Cthulhu's Reign

by Darrell Schweitzer (Editor)

Some of the darkest hints in all of H.P. Lovecraft's Cthulhu Mythos relate to what will happen after the Old Ones return and take over the earth. In "The Dunwich Horror," the semi-human half-breed Wilbur Whateley speaks in his diary of travelling to nonhuman cities at the Earth's magnetic poles "when the Earth is cleared off," and hints at his own promised "transfiguration." Very few Mythos stories have ever touched on this. What happens when the Stars Are Right, the sunken city of R'lyeh rises from beneath the waves, and Cthulhu is unleashed upon the world for the last time? What happens when the other Old Ones, long since banished from our universe, break through and descent from the stars? What would the reign of Cthulhu be like, on a totally transformed planet where mankind is no longer the master?

It won't be simply the end of everything. It will be a time of new horrors and of utter strangeness. It will be a time when humans with a "taint" of unearthly blood in their ancestry may come into their own. It will be a time foreseen only by authors with the kind of finely honed imaginative visions as those included in Cthulhu's Reign

Genres: Horror, Lovecraftian, Anthologies, Short Stories, Cthulhu Mythos, Fiction, Science Fiction

309 pages, Mass Market Paperback

First published April 2, 2010

About the author

Darrell Schweitzer is an American writer, editor, and essayist in the field of speculative fiction. Much of his focus has been on dark fantasy and horror, although he does also work in science fiction and fantasy.

Schweitzer is also a prolific writer of literary criticism and editor of collections of essays on various writers within his preferred genres.

Reviews

[Paulo "paper books only" · Rating 2 out of 5]

It all comes to... Meh!
Some of this stories are good but most are just average to poor.

Lovecraftian theme is about a cosmic horror that is looming over our heads but it's never fulfilled. It's like in those movies that say... "We escaped" and someones replies "For now...". Hopelessness of it all. The not understanding of what's happenning and the toll on our usual main character because it's to impossible to bear and insanity takes hold.

Well with that said a book about Cthulhu winning and/or other old ones arrive to conquer our world is against the Lovecraftian theme. BUT I am not so closed minded so let us see... because after all...

[image error]

I must say the best are the ones that stick to the theme. I am sorry but some of them are quite frankly too... unlovecraftian to my liking. Some of them if you would change the name of the beast/god or whatever is assailing our world to BLARGHT and it should suffice to enter another anthology of great beasts like Fading Light: An Anthology of the Monstrous but I am afraid that they would be between the worse of the lot. I won't be reviewing them all because as I said they are not that good.


"Walker in the Cemetery" by Ian Watson is one of the best of the lot. It has lovecraftian theme and the ending was good (it means it ends badly as most stories within). I enjoy the plot and as they thought that the CERN could be involved in it.

"Spherical Trigonometry" by Japanese writer Ken Asamatsu - This was one odd tale that ended... well even poorly than the tale itself. Angles or curves. This tale idea is from Frank Belknap Long that said that Tindalos come from angles and humankind comes from curves. So what better way to escape them? Built a curve house where everything has curves and not angles. Good idea but not so good execution.

Will Murry - "What brings the void" is a good tale in its own. Shub-Nigurath machines are burning humans. But Why? A man sets his mind to discover (a supposedly govermnent guy). The ending was good. The talking between the being and the human was... not so interesting. Why would Shub talk to him? We are not even rats but parasites infestnig a world. That's why most these stories failed to achieve what lovecraft created. We are worms. We don't talk to worms do we? We barely acknoledge they exist. But okay story nevertheless.

"The new Pauline Corpus" by Matt Cardin is a good theolgican piece of fiction about Christianity and Cthulhu. After all Christ was Cthulhu? Is Jerusalem R'lyeh?

Ghost Dancing by Darrell Schweitzer is another of those tales that make you think how humankind would proccess with the information about the coming of an unspeakable evil.

The Seals of new R'lyeh by Gregory Frost is good tale with a good twist in the end.

Now we arrive at the best tale of the lot. Brian Stableford's The Holocaust of Ecstasy is very good lovecraftian tale. He is one of my favourite writers out there and once again it prooves why. It's almost a theological / biological debate about the coming of Cthulhu.


But believe me when I say... there are a lot of good anthologies out there. These themed theme was a fiasco in my opinion. The idea behind of lovecraft is what we all know. I am sorry but this anthology didn't convinced. Most stories were simple and futile. Even some that I mention above are weak. I only mention because if I had not I would have a review with two or three tales.

In my opinion - Lovecraft wouldn't have enjoy this anthology.

[Alexander Peterhans · Rating 2 out of 5]

A collection of short cosmic horror stories, about what happens when the Old Ones finally invade and eviscerate our world, or after that has happened.

And a collection that could've been great with a bit more editorial control. The writers seemingly have all gotten the same brief, and although there is variation, there is not enough of it. If only the compiler had given groups of authors different ages to write about (so some would write stories during the apocalypse, some directly after, some fifty years after, etc), the collection could've been more interesting.

That said, there are some great stories here, just not nearly enough.

The Walker In The Cemetery - 4 stars
Sanctuary - 4 stars
Her Acres Of Pastoral Playground - 3 stars
Spherical Trigonometry - 3.5 stars
What Brings The Void - 2 stars
The New Pauline Corpus - 2 stars
Ghost Dancing - 3 stars
This Is How The World Ends - 3 stars
The Shallows - 2 stars
Such Bright And Risen Madness - 3 stars
In Our Names - 3 stars
The Seals Of New R’Lyeh - 3.5 stars
The Holocaust Of Ecstasy - 3 stars
Vastation - 2 stars
Nothing Personal - 2 stars
Remnants - 3 stars

[Benjamin Thomas · Rating 2 out of 5]

What happens after the Old Ones of the Cthulhu mythos finally make good on the ever-out-there threat, wake up from their eons-long slumber and take over the planet? Well, it's not good, I can tell you that.

I was hoping to enjoy this anthology far better than I did. Out of 15 stories, I can only say that I really liked two of them with another handful falling into the meh category and the rest simply abysmal (pun intended). I've read every H.P. Lovecraft story ever published and knew what to expect. I've also consumed a number of other Lovecraftian horror stories from other authors as well as being a current "Call of Cthulhu" RPG player. So of course I was prepared for a lot of end-of-the-world stories filled with tentacled monsters and other strange creatures of the deep. What I wasn't prepared for was a lot of stories where the authors seem not to have ever read a single Lovecraftian story before. I got the feeling that some of the stories in here were previously written unpublished stories that the authors adopted for this new anthology project by changing some names of their monsters to sound Lovecraftian or throw in a few references to some being called Cthulhu.

