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Swords v. Cthulhu
What hope has a humble adventurer when faced with a fight against Cthulhu himself? No matter; the true swordsperson cares only for the bite of steel against flesh, whether that flesh be eldritch or more conventional. From the hottest voices in Lovecraftiana comes a collection that will take readers on a journey from ancient Rome to feudal Japan and from Dreamlands to lands that do not have names in any of the tongues of men. Glory awaits!
Table of Contents
Introduction by Jessie Bullington and Molly Tanzer
“The Savage Angela in: The Beast in the Tunnels” John Langan
“Non Omnis Moriar” Michael Cisco
“The Lady of Shalott” Carrie Vaughn
“Trespassers” A. Scott Glancy
“The Dan no Uchi Horror” Remy Nakamura
“St. Baboloki’s Hymn for Lost Girls” L. Lark
“The Children of Yig” John Hornor Jacobs
“The Dreamers of Alamoi” Jeremiah Tolbert
“Two Suns over Zululand” Ben Stewart
“A Circle That Ever Returneth In” Orrin Grey
“Ordo Vitutum” Wendy N. Wagner
“Red Sails, Dark Moon” Andrew S. Fuller
“The Thief in the Sand” M.K. Sauer
“Without Within” Jonathan L. Howard
“Daughter of the Drifting” Jason Heller
“The Matter of Aude” Natania Barron
“The Living, Vengeant Stars” E. Catherine Tobler
“The Argonaut” Carlos Orsi
“Of All Possible Worlds” Eneasz Brodski
“The Final Gift fo Zhuge Liang” Laurie Tom
“The Kind of Lapland’s Daughter” Nathan Carson
“Bow Down Before the Snail King!” Caleb Wilson
Recommended Reading
Author Biographies
Table of Contents
Introduction by Jessie Bullington and Molly Tanzer
“The Savage Angela in: The Beast in the Tunnels” John Langan
“Non Omnis Moriar” Michael Cisco
“The Lady of Shalott” Carrie Vaughn
“Trespassers” A. Scott Glancy
“The Dan no Uchi Horror” Remy Nakamura
“St. Baboloki’s Hymn for Lost Girls” L. Lark
“The Children of Yig” John Hornor Jacobs
“The Dreamers of Alamoi” Jeremiah Tolbert
“Two Suns over Zululand” Ben Stewart
“A Circle That Ever Returneth In” Orrin Grey
“Ordo Vitutum” Wendy N. Wagner
“Red Sails, Dark Moon” Andrew S. Fuller
“The Thief in the Sand” M.K. Sauer
“Without Within” Jonathan L. Howard
“Daughter of the Drifting” Jason Heller
“The Matter of Aude” Natania Barron
“The Living, Vengeant Stars” E. Catherine Tobler
“The Argonaut” Carlos Orsi
“Of All Possible Worlds” Eneasz Brodski
“The Final Gift fo Zhuge Liang” Laurie Tom
“The Kind of Lapland’s Daughter” Nathan Carson
“Bow Down Before the Snail King!” Caleb Wilson
Recommended Reading
Author Biographies
368 pages, Paperback
First published July 1, 2016
About the author
Jesse Bullington
45 books356 followersAuthor. Dream Weaver. Visionary. Plus Actor. So long as you're cool with discovering just how dull I really am, I welcome adds here, on FB, LJ etc.
My novels The Sad Tale of the Brothers Grossbart and The Enterprise of Death are available in a variety of languages. I have it on admittedly shaky authority that they are charming. My third novel, The Folly of the World, will be released in December of 2012--no word yet on how charming it will be, but I'm sure I'll be the first to know. I have short fiction free for the reading at Beneath Ceaseless Skies and Brain Harvest, among sundry other places--a full (-ish, depending on how slack I've been about updating it) list of my published works can be found on this here website.
As for Good Reads, I'm only going to include books that I review, even briefly, to prevent myself from spending all day online assembling a massive list of beloved books. I tend to only review books I finish and only finish books I like, so my ratings tend to be on the high side.
My novels The Sad Tale of the Brothers Grossbart and The Enterprise of Death are available in a variety of languages. I have it on admittedly shaky authority that they are charming. My third novel, The Folly of the World, will be released in December of 2012--no word yet on how charming it will be, but I'm sure I'll be the first to know. I have short fiction free for the reading at Beneath Ceaseless Skies and Brain Harvest, among sundry other places--a full (-ish, depending on how slack I've been about updating it) list of my published works can be found on this here website.
