A review by henryarmitage
Black Wings: Tales of Lovecraftian Horror by Michael Shea, Adam Niswander, Joseph S. Pulver, Sr., S.T. Joshi, Brian Stableford, David J. Schow, Ramsey Campbell, Donald R. Burleson, W.H. Pugmire, Jason Van Hollander, Mollie L. Burleson, Caitlín R. Kiernan, Laird Barron, Sam Gafford, Darrell Schweitzer, Michael Cisco, Norman Partridge, Jonathan Thomas, William Browning Spencer, Michael Marshall Smith, Philip Haldeman, Nicholas Royle

4.0

When I first discovered [a:H P Lovecraft|20102562|H P Lovecraft|https://s.gr-assets.com/assets/nophoto/user/u_50x66-632230dc9882b4352d753eedf9396530.png] and the Cthulhu Mythos, somewhere around age 17, one of the things that really appealed to me about this body of work was the complete divergence from the vampires, werewolves and ghosts of conventional horror. The giant, squid-headed god slumbering beneath the Pacific, the deep ones, the fungi from Yuggoth; it was all completely new and different.
That was over 40 years ago, and now the Cthulhu stuff has become just as familiar and tired.
The editor [a:S. T. Joshi|19974490|S. T. Joshi|https://s.gr-assets.com/assets/nophoto/user/u_50x66-632230dc9882b4352d753eedf9396530.png] therefore approaches this collection with the intention of avoiding the usual stale pastiche, and in fact you will scarcely find any reference to Yog-Sothoth or Innsmouth here, seeking instead the atmosphere unique to the Cthulhu mythos story.
I thought many of these stories succeeded in capturing the essence of what makes a great Cthulhu yarn without all the Weird Tales baggage. A few of them were even scary.