Putting that aside, I still struggled to get through the majority of these tales. Perhaps they just weren't my cup of tea but I found them either boring or simply didn't care for the characters or what happened to them. Occasionally, I found myself rooting for the monsters just to hurry up and get to the end of that story.

The best of the batch was "What Brings the Void" by the always reliable Will Murray, notable in that his tale was very much in the Lovecraftian mold which is not surprising given his scholarly approach to channeling authors. And, it's the only reason this volume is avoiding the single star review.

[Tim Pendry · Rating 3 out of 5]

This new anthology of original work has a simple postulate - that Cthulhu and his monstrously indifferent hordes have arrived and that humanity has to die or survive in their midst.

After that, the writers have been left to their imaginations and, as you might expect, the results are highly variable, crossing genres and even the two traditions of the mythos (orthodox Lovecraftian and heterodox, and tainted to us purists, Derlethian).

The best are short and keep to the essence of Lovecraft - a sense of unease or cosmic horror at the world turned upside down and a hint of psychological states that are mad in form but real in content. There is a fair anount of the visceral but none of the writers over-indulge and the one that is most brutal in this respect (Ian Watson's) is fully justified by the story line.

Watson's has a pure Lovecraftian title, 'The Walker in the Cemetery' and others of this quality include contributions by Mike Allen with his psychological nightmare 'Her Acres of Pastoral Playground' as well as a tale of true spiritual horror that will unnerve anyone with faith in religion in Will Murray's 'What Brings The Void'.

There is a bleak but thought-provoking tale of mutating human resistance in the cracks of the new world from Jay Lake in 'Such Bright and Risen Madness in Our Names' and a work of true imaginative cosmic horror in 'The Holocaust of Ecstasy' from that old master Brian Stableford.

Indeed, only Stableford thinks his way with any depth into the Mythos, creating an extension of it that is a cogent update of Lovecraft's own vision, not dwelling on the horror of pain and suffering caused by the monsters but, like Will Murray, on the utter cold indifference of Lovecaft's creations to what we aspire to or want.

The underlying horror of the Mythos is that forces out there are not our enemy, we are just in the way. It is our projection of what we do to flies, wasps, slugs and cockroaches. 'As flies to wanton boys are we to the gods, they kill us for their sport' (King Lear).

Others are good enough anthology material - solid work by Don Webb that echoes Stephen King (a good mix of the two masters' styles in 'Sanctuary'), Matt Cardin's noble attempt to get inside the skin of a theologian of the new regime, a traditional tale that slips over the edge into acceptability from John R. Fultz and a jolly bit of adventure with no side to it from Gregory Frost.

Laird Barron's ambitious but ultimately over-written 'Vastation' gets an honourable mention for effort - this could be a seriously good book with some discipline but cannot be contained within a short story.

As a footnote, in a book with remarkably little contemporary commentary and thankfully no obvious fashionable eco-think, Don Webb neatly manages to bring the current and recent scandal of priestly paedophilia into play but the instinct of the writers is to make the stories highly personal and familial or get lost in Golden Age tropes or accept that the new world of Cthulhu can have little concern with the old and will present us with existential challenges that place our current concerns as trivial.

The interesting psychological aspect of the anthology is that, faced with radical cosmic horror, the story tellers tend to let the destruction of humanity be pictured like a Hollywood disaster movie and then move on, consciously or subconsciously, quickly and far away from the social towards family, buddy and individual responses.

The irony, of course, is that Cthulhu's indifference results in a form of Stirnerism in which individuals shrink back into their existential selves with concern only for the remnants immediately around them. Is this what would happen if Professor Hawking is right and the aliens that we may attract one day are powerful and malign? Are we not, after all, more like rats than ants?

On the other hand, a few writers (who I will have the good manners not to name) are prolix and obscure in that way that only some self-consciously literary Americans can be or are just plain lazy, predictable, obvious and dull while the closing 'hopeful' Derlethian space opera (well hopeful, if the billions that currently make up the human race survives as a boy, an autistic girl, a tired mum and a dog, all of course from an American professorial family), which I hope was written in ironically pedestrian style with a deliberate lack of imagination, should not be in there at all. The least interesting always seem to be the longest tales.

In other words, like all new and original anthologies, it is a mix of talent with diamonds amongst the rough. Recommended for hard line Cthulhu addicts but the rest of humanity may be puzzled by the in-references or depressed by the sheer hopelessness of much of the best content.

[Michael · Rating 4 out of 5]

Interesting collection of Cthulhu Mythos stories. Most of the Lovecraftian tales I've read in the past seemed to be concerned with the calling of the various Gods, the opening of the seals and the like - 'Cthulhu's Reign' instead concentrates on what happens AFTER Cthulhu and other Great Old One baddies have risen and made the Earth their bitch.

In other words, us humans are effed.

Some of my favorites: "Spherical Trignonometry" (Ken Asamatsu) - where a non-angular shelter is built to try and survive the invasion, "Sanctuary" (Don Webb) - a regular Joe in the Texas boonies runs an errand for a priest & "The Walker in the Cemetery" (Ian Watson) - in which there's a new wrinkle added in that Cthulhu Saves... so he can have breeding stock.

There were stories that didn't quite connect with me, possibly because my mind wasn't expanded enough from the influx of the right type of chemicals to understand them, a couple being "The Holocaust of Ecstasy" (Brian Stableford) - a tale which makes the reveal at the end of Stephen King's 'Revival' sound totally sane by comparison, and "Vastation" (Laird Barron) - which is just OUT.THERE. I'll say this for Barron's tale; it was vast in scope.

A nice change of pace for Mythos tales.

[Bogdan · Rating 4 out of 5]

This Anthology doesn`t have great ratings, mostly two or three stars, and for half a book those ratigs were so true to me, also.

But after that, more precisely after the story of the guy that has made this Anthology, Darrell Schweitzer, with a story that I knew and I liked, the writing was brighter, diversified & more likable.

There were a lot of good and new ideas that changed my mind and made me to think that this Anthology really deserves a try from a true Lovecraft fan.

Because I had the book on my shelf for quite a while, but the low & poor opinions made me always to skip it.

So, there are some really entertaining stories, but also some boring ones, maybe the percent it`s 50-50, but overall, for me, I felt that it definitely worth the time I spent with this one! And you should try it as well!

[Joshua Palmatier · Rating 3 out of 5]

Cthulhu’s Reign

As you can imagine, an anthology based on the idea of Cthulhu Rising once again and the return of the Old Ones isn’t exactly full of happy moments. Most of these stories have somber or disturbing endings, with a few humorous ones sprinkled in for flavor. Keeping that in mind before you start reading is a good idea, although most of those who will be drawn to this anthology will already expect that, having read Lovecraft. There are some strong stories in here, enough to make purchasing the anthology worthwhile I think. I’ve marked my two favorites in bold, but there were some other good reads as well. A couple of the stories didn’t catch my attention or hold it at all, but that’s to be expected in any anthology. I think Darrell Schweitzer, the editor, tried for a wide variety of stories to reach the widest audience, so having a few I didn’t particularly like wasn’t a surprise.

