Black Wings III: New Tales of Lovecraftian Horror by S.T. Joshi

Black Wings III: New Tales of Lovecraftian Horror Reviews

• 
  Bogdan

  Easy, but fun to read:
  Dimply Dolly Doofy - Donald R. Burleson (about a special baby)
  Spiderwebs in the Dark - Darrell Schweitzer (multiple realities)
  Hotel del Lago - Mollie L. Burleson ( a ghostly town in the middle of the desert)
  
  And the better ones:
  The Hag Stone - Richard Gavin ( a stone has the power to take you in another dimension)
  
  Waller - Donald Tyson (maybe the ending wasn`t as expected, but the ideea was great)
  
  The Man with the Horn - Jason V. Brock ( the person next door could be an unusual neighbour)
  
  Down Black Staircases - Joseph S. Pulver, Sr (the style was hard to follow, but you have to love the ideea and the story)
  
  The Turn of the Tide - Mark Howard Jones ( there are strange things afoot)
  
  Weltschmerz - Sam Gafford, nicely written and intense in the same time.
  
  Thistle’s Find - Simon Strantzas (yep, again a machine that can send you to another dimension has a big role here)
  
  Further Beyond - Brian Stableford (and another mysterious concoction could bring to you another dimensions, but still, a good take on the ideea)
  
  Overall, I liked 8 stories and 3 were ok. The other 5 of them were (by the way of the story of the writing) in the "not Interested" zone. Not bad, but I felt that the first volume was better.
  
  The overall impression could be somewhere between 3 and 3.5 stars.
  
• 
  Toolshed

  So, this was another fun read. First off, I thought this was going to be the weakest installment but reading the second half I found out that the quality was strangely balanced.
  
  These are a couple of stories which didn't do much for me (but still managed to attain a certain level of quality in my eyes):
  
  
  Houdini Fish - Jonathan Thomas
  Dimply Dolly Doofy - Donald R. Burleson (pleasantly disturbing, but does not offer much other than that)
  Spiderwebs in the Dark - Darrell Schweitzer
  Waller - Donald Tyson (though I kinda appreciate the original premise and some good ideas)
  Thistle’s Find - Simon Strantzas
  Further Beyond - Brian Stableford (the second story in this anthology written as a reply to HPL's "From Beyond", I guess I don't care much for the original story either; I really liked Stableford's Pickman story in the first installment as well as his novel "The Empire of Fear", but this one felt too much like a straight pastiche in the vein of August Derleth which brought very little new to the table)
  Hotel del Lago - Mollie L. Burleson (I loved her story in the first Black Wings, especially for its minimalistic and straightforward approach, but this one felt somehow lacking)
  
  These are the better (or best) ones in the anthology:
  
  The Hag Stone - Richard Gavin (Richard's story was a pinnacle of the second installment and this one was pretty good as well; I like how he uses relationships as a means for the supernatural element to surface)
  Underneath an Arkham Moon - Jessica Amanda Salmonson & W. H. Pugmire (loved this one, the twisted imagery, the language, the strange poetic quality embedded in the story - these are the stories I like)
  One Tree Hill (The World as Catalysm) - Caitlín R. Kiernan (Well, it's CRK, not much else needs to be said, I love her - though Pickman's Other Model still remains her best from this series of anthologies)
  The Man with the Horn - Jason V. Brock (props for engaging in a dialog with TED Klein on this one, it was pretty amazing, especially the hallucinatory passages)
  The Megalith Plague - Don Webb (Don Webb is probably the biggest find from all these authors, I loved both of his stories in this series immensely - this had a real Wicker Man feel to it, I enjoyed the gradation and especially the apocalyptic ending, love those if they are done right)
  Down Black Staircases - Joseph S. Pulver, Sr (I was OVERMOON while reading this story of Joe's /a bit of an internal Lovecraft eZine Podcast joke/ - he has taken the experimental approach and did a brilliant job with it, I liked how the story flowed, slowly unraveling, even though it was hard to follow at times, but that's just what makes me tick)
  China Holiday - Peter Cannon (this would be a pretty unimaginative story if it wasn't for the ending which made up perfectly for the kinda slow-paced description of the holiday which really takes up most of the story - the toilet scene is strangely haunting, and it's the minimalism that does the trick)
  Necrotic Cove - Lois Gresh (HANDS DOWN THE BEST STORY IN THE BOOK - I was immediately drawn to this strange landscape that the author has created, and was deeply moved by the story of these two... creatures; and the style, oh man: the writing is first-class in this one)
  The Turn of the Tide - Mark Howard Jones (I was captivated by the strange relationship between the three main characters, and intrigued by the (post?)-apocalyptic feel of the whole thing)
  Weltschmerz - Sam Gafford (judging from this and his other story in this series, Gafford must be a blast at parties lol, but the yarn he spins immediatelly caught my attention and managed to do so right until the end)
  
• 
  Félix

  Sure, Gavin's, Kiernan's and Strantzas' are stories that could have appeared in BWI or II, also, the first and las stories are clever variations on Lovecraft's own From Beyond. The rest falls too often on a kind of generic weird-cosmic-horror not so different (not different at all, in fact) to the one you could find in any Lovecraft/Mythos anthology (and there's a lot of them).
  