As for Good Reads, I'm only going to include books that I review, even briefly, to prevent myself from spending all day online assembling a massive list of beloved books. I tend to only review books I finish and only finish books I like, so my ratings tend to be on the high side.
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Displaying 1 - 19 of 19 reviews
April 22, 2017
I was a fool and didn’t immediately realize this was very much my shit. The title is a bit twee, lacking the immediately evocative potency of a Children of Old Leech or Wide Carnivorous Sky. I picked it up on a whim, mostly on the strength of Jesse and Molly’s names (and I didn’t realize they didn’t have entries of their own). The fact that it was explicitly tied to Lovecraft put me off more than anything; I’ve never understood why people ever started treating his stuff as an IP instead of a genre. And there are indeed a couple unwelcome references here—the word Shoggoth simply no longer does what Lovecraft invented it to do—but this was largely a stupid thing to be worried about. There’s no Innsmouth or Miskatonic or what have you (in fact, an American setting is notably absent).
Combining fantasy and weird horror is not a new idea, and indeed more or less dates back to the earliest days of weird horror. But until Berserk in 1990, and then Demon’s Souls (and finally brought to its apotheosis in Bloodborne), it was never done *well*. Howard, Saunders, Moore, etc, are all too heroic, using the weird horror for inspiration for monsters and arcs to build their heroes up against (though in Howard’s case it’s hard to say there was really ever any inspiration at all). They didn’t get how the oppressive tone of the worldbuilding and the disempowering vastness of the enemies were crucial, couldn’t be diminished to uplift a hero’s valor without losing what they were supposed to contribute in the first place. Thankfully a pretty big segment of authors has gotten over the whole power fantasy protagonist deal and learned to write real characters, and we can have nice things now.
And Swords v Cthulhu is a very nice thing. It is, in fact, exactly a thing I’ve been craving since Dark Souls, Game of Thrones, Jonathan Strange, and Jesse’s novels: a rich smorgasbord of historical dark fantasy horror. The things I’ve found otherwise have mostly been either excellent but incomplete fits (Black Sails) or utter mediocrities (Betrayer) but SvC delivers. It’s a remarkably consistent book of short stories. It avoids the trap that Children of Old Leech fell into where many stories felt repetitive and unsatisfying, going through the same slow buildup to a final reveal of malicious horror weirdness. SvC sidesteps that problem in part by forcing authors to focus on the encounter and its outcome, not on the reveal.
There is a lot of diversity here, in the plot arcs but also the historical settings (generally evoked with specific detail and a sense of presence) and the characters, who include trans, intersex, slave, and indigenous characters from many parts of the world. In fact, it might be the most diverse cast of characters in any fiction I’ve read lately. Which is of course both a good and important thing in general, but it is especially appropriate here, where it can explicitly rectify Lovecraft’s particularly bad treatment of indigenous people especially.
One story (Scott Glancy’s Trespassers) tries to handle this revisionism the way Bone Tomahawk does, by displacing Lovecraft’s fear of indigenous religions onto a fantasy tribe that makes the satanic cannibal demonization tropes real and literal, something even the local natives fear, etc. I like this trope and understand the desire to keep it. And Trespassers uses it to good effect, lampshading it a bit by placing it in an explicitly colonial context. I’m just not quite sure it solves the underlying issue. I prefer the way stories like Ben Stewart’s Two Suns over Zululand and L Lark’s sublime St Baboloki’s Hymn for Lost Girls (the best in the collection) handle this, weaving their cosmic horror into the fabric of an inclusive indigenous worldview still trying to figure out what to make of them.
Quite a few of the stories in the volume benefit from a less apocalyptic portrayal of their horror elements. Nothing is quite as pluralistic and tolerant as Mieville novel, say, but there are plenty of stories that put protagonists as servants, employees, or just indirect witnesses of eldritch phenomena, rather than directly their victims or mad attempted masters (the latter another tired Lovecraft trope largely absent here). Caleb Wilson’s The Snail King and Natania Barron’s the Matter of Aude make good use of eldritch monsters and cults as just elements of a world rather than becoming the only thing in the world that matters.
