,” by Inoue Masahiko, translated by Edward Lipsett. It was certainly one of the top two stories in the collection, a tale full of eroticism that took the Mythos in a new direction. The female lead, who is both villain and heroine, was the most interesting character in the book, a never dying being whose blood is both toxic and addicting.
“Sacrifice” by Murata Motoi, translated by Nora Stevens Heath, is another excellent piece. It takes a theme common in Lovecraft’s tales, the inbred and isolated genetic group, but relocates the concept to Japan and expresses it in a unique and grotesque way. This was my favorite story in the book.
“Necrophallus” by Makino Osamu, translated by Chun Jin, is not as erotic as it sounds from the title, but it is the most graphic horror tale in the book. It is cinematic and reminds me strongly of work being done by some Japanese filmmakers in the past decade, particularly Takashi Miike’s Audition.
“Love for Who Speaks” by Shibata Yoshiki, translated by Stephen A. Carter, is a nice change of pace to end the collection. It’s more fantasy than horror, a love story with a twist that surprises.
The book closes with some fine nonfiction material. “Lovecraftian Landscapes” by Yonezawa Yoshihiro, translated by Ryan Morris, is a great encapsulation of four decades of Lovecraft-influenced Manga in Japan. There are also two bibliographies that provide good information. The first is compiled by Hoshino Satoshi and lists many Japanese authors who have worked with Lovecraftian Manga. The second, by Hisadome Kenji, discusses non-Manga related works by Japanese authors in the Cthulhu Mythos.
Although I wish I would have liked Night Voices, Night Journeys more, the collection is worthwhile for those who want to get a feel for Japanese Mythos fiction and who are looking for bibliographies of such work in Japan. The stories by Inoue Masahiko and Murata Motoi were quite good and these are two writers to watch.

[Marcin Wronikowski · Rating 2 out of 5]

This first volume in the Mythos-based anthology of Japanese short horror stories is yet another proof that the Japanese continue to seemingly completely miss the point of what works of Western culture are about and when they try to imitate it the resulting product turns out to best have been left stillborn. The failure that at least half the stories in this book represent is only compounded by the pretentious commentary by Robert Price who gushes constantly over their ingenuity as if they are the best thing since sliced bread.

The biggest failure of the Japanese authors, in my opinion, is that they put the horror in the reader's face instead of leaving it up to the imagination, implied, vaguely described, but never fully shown. Instead, the pages of this book drip with blood and gore described in detail so minute that Graham Masterton would take notes.

When I started reading this book and finished the first story - The Plague of St James Infirmary - I was immediately sceptical and thought that this couldn't get any worse. This one basically reads like a novelization of a anime for boys, with imagery and scenes taken straight out of Akira and Naruto. Not only is it horribly written, but the translation leaves a lot to be desired, to the point where knowing only what little Japanese I myself have picked up from movies and anime, I could easily tell what the individual characters' lines were in the original Japanese text. The translator did nothing to actually make the dialogues flow well or sound natural in English. The author also seems to forget how he created his characters: at some point, one of the protagonists, an occultist, calls upon the power of the fire god Cthugha, with narration stressing that he doesn't believe or worship the god itself, but does respect the power the god represents. Several chapters later we have the same character say a prayer of thanks to the same Cthugha, whose name the character has been invoking over and over again like it was a magic spell to cast fireballs. 1/5

Conversely, the second story - The Import of Tremors - is probably the best in the volume, and closest to what Western writers would produce. It's a story of the fire bombing of Kobe during World War II and two starving boys seeking shelter in the manor of a reclusive foreigner. Not only is it appropriately written in first person, but the narrator is also unreliable, but, and this is a nice touch, this unreliability springs from several different angles: age (there is a gap of 50 years between the events described and the moment when they are conveyed to the reader), stress, and the usual madness of the moment. The finale also ties in wonderfully (and tragically) into another tragedy that struck Japan. 5/5

27 May 1945 is a story that is a hit and a miss. It takes place during the Battle of Okinawa and shows both Japanese and American soldiers as pawns in the hands of the Great Old Ones and Elder Gods, but it features some completely ridiculous scenes and action sequences. The ending turns appropriately Lovecraftian, saving it to a small degree. 3/5

Night Voices, Night Journeys is a weird story that tries very hard to keep the reader lost in flowery, pretentious language, illegible metaphors, and ethereal world-building. By the end of it I was completely lost as to who's who. It leaves just a little bit too much unsaid and requires the reader to put things together from the scraps fed to him at the very end. As a result, I can't really tell if I liked it or not. ?/5

The next story - Sacrifice - is one of the few good ones, utilising some of the traditional tropes: remote location, weird villagers, mysterious practices, strange rituals, and an ending that makes the reader question whether the protagonist actually managed to escape the horror. 4/5

The less said about the story that follows - Necrophallus - the better. Aside from the completely ridiculous title, the tale is a study in some of the most disgusting paraphilias imaginable. The worst sort of torture porn, literally and figuratively. Instead of feeling fascinated or scared, I felt physically revolted and actually insulted by this filth. 0/5

The last short story in this volume - Love For Who Speaks - is an interesting inversion of the classical Lovecraftian tale. In a way, it is actually a fairy tale which subverts the reader's expectations numerous times due to clever structuring. 4/5

Overall, while obviously completely missing the point of what a proper Mythos tale should be like and what it should be about, this collection is an interesting glimpse into how the Japanese perceive Lovecraft's works through the lens of their own style of literature. Unfortunately, the bad outweigh the good. We'll see what the contents of the following volumes are like.