  We have come a long way fron the groundbreaking first volume and I'm sorry to say that, for a series that started with such strong statement against pastiche, BW is becoming fast its own pastiche.
• 
  Suzanne

  Another great issue of the Black Wings of Cthulhu series. I enjoyed or loved most of the seventeen tales presented in the book.
  
  Overall I give it 4 stars. I really enjoyed my time with this book. I usually also rate the stories separately. So let's go over those ratings.
  
  >Houdini Fish - Jonathan Thomas.
  3 stars. (Interesting mystery, but nothing to special in the end.)
  >Dimply Dolly Doofy - Donald R. Burleson.
  4 stars. (A story about one special little baby.)
  >The Hag Stone - Richard Gavin.
  5 stars. (Just a great great story.)
  >Underneath an Arkham Moon - Jessica Amanda Salmonson & W. H. Pugmire.
  5 stars. (My favorite stories in this collection!! Fantastic writing!! The whole book is worth buying just for this story alone.)
  >Spiderwebs in the Dark - Darrell Schweitzer.
  5 stars. (Schweitzer has never let me down!)
  >One Tree Hill (The World as Cataclysm) - Caitlín R. Kiernan.
  4 stars. (have yet to read a story by Kiernan I didn't like.)
  >The Man with the Horn - Jason V Brock.
  5 stars. (Loved it.)
  >Hotel Del Lago - Mollie L. Burleson.
  3'5 stars. (Great setup, just wished it had been longer.)
  >Waller - Donald Tyson.
  4 stars.
  >The Megalith Plague - Don Webb.
  3 stars.
  >Down Black Staircases - Joseph S. Pulver, Sr.
  1 star. (I feel bad for saying this,.. But I hated this.. This was just so hard to read. I didn't get along with his story in Black Wings 1 either, but it wasn't as bad as this. I like Pulver, Sr work as a editor more than his actual writing. Maybe it will still change if I find the right stories. )
  >China Holiday - Peter Cannon.
  3 stars.
  >Necrotic Cove - Mark Howard Jones.
  5 stars.
  >Weltschmetz - Sam Gafford.
  4.stars. (Nice story. Remind me somewhat of Matt Cardin's story "Blackbrain Dwarf". With I quite like. It also had my favorite sentence in this collection, "My cubicle in hell is a clean one." For some reason I found that so hilarious.)
  >Thristle's Find - Simon Strantzas.
  5 stars. (Yes! Loved it. Give me more Ghouls, please!)
  >Further Beyond - Brian Stableford.
  3 stars.
• 
  Trace Reddell

  A decent entry into the "Black Wings" series, but compared to the first two volumes, this collection was marred by more stories that just didn't feel complete. Tyson's "Waller" is a good case in point. I really loved the premise, was engaged by the storytelling, but the whole thing just stopped with neither adequate completion nor enough compelling mystery to provoke more thought. Mollie Burleson's "Hotel del Lago" feels more like a sketch -- again enticing but just not complete as a narrative. While several of the stories involved more sex than earlier volumes, a couple of the stories pushed the limits of gratuitous sex/violence even beyond the misogynistic to the inappropriate. Gafford's "Weltshmerz" took a disturbing-enough turn toward serial killer porn as it reduced an otherwise compelling female character to a victim. Strantza's story, "Thistle's Find," centered around an abduction-torture-rape scenario (even if what looked like a naked girl of 15 was in fact a ghoul from another dimension, the guys get off because the breasts are "tiny" and the "mons" bare and "labia" swollen) that repeatedly described male arousal . Spoilers be damned, there is no excuse for this kind of fantasy of male on minor-aged female sexual abuse (kidnap, torture, rape), and it has no place in this or any other anthology. Don Webb's "The Megalith Plague" was one of the main highlights of the collection, as was Pulver's "Down Black Staircases," and I thoroughly enjoyed Brian Stableford's "Further Beyond," which wrapped up the volume on a high note.
• 
  Israha

