The Madness of Cthulhu by S.T. Joshi

The Madness of Cthulhu Reviews

• 
  F.R.

  Not bad at all.
  
  Collections like this are always hit and miss, and this one does have some glaring misses. But in ‘Devil’s Bathtub’, ‘How the Gods Bargain’, ‘A Mountain Walked’, ‘Diana of the Hundred Breasts’ ‘Under the Shelf’, ‘The Warm’, ‘Little Lady’ and ‘The Dog Handler’s Tale’ we have some dame fine, scary fiction.
  
  That’s half of the stories here, and to seriously begrudge there not being more is greediness.
  
  
  At the Mountains of Murkiness or, from Lovecraft to Leacock by Arthur C. Clarke
  Towards the end of his life Spike Milligan used to write pastiche versions of classic novels (Wuthering Heights; Frankenstein; The Hound of the Baskervilles) which were crammed full of puns, ridiculous names and references to by-gone popular culture. It’s amazing then to read that the same approach had been taken much earlier and on the work of H.P. Lovecraft, particularly when the author is no less a figure than Arthur C. Clarke – a writer I know more by reputation (and that TV show he had when I was a kid) than anything else. I somehow never thought of him as a playful writer.
  The resulting tale is silly, but it has its moments. It’s also short, which is good as much more would have been distinctly wearying.
  
  The Fillmore Shoggoth by Harry Turtledove
  It never really occurred to me that if Lovecraft’s Old Ones had been real and had made their presence known, that human life would have continued pretty much as before. I probably thought that we’d be far too busy having our consciousness warped by mind-bending terror for there to still be a Vietnam or an LBJ. Certainly I wouldn’t have imagined that the vibes would be good enough for there to be acid-infused rock bands still gigging in San Francisco.
  That’s the premise though of this amusing little tale, where one such band finds itself playing a gig in the middle of a horrific shoggoth attach. Clearly Kim Newman’s ‘Anno Dracula’ is a reference point here, and the late 1960s is well conjured and blended almost seamlessly with Lovecraft’s vision, but I just thought the story was a little insubstantial to truly succeed.
  
  Devil’s Bathtub by Lois Gresh
  A story that manages to take weird and off the wall Lovecraftian concepts and make something touching out of them. A simple story of a dog, a girl and her father in Antarctica, which despite its short length is beautifully affecting.
  
  The Witness in Darkness by John Shirley
  An elder one gives his own account of his race’s history, which turns out to involve a lot of cosmic battles. It’s an interesting idea, but the result just strips all the madness and dark romance away from the Lovecraftian mythos, and that surely can’t be the point.
  
  How the Gods Bargain by William Browning Spencer
  Ostensibly this is the tale in the collection, thus far, which wears its Lovecraft roots most lightly. But – and this is a really important but – it’s also the scariest tale this collection has served up thus far. The author understands that the point of this exercise isn’t just to namedrop concepts from ‘At the Mountain of Madness’ and to give knowing winks to the fans. No, the point of a Lovecraft story is to leave the reader not only scared, but uneasy to the point of disorientation.
  An academic is forced to confront not only a Lovecraftian horror from his past, but also the heartbreak that’s dominated his adult life. Once again we have a story which proves that terror works best when combined with genuine feelings and emotions.
  
  A Mountain Walked by Caitlin R. Kiernan
  An archaeological dig unearths something more dreadful than they can possibly imagine.
  As well as its Lovecraftian imagery, this has the dry narration (and love of archaeology) of a M.R. James story. It’s a coming together of masters which works superbly.
  ‘A Mountain Walked’ is a masterclass of suspense, of ratcheting up tension slowly and painfully, so that even the most hardened horror fan will find they’ve bitten their fingernails to the quick.
  