Characterization is very strong throughout, with only a couple exceptions, and it is ultimately what makes these stories stand out compared to their forebears in Howard, etc. Unfortunately one of the weaker ones is one of the first stories I’ve seen to explicitly answer my call for more creative uses of parasites in fantasy. M. K. Sauer’s The Thief in the Sand is quite short and doesn’t do much in terms of characterization or worldbuilding. It’s content to call its mutualist symbiont “parasite” and doesn’t give it really any interesting traits or volition; it can give super wormy powers when in contact with water but that’s about it.
Aside from those I’ve mentioned already, Wendy Wagner’s Ordo Virtutum and Jonathan Howard’s Without Within stand out. I enjoyed Orrin Grey’s contribution more than other work of his I’ve read and John Langan’s less. Most of them are middling-good, but I guess I was most impressed by how few really put me off or felt like duds, especially with so many entries.
The most exciting thing to me about SvC is knowing there are so many talented authors out there on this wavelength. There are so many things that are hinted at but could reward much deeper treatment. In my mind, that’s primarily making the historical setting not just a backdrop but an active participant, weaving the dreamlands journeys of a Louisiana slave into that melting pot cultural context, or building out how the supernatural ecology of South Africa responds to the supernatural ecology of European colonialism, or how eldritch horrors integrate into Japan’s yokai folklore. Very much looking forward to seeing more of this stuff, by these authors and others, in the near future.
Combining fantasy and weird horror is not a new idea, and indeed more or less dates back to the earliest days of weird horror. But until Berserk in 1990, and then Demon’s Souls (and finally brought to its apotheosis in Bloodborne), it was never done *well*. Howard, Saunders, Moore, etc, are all too heroic, using the weird horror for inspiration for monsters and arcs to build their heroes up against (though in Howard’s case it’s hard to say there was really ever any inspiration at all). They didn’t get how the oppressive tone of the worldbuilding and the disempowering vastness of the enemies were crucial, couldn’t be diminished to uplift a hero’s valor without losing what they were supposed to contribute in the first place. Thankfully a pretty big segment of authors has gotten over the whole power fantasy protagonist deal and learned to write real characters, and we can have nice things now.
And Swords v Cthulhu is a very nice thing. It is, in fact, exactly a thing I’ve been craving since Dark Souls, Game of Thrones, Jonathan Strange, and Jesse’s novels: a rich smorgasbord of historical dark fantasy horror. The things I’ve found otherwise have mostly been either excellent but incomplete fits (Black Sails) or utter mediocrities (Betrayer) but SvC delivers. It’s a remarkably consistent book of short stories. It avoids the trap that Children of Old Leech fell into where many stories felt repetitive and unsatisfying, going through the same slow buildup to a final reveal of malicious horror weirdness. SvC sidesteps that problem in part by forcing authors to focus on the encounter and its outcome, not on the reveal.
There is a lot of diversity here, in the plot arcs but also the historical settings (generally evoked with specific detail and a sense of presence) and the characters, who include trans, intersex, slave, and indigenous characters from many parts of the world. In fact, it might be the most diverse cast of characters in any fiction I’ve read lately. Which is of course both a good and important thing in general, but it is especially appropriate here, where it can explicitly rectify Lovecraft’s particularly bad treatment of indigenous people especially.
One story (Scott Glancy’s Trespassers) tries to handle this revisionism the way Bone Tomahawk does, by displacing Lovecraft’s fear of indigenous religions onto a fantasy tribe that makes the satanic cannibal demonization tropes real and literal, something even the local natives fear, etc. I like this trope and understand the desire to keep it. And Trespassers uses it to good effect, lampshading it a bit by placing it in an explicitly colonial context. I’m just not quite sure it solves the underlying issue. I prefer the way stories like Ben Stewart’s Two Suns over Zululand and L Lark’s sublime St Baboloki’s Hymn for Lost Girls (the best in the collection) handle this, weaving their cosmic horror into the fabric of an inclusive indigenous worldview still trying to figure out what to make of them.
