What do you think?
Rate this book
The Red Brain: Great Tales of the Cthulhu Mythos
Following up on the success of A Mountain Walked, this volume presents another dozen tales of the Cthulhu Mythos that show how H. P. Lovecraft’s motifs, conceptions, and imagery have affected an entire century of weird writing. Beginning with a delightful parody of Lovecraft written by Edith Miniter in 1921, this anthology features “The Red Brain,” a story of incalculable cosmic horror by Donald Wandrei; “The Beast of Averoigne,” in which Clark Ashton Smith plays a riff on “The Dunwich Horror”; and C. Hall Thompson’s “The Will of Claude Ashur,” an ingenious adaptation of “The Thing on the Doorstep.”
Ramsey Campbell, one of the leading weird writers of today, has always maintained his Lovecraftian roots, and in “The Pattern” he utilizes Lovecraft’s theme of “conflict with time” to cataclysmic effect. The pioneering Thomas Ligotti (“The Sect of the Idiot”) draws inspiration from Lovecraft’s early tales, while Brian McNaughton (“Meryphillia”) teases out the latent sexuality in Lovecraft’s use of ghouls. Caitlín R. Kiernan’s “The Peddler’s Tale” is one of the few successful elaborations of Lovecraft’s dreamland stories, while Jonathan Thomas uses Lovecraft’s native town of Providence for a tale of alien races.
This volume contains previously unpublished stories by W. H. Pugmire, Mark Samuels, and Ray Garton, all of which demonstrate their authors’ skill at fusing Lovecraftian motifs with their own dark vision. All in all, The Red Brain is a rich banquet of strangeness that no Lovecraft devotee will want to be without.
Ramsey Campbell, one of the leading weird writers of today, has always maintained his Lovecraftian roots, and in “The Pattern” he utilizes Lovecraft’s theme of “conflict with time” to cataclysmic effect. The pioneering Thomas Ligotti (“The Sect of the Idiot”) draws inspiration from Lovecraft’s early tales, while Brian McNaughton (“Meryphillia”) teases out the latent sexuality in Lovecraft’s use of ghouls. Caitlín R. Kiernan’s “The Peddler’s Tale” is one of the few successful elaborations of Lovecraft’s dreamland stories, while Jonathan Thomas uses Lovecraft’s native town of Providence for a tale of alien races.
This volume contains previously unpublished stories by W. H. Pugmire, Mark Samuels, and Ray Garton, all of which demonstrate their authors’ skill at fusing Lovecraftian motifs with their own dark vision. All in all, The Red Brain is a rich banquet of strangeness that no Lovecraft devotee will want to be without.
270 pages, Kindle Edition
First published October 1, 2017
175 people are currently reading
218 people want to read
About the author
S.T. Joshi
797 books450 followersSunand Tryambak Joshi is an Indian American literary scholar, and a leading figure in the study of Howard Phillips Lovecraft and other authors. Besides what some critics consider to be the definitive biography of Lovecraft (H. P. Lovecraft: A Life, 1996), Joshi has written about Ambrose Bierce, H. L. Mencken, Lord Dunsany, and M.R. James, and has edited collections of their works.
His literary criticism is notable for its emphases upon readability and the dominant worldviews of the authors in question; his The Weird Tale looks at six acknowledged masters of horror and fantasy (namely Arthur Machen, Algernon Blackwood, Dunsany, M. R. James, Bierce and Lovecraft), and discusses their respective worldviews in depth and with authority. A follow-up volume, The Modern Weird Tale, examines the work of modern writers, including Shirley Jackson, Ramsey Campbell, Stephen King, Robert Aickman, Thomas Ligotti, T. E. D. Klein and others, from a similar philosophically oriented viewpoint. The Evolution of the Weird Tale (2004) includes essays on Dennis Etchison, L. P. Hartley, Les Daniels, E. F. Benson, Rudyard Kipling, David J. Schow, Robert Bloch, L. P. Davies, Edward Lucas White, Rod Serling, Poppy Z. Brite and others.
Joshi is the editor of the small-press literary journals Lovecraft Studies and Studies in Weird Fiction, published by Necronomicon Press. He is also the editor of Lovecraft Annual and co-editor of Dead Reckonings, both small-press journals published by Hippocampus Press.
In addition to literary criticism, Joshi has also edited books on atheism and social relations, including Documents of American Prejudice (1999), an annotated collection of American racist writings; In Her Place (2006), which collects written examples of prejudice against women; and Atheism: A Reader (2000), which collects atheistic writings by such people as Antony Flew, George Eliot, Bertrand Russell, Emma Goldman, Gore Vidal and Carl Sagan, among others. An Agnostic Reader, collecting pieces by such writers as Isaac Asimov, John William Draper, Albert Einstein, Frederic Harrison, Thomas Henry Huxley, Robert Ingersoll, Corliss Lamont, Arthur Schopenhauer and Edward Westermarck, was published in 2007.
Joshi is also the author of God's Defenders: What They Believe and Why They Are Wrong (2003), an anti-religious polemic against various writers including C. S. Lewis, G. K. Chesterton, T. S. Eliot, William F. Buckley, Jr., William James, Stephen L. Carter, Annie Dillard, Reynolds Price, Elisabeth Kübler-Ross, Guenter Lewy, Neale Donald Walsch and Jerry Falwell, which is dedicated to theologian and fellow Lovecraft critic Robert M. Price.