  Diana of the Hundred Breasts by Robert Silverberg
  There are some Belief versus Science stories that are brilliant and there are some Belief versus Sciences stories that are trite, but I don’t think I’ve ever read one where the Belief in question was the Belief in the Cthulhu mythos.
  Stories like this are exactly why I like other writers taking on the Lovecraftian. As they can take genuinely scary ideas and concepts and work them into a well-constructed story, with real characters, good dialogue and sentences that don’t just crash into the dust through their own unwieldly verbosity.
  Silverberg’s tale is in essence complacent young man gets comeuppance, but it’s done so brilliantly and so skilfully (with well-built up and earned scares) that it made me happy even at its dark conclusion.
  
  Under the Shelf by Michael Shea
  I did start reading this a couple of times, but each time my enthusiasm was tripped up by its unwieldy opening sentence:
  
  “When at last they drew near the walls of the Ross Ice Shelf, the cloud-ceiling’s vast, grey fleece had begun to shred in the wind, opening ragged islands of pale blue sky whose light lent sharper definition to the towering rampart of its rim.”
  
  Fortunately I persevered, as the story is far more clearly and urgently written than that sentence suggests, and is without a doubt the scariest story in this collection thus far and one of the scariest I’ve read in a long time.
  Okay, it has a weirdly cumbersome opening sentence, but let’s be fair – there is something quite Lovecraftian about that.
  
  Cantata by Melanie Tem
  The idea of a person with such a phobia of music – such a dramatic allergic reaction to music – that they’d try to claw their own skin off if they heard it, is truly a terrifying one. The problems is that that one fearsome notion isn’t developed anywhere, and we end up with a fragmentary tale which is more insubstantial than scary.
  
  Cthulhu Rising by Heather Graham
  It was the names which first disconcerted me about ‘Cthulhu Rising’.
  We have here characters called ‘Devon Adair’, ‘Michael Corona’, ‘Hampton Jones’, ‘Bridgette Sloan’, ‘Marnie Silver’ and ‘Grainger Whitby’. These shouldn’t be the names of characters in a horror story, this is surely a list of supporting characters in a series of ‘Dynasty’.
  Shortly afterwards I encountered the dialogue, which is so bad it would have got a screenwriter of ‘Dynasty’ fired.
  Ghost-hunters and scientists investigate a Titanic-esque ship which mysteriously disappeared on its maiden journey across the North Atlantic, and now has just as mysteriously reappeared.
  Comically bad.
  
  The Warm by Daniel Schweitzer
  We have here arch and clever body horror told with a great deal of empathy. The best Frankenstein tales always feel for the creature and this is no exception. A short, amusing and yet nerve-jangling story, which shows again how flexible Lovecraft’s concepts actually are.
  
  Last Rites by K.M. Tonso
  There’s a curious paragraph in this tale, wherein a young academic comes home to find his fiancée in a drug-fuelled orgy with his best friends. The reader doesn’t know of her existence before this, and after the narrator has related quickly (and unemotionally) how heart-broken he was, this fiancée is forgotten within a page. So, why so graphic? Why not just have her cheat with one person, or dump him for other reasons? In fact, why introduce her at all when she’s so tangential to the narrative? The way its raised and then forgotten does point to the main flaw of ‘Last Rites’ though, that this horror at one remove story doesn’t have a sure enough grasp of people to truly be scary.
  
  Little Lady by J.C. Koch
  I’ve always had a penchant for the horror/western hybrid and this is a particularly fine example. A gang of desperados kidnap a young, beautiful woman and she leads them somewhere they can be ‘safe’.
  I particularly enjoyed how, even as it escalates into fantasy, it does so in a way as to make the fantasy almost commonplace. By the end the story has pretty much slipped into a different reality, and yet it feels all of a piece with the hard, gritty cowboy stuff which went before.
  
  White Fire by Joseph S. Pulver Sr.
  An ‘in the moment’ thriller which, even as it shows off its intelligence and its literary pedigree, grips quite fantastically. Yes, its pretentiousness did irritate me somewhat, but I also admired it a lot.
  