Quite a few of the stories in the volume benefit from a less apocalyptic portrayal of their horror elements. Nothing is quite as pluralistic and tolerant as Mieville novel, say, but there are plenty of stories that put protagonists as servants, employees, or just indirect witnesses of eldritch phenomena, rather than directly their victims or mad attempted masters (the latter another tired Lovecraft trope largely absent here). Caleb Wilson’s The Snail King and Natania Barron’s the Matter of Aude make good use of eldritch monsters and cults as just elements of a world rather than becoming the only thing in the world that matters.
Characterization is very strong throughout, with only a couple exceptions, and it is ultimately what makes these stories stand out compared to their forebears in Howard, etc. Unfortunately one of the weaker ones is one of the first stories I’ve seen to explicitly answer my call for more creative uses of parasites in fantasy. M. K. Sauer’s The Thief in the Sand is quite short and doesn’t do much in terms of characterization or worldbuilding. It’s content to call its mutualist symbiont “parasite” and doesn’t give it really any interesting traits or volition; it can give super wormy powers when in contact with water but that’s about it.
Aside from those I’ve mentioned already, Wendy Wagner’s Ordo Virtutum and Jonathan Howard’s Without Within stand out. I enjoyed Orrin Grey’s contribution more than other work of his I’ve read and John Langan’s less. Most of them are middling-good, but I guess I was most impressed by how few really put me off or felt like duds, especially with so many entries.
The most exciting thing to me about SvC is knowing there are so many talented authors out there on this wavelength. There are so many things that are hinted at but could reward much deeper treatment. In my mind, that’s primarily making the historical setting not just a backdrop but an active participant, weaving the dreamlands journeys of a Louisiana slave into that melting pot cultural context, or building out how the supernatural ecology of South Africa responds to the supernatural ecology of European colonialism, or how eldritch horrors integrate into Japan’s yokai folklore. Very much looking forward to seeing more of this stuff, by these authors and others, in the near future.
September 17, 2016
A wonderful anthology filled to the brim with guts, glory, and gore. Oh did I mention the nameless terrors as well?
Full review to come.
Full review to come.
December 13, 2016
This anthology unites the best of two worlds: the Cthulhu Mythos and the fascinating world of swashbucklers, mercenaries, samurais, knights and explorers. For all who thought "Lovecraftian horror has nothing to do with sword-fighting, honor, glory, shining armor and intrepid exploration", I say: think again.
The tales told here give readers a fresh perspective on the Mythos through different ages, civilizations and worlds - and they do not lack anything as far as the Lovecraftian mood is concerned: there is insanity, a sense of loss, the depressive view of an uncaring universe that is ready to devour the unwary. I recommend this book for both veteran Lovecraft fans and sword-and-sorcery lovers.
The tales told here give readers a fresh perspective on the Mythos through different ages, civilizations and worlds - and they do not lack anything as far as the Lovecraftian mood is concerned: there is insanity, a sense of loss, the depressive view of an uncaring universe that is ready to devour the unwary. I recommend this book for both veteran Lovecraft fans and sword-and-sorcery lovers.
October 11, 2017
There is so much here. I'm a sucker for Cthulhu Mythos related stories, and doubly so for swords and sorcery (big fan of Fritz Leiber, Robert E. Howard, etc.) so I enjoyed this anthology, which is a great marriage of both. The stories range from good to great. My favorites managed to couple the weird, grim ambiance of a Lovecraft tale with the self-interested cutthroat adventurer archetype. Some sexual content, so this anthology isn't for the younger set. Very enjoyable.
August 1, 2016
Great compilation of stories, lots of different situations and locales (Vikings, samurai, nuns, Pirates, gladiators, consecrated virgins, etc), female characters and a dearth of happy endings.
March 27, 2018
The title of this anthology is a little misleading, implying a sense of kitsch and lack of seriousness; this could not be further from the truth. The introduction discusses the fact that this falls more within the Conan-sequence sword and sorcery camp of fantasy, rather than high fantasy. I would say these stories go a step further than that. While I agree that sword and sorcery frequently incorporates Lovecraftian mythology elements, and are certainly dark and action packed, these particular stories have a sense of bleakness and futility that is much more reminiscent of true lovecraftian fiction. Many also fall firmly within the realm of weird fiction, as we are left with a sense of confusion, a lack of clear explanation for what has just transpired.