In 2006 he published The Angry Right: Why Conservatives Keep Getting It Wrong, which criticised the political writings of such commentators as William F. Buckley, Jr., Russell Kirk, David and Rush Limbaugh, Ann Coulter, Phyllis Schlafly, William Bennett, Gertrude Himmelfarb and Irving and William Kristol, arguing that, despite the efforts of right-wing polemicists, the values of the American people have become steadily more liberal over time.
Joshi, who lives with his wife in Moravia, New York, has stated on his website that his most noteworthy achievements thus far have been his biography of Lovecraft, H. P. Lovecraft: A Life and The Weird Tale.
His literary criticism is notable for its emphases upon readability and the dominant worldviews of the authors in question; his The Weird Tale looks at six acknowledged masters of horror and fantasy (namely Arthur Machen, Algernon Blackwood, Dunsany, M. R. James, Bierce and Lovecraft), and discusses their respective worldviews in depth and with authority. A follow-up volume, The Modern Weird Tale, examines the work of modern writers, including Shirley Jackson, Ramsey Campbell, Stephen King, Robert Aickman, Thomas Ligotti, T. E. D. Klein and others, from a similar philosophically oriented viewpoint. The Evolution of the Weird Tale (2004) includes essays on Dennis Etchison, L. P. Hartley, Les Daniels, E. F. Benson, Rudyard Kipling, David J. Schow, Robert Bloch, L. P. Davies, Edward Lucas White, Rod Serling, Poppy Z. Brite and others.
Joshi is the editor of the small-press literary journals Lovecraft Studies and Studies in Weird Fiction, published by Necronomicon Press. He is also the editor of Lovecraft Annual and co-editor of Dead Reckonings, both small-press journals published by Hippocampus Press.
In addition to literary criticism, Joshi has also edited books on atheism and social relations, including Documents of American Prejudice (1999), an annotated collection of American racist writings; In Her Place (2006), which collects written examples of prejudice against women; and Atheism: A Reader (2000), which collects atheistic writings by such people as Antony Flew, George Eliot, Bertrand Russell, Emma Goldman, Gore Vidal and Carl Sagan, among others. An Agnostic Reader, collecting pieces by such writers as Isaac Asimov, John William Draper, Albert Einstein, Frederic Harrison, Thomas Henry Huxley, Robert Ingersoll, Corliss Lamont, Arthur Schopenhauer and Edward Westermarck, was published in 2007.
Joshi is also the author of God's Defenders: What They Believe and Why They Are Wrong (2003), an anti-religious polemic against various writers including C. S. Lewis, G. K. Chesterton, T. S. Eliot, William F. Buckley, Jr., William James, Stephen L. Carter, Annie Dillard, Reynolds Price, Elisabeth Kübler-Ross, Guenter Lewy, Neale Donald Walsch and Jerry Falwell, which is dedicated to theologian and fellow Lovecraft critic Robert M. Price.
In 2006 he published The Angry Right: Why Conservatives Keep Getting It Wrong, which criticised the political writings of such commentators as William F. Buckley, Jr., Russell Kirk, David and Rush Limbaugh, Ann Coulter, Phyllis Schlafly, William Bennett, Gertrude Himmelfarb and Irving and William Kristol, arguing that, despite the efforts of right-wing polemicists, the values of the American people have become steadily more liberal over time.
Joshi, who lives with his wife in Moravia, New York, has stated on his website that his most noteworthy achievements thus far have been his biography of Lovecraft, H. P. Lovecraft: A Life and The Weird Tale.
Ratings & Reviews
Friends & Following
Create a free account to discover what your friends think of this book!
Community Reviews
Displaying 1 - 21 of 21 reviews
May 30, 2022
This is a wonderful collection of a dozen classic and modern Weird Fiction short stories. It contains some truly great stories and some stories that make me question the editor's taste.
4 • Falco Ossifracus: By Mr. Goodguile • (1921) • Edith Miniter's four page story is a roast of Lovecraft's style. Besides its amazing perceptiveness of what is unusual and therefore make funnable about Lovecraft's style is the fact it was written in 1921. Lovecraft had barely started being published by then! To fully understand what Miniter satirizes, keep in mind the first three fairly typical sentences of a story by HPL like "The Tomb" (1922):
In relating the circumstances which have led to my confinement within this refuge for the demented, I am aware that my present position will create a natural doubt of the authenticity of my narrative. It is an unfortunate fact that the bulk of humanity is too limited in its mental vision to weigh with patience and intelligence those isolated phenomena, seen and felt only by a psychologically sensitive few, which lie outside its common experience. Men of broader intellect know that there is no sharp distinction betwixt the real and the unreal; that all things appear as they do only by virtue of the delicate individual physical and mental media through which we are made conscious of them; but the prosaic materialism of the majority condemns as madness the flashes of super-sight which penetrate the common veil of obvious empiricism.