  A Quirk of the Mistral by Jonathan Thomas
  One only needs to look at M.R. James to know that an academically minded short story can be brilliantly scary. This one though misses the mark. It’s plodding and seemingly unexcited by its own premise.
  
  The Dog Handler’s Tale by Donald Tyson
  With a blue-collar narrator and a folksy turn of phrase, there’s as much Stephen King in this one as H.P. Lovecraft. But just because a trick has been done before, it doesn’t mean it’s not a worthwhile trick. The narration grounds the story in a mundane world, which just makes the horror elements – when they inevitable start to happen – all the more horrific. This is a cracking story to finish the collection on. One which, even when you think its wrung out every ounce of terror from the concept, keeps going to a new dreadful twist.
• 
  Jordan West

  About 3.5; a solid if not spectacular collection featuring a number of strong stories, including some downright excellent work from Caitlin Kiernan, Darrell Schweitzer, and William Browning Spencer. As was the case with Joshi's Searchers After Horror, the contribution from Melanie Tem came across as woefully out of place here and better suited to a different collection, and while paperback romance writer Heather Graham deserves props for trying her hand at a Lovecraftian tale, unfortunately it doesn't make a lot of sense and has a generic Twilight Zone-like quality; however, it did bring to mind the other Heather Graham, which is never a bad thing.
• 
  DziwakLiteracki

  Howard Phillips Lovecraft - prekursor fantastyki naukowej, ojciec mitologii Cthulhu, niekwestionowany król literatury grozy i weird fiction. Niedoceniany za życia, wyniesiony na piedestały po śmierci.
  Prozaik, eseista, autor, ale przede wszystkim człowiek; człowiek o niezwykłych talentach, śmiało przekraczający granicę nieskończonej ilości światów i wszechświatów; iluminator najmroczniejszych zakamarków dusz, kreator najpotworniejszych potworności. Wybitny umysł, nieprzeciętna osobowość.
  Proza Samotnika z Providence należy do tego rodzaju pisarstwa, które wyrywa się z jakichkolwiek ram. Zachwyca ono bowiem bogactwem słów, pięknem rozbudowanych fraz, cudownie posępnym klimatem; ogłusza sugestywnością kreślonych pejzaży, hipnotyzuje fantastycznymi wizjami, jednak również przeraża - tym co plugawe, obrzydliwe, niezbadane, wielkie ponad ludzką miarę.
  Na kanwie ów niezwykłej twórczości powstało całe mnóstwo pomniejszych dzieł. Nie dziwi to szczególnie, zwłaszcza, gdy jest się świadomym fenomenu postaci Lovecrafta oraz jego wyjątkowych dokonań literackich. Także i u nas, na naszym rodzimym rynku wydawniczym znaleźć można pewien tytuł, który bez wątpienia przyciągnie entuzjastów wszelakich historii związanych z Wielkimi Przedwiecznymi.
  🕯️,,Szaleństwo Cthulhu’’, bo to o nim dzisiaj mowa, to pierwszy tom otwierający cykl opowiadań ,,Kronik Arkham’’. Antologia pod redakcją S.T.Joshiego, badacza prozy lovecraftowskiej, prezentuje szesnaście wybranych tekstów, szesnastu różnych autorów popuszczających wodze swej fantazji. Arthur C.Clarke, Harry Turtledove, John Shirley, Caitlin R.Kiernan, Robert Silverberg, Heather Graham i pozostali opowiedzą Wam kilka opowiastek osadzonych w klimacie ,,Gór szaleństwa’’.
  Rzecz szalenie intrygująca, prawda?
  Teoretycznie owszem, w praktyce... niekoniecznie.
  
