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Post by andydecker on Nov 8, 2012 13:12:54 GMT
The Cthulhu Mythos Megapack - 40 Modern and Classic Lovecraftian Stories
Edited by John Gregory Betancourt and Colin Azariah-Kribbs 2012
Content:
"At the Mountains of Madness," by H. P. Lovecraft "The Events at Poroth Farm," by T.E.D. Klein "The Return of the Sorcerer," by Clark Ashton Smith "Worms of the Earth," by Robert E. Howard "Envy, the Gardens of Ynath, and the Sin of Cain," by Darrell Schweitzer "Drawn from Life," by John Glasby "In the Haunted Darkness," by Michael R. Collings "The Innsmouth Heritage," by Brian Stableford "The Doom That Came to Innsmouth," by Brian McNaughton "The Shadow Over Innsmouth," by H. P. Lovecraft "The Nameless Offspring," by Clark Ashton Smith "The Hounds of Tindalos," by Frank Belknap Long "The Faceless God," by Robert Bloch "The Children of Burma," by Stephen Mark Rainey "The Call of Cthulhu," by H.P. Lovecraft "The Old One," by John Glasby "The Holiness of Azédarac," by Clark Ashton Smith "Those of the Air," by Darrell Schweitzer and Jason Van Hollander "The Graveyard Rats," by Henry Kuttner "Toadface," by Mark McLaughlin "The Whisperer in Darkness," by H. P. Lovecraft "The Eater of Hours," by Darrell Schweitzer "Ubbo-Sathla," by Clark Ashton Smith "The Space-Eaters," by Frank Belknap Long "The Fire of Asshurbanipal," by Robert E. Howard "Beyond the Wall of Sleep," by H.P. Lovecraft "Something in the Moonlight," by Lin Carter "The Salem Horror," by Henry Kuttner "Down in Limbo," by Robert M. Price "The Dweller in the Gulf," by Clark Ashton Smith "Azathoth," by H.P. Lovecraft "Pickman’s Modem," by Lawrence Watt-Evans "The Hunters from Beyond," by Clark Ashton Smith "Ghoulmaster," by Brian McNaughton "The Spawn of Dagon," by Henry Kuttner "Dark Destroyer," by Adrian Cole "The Dunwich Horror," by H. P. Lovecraft "The Dark Boatman," by John Glasby "Dagon and Jill," by John P. McCann
When I stumbled upon this I first thought great, just another kitchensink edition without rhyme or reason. Especially as this is one of a dozen Megapacks or so, ranging from "Best SF" to "Martian Stories". Priced at (in Germany) 0.49 Euro, this one is copyrighted by Wildside Press.
The cover is the usual awful E-book trash (frankly I was too lazy to drag it through Photobucket, just trust me ;D) , but for that price I thought why not. Even if the price is cheapening the content, imho.
But I have to confess that the selection is really good. For a new reader maybe even great. Lovecraft tales have become a virtual deluge in the past so I was surprised that I found quite a few which were unknown to me, even by writers above the fan-fiction crowd qualitywise.
The story by Stableford was good, another riff on Innsmouth, which contrasted nicely with McNaughtons often reprinted "The Doom that came to Innsmouth". Stephen Mark Raineys "Children of Burma" was a very good story about a japanese Colonel who in 1942 has to build an landing strip in the jungle and stumbles upon some strange natives with disastrous consequences. And of course it is always a joy to stumble upon CAS "The Holiness of Azedarac" which is a marvelous story and just re-read it because it is included, or Klein's "The Event at Poroth Farm".
You could do worse für 0.49 Euro. I don't know what it cost in the UK - filthy foreigners are never shown the price as you can't order them abroad. But I guess not much more.