This is almost too easy to poke jest at. Another aspect of HPL's style she satirizes is the frequent use of what I think of as appositional phrasing. Lovecraft will make a statement and then want to show its limits through the use of apposition. For example, you will seldom find a sentence as stark as "Elmer was a tall, well-dressed man." The sentence doesn't do enough to make it worth HPL's time to write it. So he breathes life into it. Take the sentence, "Elmer, a tall, if stooped, bespectacled man, appeared in suits that while seeming new and never creased, were of an unchromatic, blended tweed, clearly of a fashion not one but precisely two generations past." Now we have a partial description of Elmer worth the writing. The appositional parts of the sentence, as I see it, are stooped, new and uncreased, and not one. They're unnecessary, but nevertheless add descriptive detail or emphasis. Often, HPL's appositions were so limiting they almost contradicted the meaning of the main thrust of the sentence. Recognizing this facet of Lovecraft's writing, Miniter writes amusingly contradictory sentences of just this nature. Hysterical stuff!
5 • The Red Brain • (1927) • by Donald Wandrei The second story goes down as one of my favorite stories by anyone of all time. It is not quite perfect. The editor in me winces at the extreme use of passive voice that deadens the story at the beginning. I silently erase all those hads and modify the verb form for poor Donald as I start to read. But then the story comes alive through the lush, cosmic prose and scope of his grand idea and viewpoint. The story is short, just ten pages, leaving room for only two characters at the end of time: the protagonist, the red brain, and the antagonist, the cosmic dust, entropy actually.
Having just read Wandrei's disappointing failure "Raiders of the Universes" freely available (through Kindle), it was a pleasure to see him pick up some of the same themes and grand scope and then tell a perfect tale. This short story may be Donald Wandrei's greatest masterpiece. The descriptions are beautifully written, the plot perfectly paced, the ending exquisitely appropriate for the stakes raised. How can this Wandrei story have escaped antholigization everywhere?
4 • The Beast of Averoigne • (1933) • by Clark Ashton Smith The third story, "The Beast of Averoigne," by Clark Ashton Smith is oft anthologized, it is said. I checked, and man is that right: http://www.isfdb.org/cgi-bin/title.cg...
Still, it was my first time reading it, and I round up to four stars for the wonderful SF horror story. I love and respect the writing. Smith always coins the right word, so much so you have to wonder if it's an actual word or is being fabricated on the spot. Anyhow, it's a really nice touch. Even without that unique feature, the writing is so elegant.
Sometimes that's all you get with a Clark Ashton Smith story--elegant writing. But on this occasion there's a great story too. Some monster rides in on the tails of a comet and marauds a 1369 countryside. So powerful and evil is this monster that extreme measures are resorted to. Great drama is in these details I won't recount here!
Why the roundup to four stars then? As great a writer as he is, CAS seldom fails to take too long to tell his story. Despite that, he also manages to leave out the juiciest scenes. These often happen off-camera as it were. These storytelling traits (I can't say flaws for such a great writer) are not as pronounced here, but are nevertheless present. What exactly are the reactions of the people being terrorized? We are never shown this, only obliquely told. Yes, I know it's completely predictable, thus making it beneath the telling for CAS, but something has to be shown for us to fully feel rather than just realize the stakes.
Fun story, but as always with CAS a bit frustrating for the unrealized potential of another great concept.
3 • The Will of Claude Ashur • (1947) • by C. Hall Thompson Really a novella, one that's more than twice as long as the previous three stories combined, it's a story of a good brother vs. an evil brother that was really imaginative and had a lot of suspense. I really liked the world they inhabited and reading about their rivalry. There was enough there for full length novel treatment.
One surprise for me was the use of the term "danse macabre" in the text. This was also the title of Stephen King's first non-fiction book, about the field of horror as a whole up until his time, the mid-1970s. King, as far as I know, never credits Thompson for the term. Maybe its use is more common than I realized.
In any event, this was a great classic horror story with only minimal elements of Weird. Recommended if you have patience enough to let stories take their time unfolding.
5 • The Pattern • (1976) • by Ramsey Campbell Perhaps the scariest story in the collection, its odd how 1970s horror can be so distinct. Nothing quite like it comes before and it didn't last long into the 1980s. This story reminds me particularly of Thomas Tryon's Harvest Home, Peter Straub's Ghost Story and other haunted house, hidden society stories of the era not coming specifically to mind any more. I loved it. The young artist and writer couple are trying to make a go of it in a haunted house. Eventually their relationship and then their lives become threatened as they try to deal with the situation. There were some delightful twists and turns in this long short story I won't spoil by describing. I really appreciated the unique scream addition. This story is well worth reading and a welcome addition to that genre even though it's no longer 1976.
3 • The Sect of the Idiot • (1988) • by Thomas Ligotti Many fans of Weird fiction rave over Ligotti's work, claiming him to be a true literary descendant of Lovecraft. I'm not among them. Yes, I recognize his writing talent, his ability to turn a well-written phrase. I appreciate his ability to world build and create an atmosphere of dark menace that crosses into cosmic horror. But for me there is always too much description, too little story. This is a good example. I'm hard pressed to provide anything resembling a plot synopsis for this story, so secondary is plot to what Ligotti is about here, but it has something to do with an unwanted transformation taking over the protagonist.
