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mamimitanaka 's review for:
Houses Under the Sea
by Vince Locke, S.T. Joshi, Piotr Jabłoński, Caitlín R. Kiernan, John Kenn Mortensen, Michael Cisco, Richard A. Kirk
Caitlin R. Kiernan is so damn skilled at worldbuilding that it's a wonder why other fantasy authors even try sometimes. Considering much of the terminology and atmosphere of their tales are borrowed directly from Lovecraft's playbook and the vast creative canvas of the Cthulhu Mythos, you'd think one's writing would fall back on it as a reliance rather than a fully unique creation, but the complete opposite is true. Each one of these stories builds its own atmosphere and world entirely self-contained enough to be read on its own, but with each tale layers upon layers are built and connected in subtle and electrifying ways, leading to a vision of the Mythos that is Kiernan's and Kiernan's alone, despite the surface-level terminology at use. Furthermore, their works beautifully humanize the Mythos, bringing extremely sharp emotional depth and character to a genre which often doesn't concern itself much with those things. An incredible collection from an incredible writer.