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Post by jamesdoig on Nov 8, 2012 19:43:05 GMT
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Post by andydecker on Nov 12, 2012 10:50:04 GMT
Stableford's done a few mythos books for wildside: Wildside seem to have about 100 of his book in print. I used to be big fan of the man at the end of the 70s. When I began reading sf in earnest, his novel Halcyon Drift, the first in the Grainger series, just was published in the translation, and it really impressed my young and malleable mind. (At the time I didn't know that his concepts were not exactly new, to put it mildly.) While all of my then friends thought him a second rate and boring writer, I ate his stuff up. Later in life he kind of lost me when his work became ever more academic and, well, obscure. I aplaud to this patience to translate all these old and imho basically unreadable french pulp novels, but just couldn't finish his Empire of Fear vampire novel. Still, his Lovecraft stories did a very interesting sf take on the matter, maybe I shall take a look on those Wildside Books. Thanks for the tip, James!
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Post by helrunar on Mar 2, 2022 2:20:24 GMT
Tonight on my commute home I read Henry Kuttner's "Spawn of Dagon" in this anthology (which I just added to my nefandous, ancient electron palimpsest "device") on my commute home, finishing the tale over dinner. Quite entertaining and so deliriously pulpy, it definitely made me think of the Vault.
Elak and Lycon are like Kuttner's own version of Fafhrd and the Grey Mouser, and I'd not be surprised if a visit to the isfdb reveals that he wrote several more stories featuring the pair.
Am about to take a swipe at something set in Cornwall by one John Glasby. If I like it, I'll scribble something in this space. If I don't like it, I won't bother.
H.
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Post by helrunar on Mar 2, 2022 2:45:58 GMT
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enoch
Devils Coach Horse
Posts: 117
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Post by enoch on Mar 2, 2022 3:46:03 GMT
I've never even heard of some of those. From the ones I do recognize, it appears to be a very good collection. Not sure I agree with calling Clark Ashton Smith's "The Dweller in the Gulf" part of the Cthulhu Mythos, but it's a fine horror story anyway so I doubt a reader would complain.
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Post by andydecker on Mar 2, 2022 10:26:57 GMT
Glad you like it.
I am not a fan of Kuttner, most of the stories I read of him fell throughly into the category 'meh'. Especially the Elak stories. Of course this is a matter ot taste and preference. Where Howard can make me see the sun glinting on golden domes and swords, all I see at Kuttner are some stage props.
The Megapack has aged well, though. It gives a good impression of the Mythos. Some great stories, some old, some newer - if you want to call 20 years old stuff new -, some classics and some bad pastiches.
Megapack 2 is more traditional, mostly classics.
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Post by andydecker on Mar 2, 2022 10:49:19 GMT
I've never even heard of some of those. From the ones I do recognize, it appears to be a very good collection. Not sure I agree with calling Clark Ashton Smith's "The Dweller in the Gulf" part of the Cthulhu Mythos, but it's a fine horror story anyway so I doubt a reader would complain. For something so cheap they put a lot of work into some of the volumes. They covered nearly each successive branch of Mythos fiction here. The classics, some post-war efforts like Klein or McNaughton, some of the speciality press guys like Price or Rainey.
I have a few of the Wildside Megapack programm. While one could discuss how worthwhile a few are, especially the SF anthologies, they did put a few obscure topics together. E. Hoffman Price's Pierre d'Artois occult detective stories come to mind, or Gardner Fox' Kothar the Barbarian collection. If you just want to sample a few chapters of the writer, you can't go wrong with the price.
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Post by helrunar on Mar 2, 2022 17:18:34 GMT
Hi Andreas,
I enjoyed the Elak story by Kuttner as a bit of pulpy indulgence. Apparently that's one of the shorter, maybe the shortest, of the stories. I'm not going to bother looking for the others but if they show up in an anthology I'd probably read one. It definitely seemed like Kuttner attempting to assume the mantle of REH but not doing so with a great deal of gravitas.
I've had Cthulhu Mythos Megapack 2 on my device since December, I believe, but only started looking through it recently. Will post notes about any stories that strike my fancy in this thread.