3 • Meryphillia • (1990) • by Brian McNaughton I wonder if Casper the Friendly Ghost served as the inspiration for this story. This is a light romp that's less filling after having enjoyed the great taste of the hunger sating preceding story. It's about a ghost or ghoul named Meryphillia who hasn't come to terms with her afterlife situation yet and just wants to have friends.
2 • The Peddler's Tale; or, Isobel's Revenge • (2013) • by Caitlín R. Kiernan This story is a confusing mishmash of two stories. The first story took place in the distant past and is about two ghouls who had a daughter who was born to fulfill a prophecy. It's hard to track the older, serious story legend because it is being told through the frame of an aunt telling the story to kids who keep interrupting her. The storyteller and this reader become highly annoyed at these interruptions. Frames for stories are fine if they serve some purpose, but a constantly intruding frame such as this one was simply becomes a nuisance and distraction. There may be more going on here and I might catch it with a reread some day.
1 • Integrity • (2015) • by Jonathan Thomas The weakest and one of the longer stories in the collection, a man in an alley finds himself about to be done in by demons. He tells us (the reader) how he came to be in the situation. What follows is a long, tedious sequence of I did this, then that happened to me, so I did this, and so on. But it's not interesting. There are no other characters and no real conflict. It's like a 1930s science fiction pulp recounting narrative chain of non-events designed to amaze by its wonderful scenery, but there's no conflict until the demons give chase. Then he dies. The end. A truly awful waste of time.
2 • Pickman's Lazarus • (2017) • by W. H. Pugmire A writer, Tara, is haunted by an admirer, Peters, who has some sort of hold on her. He is sucking out her life force, I guess, when the story suddenly shifts characters into another story. They must interrelate somehow, but the author fails to adequately explain, at least to me, or get me to care how. For me, this story was a confusing mess.
5 • The Crimson Fog • (2017) • by Mark Samuels This is a wonderful adventure story that transcends genres. In some ways its a science fiction hunt story of a team of special forces agents sent into a fog in order to defeat an invading menace by reaching an earlier soldier who had success with the menace and may be able to offer the solution. In another sense it's a grim fantasy of survival in a menacing Weird world of horror as team member after team member gets picked off. This story has delightful turns and twists I won't spoil. Lots of fun to read.
4 • Misanthrope • (2017) • by Ray Garton Fun story about a professor who summons demons, opens a dimensional portal for a demon world to invade actually, in just about the unlikeliest and surprising of settings I could ever imagine, and for a shocking reason. This was a nice finish to an uneven but mostly great story anthology.
4 • Falco Ossifracus: By Mr. Goodguile • (1921) • Edith Miniter's four page story is a roast of Lovecraft's style. Besides its amazing perceptiveness of what is unusual and therefore make funnable about Lovecraft's style is the fact it was written in 1921. Lovecraft had barely started being published by then! To fully understand what Miniter satirizes, keep in mind the first three fairly typical sentences of a story by HPL like "The Tomb" (1922):
In relating the circumstances which have led to my confinement within this refuge for the demented, I am aware that my present position will create a natural doubt of the authenticity of my narrative. It is an unfortunate fact that the bulk of humanity is too limited in its mental vision to weigh with patience and intelligence those isolated phenomena, seen and felt only by a psychologically sensitive few, which lie outside its common experience. Men of broader intellect know that there is no sharp distinction betwixt the real and the unreal; that all things appear as they do only by virtue of the delicate individual physical and mental media through which we are made conscious of them; but the prosaic materialism of the majority condemns as madness the flashes of super-sight which penetrate the common veil of obvious empiricism.
This is almost too easy to poke jest at. Another aspect of HPL's style she satirizes is the frequent use of what I think of as appositional phrasing. Lovecraft will make a statement and then want to show its limits through the use of apposition. For example, you will seldom find a sentence as stark as "Elmer was a tall, well-dressed man." The sentence doesn't do enough to make it worth HPL's time to write it. So he breathes life into it. Take the sentence, "Elmer, a tall, if stooped, bespectacled man, appeared in suits that while seeming new and never creased, were of an unchromatic, blended tweed, clearly of a fashion not one but precisely two generations past." Now we have a partial description of Elmer worth the writing. The appositional parts of the sentence, as I see it, are stooped, new and uncreased, and not one. They're unnecessary, but nevertheless add descriptive detail or emphasis. Often, HPL's appositions were so limiting they almost contradicted the meaning of the main thrust of the sentence. Recognizing this facet of Lovecraft's writing, Miniter writes amusingly contradictory sentences of just this nature. Hysterical stuff!
5 • The Red Brain • (1927) • by Donald Wandrei The second story goes down as one of my favorite stories by anyone of all time. It is not quite perfect. The editor in me winces at the extreme use of passive voice that deadens the story at the beginning. I silently erase all those hads and modify the verb form for poor Donald as I start to read. But then the story comes alive through the lush, cosmic prose and scope of his grand idea and viewpoint. The story is short, just ten pages, leaving room for only two characters at the end of time: the protagonist, the red brain, and the antagonist, the cosmic dust, entropy actually.
Having just read Wandrei's disappointing failure "Raiders of the Universes" freely available (through Kindle), it was a pleasure to see him pick up some of the same themes and grand scope and then tell a perfect tale. This short story may be Donald Wandrei's greatest masterpiece. The descriptions are beautifully written, the plot perfectly paced, the ending exquisitely appropriate for the stakes raised. How can this Wandrei story have escaped antholigization everywhere?