Bullington has edited other anthologies for Stonskin Press, and both he and the imprint itself do a good job of recruiting authorial talent for their collections. While there are one or two stories in here I found a bit of a slog to finish, on the whole it was an excellent example of what can be accomplished by placing weird fiction in various historical ages. One or two of the stories I was struggling with really turned around after a few pages and became some of my favorites of the collection. There’s even a really novel use of something which other children of the 80s like myself may remember with fondness, the choose your own adventure story, by one of the authors.
Bullington has edited other anthologies for Stonskin Press, and both he and the imprint itself do a good job of recruiting authorial talent for their collections. While there are one or two stories in here I found a bit of a slog to finish, on the whole it was an excellent example of what can be accomplished by placing weird fiction in various historical ages. One or two of the stories I was struggling with really turned around after a few pages and became some of my favorites of the collection. There’s even a really novel use of something which other children of the 80s like myself may remember with fondness, the choose your own adventure story, by one of the authors.
June 25, 2018
A collection of varied short stories that pit their main characters against all manner of lovecraftian horrors, in many different ways. As a whole, these stories bring a delightful mixture of horror, action/adventure, mystery and even some humor to the sub-genre that is eldritch horror.
There was no story here that I outright disliked, though I have some I liked better than others, which is only human. I liked St. Baboloki's Hymn for Lost Girls for its dream-mood and folklore like tone. I liked The Dreamers of Alamoi both for its premise and its main character's plight. I liked A Circle That Ever Returneth In for its interesting take on the multiple choice style of story telling. I liked Without Within because of its ending, it felt very "classic Lovecraft" in the better connotation of that phrase. I liked The Living, Vengeant Stars for it's combination of action/adventure and horror. And I liked Bow Down Before the Snail King! because it was really funny.
Definitely recommend this short story collection!
There was no story here that I outright disliked, though I have some I liked better than others, which is only human. I liked St. Baboloki's Hymn for Lost Girls for its dream-mood and folklore like tone. I liked The Dreamers of Alamoi both for its premise and its main character's plight. I liked A Circle That Ever Returneth In for its interesting take on the multiple choice style of story telling. I liked Without Within because of its ending, it felt very "classic Lovecraft" in the better connotation of that phrase. I liked The Living, Vengeant Stars for it's combination of action/adventure and horror. And I liked Bow Down Before the Snail King! because it was really funny.
Definitely recommend this short story collection!
December 23, 2020
I read this collection of short stories slowly over several months. Any collection like this is bound to be uneven. 22 short stories by 22 authors all commissioned brand-new just for this anthology; they haven't scoured existing stories and selected the "best" of them. And I think the editors were brilliant to realize the overlap between old sword & sorcery stories -- with their dark gods and complicated morality -- and Lovecraft's own Cthulhu mythos and the potential of that intersection.
I think the best way to approach an anthology like this is to treat it like an expanded edition of one of the old pulp magazines of yesteryear. Weird Tales was published monthly and for 25¢ you got 12-15 stories. The vast majority were pretty low-quality and have been forgotten by history. They were never meant to be great literature. And you were intended, I think, to slowly read them over the course of the month until the next issue came out.
In those days, people didn't read 30 Cthulhu or 30 Conan the Barbarian stories back-to-back. You'd read one or two a month at most because that's all that were in this month's issue. When we binge them and them complain about the repetitiveness of their themes or structure or characters or whatever, I think we're somewhat missing the point.
These stories also come from a different kind of storytelling tradition. The concept of "character arcs" has come to completely dominate modern storytelling. It has even infested superhero movies, where we can talk about Iron Man's character arc over several movies from playboy bachelor to father.
But there's another tradition where the characters don't change. Instead they change the world around them. You can see this storytelling tradition in ancient Greek epics but also in the weekly/monthly heroes from the early days of mass media. Radio broadcasts of The Shadow or the Lone Ranger. Comics of Superman and Batman. Stories of detectives like Sherlock Holmes and Inspector Poirot.
The whole reason millions of people tuned in was because they never changed. They were a fixed point, a constant. The world changed but they never did. We see echoes of this same thing in sitcoms like Cheers and Seinfeld where the same characters in the same locations tell the same jokes 22 times a year for 10 years.
Instead of devouring Swords v. Cthulhu in a handful of sittings, spread it out. Don't binge this like it is modern prestige TV with character arcs and some overarching plot. It doesn't have any of those things. Dip into it leisurely.