  🕯️Antologie mają to do siebie, że często przedstawiają niezwykle zróżnicowaną wartość. W każdym z takich zbiorów znajdzie się miejsce dla tekstów słabych, przeciętnych lub wybitnych. Czasem jednak jest też tak, że trzymają one jeden poziom i niestety w przypadku ‘Szaleństw’ z podobną okolicznością mamy wątpliwą przyjemność.
  Piszę wątpliwą, piszę niestety, ponieważ pierwsza część ,,Kronik Arkham’’ stanowi dla mnie rozczarowanie. Nie wiem, czy to wina osobistych oczekiwań, czy też czegoś zupełnie innego, natomiast pewnym jest jedno – liczyłam na więcej; więcej klimatu, więcej odpowiedniego nastroju, więcej mrocznej aury, więcej samej esencji tej prozy.
  
  🕯️We wstępie Jonathan Maberry pięknie mówi o dokonaniach Samotnika, o tym jak niesamowicie oddziaływały one na rzesze twórców i czytelników na całym świecie. Szczególnie do gustu przypadł mi fragment, w którym Maberry podkreśla wagę tego zdarzenia – mitologia Cthulhu była bowiem dla wielu przyczynkiem do chwycenia za pióro; nie tylko kreaowania własnych światów, ale także dokładania przysłowiowej cegiełki do tego, co Lovecraft już stworzył. Autor wypowiedzi wychodzi poniekąd z założenia, że każda opowieść jest odpowiednia, by wpasować się w to wyjątkowe uniwersum, rozbudowywać je jeszcze bardziej, kultywować mit.
  Cudne, wzniosłe wręcz słowa i przyznam – ogłupiające. Sama dałam się im zwieść. Bo o ile w swym zamyśle brzmią nadzwyczaj dobrze, o tyle z rzeczywistością mają mało wspólnego, zwłaszcza po przeczytaniu samych ‘Szaleństw’.
  🕯️Teksty w nich zawarte (w większej mierze) są po prostu przeciętne. Stylistycznie żadnemu z nich nie można nic zarzucić (napisane zwięzłym i prostym językiem), natomiast fabularnie często odbiegają od głównego motywu przewodniego bądź elementów charakterystycznych dla lovecraftowskiej prozy. W wielu na próżno doszukiwać się powiązań z mitologią Cthulhu i co przykre, jedynie nieliczne prezentują coś oryginalnego.
  Całość ratują teksty Johna Shirleya (genialny sposób narracji, cudowny język stylizowany na archaiczny), Darrella Schweitzera (podobnie jak powyżej, choć z dodatkową nutką suspensu) oraz J.C.Kocha (tu pojawiła się odrobina upragnionej świeżości).
  Te trzy wymienione faktycznie wyjątkowo mocno korespondowały z twórczością Samotnika, doskonale wpisując się w jej klimat i cóż… Choćby dla nich warto ,,Szaleństwo Cthulhu’’ przejrzeć.
• 
  DJ_Keyser

  This collection of Lovecraft-inspired stories vary in quality, with a couple of superb entries, a handful of underwhelming ones, and the majority being fairly adequate. Most successful when the author manages to successfully evoke Lovecraft’s particular style of literary prose, whilst conveying the impression of something unimaginably monstrous and immense. Arthur C. Clarke’s opener is hilarious.
• 
  Shoggothey