The stories seem to begin with those set with the Rising in our own times, then tending toward Risings or Returns that occur in the future, so the most SF-oriented stories are at the end. I will also mention that I have not read Lovecraft, so I can’t comment on how true the stories are to the source material. But I also don’t feel like the stories require that the reader have read Lovecraft. I enjoyed many of these regardless, and don’t think the ones I “didn’t quite get” were because I haven’t read Lovecraft.

The Walker in the Cemetery by Ian Watson: When Cthulhu rises in this story, a group of sightseeing tourists get trapped inside a cemetery complex in Genoa. Some kind of field is erected around the necropolis, keeping them from the outside world. After this, the tourists are picked off one by one by Cthulhu, who also feeds them, until there is only one left . . . someone who must suffer a different, and more horrible, fate. This had a well-defined plot and played with the psychology of the characters in an interesting way.

Sanctuary by Don Webb: Here we see what life after the Rising might be like in a small Texas town called Doublesign. Some interesting plays on the reality of our world here, more reminiscent of Lovecraft than in the previous story. The plot here was more or less just stage props for how the world has changed and how people may (or may not) be adjusting to those changes.

Her Acres of Pastoral Playground by Mike Allen: I really liked this story. It was creepy and interesting and didn’t deal with the way the world dealt with the Rising, but rather with how a single man dealt with it, and is dealing with it still. A quiet story that doesn’t chill you with hideous blatant threats, but rather much more subtle and insidious ones. I can’t really say much about the plot without ruining it though.

Spherical Trigonometry by Ken Asamatsu (translated by Edward Lipsett): The main premise of the Rising here is that Cthulhu invades through sharp angles, so a rich businessman builds a place of escape made only of curved surfaces, only to discover that he perhaps took the idea of angles too literally. As a mathematician I found the idea of buildings such a structure interesting to think about, but I’m not sure the twist at the end here was completely pulled off.

What Brings the Void by Will Murray: Here, the main character is a “remote viewer” and the government, struggling to survive in the new world, sends him to figure out what exactly the invaders are doing in a factory building outside of the void that was Richmond, Virginia. What he finds out gives a rather solid reason for why the Old Ones returned, what they are here for in the first place, probably the first story so far that tries to tackle that idea. The beginning of the story is a little rough, but it settles down.

The New Pauline Corpus by Matt Cardin: This story was a little bit difficult to read because the main character is reading from an academic paper (or is creating the paper, the distinction gets blurred toward the end on purpose) trying to reconcile the Rising with Christian religious scripture, so its heavily philosophical. The reconciliation is interesting (I won’t spoil it by giving the basics of the interpretation) but there was little personal story for it hinged on.

Ghost Dancing by Darrell Schweitzer: This story tackles one of the possible reasons for why the return of Cthulhu occurred in the first place and how some of the survivors are attempting to find their own place in the new hierarchy. A good, personal story with some horrific connotations, such as the fact that maybe the actions of only a few people destroyed the world.

This is How the World Ends by John R. Fultz: This is probably one of the more gruesome stories so far, although what happens is expected. Here, we get to see some of the survivors taking refuge in a mine. A slightly different outcome in the end, in terms of perspective. An interesting read. Made me shudder. *grin*

The Shallows by John Langan: I really enjoyed this story as well, one of my favorites. We see how the main character is dealing with the destruction of the world, with him revealing what’s happened slowly as he tells his new pet—a kind of crablike creature—about his wife and son. So we get to see what his world was like before, and we get to see how he’s surviving now. The normalcy of his life is made subtly horrific by the changes he’s made and has to deal with.

Such Bright and Risen Madness in Our Names by Jay Lake: Now this story is a slightly different twist on the main theme. Sure Cthulhu has risen, but here we have some resistance groups with a radical concept: don’t fight the monsters, fight the humans who revere and support them. Great idea. I was interested enough I wanted the story to be expanded.

The Seals of New R’lyeh by Gregory Frost: This story had a much lighter tone than the rest, sort of a humorous, tongue-in-cheek slant on the theme of the anthology. Mostly this comes from the set of characters at the heart of the story. It was a quick easy read, and things don’t work out as expected, but at least the main character was trying to rectify the situation.

The Holocaust of Ecstasy by Brian Stableford: This story was simply . . . weird, in a good way. It’s by far the most bizarre story that is still easy to read and follow. It takes the idea that when Cthulhu rises, the world will be significantly different, perhaps unrecognizable, and the world presented here is definitely extremely odd. But in an interesting way. Not much of a narrative here, except an exploration of this new world and some philosophical thoughts.

Vastation by Laird Barron: I had a hard time with this story, mostly because I couldn’t associate to the main character. His voice wasn’t easy to follow, and he wasn’t exactly someone you could like, and I wasn’t certain exactly how Cthulhu fit into the scheme of things. There’s a section where perhaps there’s a comment on technology and that somehow WE are Cthulhu (brought about by the science), which was the most interesting part of the story for me, but it wasn’t clear if that was the intent.

Nothing Personal by Richard A. Lupoff: The Rising occurs in the future here, with a rather nice explanation of why it happens rarely. A solid explanation for the Rising and the end of the world and why it occurs and why the Old Ones seek retribution against humanity (and why they’d even deign to notice us). And I liked the twist at the end. One of the better stories in the anthology.

Remnants by Fred Chappell: This is by far the longest story in the anthology, probably a novelette or novella. Also one of the more interesting ones, with two very distinct voices in the two main narrators. A unique idea, with one race attempting to save some of the survivors of the return of the Old Ones on Earth. A great way to end the anthology and certainly one of the stories that I enjoyed.

[Steve · Rating 4 out of 5]

This is turning out better than I would of thought. I was worried about the narrow premise for the collection (life after Cthulhu arrives), but it's turning out to be a brilliant idea. I'm sure there are some clinkers ahead, but 100 pages in, pretty good. It's an interesting contrast reading this, and Datlow's Lovecraft Unbound. In her effort, Datlow sought some distance from the Lovecraftian universe, trying to show just how flexible that universe could be. As I said earlier regarding that collection, the results were very mixed. The handful of great stories were really good. But so many others, meh! Now here, in Cthulu Rising, there is an unashamed embracing of Lovecraft's creepy creatures, and you're left with wonderful B movie feel. So far:

The Walker in the Cemetery, by Ian Watson. A group of tourists touring a famous Genoa cemetery, when the "Change" occurs. One member records the tragic events. Very B feel to this one, but the ending has the story making an effective literary leap.