4 • The Beast of Averoigne • (1933) • by Clark Ashton Smith The third story, "The Beast of Averoigne," by Clark Ashton Smith is oft anthologized, it is said. I checked, and man is that right: http://www.isfdb.org/cgi-bin/title.cg...
Still, it was my first time reading it, and I round up to four stars for the wonderful SF horror story. I love and respect the writing. Smith always coins the right word, so much so you have to wonder if it's an actual word or is being fabricated on the spot. Anyhow, it's a really nice touch. Even without that unique feature, the writing is so elegant.
Sometimes that's all you get with a Clark Ashton Smith story--elegant writing. But on this occasion there's a great story too. Some monster rides in on the tails of a comet and marauds a 1369 countryside. So powerful and evil is this monster that extreme measures are resorted to. Great drama is in these details I won't recount here!
Why the roundup to four stars then? As great a writer as he is, CAS seldom fails to take too long to tell his story. Despite that, he also manages to leave out the juiciest scenes. These often happen off-camera as it were. These storytelling traits (I can't say flaws for such a great writer) are not as pronounced here, but are nevertheless present. What exactly are the reactions of the people being terrorized? We are never shown this, only obliquely told. Yes, I know it's completely predictable, thus making it beneath the telling for CAS, but something has to be shown for us to fully feel rather than just realize the stakes.
Fun story, but as always with CAS a bit frustrating for the unrealized potential of another great concept.
3 • The Will of Claude Ashur • (1947) • by C. Hall Thompson Really a novella, one that's more than twice as long as the previous three stories combined, it's a story of a good brother vs. an evil brother that was really imaginative and had a lot of suspense. I really liked the world they inhabited and reading about their rivalry. There was enough there for full length novel treatment.
One surprise for me was the use of the term "danse macabre" in the text. This was also the title of Stephen King's first non-fiction book, about the field of horror as a whole up until his time, the mid-1970s. King, as far as I know, never credits Thompson for the term. Maybe its use is more common than I realized.
In any event, this was a great classic horror story with only minimal elements of Weird. Recommended if you have patience enough to let stories take their time unfolding.
5 • The Pattern • (1976) • by Ramsey Campbell Perhaps the scariest story in the collection, its odd how 1970s horror can be so distinct. Nothing quite like it comes before and it didn't last long into the 1980s. This story reminds me particularly of Thomas Tryon's Harvest Home, Peter Straub's Ghost Story and other haunted house, hidden society stories of the era not coming specifically to mind any more. I loved it. The young artist and writer couple are trying to make a go of it in a haunted house. Eventually their relationship and then their lives become threatened as they try to deal with the situation. There were some delightful twists and turns in this long short story I won't spoil by describing. I really appreciated the unique scream addition. This story is well worth reading and a welcome addition to that genre even though it's no longer 1976.
3 • The Sect of the Idiot • (1988) • by Thomas Ligotti Many fans of Weird fiction rave over Ligotti's work, claiming him to be a true literary descendant of Lovecraft. I'm not among them. Yes, I recognize his writing talent, his ability to turn a well-written phrase. I appreciate his ability to world build and create an atmosphere of dark menace that crosses into cosmic horror. But for me there is always too much description, too little story. This is a good example. I'm hard pressed to provide anything resembling a plot synopsis for this story, so secondary is plot to what Ligotti is about here, but it has something to do with an unwanted transformation taking over the protagonist.
3 • Meryphillia • (1990) • by Brian McNaughton I wonder if Casper the Friendly Ghost served as the inspiration for this story. This is a light romp that's less filling after having enjoyed the great taste of the hunger sating preceding story. It's about a ghost or ghoul named Meryphillia who hasn't come to terms with her afterlife situation yet and just wants to have friends.
2 • The Peddler's Tale; or, Isobel's Revenge • (2013) • by Caitlín R. Kiernan This story is a confusing mishmash of two stories. The first story took place in the distant past and is about two ghouls who had a daughter who was born to fulfill a prophecy. It's hard to track the older, serious story legend because it is being told through the frame of an aunt telling the story to kids who keep interrupting her. The storyteller and this reader become highly annoyed at these interruptions. Frames for stories are fine if they serve some purpose, but a constantly intruding frame such as this one was simply becomes a nuisance and distraction. There may be more going on here and I might catch it with a reread some day.
1 • Integrity • (2015) • by Jonathan Thomas The weakest and one of the longer stories in the collection, a man in an alley finds himself about to be done in by demons. He tells us (the reader) how he came to be in the situation. What follows is a long, tedious sequence of I did this, then that happened to me, so I did this, and so on. But it's not interesting. There are no other characters and no real conflict. It's like a 1930s science fiction pulp recounting narrative chain of non-events designed to amaze by its wonderful scenery, but there's no conflict until the demons give chase. Then he dies. The end. A truly awful waste of time.
2 • Pickman's Lazarus • (2017) • by W. H. Pugmire A writer, Tara, is haunted by an admirer, Peters, who has some sort of hold on her. He is sucking out her life force, I guess, when the story suddenly shifts characters into another story. They must interrelate somehow, but the author fails to adequately explain, at least to me, or get me to care how. For me, this story was a confusing mess.