  Strasznie nierówny zbiór opowiadań, dla których podstawą było opowiadanie "W górach szaleństwa" Lovecrafta. Nie wiem dlaczego zdecydowano się na rozpoczęcie (pomijając wymienione już opowiadanie samotnika z Providence) od najsłabszych i najdziwniejszych opowiadań. Po przeczytaniu historii o naćpanych rockmanach byłem o krok od porzucenia całości, ale jako wielki fan Lovecrafta zdecydowałem się na 'przemęczenie' reszty. No ale właśnie im dalej w las, tym ciekawiej. Poza kilkoma wielkimi rozczarowaniami znajdziemy tutaj kilka perełek, w niektórych ciężko znaleźć nawiązania do Gór szaleństwa, w innych są one bezpośrednio powiązane z postaciami występującymi w pierwowzorze - i to właśnie te są najciekawsze. Do mojej ścisłej czołówki zaliczam opowiadanie o opiekunie psów, który towarzyszy naukowcom w wyprawę w 1930r., poznajemy historię trochę z innej strony, bardziej przyziemnej, dodatkowo dostajemy opis bardzo ciekawej i czułej więzi między psem a człowiekiem. Kolejną taką perełką jest na pewno opowiadanie-notatka człowieka, którego umysł został przejęty przez potwora z "Gór..", będące jednocześnie przestrogą przed tym, aby nie zapuszczać się ponownie w rejony z opowiadania-matki. Jest też bardzo ciekawe opowiadanie o synu jednego z uczestników wyprawy z 1930r., który ostatecznie poświęca się dla większego celu (te opowiadanie w pewien sposób zamyka furtkę, stanowi stricte zakończenie historii). Znajdziemy tu nawet bardzo ciekawe opowiadanie w stylu starych westernów.
  
  Tak więc zbiór opowiadań dosyć ciekawy, ale kolejność ich moim zdaniem już całkowicie bezsensowna, łatwo zrazić czytelników tymi słabymi, zostawiając te najlepsze na koniec. Sięgnę po kolejne zbiory i mam nadzieję, że tam też znajdę kilka perełek, dla których stwierdzę, że było warto.
• 
  Theofilos

  A mediocre anthology at best, loosely themed around the mountains of madness, the long lost Arthur C. Clark story should have remained lost (yeah it was that bad). Other than that, there were like 4-5 out of 16 stories that were good but the majority was below average, most anthologies are swingy when it comes to quality, but this one was pretty lame because the bad ones were really bad...
  
  Best stories were, "Warm" by Darrel Schweitzer, "A mountain walked" by Caitlin Kiernan, "the dog handle's tale" by Donald Tyson and "Diana of the hundred breasts" by Robert Silverberg.
• 
  سیما تقوی

  I enjoy every single chapter of it...one of the best Lovecraftian books that I`ve ever read specially because it had so many short stories about the Shoggoth, my most favorite weird things in this World! :D and ofcourse, for the C.Clarke Short Story which was super amazing! XD
• 
  Dylan Rock

  A lovecraftian anthology that varies in style with stories that range in style from M.R James, Hubert Shelby Junior and Steven King within Lovecraft's mythos
• 
  Emory Black

  I had a lot of fun reading this. A couple of the stories fell a little flat but when you're reading a collection, there's likely to be some that you don't enjoy. I like how the majority of them expanded on stories by Lovecraft, answering some questions, asking more.
• 
  Ryan

  When I discovered the works of H.P. Lovecraft around 2010 or 2011 I instantly became fanatical for the Old Gent and his sprawling Mythos. One of the greatest joys I had after finishing his works was finding out that he had a line of acolytes that started with his closest friends immediately after his death and is still going strong to this day almost 80 years later. There are a seemingly endless number of collections of short stories by those who identify with that mold, and I've read most of them. While I usually am able to wholeheartedly recommend these collections for any Lovecraft fans, this one is little difficult because of a single story. Before we get to that, I have to say that I enjoyed the rest of stories in this collection. None of them are world beaters but they're competently written and scratch that Mythos itch that every Lovecraft obsessive experiences. The one that nearly killed this entire collection for me was Cthulhu Rising by Heather Graham. I was familiar with her name because I saw her books populate the romance novel section of the Barnes & Noble that I worked at (incidentally, this was not another of the treasures I mined while working there; I picked up at a local second hand book store) and so was confused when I saw her name in the table of contents. I got to that story and, though it was not particularly long, it still stands as one of the worst reading experiences I've ever had. To put it bluntly, she writes like the kind of author that pumps out books on cheesy romance novel labels. The character names in particular reek of romance writing. If I recall correctly the ship captain's surname is "Steele", and I'm reasonably confident that by law at least one character has to be named "Steele" in every straight-to-mass market American romance novel ever written. The characters speak in such a way that makes me question as to whether Graham has ever participated in or even heard an actual human conversation. This is another one I want to revisit so I'll come back with any standouts I find after the reread.
• 
  Ninjakicalka

  "Szaleństwo Cthulhu" to zbiór 16 opowiadań inspirowanych twórczością Lovecrafta, a konkretnie powieścią "W górach szaleństwa".
  
