Cthulhu 2000: Stories

Bought this not knowing what to expect, but the stories and novella turned out to be well-written and interesting. In my favorite tale, "Love's Eldritch Ichor," our favorite Great Old One turned out to be the good guy! Well worth your while as a reader.

Jim Turner had a queer relationship with the sub-genre that is known as the Cthulhu Mythos -- and this book is an excellent example of that. Indeed, this is not an anthology of Cthulhu Mythos tales at all, but rather a book of Lovecraftian horror. As such, it is superb. Why he called the book by its stupid title I have no idea, unless he thought it would sell more briskly by having that magick name in its title. Some of the stories are weak and dull, such as "Pickman's Modem" and the absurd "Love's Eldritch Ichor" (which, rather than paying homage to Lovecraft seem more intent on making fun of him). But the book contains some masterpieces of weird fiction. My favourite tale is "His Mouth Will Taste of Wormwood" by Poppy Z. Brite. It is an authentic homage to HPL (thus the narrator's name is Howard), and it is Brite's re-vision of Lovecraft's decadent tale, "The Hound." In updating Lovecraft's story, Brite has gone beyond him in detailing the debauchery of her two horror-hunting males; but the atmosphere is Gothic in a truly Lovecraftian way, and it is deliciously tainted by Brite's personal experience in the Goth scene. It's brilliant, that wee tale. The anthology also includes my favourite tale by the fantastic Thomas Ligotti, his "The Last Feast of Harlequin." Again, like Brite's tale, this story has absolutely nothing to do with the Cthulhu Mythos -- rather, it evokes the spirit of HPL in a story and a style that is uniquely its own. Ligotti is as much a modern master of the genre as Lovecraft was, and in fact he may be superior to Lovecraft in every way. One story that may indeed be classified as Cthulhu Mythos is T. E. D. Klein's "Black Man with a Horn," and it shews what can be done with the Mythos in the hand of a writer who has a unique imagination and a gift for fine writing. Michael Shea has brought the Mythos completely into our modern age, and his newest book as I write, COPPING SQUID (Perilous Press 2009, edited and with an introduction by S. T. Joshi) is one of the finest collections of intensely modern Mythos fiction. His tale herein, "Fat Face," is a classic of its kind, a brilliant play on Lovecraft's concept of the shoggoth. This anthology, combined with Jim's final such anthology, ETERNAL LOVECRAFT, showcase excellent modern fiction that is authentic tribute to the eternal genius of Howard Phillips Lovecraft, Esq. Contents of the book: Introduction by Jim Turner The Barrens by F. Paul Wilson Pickman's Modem by Lawrence Watt-Evans Shaft Number 247 by Basil Copper His Mouth Will Taste of Wormwood by Poppy Z. Brite The Adder by Fred Chappell (a brilliant story!) Fat Face by Michael Shea The Big Fish by Kim Newman "I Had Vacantly Crumpled It into My Pocket...But by God, Eliot, IT WAS A PHOTOGRAPH FROM LIFE!" by Joanna Russ H.P.L. by Gahan Wilson The Unthinkable by Bruce Sterling Black Man with a Horn by T. E. D. Klein Love's Eldritch Ichor by Esther M. Friesner The Last Feast of Harlequin by Thomas Ligotti The Shado

Okay, I admit that I approached this anthology with some trepidation, since I enjoy the "old-school" style of Lovecraftian stories. But despite myself, I ended up enjoying this collection, and I think other readers will also. Here's why: --there's enough diversity in the types of tales presented to insure that most readers will find at least several stories they enjoy. --there are a few just plain wonderfully creepy and atmospheric yarns, such as "The Barrens" by F. Paul Wilson and "The Last Feast of Harlequin" by Thomas Ligotti. So give this collection a try. Horror fans and/or Lovecraft afficionados alike will find quite a few pleasant surprises in the gems presented here. --