5 • The Crimson Fog • (2017) • by Mark Samuels This is a wonderful adventure story that transcends genres. In some ways its a science fiction hunt story of a team of special forces agents sent into a fog in order to defeat an invading menace by reaching an earlier soldier who had success with the menace and may be able to offer the solution. In another sense it's a grim fantasy of survival in a menacing Weird world of horror as team member after team member gets picked off. This story has delightful turns and twists I won't spoil. Lots of fun to read.
4 • Misanthrope • (2017) • by Ray Garton Fun story about a professor who summons demons, opens a dimensional portal for a demon world to invade actually, in just about the unlikeliest and surprising of settings I could ever imagine, and for a shocking reason. This was a nice finish to an uneven but mostly great story anthology.
June 13, 2019
Cthulhu Mythos anthologies are a dime a dozen, but this one was edited by S.T. Joshi and had some famous names and was on sale so I picked it up. As you can see below, the stories are a mixed bag.
"Falco Ossifracus: By Mr. Goodguile" by Edith Miniter
Made absolutely no sense.
"The Red Brain" Donald Wandrei
I liked this one. Very pulpy in the classic Lovecraft tradition but possessed of that existential cosmic horror that makes the genre so enjoyable.
"The Beast of Averoigne" by Clark Ashton Smith
Pretty average but contained references to Robert E. Howard's Conan universe and incorporated some recognizably Lovecraftian tropes. It's a good example of how these authors played off each other.
"The Will of Claude Ashur" by C. Hall Thompson
Felt like just a retelling of Lovecraft's "The Thing on the Doorstep." Very flat characters, especially Gratia, who exists solely to be helpless and childlike and to spur the male protagonist to action.
"The Pattern" by Ramsey Campbell
A solid, suspenseful read.
"The Sect of the Idiot" by Thomas Ligotti
Easily the best in the anthology (of course; it's Ligotti). Reminded me of "In a Foreign Town, In a Foreign Land" from his collection Teatro Grottesco , one of my favorites pieces by him.
"Meryphillia" by Brian McNaughton
Meh. I don't care for ghouls and there was really nothing memorable about this one.
"The Peddler's Tale; or, Isobel's Revenge" by Caitlin Kiernan
Caitlin Kiernan is a hit or miss for me. The Red Tree is a masterpiece but Threshold , Murder of Angels , and Silk were all disappointments. This story was just boring. It was nothing but a basic recitation of a conventional fairy tale whose only connections to Lovecraft and weird fiction were location and character names.
"Integrity" by Jonathan Thomas
The majority of this story is an overly drawn-out and very tedious chase scene. Plus the characters and plot elements (e.g. mysterious vixen enters private eye's office with a cryptic offer) were quite cliche.
"Pickman's Lazarus" by W.H. Pugmire
Not one of Pugmire's best and has a lot you've seen before if you've read Pugmire as extensively as I have. But he has yet to do me wrong. R.I.P. you legend.
"The Crimson Fog" by Mark Samuels
An obvious combination of Annihilation and Apocalypse Now (Kurtz > Qersh), yet successfully charts its own course. There is a quite a good twist towards the end that subverts some of the classic themes of cosmic horror.
"Misanthrope" by Ray Garton
Not bad but still one of those Lovecraftian stories that doesn't add anything new to the genre.
"Falco Ossifracus: By Mr. Goodguile" by Edith Miniter
Made absolutely no sense.
"The Red Brain" Donald Wandrei
I liked this one. Very pulpy in the classic Lovecraft tradition but possessed of that existential cosmic horror that makes the genre so enjoyable.
"The Beast of Averoigne" by Clark Ashton Smith
Pretty average but contained references to Robert E. Howard's Conan universe and incorporated some recognizably Lovecraftian tropes. It's a good example of how these authors played off each other.
"The Will of Claude Ashur" by C. Hall Thompson
Felt like just a retelling of Lovecraft's "The Thing on the Doorstep." Very flat characters, especially Gratia, who exists solely to be helpless and childlike and to spur the male protagonist to action.
"The Pattern" by Ramsey Campbell
A solid, suspenseful read.
"The Sect of the Idiot" by Thomas Ligotti
Easily the best in the anthology (of course; it's Ligotti). Reminded me of "In a Foreign Town, In a Foreign Land" from his collection Teatro Grottesco , one of my favorites pieces by him.
"Meryphillia" by Brian McNaughton
Meh. I don't care for ghouls and there was really nothing memorable about this one.
"The Peddler's Tale; or, Isobel's Revenge" by Caitlin Kiernan
Caitlin Kiernan is a hit or miss for me. The Red Tree is a masterpiece but Threshold , Murder of Angels , and Silk were all disappointments. This story was just boring. It was nothing but a basic recitation of a conventional fairy tale whose only connections to Lovecraft and weird fiction were location and character names.
"Integrity" by Jonathan Thomas
The majority of this story is an overly drawn-out and very tedious chase scene. Plus the characters and plot elements (e.g. mysterious vixen enters private eye's office with a cryptic offer) were quite cliche.