  Przed rozpoczęciem myślałam, że będę musiała poświęcić dodatkowy czas na przypomnienie sobie oryginału. Na szczęście w tym zbiorze już jest ono uwzględnione na samym początku, co jest według mnie świetnym pomysłem, mimo że zajmuje aż 30% objętości. Pozwala to poznać lovecraftowy klimat nowym osobom.
  
  Jeśli nie wiecie, o co chodzi z Górami szaleństwa, to w skrócie traktuje to o ekspedycji na Antarktydę. To, co znajdują tam naukowcy, doprowadza człowieka do szaleństwa. Powieść zawiera również odniesienia do twórczości Edgara Allana Poe.
  
  Pierwsze opowiadanie "W górach pomroczności" rozwaliło mnie totalnie, szczególnie kontrastując z oryginałem przeczytanym tuż przed nim. To taka pokręcona parodia, która nie zatrzymuje się ani na chwilę. UWIELBIAM! Tak bardzo postawiło poprzeczkę, że reszta już niestety mu nie dorównała.
  
  Co nie znaczy, że pozostała zawartość to słabizna. Ani trochę. Autorzy użyli wielu perspektyw (np. psa czy samego Przedwiecznego) oraz form (zapis nagrania, dziennik), przez które uwolnili do naszego świata jeszcze więcej grozy. Niektórym poszło tak świetnie, że mogliby robić za ghostwriterów samego mistrza horroru. Na samym końcu jeden z nich nawet sprawił, że się wzruszyłam. To było bardzo dobre zamknięcie całości.
  
  Miałam też problem z niektórymi z nich, bo totalnie nie widziałam tam inspiracji Górami szaleństwa. Może ogólną twórczością Howarda tak, ale tym konkretnym tekstem nie.
  
  Jeszcze jednym zgrzytem jest nieprawidłowa numeracja w spisie treści. Oprócz tego nie mam więcej zarzutów.
• 
  Lance

  "Lovecraft created a great big, albeit insanely warped, canvas and let anyone and everyone paint or scribble or splash or draw on it."
  
  This is a very high quality anthology. I picked it up from my local library expecting some light, wholesome tentacled fun and it exceeded all my expectations. All sixteen stories are inspired by Lovecraft's novella The Mountains of Madness, which gives the volume cohesion and incorporates a spectrum of retellings to tangential reimaginings. Fourteen of these stories were commissioned for this volume, so there was a lot of fresh modern material. Each story had its own merits and there was no filler. One of my faovurite authors of all-time, H.P. Lovecraft would have been pleased I think.
  My personal favourite was Last Rites by K.M. Tonso, which told the story of the son of Professor William Dyer, the scientist whose expedition to Antarctica culminated in death and academic disgrace as his true account of Elder Beings and shoggoths was not believed. The author really captured the relatability of Lovecraft's immortal pentagonal Elder monsters, who have created forces they can no longer control through disregulated curiosity. The creation of the shoggoths is a premonition of a very human future. It seemed a necessary post-script for the son of William Dyer to return to Antarctica if only to let the Elder Beings know; "'I forgive you.'"
  Other stand-out tales included. Lois H. Greshs' Devil's Bathtub which recast the shoggoths as all-engulfing magnetosome bacteria. Robert Silverberg's rediscovered story about the arrogance of dismissing any truth behind religion and spirituality (Diana of the Hundred Breasts) was also very potent and original "'He looks upon all as cults. He regards religion as a conspiracy by the powerful elite to stay on top at the expense of the masses.' 'The poor man. The poor empty-souled man!'" Which brings me to Cantata by Melanie Tem which uses the torment of an amusical person to gruesomely highlight the universality of lyrical communication throughout the history of sentience. "Surely she was the most inhospitable of hosts, so it seemed to her there must be something in intentional about it, some purpose, if only to be cruel. The itching response had soon developed, and her need to read it out." Although I was drawn to this volume by the more well-known names, such as Arthur C. Clarke, Robert Silverberg, and Michael Shea, I have found several new authors whose work I would be interested to pursue (like a million-eyed amorphous blob creature assimilating all in its path).
  Every short story had merit, and I can see any of the others being a firm favourite with a different reader. The petulance, neuroticism, and greed of academia is portrayed as astutely as in Lovecraft's original, telling that this genre still has a relevant comment to make on the disharmonous persona of science and particularly success in science. A very well edited volume, I am interested to read more Lovecraftian anthologies from Titan Books.
• 
  Hugo