Sanctuary, by Don Webb. I really liked this one. The last days around Santa Cruz, and a young Mexican American trying protect his family, and keep the faith. Powerful ending to this one.

Her Acres of Pastoral Playground, by Mike Allen. A man tries to hold on to his sanity, as reality blurs.

Spherical Trigonometry, by Ken Asamatsu. Basically, a Lovecraftian Masque of Red Death. Rich Japanese tycoon with an interest in the occult, trying create a safe zone away from "Them." Very B movie. Loved it. More to come...

*Update. I don't have time right now to rate the rest, but the best remaining stories are:

"The Pauline Corpus," by Matt Cardin. Might be the most interesting story in the collection, though "story" might not be the right word. It's more like a meditation on Good and Evil in the time of Cthulhu, via the pen of a new "Paul."

"Ghost Dancing," by the collection's editor, Darrell Schweitzer. Back to End Time Pulp, and in a good way.

"Such Bright and Risen Madness," by Jay Lake. One of the few stories in this bleak collection that offers some hope, which is because there seems to be some human will to resist -- even against the odds.

"The holocaust of ecstasy," by Brian Stableford. Something of meditation as well, but really weird and disturbing, with reincarnation and evolution and really funny trees.

"Vastation," by Laird Barron. Not my favorite by Barron, but still interesting. I'm not totally sure what was going on, but within the context of the collection, it offers some (very black) comedic relief.

Overall, I think is a much better value than Datlow's "Lovecraft Unbound.

[Kingsgrave · Rating 1 out of 5]

Opening this anthology with a blatant 'this is an excuse to write tentacle rape' story does not inspire me with confidence in the editor's judgment. I don't know when I'll pick this up again, but at present, I can say I've got much better things to spend my limited reading time on.

[Mrs Giggles · Rating 2 out of 5]

One thing about HP Lovecraft: he never, as far as I could remember, went into detail as to what happened to the world once those tentacled jelly-blobs from outer dimensions started to take over the world. Darrell Schweitzer attempts to put together an anthology that tells me about life on earth once the Old Ones come to play, and I could only wonder that the late Mr Lovecraft never did this because he knew the end result would be so monotonous.

Or maybe it's a problem caused by the fact that the stories here are similar not only in that all the authors have penises (or at least I hope they do), these authors also come up with depressingly similar themes and concepts in their stories. They are all uniformly predictable: the world is screwed up, people are made into blob-squid chow, and yet, some people still act like they are in a zombie apocalypse movie.

Ian Watson kicks things off with something so ridiculously absurd, at least. The Walker In The Cemetery tells of a group of tourists making the rounds at Genoan cemeteries when the tentacles show up. They find themselves trapped, but the priest - there's always one - decides that they can save themselves if they kill some mini-Cthulhu thing that spawned from Big Daddy Cthulhu, only to find Big Daddy Cthulhu taunting them by providing them with food (don't ask me where the food came from, and I don't know what to know) as he kills them off one by one. Oh, and tentacle rape happens, complete with involuntary ecstasy and subsequent pregnancy. Fun for the whole family! This one is so ridiculous that I can't help feeling that it is so bad that it is so, so good.

In Sanctuary, Don Webb tells of our hero who is charged to retrieve a Bible on behalf of a priest from a ruined bookstore. Times are hard for people since the Old Ones rose from their sleep. In fact, it's almost like the zombies in the original draft of this story had been scratched out to make way for the Old One minions so that this story can fit into this anthology!

Mike Allen tries to contrast the perfect Utopia with the nightmarish realm of the Old Ones, in this story where a man has a seemingly perfect family and they live a perfect life... except, things are never what they seem in Her Acres Of Pastoral Playground. This one is pretty disquieting, but at the same thing, it's not exactly something that bowls me over.

Ken Asamatsu's Spherical Trigonometry was originally in Japanese, so Edward Lipsett graciously translated this story for everyone. This one has a very rich commissioning a large shelter in anticipation of the rise of the Old Ones. This shelter has no angles, just like everything else inside, because he believes that those monsters creep into our dimension through angles. Our hero's wife is a scientist that built this structure, and when the monsters strike ahead of schedule, our hero and his wife find themselves fleeing with the rich bloke and that man's wife into that shelter. No angles... that means they will be safe there. Right? This story is easily the best of the lot - solid build-up and fantastic gross-out moments.

Will Murray imagines a world ruled by the Old Ones in What Brings The Void as one depressingly similar to the world ruled by machines in the Terminator movies. An US operative with the ability to project his soul out of his body and spy on things unseen is charged to infiltrate an Old One human-processing factory. A certain Shub-Niggurath is bemused by his feeble efforts. This one is too predictable for its own good.

Matt Cardin wants to do some kind of amazing sacrilege by putting Cthulhu into the New Testament in The New Pauline Corpus. The result is a very effective sleeping pill. Long, rambling sentences describing the author's navel are not my thing, sorry.

Darrell Schweitzer's story is Ghost Dancing, where a man is summoned by an old friend to his hometown. He isn't keen to go back, because there was something he did with his friend that might have plunged the world into the tentacle-infested hell it is these days. This is a story of redemption featuring my favorite kind of stoic bastard antihero. I can see the ending come from a mile away, but still, this is one of the better stories in this anthology.

The hero in John R Fultz's This Is How The World Ends is one of the survivors in a post-"Hello humans, we are the Old Ones and we own your asses!" party Earth and, in this story, his entire band is wiped out except for a pregnant woman. Now, really, where I have read that story before? The tropes are there, predictable, and that's about it.

John Langan also attempts to contrast the mundane against the hellish by having the narrator of The Shallows reminisce about an incident involving his family in the past, an apparently mundane incident compared to the world he currently lives in. This one is a mildly interesting read, and by this point, I'm really bored of the constant similarity running through the stories in this anthology. How about some dancing Cthulhu for a change?

In Gregory Frost's The Seals Of New R'lyeh, thieving bastards are like cockroaches - they thrive even when humanity is pulverized by the Old Ones. This one is mildly humorous at places due to the author's dry wit, but it's the same old, same old by this point in the anthology.

Brian Stableford's The Ecstasy Of Holocaust has a protagonist ramble on and on about... a holocaust, or maybe about the hairs poking out from the author's belly button. I'm bored.

Laird Barron has a deity-like fellow, who can hop through time and possess people's body, essentially living forever, yammering like a tedious old cow in Vastation. Cthulhu is a minor character, a pimple on the narrator's wide rear end of an ego. Oh yes, the world is doomed, it's like a zombie apocalypse without the zombies, the usual.