"Pickman's Lazarus" by W.H. Pugmire
Not one of Pugmire's best and has a lot you've seen before if you've read Pugmire as extensively as I have. But he has yet to do me wrong. R.I.P. you legend.
"The Crimson Fog" by Mark Samuels
An obvious combination of Annihilation and Apocalypse Now (Kurtz > Qersh), yet successfully charts its own course. There is a quite a good twist towards the end that subverts some of the classic themes of cosmic horror.
"Misanthrope" by Ray Garton
Not bad but still one of those Lovecraftian stories that doesn't add anything new to the genre.
August 23, 2024
This was one of the best compilation novels I have read in a long time. It is usually hit or miss when you are dealing with multiple authors each presenting their short stories. Each story got more horrific and macabre as you went on. These were an absolute treat for anyone who enjoys a dark and unsettling Lovecraftian horror.
November 15, 2020
With the exception of two stories, a solid anthology of strong Cthulhu Mythos tales.
The Ramsey Campbell story was decent but not really Cthulhu Mythos.
The Edith Miniter story was kind of a cheesy pastiche.
I just recently read The Beast Of Averoigne in The Klarkash-Ton Cycle: Clark Ashton Smith's Cthulhu Mythos Fiction so I skipped this one.
With those three out of the way, there was just one great story after another. The Dreamlands, Pickman and the ghouls, Azathoth. The Red Brain by Donald Wandrei rocked. There's a homage to Heart of Darkness.
I think most Cthulhu Mythos fans would enjoy this book.
The Ramsey Campbell story was decent but not really Cthulhu Mythos.
The Edith Miniter story was kind of a cheesy pastiche.
I just recently read The Beast Of Averoigne in The Klarkash-Ton Cycle: Clark Ashton Smith's Cthulhu Mythos Fiction so I skipped this one.
With those three out of the way, there was just one great story after another. The Dreamlands, Pickman and the ghouls, Azathoth. The Red Brain by Donald Wandrei rocked. There's a homage to Heart of Darkness.
I think most Cthulhu Mythos fans would enjoy this book.
December 30, 2017
My favourite stories in this book were the eponymous "The Red Brain", "Misanthrope" and "The Sect of the Idiot".
Honourable mentions to "The Crimson Fog" and "Isobel's Revenge".
Honourable mentions to "The Crimson Fog" and "Isobel's Revenge".
February 13, 2018
My review and reading notes can be read in full here:
http://jayrothermel.blogspot.com/2018...
A weak and very uneven collection.
http://jayrothermel.blogspot.com/2018...
A weak and very uneven collection.
June 16, 2025
A collection of very pulpy and cliché stories.
There's not really a lot to say about this Lovecraftian anthology other than it being, well, rather mediocre at certain points due to a lack of originality, and a feeling a lot like a pastiche. But I guess, ultimately, this is what it really sets out to do, yet I was still expecting something more, something with a little more meat that could be both entertaining and ground breaking. Considering this one is a compilation by the greatest Lovecraft scholar there is, I was hoping for a little more, but in the end, the adage came true: nothing beats the original.
This stories all feel like they are trying to improve open Lovecraft world but fail at doing so, mostly because they don't seem to carry the same weight and seriousness as Lovecraft did, instead, we get stories that while rather fast-paced, they often miss the mark and punch lightly.
By the end of it I really couldn't think of any story what was worth remembering. There weren't any big failures, but there weren't any big winners either, so I was left wanting more, with a dry mouth wondering what the hell happened. I would recommend this one just for those really hardcore Lovecraftian-horror fans that want to get more and more, other than that, just set your standards low and perhaps you'll enjoy it.
There's not really a lot to say about this Lovecraftian anthology other than it being, well, rather mediocre at certain points due to a lack of originality, and a feeling a lot like a pastiche. But I guess, ultimately, this is what it really sets out to do, yet I was still expecting something more, something with a little more meat that could be both entertaining and ground breaking. Considering this one is a compilation by the greatest Lovecraft scholar there is, I was hoping for a little more, but in the end, the adage came true: nothing beats the original.
This stories all feel like they are trying to improve open Lovecraft world but fail at doing so, mostly because they don't seem to carry the same weight and seriousness as Lovecraft did, instead, we get stories that while rather fast-paced, they often miss the mark and punch lightly.
By the end of it I really couldn't think of any story what was worth remembering. There weren't any big failures, but there weren't any big winners either, so I was left wanting more, with a dry mouth wondering what the hell happened. I would recommend this one just for those really hardcore Lovecraftian-horror fans that want to get more and more, other than that, just set your standards low and perhaps you'll enjoy it.
August 9, 2020
All good stories overall, and a lot of interesting angles on the Mythos.
A couple of stories seem only peripherally Mythos-related, and could easily have appeared in pretty much any horror collection, but every story is enjoyable, and several would be useful starting points for a Call of Cthulu scenario.
The "Claude Asher" story was the only one I didn't finish; it was well-written, but the pacing was too slow for me to really enjoy it. The story told from the viewpoint of ghouls was brilliantly done and very sympathetic without pulling any punches, and was probably my favorite. "The Pattern" was haunting and horrible; it was beautifully done, but only peripherally a Mythos story for me. The Ligotti story was enjoyable but it didn't stick in my mind the way that his other "Festival" story does.