[Dylan Rock · Rating 5 out of 5]

An absolutely fantastic collection of lovecraftian mythos fiction, which brings in varied topics such as love and exoticism and settings ranging from 1930s Chicago and World War 2 Japan. If that wasnt enough it includes an extremely detailed essay on H.P Lovecraft on manga and a bibliography of titles that reference the Mythos

[Laura · Rating 4 out of 5]

Wow, wie viele coole Ideen hier drin stecken! Sehr unterhaltsam zu lesen.

St. James Infirmary: 5/5
The Import of Tremors: 3/5
27 May 1945: 3/5
Night Voices, Night Journeys: 5/5
Sacrifice: 5/5
Necrophallus: 5/5
Love for Who Speaks: 5/5

[Brian · Rating 3 out of 5]

Night Voices, Night Journeys is a collection of Japanese, Lovecraftian fiction, or so the back of the book says. Alas, I think I would have liked it more if it had been labeled a collection of horror fiction rather than Lovecraftian tales as I only found a couple of the stories within to be particualrly Lovecraftian in style and content.

The Plague of St. James Infirmary: This is a pulpish, "The Untouchables meets the Mythos" novella with some great action scenes involving a pair of opposing wizards.

The Import of Tremors: THis is a very short story about a couple of kids trying to avoid allie firebombing of their hometown. They end up in a mysterious mansion that is home to an eccentric Russian with some fun friends.

27 May 1945: This was my favorite of the bunch. It wasn't particularly Lovecraftian but I'm a sucker for Delta Green-ish stories of secret government agencies attempting to harness the power of the Mythos towards their own selfish ends.

Night Voices, Night Journeys: Didn't really care for this one. Other than a couple of references to the Mythos there was nothing Lovecraftian about it. I didn't find it all that interesting.

Sacrifice: I liked this one, partly because it actually was Lovecraftian. It's about a couple moving to a rural area to find thsmelves living near a mysterious farm that is home to a group of suspicious locals with a reputation for growing the best fruits and vegetables in the country. The wife gets tangled up in this cult and the husband investigates. Horror ensues. Props to the author for utlizing a second-string Outer God (Yidrah).

Necrophallus: Horrifying, yes. But Lovecraftian, no. It seemed more like a CLive Barker story... somewhat Hellraiser-ish.

Love for Who Speaks: I didn't really like this one. The style was incredibly un-Lovecraftian.

THe book concludes with a short essay on the history of the Mythos in Japanese pop culture (manga, etc.) which was actually pretty interesting. There are also biographies of the authors and translators.

I can reccomend the book if you like horror fiction, but I do warn fans of Lovecraft who go into it with certain expectations.

[Bookish Tokyo · Rating 2 out of 5]

Despite the appealing name and cover this was largely a disappointment. I am perhaps the wrong audience for this. I’m not a massive horror reader, less so when the horror revolves around mythical creatures, none more famous than the “cthulhu”. Which apparently has spawned a huge global fanbase, Japan included.
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It is unfortunate that the first and longest story of this collection is by far the worst story. Set in a 1930’s prohibition American city, the dialogue feels clunky and somehow “off”. This is largely down to the authors interpretation of how American would speak. Alongside this the supposed monster and creature element is heavily hinted at removing any sense of suspense or excitement. For reasons unknown each small story comes with an introduction that completely outlines what to expect. Even the introduction informs the reader to skip it.
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To be honest there isn’t much of a reward once you get past the first story. Many of the stories just felt clunky. Aside from one, which merges the firebombing of Kobe into an evocative creepy story, the others are largely pretty poor. This certainly feels like it’s for the aficionado of Lovecraft and Cthulhu, as opposed to a casual reader. There’s a helpful list of Cthulhu/lovecraft and manga at the back, plus an essay on Lovecraft in Japan.
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This really wasn’t for me. I wanted to be immersed in something creepy. Instead I was largely bored, disengaged and slightly annoyed at the “fan fiction” style prose.

[Coeruleo Luna · Rating 5 out of 5]

pretty good stories, though the cthulhu references in some were pretty light, almost not really lovecraftian except in spirit. some much more mythos heavy than others i think. nice to see a collection from japan though. sad how ww2 is so prevalent in the stories though. that seemed the more tying feature of many of the stories rather than the mythos, but i have discovered a few writers i will look forward to reading again. and a few of these are very memorable stories indeed. the one with the hippy health cult was very good, and really my favorite. very true to the lovecraft thing.

[Waffles · Rating 4 out of 5]

I've just got one word for you ... Necrophallus!

[Max Z · Rating 2 out of 5]

It's a mixed bag. I liked two stories of the bunch, the one about farmers cult and the wartime story about hunger, the rest not so much.