  A mostly enjoyable and pleasingly mixed bag of eldritch horrors, ranging from the negligible (Clarke's woeful pastiche) and the baffling (Graham's sappy soap-opera inflected offering) to some remarkable considerations from such genre stalwarts as John Shirley, William Browning Spencer, Caitlín R. Kiernan, and—most especially—Michael Shea.
• 
  Thomas

  Big three for this collection because the theme is on point, and there are a couple real bangers. A few bad ones too, but ST Joshi rarely lets me down.
  
  All but one or two of these stories are based on HPL’s seminal “At the Mountains of Madness,” which is my favorite work of his and is fertile ground for mythos fiction.
• 
  Myles

  A great collection if you enjoy At The Mountains of Madness. Some of these stories act as sequels, prequels, or even AtMoM told from a different perspective. Standout stories from Clarke, Fresh, Kiernan, Shea, Schweitzer, Pulver and many more.
• 
  Dan Johnson

  From the farcical to the creepy, S. T. Joshi brings us a fascinating selection of Lovecraftian stories. I was surprised to see one from Arthur C. Clarke! I'm looking forward to reading Volume 2.
• 
  Alex Budris

  The last story, by Donald Tyson, is really great.
• 
  Bill Borre

  "A Mountain Walked" by Caitlín R. Kiernan - Four paleontologists are digging up dinosaur fossils when they uncover an artifact that a strange woman-like creature appears before them to claim.
• 
  Chris Lira

  Typical anthology- mostly just-O.K. stories, a few really good ones, and few stinkers.
• 
  Larry

  A decent anthology of Cthulhu Mythos stories, loosely themed around
  At the Mountains of Madness.
  
  The quality here is kind of uneven. The Arthur C. Clarke story was just stupid, and there were a couple of others I didn't finish. Some good stories, too. I really liked the final story, The Dog Handler.
• 
  OpenBookSociety.com

  
  http://openbooksociety.com/article/th...
  
  
  The Madness of Cthulhu Anthology
  The Madness of Cthulhu, Book #2
  By S.T. Joshi
  ISBN: 9781781165485
  Brought to you by OBS Reviewer Scott
  
  Review:
  
  Following in the footsteps of the legendary Howard Phillips Lovecraft is no small feat. Considered by many to have pioneered the art of horror and the supernatural in literature, his stories still resonate with the tales of cosmic horror today. It was with this Knowledge that I started into the second volume of stories “inspired” by H.P. Lovecraft: The Madness of Cthulhu. While a reasonable number of prolific authors called to the task, only the longer pieces pulled through.
  
  From a writer’s point of view, it is very easy to fall into the formulaic when writing a “dedication” piece. With Lovecraft, The formula was often best described as, “Man tackles the unknown; man finds out something he was not meant to know; man goes mad.” Sadly, some, if not all, of the shorter pieces followed this pattern verbatim, with no meat on the skeleton. The longer works had enough time to develop character and background to make a passable effort. These stories, were the glue that really held the whole together.
  
