Status Updates From Ancient Exhumations +2

The Tale of Toad Loop.
In theory, a middling Lovecraft riff which borrows a little from Dunwich Horror, The Shadow Over Innsmouth and The Curse of Yig. The faux folksy style really makes it grating, though.

Finally slogged my way through the end of The Black Massif.

In the middle of a Clark Ashton Smith pastiche that reminds me why I never really plugged into Smith.

I'm not really feeling this first short story, in which a journalist attempts to track down a missing artist who became obsessed with bringing a statue of Coatlique to life. As with the apocalyptic sect in The Cabin at the End of the World, this seems like the type of fanaticism that only occurs in horror stories.