Richard A Lupoff tries to change things up - thank you - by having the jelly-blob fiends being aliens instead of deities. In Nothing Personal, our heroine watches in horror as her colleague ends up accidentally triggering a war between Earth and those aliens. Fun, but also, entirely predictable from the start.

We are still in sci-fi territory as Fred Chappell's Remnants closes the anthology. This one is about some humans trying to avoid capture by the slime-jelly fiends while friendly aliens try to locate and save them. This one is disconcertingly pleasant after all the apocalyptic doom and what not of the previous stories, but still, it takes forever to get to a point.

By the time Cthulhu's Reign comes to a close, I'm ready to just move on. This is one anthology that could have benefited from stories of a more diverse nature. Too many stories here feature the same theme, same style, and even the same trite take-home message about humanity and what not. There are many far better anthologies of this nature out there - this one is just depressingly average.

[Jim · Rating 3 out of 5]

Not able to write a full review at this time, but I feel these stories rate 3 stars overall. OK, not bad. Some stories, of course, are much better than others as is usual in such a collection. I'll add more when I have a little more time!
Added later--So many of the stories were similar in that the situations were like the zombie apocalypse with people struggling to survive--and it all ending not well. One story did get across the idea that the coming of The Old Ones to Earth would be bizarre beyond human comprehension and that was Brian Stableford's story, "The Holocaust of Ecstasy." There was another odd story by a Japanese author, Ken Asamatsu, "Spherical Trigonometry."
Don't get me wrong, I did enjoy the book overall but I would recommend it for the Lovecraft completists.

[Brian Steele · Rating 4 out of 5]

A "themed" themed anthology? Awesome. Basically with this collection, we are treated to tales of what has happened after the 'stars were right' and Cthulhu n' pals rose up to munch on our sanity. The world ended, we lost, and no happy endings except for the things with tentacles that dig non-euclidian angles.

As always, some tales were better than others, but none truly sucked away the flesh from my bones in this anthology. Some were so utterly bizarre to the point that I'm pretty sure Nyarlathotep had a hand in ghost writing them. (Jay Lake's in particular) All the tales except for one are relatively depressing and end on a downer note, since shoggoths are wandering about eating everything in sight, so I don't really recommend this for anyone looking for an "upbeat" read. However, if tales about humanity having their collective consciousness blasted out of space-time by dark matter monstrosities that exist beneath the mandelbrot set is your kinda thing, you'll totally love this anthology.

I can't even fathom what Lovecraft would have thought about something like this...

[Tim Martin · Rating 4 out of 5]

“Say something that means something.”
He shrugged. “Maybe nothing means anything.”

That is a brief passage from the only story in the book (Remnants by Fred Chappell) that has anything approaching a happy ending. This is a dark, dark book, darker than I perhaps anticipated. This book doesn’t just show what happens when Cthulhu and the other Old Ones return, but more often what the world looks like after they return. Often the focus of these short stories isn’t on their spectacular arrival, but rather on the bleak, nihilistic despair that exists once they are back, have clearly and easily won, and humanity in every single instance is doomed (with the stories anything from I think days away till humans are extinct to in at least one story about a decade from total annihilation). In many of the stories they have been back for days, weeks, months, or years; we just follow along with a few desperate survivors, a few fighting back, most just trying to make it to the next morning and the next, pondering what is the point.

This is not to say that the stories aren’t good, some are even excellent, but it is dark. Even in the one story that has something of a happy ending it is for just a few people; humans are still toast, the Earth lost, the Old Ones won.

The readers starts off with “Walker in the Cemetery” by Ian Waston, a bit surreal, a tale of a dwindling group of survivors slowly whittled down by either Cthulhu or some related entity, clearly toying with his victims in a way perhaps a little uncharacteristic for the Old Ones I know and “love.” Lots of talk of different dimensions and localized spacetime phenomena I didn’t think were entirely effective but not a badly written story. “Sanctuary” by Don Webb was wonderfully grounded, a tale of a man named Nate, a Latino man in a primarily Latino town in Texas. Nicely written, I liked the folding in of the physical practicalities of maintaining a working car, finding food, dealing with personal politics in town, but it is all a little bubble of somewhat forced normalcy, for outside the town’s gates are monsters (really liked the take on the beetle race, the next inheritors of the Earth after humans according to Lovecraft). The ending is surreal but makes sense, for people can only pretend things can continue for so long and they can’t really keep the evil and madness out for it is already everywhere. If “Sanctuary” was a bubble of normalcy, the next one, “Her Acres of Pastoral Playground” by Mike Allen, was a molecule of normalcy, the tiniest little mote of Before perhaps possible, with chilling glimpses of the terror outside. “Spherical Trigonometry” by Ken Asamatsu, translated by Edward Lipsett, is set in Japan and deals with a wealthy occultist who commissions a building called the Womb, one without a single angle anywhere, even in the kitchen utensils, all because They can get you from Any Angle. Nicely written, chilling, had a good Twilight Zone type ending. Also quite dark. “What Brings the Void” by Will Murray is a super bleak tale about a government operative, one who can do remote viewing and astral projection, trying to recon a factory operated by nightmarish centaur-like creatures that serve one of the Old Ones. The world is doomed, there is no Sun and Moon, but he fights on. Very dark in more ways than one. “The New Pauline Corpus” by Matt Cardin was not one I really “got.” Near as I can tell, it was the recollections of a heretical madman who viewed God and Jesus as basically being the same as Cthulhu, not only were both terrifying to contemplate but as I understood they were essentially the same thing. “Ghost Dancing” by Darrell Schweitzer gives more of a feel of what it is like to see the return of the Old Ones and deals with classic Lovecraftian cultists, including one who has a change of heart. I rather liked this one. “This is How the World Ends” is the tale of a man who goes to ground in a cave outside of Las Vegas after horrible things happen to the people he was seeking safety and supplies with, people coming to grief from some satisfyingly Lovecraftian monsters. Well written, incredibly dark. “The Shallows” by John Langan wasn’t perhaps on the surface quite as bleak as some of the other tales, but it was well written. It is basically a monologue by a man named Ransom, speaking to an intelligent but non vocal terrestrial crab that follows him around. Much like with the crab, Ransom almost refuses to look at fully the horror around him, tending his garden, only acknowledging the mouthed tentacles that sometimes sprout from the garden as another pest to deal with, telling very grounded, very domestic tales of people the reader soon realizes are deceased, a way to both memorialize the departed but also to live in a past that is now gone. Nicely written, good layers to this one. “Such Bright and Risen Madness In Our Names” by Jay Lake was another good one, centering on a resistance group trying to fight not the Old Ones but where they can strike at them, at the priests that serve them. They know humanity is doomed, maybe a decade left if they are lucky, that if they aren’t killed outright the world is mutating them into something Other, but still they fight on. Another one I liked. Next is “The Seals of New R’lyeh” by Gregory Frost. Still in a dark world of humanity having been defeated by the Old Ones and those who serve them, but a somewhat lighter tone centering as it does on two con men/thieves who are playing/robbing cultists. I liked that a lot, plus the Twilight Zone like ending. “The Holocaust of Ecstasy” by Brian Stableford was absolutely bizarre, a surreal, otherworldly nightmare from start to finish. That’s all I will say about that. “Vastation” by Laird Barron was readable but also somewhat incomprehensible as a whole, involving nonlinear time and nanotechnology. Interesting but the Old Ones were a secondary element. “Nothing Personal” by Richard A. Lupoff was firmly in the science fiction camp, dealing with a Chinese mission to Yuggoth, a newly discovered planet in our solar system (if just barely) inhabited it turns out by Lovecraftian monsters. Very bleak but had an interesting twist. “Remnants” by Fred Chappell was the final story and I believe the longest, dealing with a family surviving in an Old One dominated world, in a little pocket of trees, fields, wildflowers, deer, and trout, on the edges of a Cyclopean City. It has the only somewhat happy ending of the bunch (from an unexpected direction) and made very interesting and innovative use of an autistic character and how such a person’s mind would be perceived by nonhumans, very well done in that regard though I thought the tale overall was a little long.