A lot of the stories lean too heavily on Cthulhu's mythos. I had the same problem with Hammers on Bone. Of course one problem is simply they expect you to thrill at merely namechecking some reference from H.P. Lovecraft's writing. "Oh, it's a shub-niggurath!" But a bigger problem is it misunderstands a fundamental part of what Lovecraft was even trying to do. Why didn't Lovecraft just write about zombies and vampires and werewolves? They had all become too familiar and too formulaic to evoke true terror. In his short story "The Unnameable" he makes this point directly, that the true terrors of the universe aren't classifiable or nameable.
Yet too many of these stories rely on name-checking a classifiable terror.
But that's kind of okay. After all, just like those old issues of Weird Tales this book was never intended to be high literature. And as long as you don't read them back-to-back many of them can be quite fun.
I think the best way to approach an anthology like this is to treat it like an expanded edition of one of the old pulp magazines of yesteryear. Weird Tales was published monthly and for 25¢ you got 12-15 stories. The vast majority were pretty low-quality and have been forgotten by history. They were never meant to be great literature. And you were intended, I think, to slowly read them over the course of the month until the next issue came out.
In those days, people didn't read 30 Cthulhu or 30 Conan the Barbarian stories back-to-back. You'd read one or two a month at most because that's all that were in this month's issue. When we binge them and them complain about the repetitiveness of their themes or structure or characters or whatever, I think we're somewhat missing the point.
These stories also come from a different kind of storytelling tradition. The concept of "character arcs" has come to completely dominate modern storytelling. It has even infested superhero movies, where we can talk about Iron Man's character arc over several movies from playboy bachelor to father.
But there's another tradition where the characters don't change. Instead they change the world around them. You can see this storytelling tradition in ancient Greek epics but also in the weekly/monthly heroes from the early days of mass media. Radio broadcasts of The Shadow or the Lone Ranger. Comics of Superman and Batman. Stories of detectives like Sherlock Holmes and Inspector Poirot.
The whole reason millions of people tuned in was because they never changed. They were a fixed point, a constant. The world changed but they never did. We see echoes of this same thing in sitcoms like Cheers and Seinfeld where the same characters in the same locations tell the same jokes 22 times a year for 10 years.
Instead of devouring Swords v. Cthulhu in a handful of sittings, spread it out. Don't binge this like it is modern prestige TV with character arcs and some overarching plot. It doesn't have any of those things. Dip into it leisurely.
A lot of the stories lean too heavily on Cthulhu's mythos. I had the same problem with Hammers on Bone. Of course one problem is simply they expect you to thrill at merely namechecking some reference from H.P. Lovecraft's writing. "Oh, it's a shub-niggurath!" But a bigger problem is it misunderstands a fundamental part of what Lovecraft was even trying to do. Why didn't Lovecraft just write about zombies and vampires and werewolves? They had all become too familiar and too formulaic to evoke true terror. In his short story "The Unnameable" he makes this point directly, that the true terrors of the universe aren't classifiable or nameable.
Yet too many of these stories rely on name-checking a classifiable terror.
But that's kind of okay. After all, just like those old issues of Weird Tales this book was never intended to be high literature. And as long as you don't read them back-to-back many of them can be quite fun.
March 28, 2018
Like any collection of short stories, this one is a mixed bag. This one more mixed than most. Many of the stories seem to be repeating the same formula, with only a coat of paint to change the setting. The best ones were the ones that did not fall into that formula!
"The Lady of Shallot" by Carrie Vaughn was a nice twist on an old Arthurian classic. The twist is telegraphed pretty early on, but that just means the tension is trying to figure out when the bomb is going to go off.
"Trespassers" by A. Scott Glancy, really succeeds in capturing the sort of 19th century colonial adventure literature that just predates Lovecraft - even if the story's a bit formulaic, the stiff-upper-lip Britishness and the authenticity of the setting carry the day.
John Hornor Jacobs' "The Children of Yig" is definitely in the bounds of the formula, but his atmospheric prose and my affection for Vikings made up for that most effectively.
Orrin Grey's "A Circle That Ever Returneth In" is a choose-your-own-adventure short story, which I've never seen before! It totally works - AND it manages to pull of some unnerving and inevitable Lovecraftian horror.