Over all definitely worth a read if this is your thing; there may be a couple that you skip but the collection is quite good.
A couple of stories seem only peripherally Mythos-related, and could easily have appeared in pretty much any horror collection, but every story is enjoyable, and several would be useful starting points for a Call of Cthulu scenario.
The "Claude Asher" story was the only one I didn't finish; it was well-written, but the pacing was too slow for me to really enjoy it. The story told from the viewpoint of ghouls was brilliantly done and very sympathetic without pulling any punches, and was probably my favorite. "The Pattern" was haunting and horrible; it was beautifully done, but only peripherally a Mythos story for me. The Ligotti story was enjoyable but it didn't stick in my mind the way that his other "Festival" story does.
Over all definitely worth a read if this is your thing; there may be a couple that you skip but the collection is quite good.
May 30, 2022
This was a nicely compiled book of Lovecraft-inspired short stories. I liked that this collection was not strictly stories set in Lovecraft's pantheon of Gods and Monsters; however, each story was uniquely tied into the works, lore, and/or style of H. P. Lovecraft.
I appreciated the variety of Joshi's selections. Ligotti's Sect of the Idiot was quite creepy. Haunting a la Lovecraft, but nihilistic, as expected from Ligotti. Some other standouts for their eerie moods were The Red Brain, The Beast of Averoigne, The Pattern, Pickman's Lazerus, and Misanthrope. Each had their own fresh take on cosmic horror. The only story I didn't really care for was Integrity, which read too much like a cop drama for my tastes. Meryphillia had an almost cartoon-y-ness to it that reminded me of Tim Burton's "The Corpse Bride"; however, it still had a dark and haunting finale. The Crimson Fog was a little draggy, but had a good ending.
Overall, a really great collection!
I appreciated the variety of Joshi's selections. Ligotti's Sect of the Idiot was quite creepy. Haunting a la Lovecraft, but nihilistic, as expected from Ligotti. Some other standouts for their eerie moods were The Red Brain, The Beast of Averoigne, The Pattern, Pickman's Lazerus, and Misanthrope. Each had their own fresh take on cosmic horror. The only story I didn't really care for was Integrity, which read too much like a cop drama for my tastes. Meryphillia had an almost cartoon-y-ness to it that reminded me of Tim Burton's "The Corpse Bride"; however, it still had a dark and haunting finale. The Crimson Fog was a little draggy, but had a good ending.
Overall, a really great collection!
January 23, 2020
Largely forgettable selection of Mythos tales. The title story stands out even if it was penned by a teenaged Donald Wandrei (perhaps because of that very youthful enthusiasm). Caitlín R. Kiernan and W. H. Pugmire also do interesting things with Lovecraft's ghouls, but that's about all I can substantially recall as being worth the while.
April 24, 2024
Rating and review for the “Red Brain” by Donald Wandrei. Evolution doesn’t produce the changes described, only obsolete Darwinism does, but in 1921 few knew better. Also, stars don’t die anymore than they are born. This idea is inferred from astronomical observation, but inference isn’t science (knowledge). As for being an allegory for communism, it’s pretty spot on.
June 20, 2018
Another great anthology from the best editor of mythos work going..
An excellent follow up to 'a mountain walked' and a wonderful book all around. I am very much looking forward to the third entry in the series.
An excellent follow up to 'a mountain walked' and a wonderful book all around. I am very much looking forward to the third entry in the series.
August 16, 2018
Joshi puts together a solid collection of Lovecraft inspired tales. A good mix of creepy, disturbing, and imaginative stories that span time and space. I really can't pick out a favorite, I enjoyed each one. Check it out.
July 18, 2019
More regular horror than Cthulhu horror
I was expecting this to be cosmic horror, but with the exception of a few stories, it was not. Might be decent if you like regular horror anthologies.
I was expecting this to be cosmic horror, but with the exception of a few stories, it was not. Might be decent if you like regular horror anthologies.
December 26, 2022
Good mix of Lovecraft related stories
BSome interesting variations on the themes of H P Lovecraft's works but not all are actually Mythos related (elder gods etc). An enjoyable read.
BSome interesting variations on the themes of H P Lovecraft's works but not all are actually Mythos related (elder gods etc). An enjoyable read.
May 27, 2018
good anthology , fun stories
December 31, 2018
A BUNCH OF WEIRD ONES IT IS...
Hello, weird is definitely the word for this bunch of tales. There was a couple of really good ones, but the rest were so so. Thanks.
Hello, weird is definitely the word for this bunch of tales. There was a couple of really good ones, but the rest were so so. Thanks.
April 30, 2022
Some gems in here but a bit uneven overall. Still, interesting just to see in how many directions you can take the Mythos!
October 4, 2022
Thinner than its similar predecessor A Mountain Walked, and with sloppier quality control. Full review: https://fakegeekboy.wordpress.com/202...
November 28, 2022
A superior collection of Lovecraftian tales.
November 8, 2019
Ok stories. Only one story really stood out- The Pattern by Ramsey Campbell. I was never a fan of Mr Campbell but lately I have been impressed by several of his stories- and this is one of his creepiest- indeed one of the creepiest I have ever read. The other stories were Ok but none really a standout.
Displaying 1 - 21 of 21 reviews