This is the first book I read since the pandemic started and after I finished the book I had already was reading, my mind turned to books that were apocalyptic or post-apocalyptic. I can’t say I made the right choice, especially since in these tales humanity doesn’t forge some new society nor is there any hope for a civilization will arise in some form that can provide happiness and security. The world ends, people suffer, humanity goes extinct. That is the ultimate outcome of every tale. In some tales the Earth itself is not even going to survive as a planet. These are dark, dark stories, maybe not what I need right now.

[Caleb Likes Books · Rating 4 out of 5]

Cthulhu’s Reign is a collection of various short stories, all written by different authors, detailing the possible events that could take place after the return of Cthulhu and the Great Old Ones. Having read several of Lovecraft’s Cthulhu Mythos stories before, this premise immediately intrigued me. This was also my first Mythos experience outside Lovecraft’s own work, and I have to say it was quite a positive one.

There are 15 stories here, and I enjoyed the majority of them. Some detail the events immediately following or even during the return of Cthulhu, while others take place some time later. There’s a nice variety here in terms of style and subject matter, as well. Some stories lean much more into horror than others, some tackle some deeper themes, and one or two I even found a bit comedic at times. Given the many ways these stories could go, I hoped there would be a nice variety here; thankfully, this collection absolutely delivered on that front.

I’d say I absolutely loved about half of these stories, while the rest I mostly thought were just okay, and one or two I didn’t really care for at all. Of particular note in my opinion are The Walker in the Cemetery, Spherical Trigonometry, What Brings the Void, and The New Pauline Corpus.

Overall this was a very good collection and honestly a better one than I expected. I was a little unsure that other authors would be able to pull off a concept like this, but in most cases they either did it in at least a somewhat interesting way or were absolutely fascinating for me. Definitely would recommend this collection if you’re a fan of the Cthulhu Mythos and are curious what sort of stories could result from the aftermath of the Great Old Ones’ return.

Rating: 8/10

[Peter Bradley · Rating 3 out of 5]

Please give my review a helpful vote - https://www.amazon.com/gp/customer-re...

I didn't expect an anthology about the victory of Cthulhu to be particularly uplifting, but this collection is worse than grim. Worse, the stories are often incoherent and mostly inconclusive. I had this anthology before and while a few stories were memorable, most were easily forgotten.

The Walker in Cemetery by Ian Watson - This is a decently written story about survivors who are picked off one by one. The ending is grisly. This is one I remembered. A collection of stories like this one would be a tough pill to swallow but would definitely deserve a higher rating.

Sanctuary by Don Webb - Another good but nihilistic story set in the American Southwest.

Her Acres of Pastoral Playground by Mike Allen - I didn't follow this one. It was too obscure and too much effort for the pay-off. Obviously, some kind of pocket universe with apparitions. It wasn't poorly written but I just didn't care.

Spherical Trigonometry by Ken Asamatsu - This one may be memorable, but maybe not. Cthulhu rises and a rich person and his architect and friends head to a safe house. Things happen. The end. It wasn't bad, but not really worth the effort.

What Brings The Void by Will Murray - Strangely, this one was the most memorable of the stories I read the first time, perhaps because of the final image of a soul catching entity. The story involves a paranormal agent attempting to flee the takeover of the world by the Elder Gods and his miscalculations. I liked it. Your mileage may vary.

The New Pauline Corpus by Matt Cardin - Stream of consciousness writing that is incoherent. Christ and Cthulhu are hierophanies sounds interesting but this is not.

Ghost Dancing by Darrell Schweitzer - A cultist regrets his role in releasing the Elder Gods but realizes that all that's left is to teach other cultists that they will not benefit from their betrayal of humanity. Not badly written but it's an awful lot of effort for a small return.

This Is How The World Ends by John R Fultz - People running away from the Elder Gods and their minions. Incoherent ending.

The Shallows by John Langan - This may be the worst story of the collection as we get another stream of consciousness narration of things I couldn't be bothered to sort out.

Such Bright and Risen Madness In Our Lives by Jay Lake - There could have been an interesting story as we see a member of the resistance learn that there is a toxin that kills the cultists who are serving the Elder Gods. OK, cool...hope in nihilism. An author is entitled to end the story when he thinks he's done, but the ending on this one seemed premature or, perhaps, the story seemed like too much of a build-up to a conclusion that didn't happen.

The Seals of New R'lyeh by Gregory Frost - In this one we see the cultists who bring about the end and two of them who may be able to reverse the disaster if they weren't such idiots. This is another one that I think ended prematurely. I understand that the ending was supposed to leave us in suspense, but my unhappiness with the story suggests that it didn't make the sale it was supposed to make.

The Holocaust of Ecstasy by Brian Stableford - Man is resurrected as a fruit on a tree. All of humanity is resurrected as fruit on trees. There is a call-out to the Lovecraft story, "The Shadow Out of Time" and a member of the Great Race who shouldn't be there. This story is weird and unexplained. I think I liked it, but maybe as a palate cleanser in a different anthology.

Vastation by Laird Barron - Stream of consciousness and incoherent.

Nothing Personal by Richard A. Lupoff. Matter and Anti-Matter. A nihilistic but strangely happy ending. Again, the story seemed to drag for not much of a pay-off.