_Cthulhu 2000_ is (as one might guess from the title) a collection of recently written short stories set in the universe created by H.P. Lovecraft, none by Lovecraft himself but rather by a variety of different authors. Editor Jim Turner provides a nice introduction to the Lovecraft's writings, drawing attention to two themes in the Cthulhu mythos. One theme is that though Lovecraft is in many ways a horror writer, he did not see the universe in terms of some epic, Biblical struggle between good and evil. Turner writes that a conventional horror writer "presupposes an actively malicious universe;" Lovecraft saw the universe in his stories instead as profoundly indifferent, that the interaction of the laws of physics, chemistry, and biology are so universal and eternal a phenomenon that they are far beyond any meaningful relationship with any species so transient as man, located as he is on such an insignificant planet. Man is a speck, nothing at all, against the horrors in a true piece of Cthulhian fiction. The best he can hope for from the universe is profound indifference. Lovecraft's monsters aren't evil, they just exist, they are almost elemental forces. A second theme, in many related to the first theme, is that the universe is vast and probably unknowable by man. Some of the horror from Lovecraft's writings comes from the "finite mind grappling with infinite reality," the results of which are often insanity and/or death. Lovecraft himself said humans live on a "placid island of ignorance" amidst "black seas of infinity," and that mankind was not mentioned to voyage far. Man is better off not knowing the true horrors that lurk in the shadows. So how well do the eighteen short stories in this volume realize these themes? Pretty well overall I think. Many of the stories depart from Lovecraft's typical mode of writing; most of his short stories were tales (memoirs really) told by men after the fact - sometimes dead or insane at the end of the story - rather than actually accounting events as they happened, often lacking dialogue. Though a few of the stories are in Lovecraft's traditional style, most are not. To me this is quite refreshing. Several stories to me were exemplary, centering on a seemingly normal person, perhaps an investigator, perhaps not, in what looks like a normal, mundane, mortal world, one that is revealed to be hiding untold horrors unknown to most of humanity. _Black Man with a Horn_ by T.E.D. Klein was an excellent page-turner (I wished it was longer though it was already almost a novella in length), an intriguing tale that wove together elements of Malaysian folklore, a retiring missionary, an elderly horror writer, and some mysterious disappearances in Florida. It had a wonderful atmosphere and the author did a great job of slowly, very slowly, revealing what the horror of the piece was. _The Last Feast of the Harlequin_ by Thomas Ligotti was similarly excellent, the protagonist an anthropological researcher (who

To my intense surprise and delight, Cthulhu 2000 proved to be a pretty good collection of highly diverse tales, a fair number of them good-humored send-ups that I was almost embarrassed to admit I found myself laughing with - my favorite being "Love's Eldritch Ichor," a very funny piece about a descendant of the Old Ones and a book editor falling in love in a Lovecraftian mansion a la The Addams Family, which, believe it or not, is a lot better than it sounds.But I was even more surprised at the collection of legitimate horror stories, some as genuinely creepy as anything Lovecraft ever penned himself. Not all the stories are strictly Lovecraftian by connection, but most are essentially true to his overriding theme of cosmic terror. Don't expect straight Lovecraft, and you might find yourself really loving this book. I did.

Some of the reviews of this excellent anthology lead me to believe that they've missed the point. This is not an anthology of stories in the strict Lovecraftian tradition; it is rather a more disparate group of works which, more or less, were inspired by Lovecraft's work. They are in a broad spectrum of styles; the "Lovecraftian" element varies from potent to tenuous. But by and large it is a truly excellent collection. I found, of all the stories, T.E.D. Klein's "Black Man with a Horn" to be perhaps the most akin to Lovecraft's work, not in particulars so much, as in the sense of having blundered into a contact with cosmic horror, of which the protagonist becomes only slowly aware, yet which engulfs him finally. Two other stories are also very much in HPL's mode; Thomas Ligotti's "The Last Feast of Harlequin" is one of the stories that makes no overt reference to Lovecraft; yet it is a descendant of "The Shadow Over Innsmouth" in the truest sense-- it generally follows the same narrative curve and is full of parallel plot elements and moods, even though they are not specific to Lovecraft. Many others of the stories make reference, direct or oblique, to elements of the "Mythos"; Gahan Wilson's HPL has Lovecraft himself (as well as Clark Ashton Smith) as a main character. "The Barrens", "Fat Face", and "The Faces at Pine Dunes" are also excellent. And, to leaven the mixture, there are two or three humorous entries-- "The Big Fish", a sort of Maltese Falcon comes to Innsmouth, very tongue in cheek (literally as you will see!); "Pickman's Modem", often humorous though ultimately creepy; and the delightful "Love's Eldritch Ichor", which is wonderfully amusing. Of the entries I felt Poppy Z. Brite's "His Mouth Will Taste of Wormwood" to be one of the least Lovecraftian, as well as being rather unpleasant; but it will appeal to gothic-teens and such. I could have wished that the preface by Jim Turner would have discussed all the stories, not only Roger Zelazny's excellent "24 Views of Mount Fuji, by Hokusai". All in all the anthology earns an A+ and is a must for any lover of horror, Lovecraftian or not!