  The writing is modern – probably what turned my interest away from the works in general. H.P. Lovecraft was an incredibly gifted author who had a grand design of Victorian Horror literature (prominently driven by Edgar Allen Poe –progenitor of the modernist short story) and an incredible grasp of the English language. Sometimes in The Madness of Cthulhu, the stories are hampered simply because the art of the short story has changed drastically from the roaring twenties that Lovecraft was writing in; drawing upon the rich history of his New England environs. Perhaps cosmic horror can be written (and I have seen it performed well, here) in a modern short, but lovers of Lovecraft will undoubtedly find themselves pining for the turn of the century Gothic tales.
  
  As most of the stories these days are thematically active and protagonist driven, unlike their Victorian and Edwardian counterparts, the stories do have their own feel. It’s a different feel, however; one borne on waves of post-modern philosophy, which was just beginning to see the light of day in Lovecraft’s time. As such, most can be read without the moniker of a Cthulhu overhead. In fact if these stories weren’t offshoots of Lovecraftian themes, they would make a great (well some would) collection of modern cosmic horror. Some of the stories (notably the first two) literally are not worth the ink they’re printed with. They just lack imagination and any desire to tell a tale.
  
  The myriad stories that comprise the book The Madness of Cthulhu: Volume Two are not all bad. Like most anthologies, you take the good with it. There are, of the 14 short tales in the book, I’d say 2/3 of it is worth the read, if you do your best trying not to compare it with the master architect. The majority of its contents, are solidly based stories that by no means should be taken as canonical (albeit the fact that Lovecraft himself drove other authors, of his choosing, to write tales in this dark universe – notables like Clark Aston Smith, and Robert E. Howard, for example). They can be incorporated into the canon, but as a post-modern take on a bygone age.
  
  Lovers of Lovecraft have been warned. Lovers of horror fiction will be pleased for the most part. While some stories are very strong, others are weak even among their contemporaries. Overall, though, The Madness of Cthulhu: Volume Two will give all readers something to talk about – good or bad.
  
  
  
• 
  Matthew J.

  Out of sixteen stories, there were maybe three that weren't very good. The rest were really good to excellent. It's an impressive anthology to feature so many stories that are so good. S.T. Joshi has assembled a bunch of varied tales inspired by 'At the Mountains of Madness,' arguably H.P. Lovecraft's best story. Admittedly, a couple stories are less connected than others, but any fan should give this a read. It's one of the best Lovecraftian anthologies I've read, and has many tales to add to the Mythos canon.
• 
  Isidore

  A surprisingly unimpressive anthology, despite an imposing list of contributors and a well-known editor.
  
  The collection is ostensibly organized around the themes and subject matter of Lovecraft's At the Mountains of Madness. Some of the stories are indeed mildly interesting glosses or variations on the source text; many reflect Lovecraft's (and the editor's) materialistic anti-anthropocentrism, and in several instances I was inclined to think these gained inclusion because of ideological correctness rather than literary merit; a few stories have nothing to do with either Lovecraft's philosophy or his novella, and it's hard to explain their presence, although, as with Darrell Schweitzer's tribute to Pickman's Model, and J. C. Koch's horror western, they can be enjoyable enough.
  
  Out of this generally tepid assortment I would select Kiernan's A Mountain Walked as a superior contribution, although it's scarcely her all-time best. Michael Shea's Under the Shelf is exciting and fun. Robert Silverberg's Diana of the Hundred Breasts, from 1996, is better still, and one of the very few stories in the book which actually elicits a frisson. There is one other reprint present, a harmless bit of ancient jocularity by Arthur C. Clarke.
  
  Joshi is a notoriously exacting critic, and so I'm amazed that he is willing to give his imprimatur to such crudely written junk as Heather Graham's Cthulhu Rising. Happily, it can be skimmed, or skipped. Sadly, it's the longest story in the book.
  
  There's a follow-up volume coming in October, which I will likely ignore.