  O něco lepší, než "dvojka". Vyřadit Hotel Del Lago (krátká a bezobsažná zbytečnost) a Čínskou dovolenou (brak na úrovni začátečnické fanfikce) a zbude velmi silná povídková sbírka, která ne vždy spolehlivě vyděsí, ale v mnoha momentech dokáže napnout, znechutit, zaujmout a strhnout. Někoho možná ne úplně potěší fakt, že některé povídky (Zdivnor, Kopec Jeden strom, Pavučiny ve tmě) jsou spíš než lovecraftovský horror horrorem barkerovským, ale osobně nevidím důvod přehnaně hnidopišit - rozhodujícím kritériem je jejich kvalita a čtivost, ne subžánrové zařazení. Highlighty? Černými schodišti pod zem (!!!, jeden z nejlepších kusů napříč všemi třemi díly antologie), Weltschmerz, Muž s rohem, Houdinky, Děravý kámen. A také Pod arkhamským měsícem, díky své neodolatelné bizarnosti.
• 
  Joel Mitchell

  Despite having Cthulhu in the title, the Black Wings short story collections feature fewer appearances of Lovecraft’s alien-god-monsters than most cosmic horror collections. They aren’t absent by any means, but S. T. Joshi tends to avoid stories that he considers to be mere Lovecraftian pastiches. Instead, he collects stories that deal with cosmic horror themes (e.g. the utter insignificance of humanity in the face of a vast uncaring cosmos) that may or may not feature Cthulhu, Nyarlathotep, Azathoth, and company and may or may not be set in Innsmouth, Arkham, Miskatonic University, etc.. That said, there is enough Lovecraftian name dropping that a person not acquainted with the mythos will probably miss the full impact of some of the stories (some of it gets pretty meta).
  
  One of the things that I like about cosmic horror is that (unlike a lot of horror) it doesn’t usually rely on graphic gore or sex for its thrills and chills. Unfortunately, that doesn’t hold true for all of the stories in this collection, so that was a bit of a disappointment. Overall, this was a pretty typical S. T. Joshi-edited collection. Personally, I think that he is a bit of a snob who takes Lovecraft waaaay too seriously, but he does know how to pick well-written stories.
• 
  Huckle Buck411

  Like the first two Black Wings anthologies the stories within are a mixed bag, however there are enough really weird tales to make the book worth reading. Some of the short stories I found most to my liking were: Richard Gavin's The Hag Stone, Donald Tyson's Waller, Jason V. Brock's The Man With The Horn and Brian Stableford's Further Beyond. I'm not too keen on the stories that have deviant sexual ideas or themes. It's not that I am a prude but I don't think of such stories as very Lovecraftian.
• 
  Martin Polakovič

  Doteraz jednoznačne najkvalitnejšia zo všetkých "Čiernych kníh"
  
  
  * Houdinky 4.5/5
  Pěkná panenka Popletka 4/5
  Děravý kámen 4/5
  Pod arkhamským měsícem 4/5
  Pavučiny ve tmě 4/5
  Kopec Jeden strom 2.5/5
  Muž s rohem 2.5/5
  Hotel Del Lago 1/5
  * Zdivnor 4.5/5
  Megalitická vlna 2/5
  Černými schodišti pod zem 2.5/5
  Čínská dovolená 3/5
  Nekrotická zátoka 4/5
  V cestě přílivu 2/5
  Weltschmerz 4/5
  Thistleův objev 2.5/5
  * Zpoza neznámého světa 5/5
• 
  Larry

  This wasn't quite as good as the first two volumes in the series. I liked Further Beyond by Brian Stableford the best. Waller and The Hag Stone were pretty good.
  
  Several stories lack any overt reference to the familiar touchpoints of the Cthulhu Mythos.
  
• 
  Raul sadok

  The worst so far, nothing impressive just the last tales are “something interesting”, the rest are really bad
• 
  Josh Towzey

  Favorites:
  
  The Hag Stone
  Further Beyond
  One Tree Hill (The World As Cataclysm)
• 
  Alex Budris

  Another better-than-average collection of mythos stories.
• 
  Bill Borre

  "The Man with the Horn" by Jason V Brock - The protagonist encounters a creature possessing a horn composed of organic material in the afterlife.
• 
  Netanella

  This anthology of new weird tales inspired by Lovecraft was much better than the one I read earlier this month. The book opens and closes with short stories inspired by Lovecraft's From Beyond; I thought the closing piece was the stronger one. There are a few stories here that I didn't quite care for, but overall there are some quality pieces that make this a must read for any Lovecraft fan.
• 
  Emma Slaughter

  Perhaps it's a testament to how desensitised human beings are becoming, but I didn't find these stories scary or unsettling in the slightest. That said, they are very good stories.
• 
  Buffy

  I'm not really a huge fan of Lovecraft but I was surprised to find that I enjoyed this book. There were some really chilling stories in it. It's a good book to read when Halloween is coming up.