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Earth, Air, Fire & Water: Four Tales of Elemental Mythos Horror!
Brian Lumley's been writing Mythos tales for 50 years now. Among his early stories were "Rising With Surtsey"--August Derleth placed it between Fritz Leiber and Ramsey Campbell pieces in TALES OF THE CTHULHU MYTHOS--and "The Caller of the Black," in Arkham House's 1971 collection of that title. As editor after Derleth's passing, Ramsey Campbell put Lumley's "The Second Wish" after Stephen King's and before Frank Belknap Long's stories in NEW TALES OF THE CTHULHU MYTHOS--and on and on.
While today he may be best known for the highly-acclaimed NECROSCOPE books and RPG, Brian has never stopped writing Mythos stories. This collection spans from 1975 to the present, thematically selected. Developing Derleth's idea that one way mere humans could try to grasp Mythos horrors was to consider them as Elementals, these yarns expand upon the pulpiest aspects. If you like your Mythos with numerology, amulets, and otherworldly talismans, this one's for you!
Includes "The Gathering"--a previously-unpublished novel-length story original to this book--along with "Lord of the Worms," "Born of the Winds," and "The Changeling," each introduced by the author.
While today he may be best known for the highly-acclaimed NECROSCOPE books and RPG, Brian has never stopped writing Mythos stories. This collection spans from 1975 to the present, thematically selected. Developing Derleth's idea that one way mere humans could try to grasp Mythos horrors was to consider them as Elementals, these yarns expand upon the pulpiest aspects. If you like your Mythos with numerology, amulets, and otherworldly talismans, this one's for you!
Includes "The Gathering"--a previously-unpublished novel-length story original to this book--along with "Lord of the Worms," "Born of the Winds," and "The Changeling," each introduced by the author.
- GenresHorrorCthulhu Mythos
327 pages, Hardcover
Published January 1, 2017
32 people want to read
About the author
Brian Lumley
443 books1,361 followersBrian Lumley was born near Newcastle. In 22 years as a Military Policeman he served in many of the Cold War hotspots, including Berlin, as well as Cyprus in partition days. He reached the rank of Sergeant-Major before retiring to Devon to write full-time, and his work was first published in 1970. The vampire series, 'Necroscope', has been translated into ten languages and sold over a million copies worldwide.
He was awarded the World Fantasy Life Achievement Award in 2010.
He was awarded the World Fantasy Life Achievement Award in 2010.
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Displaying 1 - 7 of 7 reviews
January 17, 2018
Wow. What a great way to rediscover one of my favorite high school authors!!
Now, this only applies to the hardcover edition, but this book was simply gorgeous. ❤ ❤ ❤
A beautiful gold embossed Cthulhu on a black cover. Wonderful cover art as usual by Bob Eggleton. And this is probably a really weird thing to focus on, but the smell of this book was simply divine!!
K, onto the actual content.
I took a gamble with this one. Two of them were stories I had read before (granted, waaaaaay back in high school, so they almost counted as new readings), with the main draw to this book being the newly published novel The Gathering and the recently published novella The Changeling.
There weren’t really any informative reviews of this book out there, but I saw Mr. Lumley had written an exclusive new Mythos story. After having really enjoyed re-reading The Taint last year, I didn’t want to pass on the chance.
So… was it worth the price of entry?
……
…………
……………….
…………………. YES
YES YES YES YES YES
It was a wonderfully moody and visually beautiful sequel to It covers the element of Fire, though as Lumley describes in his intro for it, what about cold fire…? Mr. Lumley deals with Deep Ones so well... and this story is yet another hit. It’s quite a fascinating look at those poor hybrid souls who aren’t quite enough of either side of their heritage to belong in either Deep One or human society. It humanizes the Deep One hybrids without losing their alienness and aspects of their culture that would clash with humanity. This was everything I had hoped for a modern Deep One tale. Great story.
The Changeling was a much shorter yet still solid story. It covers the Water element and also deals with Deep Ones (sort of?) but in a more traditional story. I like the connection to changeling stories.
I thoroughly enjoyed being re-acquainted with the aforementioned Lord of the Worms (blegh, so nasty yet so good) and Born of the Winds (Ithaqua yes please).
LotW is a wonderful start to Titus Crow’s occult career, though apparently not his origin story? Guess I need to get on that. Great use of icky squicky maggot worm things (ughh) and has all of those campy Mythos tropes like evil sorcerers and grimoires that I love in a light entertaining Cthulhu Mythos story. Carstairs was great in his role. This was the Earth element.
BotW is just great all around and covers the Air element.. I was hoping to read this during the snowy season, but since this doesn’t seem to be happening this year I decided to say screw it to the weather and read it anyway. And I’m glad I did. I love stories with scions of divine heritage! Such a sucker for them everytime.
Think my fascination with heritage and augmented humans is part of my neverending fascination with the Deep Ones too….
In short, if you’re a fan of Lumley’s Mythos stories, this is a great addition to his work. The hardcover does have hardcover prices though, and as of writing this that is currently the only edition available.
Now, this only applies to the hardcover edition, but this book was simply gorgeous. ❤ ❤ ❤
A beautiful gold embossed Cthulhu on a black cover. Wonderful cover art as usual by Bob Eggleton. And this is probably a really weird thing to focus on, but the smell of this book was simply divine!!
K, onto the actual content.