"Red Sails, Dark Moon" by Andrew S. Fuller embraces the pulpy sword-and-sorcery Edgar Rice Burroughs vibe and explores the dream theme that Lovecraft often returns to. Again, so much of the tension in this story comes because we can already see the silhouette of the ending, even if it's exact face isn't clear. The horror in this story doesn't come from the cosmic - but from the human and historical.
The other stories I found unremarkable, on the whole. One thing I will say that I appreciated about all the stories was that they were very diverse - lots of women, queer people, and people of colour were represented - which is more than you can say for old Howie himself.
"The Lady of Shallot" by Carrie Vaughn was a nice twist on an old Arthurian classic. The twist is telegraphed pretty early on, but that just means the tension is trying to figure out when the bomb is going to go off.
"Trespassers" by A. Scott Glancy, really succeeds in capturing the sort of 19th century colonial adventure literature that just predates Lovecraft - even if the story's a bit formulaic, the stiff-upper-lip Britishness and the authenticity of the setting carry the day.
John Hornor Jacobs' "The Children of Yig" is definitely in the bounds of the formula, but his atmospheric prose and my affection for Vikings made up for that most effectively.
Orrin Grey's "A Circle That Ever Returneth In" is a choose-your-own-adventure short story, which I've never seen before! It totally works - AND it manages to pull of some unnerving and inevitable Lovecraftian horror.
"Red Sails, Dark Moon" by Andrew S. Fuller embraces the pulpy sword-and-sorcery Edgar Rice Burroughs vibe and explores the dream theme that Lovecraft often returns to. Again, so much of the tension in this story comes because we can already see the silhouette of the ending, even if it's exact face isn't clear. The horror in this story doesn't come from the cosmic - but from the human and historical.
The other stories I found unremarkable, on the whole. One thing I will say that I appreciated about all the stories was that they were very diverse - lots of women, queer people, and people of colour were represented - which is more than you can say for old Howie himself.
May 10, 2018
Read most of it, but skipped the last few short stories. As a collection of short stories, of course the book was hit and miss. Weird that the most compelling story was the one that was arguably the most racist. [SPOILERS AHEAD] But it's the one with colonizers (I think) and groups of army men from different countries tracking down missing people in the jungle. Then a bunch of tiny natives wearing human skins come running out and they gun them all down. It was... good! [SPOILERS END] Some stories were pretty light on the Swords and all of them were light on Cthulhu, specifically, though lots seemed to love the King in Yellow. I think I'm starting to learn that most Lovecraftian fiction is not going to be what I want it to be. Oh well.
Other side notes: The choose-your-own-adventure short story was also pretty cool.
Other side notes: The choose-your-own-adventure short story was also pretty cool.
This entire review has been hidden because of spoilers.
October 15, 2017
3.5 Stars
July 14, 2020
Shotguns are better, I suppose.
October 1, 2021
Hit and miss, as short stories often are. One I really enjoyed was “A Circle That Ever Returneth” by Orrin Grey, a fun choose your own adventure stuck in the middle of a bunch of other stories.
January 8, 2024
A very broad range of stories. Some at the beginning of the book were awesome but later on they became very disappointed and of varying quality.
July 3, 2026
Mediocre at best, a couple excellent stories and some good ones did not redeem the slew of mediocrity that plagued this collection... Don't bother for sure...
December 9, 2016
Note: I received a copy of this book from one of the editors in exchange for a review. This is an excerpt from my post on my own blog (jenna-bird.blogspot.com) about this book.
===
Most remarkable about this collection overall was the zest and gusto that I felt from many of the stories. I had a strong sense that this was reflective both of the authors and the editors in charge of the project.
Hands down, my favorite of the lot was Orrin Grey's "A Circle That Ever Returneth In" which draws the reader in with a Choose Your Own Adventure narrative, using Lovecraft's "Shining Trapezohedron" (from "The Haunter of the Dark"). Grey is deft with his application of the second-person narrative, and the piece evoked a lot of nostalgia for old D&D modules. But, lest you think the format is all fun and games, Grey doesn't let readers off the hook; this narrative is true to the sense of dread and entropy endemic to the Mythos. On my first read-through, I probably got the best ending a poor soul could hope for... (A small note: this was also the most problematic story for me to enjoy in the true spirit of things, since I was reading from a PDF. At the time of this writing, there is no digital option on Amazon, but be aware.)