Remnant by Fred Chappell. This seems to be the only hopeful story in the bundle as a handful of humans are rescued by other victims of the Elder God.

I found getting through this anthology to be a bit of a chore. It probably isn't fair to blame the difficulty of reading an anthology of nihilistic stories on their nihilism but that was a factor. Also, as I said, a lot of stories seemed underdeveloped or slight in their pay-off.

Your mileage may differ.

[Terry · Rating 4 out of 5]

Cthulhu's Reign focuses on life after Cthulhu's return. Or what's left of it. Necessarily bleak, the stories are also inventive, ranging from Richard A. Lupoff's Nothing Personal and Fred Chappell's Remnants which take an interstellar perspective to the personal Cthulhu haunting Ian Watson's The Walker in the Cemetery.

The concern over a collection like this is that you'd end up reading 15 variations of the same story, but that's not the case. Even though each tale is steeped in horror, Matt Cardin's The New Pauline Corpus attempts to integrate Cthulhu into Christianity, while Gregory Frost's The Seals of New R'lyeh is soundly noir.

My favorite story was Mike Allen's poignant Her Acres of Pastoral Playground about a farmer pretending everything is normal for the sake of his wife and daughter despite the overwhelming evidence that everything has changed.

[Max · Rating 2 out of 5]

Lovecraft's stories, and many of those written by others working with the same mythos, have hints of the things that will happen when The Stars Are Right and Cthulhu and other powerful entities return to retake the Earth. This anthology attempts to take these hints and tell stories set during or after the Lovecraftian Ends Times. I was excited by this premise, but in the end I feel like a lot of the stories didn't work out too well. The first one was neat, with the concept of a number of duplicates of Cthulhu at different scales ravaging the world, but when that ravaging turns into literal tentacle rape, things have gotten much too stupid for me. A similar issue of not managing to properly capture Lovecraft's brand of horror is unfortunately common in this collection. I think the authors are in a bit of a bind, because the hints at the end of the world Lovecraft gives indicate that for the Great Old Ones, well, to quote Doctor Who, "this isn't war this is pest control". Humanity is, at best, a bunch of cockroaches to Great Cthulhu and its ilk, but obviously it's hard to write stories focused on humans while keeping to that theme.

The best stories thus use the end as a sort of backdrop to focus on how different individuals deal with it. In that regard, Ghost Dancing and Spherical Trigonometry were perhaps two of the best. The former shows how cultists trying to curry favor with the ancient gods of madness is just so much rearranging deck chairs on the Titanic, while the latter sees a rich man attempt to escape the end by building a place devoid of angles (tying into the Hounds of Tindalos). It felt a bit like Haruki Murakami's take on the Mythos, both because the author was Japanese and because the focus is on a triangle of people (something that comes back to bite the rich man in the ass). Her Acres of Pastoral Playground is also good because it explores at what cost humans will try to escape the apocalypse.

Sadly, there were also some pretty bad stories. What Brings The Void felt like a Laundry Files sort of thing, but fell apart for me because the protagonist acted as if he were superior to the Lovecraftian entities and guaranteed to escape them, which goes completely against the normal themes. The idea of Shub-Niggurath and the Black Goat of the Woods With A Thousand Young being separate entities was neat, but not enough to save the story. Vastation was just a total ugly, awful useless mess of a story - the kind I truly hate because I feel like I've wasted precious minutes of my life reading such utter dreck. The last story, Remnants, was interesting because I sort of like the premise of survivors of other dead worlds searching out survivors on Earth. However, it felt more like the start of a novel than a self-contained novella, since I kept waiting for some sort of dark twist that would snatch victory away from the protagonists. Plus, it's depiction of autism was, well, pretty bad. I also feel that a lot of these stories suffer from ignoring Lovecraft's idea that when the Great Old Ones returning, humanity will have become as violent, depraved, and deprived of morality as they are. Overall, while there were a few clever ideas here and there, this collection overall didn't wow me the way I had expected it to. I think the idea of writing about what happens when Cthulhu rises for good is a neat one, but if I want good stories about that, I'll have to keep looking.

[Zare · Rating 4 out of 5]

As one reviewer noted basic of all Lovecraft's stories was about horros beyond the dark, lurking madness from dimensions that can never be understood by humans, so incomprehensible that it drives people utterly mad. It is always a spooky story, shadows moving in the night, crazy cultists walking in the pitch black while attending their ceremonies. Or dreams and nightmares. It is not hack and slash horror, but again what can humankind expect from these dark invaders if they materialized all of a sudden?

This is question book tries to answer - what if great horrors woke up and took over earth? What would happen with all these monstrosities moving around and mutating and/or mutilating and torturing humankind and all other Earthly species?

As expected majority of stories are rather depressing (in lack of better word) because no matter what humans do they get thwarted in the most hideous ways. Only at the end some light shines through that gives at least some hope. i mean who can read stories without any hope? Otherwise depression would set in and make stories a little bit unbearable (imagine reading whole anthology of depressive thoughts.... No thanks).

Quality varies but overall I think that stories are good. Some are outright weird (Japanese one with spherical geometry was.... very weird), some are very mythological (discussion about nature of dark invaders) and some read like space opera (fantastic story Remnants).

If you like dark fantasy, spooky stories or mix of SF and fantasy give it ago.

Recommended.

[Lonnie Veal · Rating 4 out of 5]

This is a collection of Horror Shorts by different authors-- and not the usual Lovecraft adherents like Lumley. More to the Point, these stories all have the following rules: They take place NOW. They all presume the basic setting: The Stars are Right and Cthulhu and the Dark Gods Return The Return is Triumphant: Mankind Loses. So What happens now? I forewarn other readers. These stories are Bleak. There may be a glimmer of hope, but that spark is very feeble, a veritable flickering of a single wooden match sputtering on the damp earth. To pose a comparison-- when you read the other Lovecraft stories or Lumley or the others, the encounters between Man and the Dark ones always happens off the beaten path, deep in a dark untracked forest-- and while the endings are pitiless, the reader is subliminally reassured: The rest of Man's civilizations goes on untouched-- so there is still a chance because Cthulhu is still Trapped outside of Reality. But in these stories, Cthulhu and his minions explode on the world like a hundred hydrogen bombs strewn from pole to pole and the future ceases to be. Because not only is Cthulhu and his ilk alien, they are transcendentally and evilly powerful. And worse, they are INSANITY given the power of Gods. So how does Man survive? For myself, usually, I've read a Lovecraft tome or a Lumley book from cover to cover in one night. With this book, I had to put it down and go watch something light and entertaining, and leave the next story for another night.

[Damian Herde · Rating 3 out of 5]

I was intrigued by the idea behind this original anthology, but sadly, the execution of this concept seemed to get the better of many of the authors.