The Glasby story is workmanlike with some nice touches. According to ISFDB, Glasby mostly published under various pseudonyms, and often it seems in collaboration with another writer. He wrote a lot of "hard" SF it would appear.
On a certain retail site these "megapack" files are now priced at 99 cents apiece and you really can't go wrong at that price. They're huge and there's bound to be something in there that would amuse. It would be a captious taste indeed that was pleased by none of them (to paraphrase another favorite author, Sarah Caudwell).
Steve
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Post by andydecker on Mar 2, 2022 18:04:16 GMT
Glasby is another pillar of Badger Books, a colleague of the Reverend Fanthorpe. So no "hard sf", just the usual 60s SF, far away from stuff like in Astounding or Galaxy.
Megapack 2 has more classic stories, but a few are nice ones. Bloch, Wade Wellman, Wetzel, Carter, some HPL revisions. Nothing of the top tier, but often enjoyable.
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Post by helrunar on Mar 7, 2022 3:56:39 GMT
"The Doom that came to Innsmouth" by Brian McNaughton was clever and laced with dark wit. Brilliantly done.
Andreas, can you tell me anything about this author? I'll check ISFDB as usual of course.
Glasby turned out to be a crashing bore. Sort of like watered down Derleth which is saying something.
H.
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Post by andydecker on Mar 7, 2022 8:35:18 GMT
"The Doom that came to Innsmouth" by Brian McNaughton was clever and laced with dark wit. Brilliantly done. Andreas, can you tell me anything about this author? I'll check ISFDB as usual of course. Glasby turned out to be a crashing bore. Sort of like watered down Derleth which is saying something. H. Not too much known about McNaughton. He wrote some Lovecraftion horror novels which are well liked in the Vault, Satan's Love Child - read especially Dr. Terror's post about it, some interesting words from the writer himself - and two others which have an interesting history and are well done. And he wrote a superb fantasy in the vein of Clark Ashton Smith The Throne of Bones, which in my opinion has really earned its World Fantasy Award and should be mandatory reading. All those Smith' pastiches from the likes of Kiernan or Molly Tanzer have to be judged against this.
Sadly he died in 2004, but he left some work which is a lot better than that of a lot of his collegues at the time, still he is largely forgotten, I fear.
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Post by dem bones on Mar 7, 2022 11:41:47 GMT
Don't recall much about Satan's Love Child but I loved his Satan's Mistress which, if I remember, was the one his publisher insisted he porn up for publication.
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Post by helrunar on Mar 7, 2022 14:43:38 GMT
Thanks for those links and notes. The Throne of Bones sounds worth tracking down. I don't think the Satan's Patsy trilogy is my decanter of the wine of Yuggoth, LOL.
Interestingly last night I started reading Clark Ashton Smith's tale "The Hunters from Beyond" which is one of his many stories I have yet to enjoy. Seems like this may have been an inspiration for the title entry in that anthology.
"The Doom that Came to Innsmouth" has been translated into German according to ISFDB. It takes the whole unreliable narrator thing several steps beyond the usual routine. Very cleverly done and I thought, both disturbing and rather magnificent in the use of story tone and characterization. Old Lady Waite reminds me of a friend of mine though not one with a predilection for the type of "baptism" hinted in the tale.
H.
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Post by andydecker on Mar 7, 2022 16:54:48 GMT
"The Doom that Came to Innsmouth" has been translated into German according to ISFDB. It takes the whole unreliable narrator thing several steps beyond the usual routine. Very cleverly done and I thought, both disturbing and rather magnificent in the use of story tone and characterization. Old Lady Waite reminds me of a friend of mine though not one with a predilection for the type of "baptism" hinted in the tale. H. You know, it never occured to me that Lovecraft was maybe inspired with the Innsmouth thing about FBI camps and so on by the deportation of supposed communists in the 1920s until I watched a documentation recently.
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