In juxtaposition to Grey's playful approach, other authors offered darker and more stark stories. John Hornor Jacobs' "The Children of Yig" is one story to take a Norse approach, yet steers clear of making heroes out of a historically violent culture. Still, it was easy to slip into Grislae's story; there is always sympathy to be had, even when your protagonist is a pillaging, murdering raider--particularly when that protagonist must inevitably come up against creatures of the Mythos.
Overall, this collection is solid and I would happily recommend it to readers interested in fun stories that still remain true to the heart of despair that beats in the dark universe of the Mythos...
===
Most remarkable about this collection overall was the zest and gusto that I felt from many of the stories. I had a strong sense that this was reflective both of the authors and the editors in charge of the project.
Hands down, my favorite of the lot was Orrin Grey's "A Circle That Ever Returneth In" which draws the reader in with a Choose Your Own Adventure narrative, using Lovecraft's "Shining Trapezohedron" (from "The Haunter of the Dark"). Grey is deft with his application of the second-person narrative, and the piece evoked a lot of nostalgia for old D&D modules. But, lest you think the format is all fun and games, Grey doesn't let readers off the hook; this narrative is true to the sense of dread and entropy endemic to the Mythos. On my first read-through, I probably got the best ending a poor soul could hope for... (A small note: this was also the most problematic story for me to enjoy in the true spirit of things, since I was reading from a PDF. At the time of this writing, there is no digital option on Amazon, but be aware.)
In juxtaposition to Grey's playful approach, other authors offered darker and more stark stories. John Hornor Jacobs' "The Children of Yig" is one story to take a Norse approach, yet steers clear of making heroes out of a historically violent culture. Still, it was easy to slip into Grislae's story; there is always sympathy to be had, even when your protagonist is a pillaging, murdering raider--particularly when that protagonist must inevitably come up against creatures of the Mythos.
Overall, this collection is solid and I would happily recommend it to readers interested in fun stories that still remain true to the heart of despair that beats in the dark universe of the Mythos...
July 12, 2016
Read my complete review here: https://larvalforms.wordpress.com/201...
This is the kind of collection that makes you lie to yourself as you promise to read just one more story, just one more before you surrender to a nightmare-riddled sleep, but you’re not to be trusted and so the promises keep falling and breaking until dawn bullies the night away and reveals you, eyes dry and heart stammering and this beautiful big volume of short story-shaped terrors clutched in your trembling hands.
But gratuitous metaphors aside, this is a superb anthology that mates pulp madness with a seriously sharp sense of character and world-building and blind, sweat-soaked terror, giving us a unique creature far removed from the herd of pallid pastiche that can be a danger for any anthology with Cthulhu (or other related Mythos terms) in its title.
Read my complete review here: https://larvalforms.wordpress.com/201...
This is the kind of collection that makes you lie to yourself as you promise to read just one more story, just one more before you surrender to a nightmare-riddled sleep, but you’re not to be trusted and so the promises keep falling and breaking until dawn bullies the night away and reveals you, eyes dry and heart stammering and this beautiful big volume of short story-shaped terrors clutched in your trembling hands.
But gratuitous metaphors aside, this is a superb anthology that mates pulp madness with a seriously sharp sense of character and world-building and blind, sweat-soaked terror, giving us a unique creature far removed from the herd of pallid pastiche that can be a danger for any anthology with Cthulhu (or other related Mythos terms) in its title.
Read my complete review here: https://larvalforms.wordpress.com/201...
December 30, 2017
Peculiar recopilación de relatos publicada en inglés por stone skin press como acompañante de otro volumen titulado Shotguns v. Cthulhu, unidos por la intención de contar historias diferentes de los Mitos, con una mayor dosis de acción y aventura pero sin perder de vista el referente de horror de Lovecraft. La lista de autores carece de grandes nombres, muchos de ellos no tienen obras traducidas, siendo los más conocidos para mi Johnatan L. Howard (Carter & Lovecraft) o Adam Scott Glancy (coautor del Delta Green).
http://aventurasextraordinarias.blogs...
http://aventurasextraordinarias.blogs...
November 15, 2019
These stories were OK. There were a few relatively absorbing ones, but none that I felt really blew me away. A good number were fairly mediocre. I think I might be starting to tire of Cthulhu. One can only take so many tentacles.
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