Lovecraft’s stories are slow burns with mounting dread as understanding of the true nature of existence is revealed. When the mythos entities are here already, there’s no suspense.

The anthology opens badly with one of the poorer stories, which happens to include a rape scene.

There were good stories in the mix, thankfully. The ones by Don Webb, Mike Allen, Jay Lake and Richard A. Lupoff were my standouts. Webb’s story is set in a community of survivors where corruption has already taken hold. Allen’s story shows a man living in an isolated house with his wife and unseen daughter, as the last surviving humans, and all is far from well. Lake’s story covers a desperate group of resistance fighters in a world where the mythos entities have so much control that they are now untouchable, and the slowly-mutating humans have a new approach to target the undying priests. Lupoff’s science fiction approach describes the first human mission to the newly discovered planet Yuggoth at the far edge of the solar system, and the difficulties encountered trying to communicate with the alien inhabitants, until things go terribly wrong.

Worth reading, and this was a reread for me, for the better stories in the mix.

[Seth Benzell · Rating 4 out of 5]

3.5 stars rounded up

A varied anthology of cthulu-verse post-apocalypses. Some stories are home runs. To give a few evocative premises:

>being reborn into a soul fruit waiting to be devoured
>the japanese tech billionaire who protects himself by maniacally destroying all angles -- but are only physical angles dangerous?
>the theological writings of a mad-Jesuit who has somehow been spared by the old ones and taught some of their wisdom
>the farmer who only hears his daughter calling him from another room of the house
>And about 4 riffs on "small village", "people on a tour group", "family", "individual" clings on to life at the fringe of Cthulu's terraforming, perhaps with occasional sparks of faint hope

I dig those premises! The theological one was ok but had lots of unexploited potential. The farmer one had some awesome horror but a bit overlong. The small village one had the best horror pacing - would make a good movie.

A great bargain bin find for the beach or brunch!

[Andrew · Rating 3 out of 5]

I guess this is the case of many anthologies in that they cannot all be good - or at the very least not hit home with the same impact and this anthology is very much that case. There are some excellent end of the world stories there as well as some not so.

Now I will be the first to admit that reading and the effects they have are subjective - not everyone likes the same thing after all. So I am not going to call out individual stories as hey the author got them published which is more than I have (I would need to write something as well first though).

However as a fundamental part of the worth of the Cthulhu mythos is madness - and conveying that in written form is never easy - some hit home and others miss it entirely and I think for me this is where I struggled - a simple story of survival can be overwhelmed by babbling which did put me off. However there are some real classics here too - so full marks to the anthology creator for creating this.

[Hugo · Rating 1 out of 5]

Sounds like a great idea for a collection of short stories - what happens after Cthulhu and the other Great Old Ones rise from their eternal slumber? - but the answer is one that seems, in retrospect, obvious - nothing. Most of these stories are snippets of a post-apocalyptic nature - some light, some dark, some weird - and a couple that struggle to connect to Lovecraft's world at all.

The entire book was a slog, frankly; struggling through the first half of less familiar writers, hoping that the anthology would yield results, especially in the second half of names I recognised.

And so, Fred Chappel's Remnants, the final contribution, more of a novella - a heart-warming and immensely readable tale of a family surviving in the wilderness, hiding from Shoggoths, and the ship from another world sent to rescue them - constantly inventive, and if it seems like an opening for a longer novel, I'd read that too.

[Bookaholics Anonymous · Rating 2 out of 5]

Bad: not sure what's happening, not worth your time, very scary, what brings the void, they capped the horror with hope, vestation was horribly written, not life altering good, mediocre at best, the misses were really bad, the hits were okay, some stories were so disturbing, lower stakes following high stakes…. head fruit story was funny, many of these stories did not make sense, brain could not process what was happening
Good: like using Echo and autism as characteristic, ending was a glimmer of hope, some stories were good- the shallows, remnants, her acres of pastoral playground, what brings the void. John Langan was the best writer. Most stories had welcomed endings.

"I gotta finish this - I gotta get it out of my life"-tony
"Unfortunately I hate everything about what this is.."-Kathy

[Nicholas · Rating 3 out of 5]

First thing: as standalone stories, these range from "Okay" to "Pretty Good".

Second Thing: as Yog-Sothery, all but one or two fall completely flat.

If you replaced the Mythos connections with generic or brand new monsters, these are effective little stories. Humans, helpless, or at least in dire straits, in the face of unknown, largely actively malevolent monsters. Great.

Unless you're writing in the Lovecraftian Mythos, which largely held that WE ARE NOT IMPORTANT. Most of these stories are written as if the assorted Mythos entities are actively out to "get" or torment humanity, and that. . . well, that ignores the entire basis of Yog-Sothery.

As I noted, only a couple of the stories remember this basic truth of the Lovecraftverse. That hurts the collection.

[Nick Parker · Rating 3 out of 5]

A decent enough collection of short cosmic horror stories. I do feel some were better than others with a couple being about as hard to read as lovecraft himself!

Enjoyed for the most part but feel some of the stories didn’t have the existential punch you’d expect from cosmic horror. A couple of the stories do feel like a bit of a slog to get through where as others are page turners.

There are a couple of great stories in the mix however. The book opens strongly with arguably its best tale. The others are separated by a few that are just A bit naff and poorly written. One of the later stories is a narcissists wet dream and leaves a lot to be desired.

[Trace Reddell · Rating 1 out of 5]

Usually love a good new Lovecraftian anthology, and this paperback has some of my favorite writers in the field, including the always fabulous Don Webb. Unfortunately, this book is an unedited mess, with misplaced words, bad grammar, and other errors frequently marring the page, and completely jarring one out of any weird mood the story would create. Three stories in, not one better in terms of editing, and so I'm out of here on this collection.

[Michael John Paul McManus · Rating 4 out of 5]

I bought this volume of short stories quite a few years ago now and decided it was high time that I read it. As H.P. Lovecraft is a favourite author of mine, I was looking forward to reading Cthulhu's Reign. Did I enjoy it? Some stories I liked and they kind of made sense, but other stories left me thinking, 'what the hell did I just read?' I certainly struggled with a few of them. So only a 4 star rating for this volume of short stories.

[Edric Unsane · Rating 4 out of 5]

I really enjoyed a great deal of the short stories contained within Cthulhu's Reign. I had indeed read some of them from different Lovecraftian related anthologies, but that just goes to show how great some of the short stories are. If you are a fan of H.P. Lovecraft, you may well enjoy reading Cthulhu's Reign.

[Timothy Pitkin · Rating 1 out of 5]

I tried several times to read this book but each time I just couldn't get through them. I might try again because I really liked the idea behind them but I don't know if it was the writing style or just me but maybe I will try again later.