Return of the Old Ones by Brian M. Sammons

Return of the Old Ones Reviews

• 
  Andrew

  I guess I should have learnt by now - when it comes to horror anthologies you sure do get a mixed bag. Throw in to the mix Lovecraftian connections and you have just up the stakes to a whole new level.
  
  I guess - and to totally steal someone else's quote - it really is a bit like a box of chocolates - some poor soul always ends up with the coffee or the coconut (or what ever your least favourite flavour is) and sadly someone has to eat it before you can call the box finished.
  
  What I am poorly trying to say is that there are some great stories here - to be honest I cannot remember reading so much so fast - but there were also some real drags here too - stories where for me it felt like the author was trying too hard to be the cool kid in the club - but I guess that is the case of any genre anthology - just in this case it slowed things down a bit. So as a random selection to try something new - great but I have to say there were a few here I would not think about going for more over.
• 
  Tarl

  I am always intrigued by post apocalyptic Lovecraftian horror because there is so much a writer can do with it. There are often some really good gems in collections like these, but there is also the chance that the writers try too hard or don't really grasp Lovecraftian horror as they lose themselves in their imagined hellscapes.
  
  Sammons has collected a fairly good batch of stories for this anthology, and wrapped it in a beautiful cover that is an instant eye catcher. There were definitely far more good stories to uninteresting ones in this anthology, the good ones capturing the cosmic horror of Lovecraftian horror extremely well. There are also a number of stories that fall back on the old tropes of unspeakable monsters and don't really try anything new. Though somewhat entertaining, they don't do as good of a job as the authors who take Lovecraft's creations and push further with them.
  
  Shout/Kill/Revel/Repeat by Scott R Jones was a story that I didn't like when I started reading it. The multiple explanations/actions/thoughts from the protagonist was distracting at first and took some getting used to. But as the story went on I started to really enjoy just what it was trying to do. By the end of the story, I thought the sense of madness of a Lovecraftian universe was really handled well and the way things played out worked extremely well. Easily one of the best stories in this collection.
  
  The Call Of The Deep by William Meikle is one of the stories where the author didn't seem to try anything new with the Lovecraft mythos. The story reads like a zombie apocalypse with deep ones rather than zombies. Humans holed up behind military strong points waiting as the horde of creatures slowly surround them. The ending wasn't that climactic, nor was the story very engaging. Normally I like Meikle's work, but not this story unfortunately.
  
  The Allclear by Edward M. Erdelac was a pretty good story and did a good job showing how a shelter would slowly evolve over time to form their own religion and how titles and words would evolve over time. Yet I couldn't shake the feel that it was just a Fallout copy, with elements of the story eerily close to elements found in the game, which took away a lot of the originality of the story and left it feeling more like a fanfiction than anything else. Still, the story itself was a good one and unique when it came to the other stories in this anthology.
  
  Chimera by Sam Gafford took an interesting route with their story, using elements to show the end of the world quite differently than the other writers did in this anthology. There is a far more human element to the story, and the reader gets a perfect payoff because of it. You feel for the characters, especially the protagonist, which helps to make the payoff even better. I enjoyed this story, and though normally I am not a fan of human conflicts like the one in this story, it worked extremely well and made the ending that much more satisfying.
  
  In the end, this is a fairly good collection of Lovecraftian stories. Sammons' choice to group them in three sections (before the fall, during the fall, after the fall) was a really smart way of handling them, and I am glad that each section had a good amount of stories in each. Even though there are the odd story that falls short, that is to be expected for an anthology, and honestly, you may enjoy them where I didn't. And ti you are into post apocalyptic stories, or Lovecraftian stories, this is a good collection of stories for you that I am sure you will find a few favorites of your own!
• 
  Claus Appel

  This book was not as great as I had hoped. Many of the stories were bland, but some were good. My favourite stories in it were "Chimera" by Sam Gafford and "Messages from a Dark Deity" by Stephen Mark Rainey, with honourable mentions to "Scratching from the Outer Darkness" by Tim Curran.
• 
  Sotiris Kosmas

  A good anthology of Lovecraftian tales. Although none stands out in particular, there are no bad ones
• 
  Scott Waldie

  Excellent collection of stories here. Sammons did a great job organizing it into 'pre-', 'during', and 'post-' apocalyptic sections. Pathos and terror abound, not to mention innovation, as well as the atmospheric prose so important to a lot of Lovecraft fiction, from distinct voices. I'd say there were about ten selections I really enjoyed, and the rest were all still pretty good. I also appreciated the author biographies which list off a lot more material I can check out.
• 
  James Nealon

  Yum
  
  Every single time I read one of these I am surprised by how much I love them. Awesome collection of stories.
• 
  Jonathan

  Mostly effective.
  
  I won't lie. There are some weak stories in the anthology that don't seem to fit. The majority of it though is wonderfully atmospheric and creepy.
• 
  Matt

  15/35/50
  
  15% awesome stories, 35% good to really good stories, and 50% stories ranging from “That was alright” to Well, that just happened” and down to “I skimmed it after the first few pages, checked the end just in case, and then started reading the next story”. 3.5 stars, really. The awesome stories were A-1, legit.
• 
  Armand Rosamilia

  I thought having the book cut into three sections (first stores are pre-Cthulhu, second set when it is happening and last group the afterward of it already happened) was great. I enjoyed most of the stories. As with any anthology, there are always a few great and a couple that aren't so great. I am a reader of most of these authors and have found a couple of new ones to read now, too.
• 
  Bill Borre

  "Time Flies" by Pete Rawlik - The Yith are time-travelling aliens that occupy the bodies of the recent dead. Pandora becomes the bodyguard of one named Ys and learns the immortal creatures are only there to observe the extinction of the world of men due to a large earthquake and tsunami. Ys also informs Pandora when the Yith depart their dead hosts it will create a zombie plague.
• 
  Sriram K R

  I continue to be a sucker for Lovecraft pastiches told through the lens of a newer generation of authors.
• 
  Edward J.M.J.

  While any themed collection suffers from being repetitive, this one suffers A LOT. It's like there was a checklist, make the main character have suppressed memories, throw in some cults, and BOOM, end the world. Failing that, just throw a bunch of weird stuff against the wall and see what sticks.
  
  There were a few stories I did like, but ultimately I think the theme constricted the plots too much, the writing was mostly fine throughout. If I read these by themselves and not back to back I'm sure they wouldn't have annoyed so much, but the same thing over and over with just increasingly over the top weird for the sake of it was just tiresome.
  
  Did I mention how repetitive this is yet?