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A review by mattycakesbooks
The Cthulhu Mythos Megapack: 40 Modern and Classic Lovecraftian Stories by Colin Azariah-Kribbs, John Gregory Betancourt
3.0
Probably as good a collection as you're going to get from the Cthulhu mythos. The quality varies wildly, with some of it being truly awesome and creepy -- "The Events at Poroth Farm," pretty much all of the Clark Ashton Smith, and, of course, all of the HP Lovecraft -- while some of it basically reads like mediocre fanfic. The only one I couldn't get through was "Dark Destroyer," which had way too many characters and way too little of interest going on: it read to me like a not-so-great middle issue of a episodic comic book.
A few thoughts, though:
First, what was surprising to me was how much Lovecraft's race anxiety pervades throughout the entire Cthulhu Mythos, even in pieces that weren't written by him. The man was a towering racist, but you'd expect that the dozens of people who have built on his universe in the decades since he died to not spend as much time as he did on "mongrel races" and weird comments about degenerates. I still enjoy the writing and the universe, but I was surprised at how frequently I had to be like, "really? Do we have to have another evil inbred character in these stories?"
Second: the stuff that was infinitely better was the stuff that ended in a bleak, "and now I descend into insanity" type way. I really wasn't a fan of the couple of stories that were written in a more "Conan the Barbarian" type style -- I'm thinking specifically of the Robert Howard story and "The Spawn of Dagon," -- gladiators and machismo just don't have any place in what's supposed to be a universe where the humans who come into the contact with its reality end in gibbering terror.
Third: "Dagon and Jill" was hilarious, and was the perfect way to end this book.
And finally: where in god's name are all the women? There are very few women in these stories, and they are virtually all damsel's in distress or peripheral passersby.
A few thoughts, though:
First, what was surprising to me was how much Lovecraft's race anxiety pervades throughout the entire Cthulhu Mythos, even in pieces that weren't written by him. The man was a towering racist, but you'd expect that the dozens of people who have built on his universe in the decades since he died to not spend as much time as he did on "mongrel races" and weird comments about degenerates. I still enjoy the writing and the universe, but I was surprised at how frequently I had to be like, "really? Do we have to have another evil inbred character in these stories?"
Second: the stuff that was infinitely better was the stuff that ended in a bleak, "and now I descend into insanity" type way. I really wasn't a fan of the couple of stories that were written in a more "Conan the Barbarian" type style -- I'm thinking specifically of the Robert Howard story and "The Spawn of Dagon," -- gladiators and machismo just don't have any place in what's supposed to be a universe where the humans who come into the contact with its reality end in gibbering terror.
Third: "Dagon and Jill" was hilarious, and was the perfect way to end this book.
And finally: where in god's name are all the women? There are very few women in these stories, and they are virtually all damsel's in distress or peripheral passersby.