Joseph S. Pulver, Sr. A Season in Carcosa

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Joseph Pulver, Sr. A Season in Carcosa (Miscatonic River Press 2012)

Content:
Introduction - Joseph S. Pulver, Sr.
My Voice Is Dead - Joel Lane
Beyond the Banks of the River Seine -Simon Strantzas
Movie Night at Phil's - Don Webb
MS Found in a Chicago Hotel Room - Daniel Mills
it sees me when I'm not looking - Gary McMahon
Finale, Act Two - poem by Ann K. Schwader
Yellow Bird Springs - Kate Gardner
The Theatre and Its Double - Edward R. Morris
The Hymn of the Hyades - Richard Gavin
Slick Black Bones and Soft Black Stars - Gemma Files
Not Enough Hope - Joseph S. Pulver, Sr.
Whose Hears are Pure Gold - Kristin Prevallet
April Dawn - Richard A. Lupoff
King Wolf - Anna Tambour
The White-Face at Dawn - Michael Kelly
Wishing Well - Cody Goodfellow
Sweetums - John Langan
The King in Yellow - Pearce Hansen
D T - Laird Barron
Salvation in Yellow - Robin Spriggs
The Beat Hotel - Allyson Bird





If you like Robert Chambers' King in Yellow myths this is collection of new stories. It gained new interest because of the True Detective tv series. The line-up is a bit patchy, there are some not very original plots and as often with this kind of projects some forced and pretentious entries. Still it is an interesting anthology. Remarkable is the effort to avoid any Lovecraftian here which I think would have been the easy way here.

Among the 21 stories are:

Joel Lane - My Voice is Dead

Terminally ill Stephen stumbles upon the Yellow Sign website. The people he meets are not someone you want to meet.

Well told it manages to builds a creepy atmosphere.

Simon Strantzas - Beyond the Banks of the River Seine

A period piece. Two composers in Paris are bitter rivals. One of them discovers a certain book and writes music out of this world.

Not the most original concept in the world, but it captures nicely the atmosphere of 1890s Paris.

Don Webb - Movie Night at Phil's

Phil in Texas is a movie buff, but he just gets no respect from his family. Bonding with his son proves impossible. Then he discovers a Betamax copy of lost Corman movie Edgar Allan Poe's King in Yellow. He shouldn't have bought it.

The setup has frankly been done too often, but I have a soft spot for the topic.

Gemma Files - Slick Black Bones and Soft Black Stars

On the little island of Carcosa a mass grave is discovered. The UN sends a crew to exhume the dead for a trail, but the mission goes horribly wrong.

An original idea well written.

Joesph Pulver - Not enough Hope

A story conjuring Karl Edward Wagner and William Burroughs by putting Wagner into the midst of a fairly incomprehensible plot. Frankly I hated it 

Laird Barron - DT

This has a similar plot, a story about a writer like Wagner who is loosing it and his editor which is his sometimes lover. It is about madness and some digs on the publishing world and doppelganger. I don't know if this works, but it is written in Barron's usual powerful way so this is a plus.