I took a gamble with this one. Two of them were stories I had read before (granted, waaaaaay back in high school, so they almost counted as new readings), with the main draw to this book being the newly published novel The Gathering and the recently published novella The Changeling.
There weren’t really any informative reviews of this book out there, but I saw Mr. Lumley had written an exclusive new Mythos story. After having really enjoyed re-reading The Taint last year, I didn’t want to pass on the chance.
So… was it worth the price of entry?
……
…………
……………….
…………………. YES
YES YES YES YES YES
It was a wonderfully moody and visually beautiful sequel to It covers the element of Fire, though as Lumley describes in his intro for it, what about cold fire…? Mr. Lumley deals with Deep Ones so well... and this story is yet another hit. It’s quite a fascinating look at those poor hybrid souls who aren’t quite enough of either side of their heritage to belong in either Deep One or human society. It humanizes the Deep One hybrids without losing their alienness and aspects of their culture that would clash with humanity. This was everything I had hoped for a modern Deep One tale. Great story.
The Changeling was a much shorter yet still solid story. It covers the Water element and also deals with Deep Ones (sort of?) but in a more traditional story. I like the connection to changeling stories.
I thoroughly enjoyed being re-acquainted with the aforementioned Lord of the Worms (blegh, so nasty yet so good) and Born of the Winds (Ithaqua yes please).
LotW is a wonderful start to Titus Crow’s occult career, though apparently not his origin story? Guess I need to get on that. Great use of icky squicky maggot worm things (ughh) and has all of those campy Mythos tropes like evil sorcerers and grimoires that I love in a light entertaining Cthulhu Mythos story. Carstairs was great in his role. This was the Earth element.
BotW is just great all around and covers the Air element.. I was hoping to read this during the snowy season, but since this doesn’t seem to be happening this year I decided to say screw it to the weather and read it anyway. And I’m glad I did. I love stories with scions of divine heritage! Such a sucker for them everytime.
Think my fascination with heritage and augmented humans is part of my neverending fascination with the Deep Ones too….
In short, if you’re a fan of Lumley’s Mythos stories, this is a great addition to his work. The hardcover does have hardcover prices though, and as of writing this that is currently the only edition available.
August 28, 2019
Brian Lumley is a British horror writer who, among other things, writes stories based in H. P. Lovecraft’s Cthulhu Mythos, complete with purple prose and erratic punctuation. "Earth, Air, Fire & Water" consists of four such stories, including “Lord of Worms” (originally published in 1983), “Born of the Winds” (1975), “The Changeling” (2012) and, representing fire, “The Gathering,” a long novella original to this volume. As a long-time fan of Lovecraft’s work, I really admire how well Mr. Lumley captures that style of writing and how true to the mythos his plots and prose are. I’m not sure if a reader unfamiliar with Lovecraft would “get” these stories, but for those of us who are familiar, this is a very entertaining volume in that fantasy realm; recommended!
February 10, 2025
I have previously read the first two stories. However, since I enjoyed them I thought I would give the other two a chance.
The Gathering was more eerie than anything else. The small town with strange locals is a good setting. Plus this story does what I think a lot of post-Lovecraft mythos works should do, re-visit setting in the “modern day” to see how things change. I am familiar with Lumley works and I feel I have read versions of this story before but if you are unfamiliar with him you should enjoy it.
The Changeling is probably the weakest story here. Like the gathering I feel like Lumley has written a better version of his (in this case Haggopian). Still a fun story but nothing ground breaking.
The other two stories are pretty strong.
Lord of the Worms was my first introduction to Titus Crow, Lumley’s occult detective. It’s fun story that seems to take inspiration from Dracula. Titus takes the position of Jonathan Harker but is very different from him.
Born of the Winds uses Derleth’s creation of Ithaqua and has him father people with strange powers. It’s a good story that Lumley builds off of in his Titus Crow series, Spawn of the Winds and In the Moons of Borea.
The Gathering was more eerie than anything else. The small town with strange locals is a good setting. Plus this story does what I think a lot of post-Lovecraft mythos works should do, re-visit setting in the “modern day” to see how things change. I am familiar with Lumley works and I feel I have read versions of this story before but if you are unfamiliar with him you should enjoy it.
The Changeling is probably the weakest story here. Like the gathering I feel like Lumley has written a better version of his (in this case Haggopian). Still a fun story but nothing ground breaking.
The other two stories are pretty strong.
Lord of the Worms was my first introduction to Titus Crow, Lumley’s occult detective. It’s fun story that seems to take inspiration from Dracula. Titus takes the position of Jonathan Harker but is very different from him.
Born of the Winds uses Derleth’s creation of Ithaqua and has him father people with strange powers. It’s a good story that Lumley builds off of in his Titus Crow series, Spawn of the Winds and In the Moons of Borea.
December 16, 2022
One simply cannot g wrong with Lumley.
July 1, 2024
Another wonderful collection of Lovecraftian tales from an undisputed master of Mythos fiction. A definite must-read for fans of the subgenre.
December 21, 2021
A fantastic collection of "elemental" mythos stories each corresponding to different elements. My personal favorite being Lord of Worms featuring Titus Crow. Lumley fans may have seen most of these before, however, The Gathering is a new story written just for this collection.
November 13, 2022
Really enjoyed these, Lumley has a gift for this type of fiction. Worth the read imho.
Displaying 1 - 7 of 7 reviews