Black Wings 2: New Tales of Lovecraftian Horror

[andydecker]

Black Wings 2: New Tales of Lovecraftian Horror Edited by S.T. Joshi (PS Publishing 2012)

Content:
Introduction by S. T. Joshi
When Death Wakes Me to Myself by John Shirley
View by Tom Fletcher
Houndwife by Caitlin R. Kiernan
King of Cat Swamp by Jonathan Thomas
Dead Media by Nick Mamatas
The Abject by Richard Gavin
Dahlias by Melanie Tem
Bloom by John Langon
And the Sea Gave Up the Dead by Jason C. Eckhardt
Casting Call by Don Webb
The Clockwork King, the Queen of Glass, and the Man with the Hundred Knives by Darrell Schweitzer
The Other Man by Nicholas Royle
Waiting at the Crossroads Motel by Steve Rasnic Tem
The Wilcox Remainder by Brian Evenson
Correlated Discontents by Rick Dakan
The Skinless Face by Donald Tyson
The History of a Letter by Jason V Brock
Appointed by Chet Williamson

There is a veritable flood of Lovecraft themed anthologies at the moment. And they are very alike. Foreword denouncing pastiches while celebrating the included pastiches, the same mostly dependable writers. Few surprises. At least there are no overlaps.

Maybe the remark about the pastiches is a bit unfair. Even if modern Lovecraft takes an effort to distance itself from the the old school pastiche a la Derleth, this is still formula writing. After reading so many of these tales, I think there are just five categories. You have the old book-tale, the sequel/prequel to the Mythos, the report, the RPG-tale and the pretentiously written no-plot-tale. And if you are lucky, you do get a well written horror tale or even an original idea. Don't get me wrong, this classification is not meant as a critique. You can only do so much with the Mythos. Readers expect certain elements, and rightly so. I do enjoy most of the categories, if – and that is a big if - they are well done. And while these stories are all competently written, a lot are done by the numbers or not very original. I guess this is the biggest challenge on writing Mythos tales. To do something new while including the Mythus. In this regard Black Wings 2 is disappointing.

A few stories:

View by Tom Fletcher:
Neil and Cheri follow the creepy real estate agent through this house in the nice neighbourhood. They like it – even after he leads them upward and upward into these strange rooms.

SPOILER: Click to show

{Spoiler 1}
Of course they shouldn't have followed him into the cellar

Very well told with a nice idea.

Houndwife by Caitlin R. Kiernan:
Basically this is a kind of sequel to HPLs The Hound, told in the usual style of Kiernan. If you are a fan, you will like this. If not … According to Joshi's blog Kiernan is currently the finest writer of weird tales. I like him as a HPL-scholar and critic, but here he is just wrong.


King of Cat Swamp by Johnathan Thomas:
Dwight and Edith love their house which now stands were there used to be a swamp. Until this strange bloke bullys his way in. He calls himself Castro and he is older as he looks.

SPOILER: Click to show

{Spoiler}
Because he is Castro Exposition from HPLs Call of Cthulhu. And he is looking for something he left behind back then.

Another Sequel to HPL. Nice idea well told.

Dead Media by Nick Mamatas:
Contemporary students at Miskatonic University find the mysterious Wilmarth cylinder and play the recording. Not a good idea.
And another Sequel. Nice beginning, rather weak and predictable ending.

Dahlias by Melanie Tem:
One of those psychological relationship dramas, in this case Grandmother and Granddaughter, which may have a Mythos element or not. I really can't say. If you are a fan of Tem, you will be thrilled regardless. I never enjoyed her work, so …

And the Sea gave up the Dead by Jason C. Eckhardt:
An account of the re-discovered diary of James Cook's second voyage and what he really did find on those isles.
Historical Lovecraft, nothing new but nicely done.

Casting Call by Don Webb:
Small-time actor Felix Ramirez wants to play a Ghoul on the tv show Night Gallery, the episode "Pickman's Model". His research into the role leads to doom.
I am not a fan of these self-referential tales where Lovecraft is mentioned and genre people gets a walk-on, in this case Forest Ackerman and Rod Serling. Still I have to say this is a fun tale.

The Wilcox Remainder by Brian Evenson:
The narrator visits his aunt in a asylum and finds this strange figurine. And his life and reality starts to unravel.
A perfectly okay tale, but Evenson is not for me. Too writer-workshop for me, I guess.

[cauldronbrewer]

Nov 24, 2014 20:38:35 GMT andydecker said:

There is a veritable flood of Lovecraft themed anthologies at the moment. And they are very alike. Foreword denouncing pastiches while celebrating the included pastiches, the same mostly dependable writers. Few surprises. At least there are no overlaps.

Maybe the remark about the pastiches is a bit unfair. Even if modern Lovecraft takes an effort to distance itself from the the old school pastiche a la Derleth, this is still formula writing. After reading so many of these tales, I think there are just five categories. You have the old book-tale, the sequel/prequel to the Mythos, the report, the RPG-tale and the pretentiously written no-plot-tale. And if you are lucky, you do get a well written horror tale or even an original idea. Don't get me wrong, this classification is not meant as a critique. You can only do so much with the Mythos. Readers expect certain elements, and rightly so. I do enjoy most of the categories, if – and that is a big if - they are well done. And while these stories are all competently written, a lot are done by the numbers or not very original. I guess this is the biggest challenge on writing Mythos tales. To do something new while including the Mythus.

Sometimes this trend depresses me, yet I'm a sucker for these anthologies myself.

After years of looking down on Derleth's Lovecraft pastiches, I even have to admit that I kind of enjoyed his The Trail of Cthulhu (which I read for the first time last month).

[andydecker]

Nov 26, 2014 18:48:22 GMT cauldronbrewer said:

Nov 24, 2014 20:38:35 GMT andydecker said:

There is a veritable flood of Lovecraft themed anthologies at the moment. And they are very alike. Foreword denouncing pastiches while celebrating the included pastiches, the same mostly dependable writers. Few surprises. At least there are no overlaps.

Maybe the remark about the pastiches is a bit unfair. Even if modern Lovecraft takes an effort to distance itself from the the old school pastiche a la Derleth, this is still formula writing. After reading so many of these tales, I think there are just five categories. You have the old book-tale, the sequel/prequel to the Mythos, the report, the RPG-tale and the pretentiously written no-plot-tale. And if you are lucky, you do get a well written horror tale or even an original idea. Don't get me wrong, this classification is not meant as a critique. You can only do so much with the Mythos. Readers expect certain elements, and rightly so. I do enjoy most of the categories, if – and that is a big if - they are well done. And while these stories are all competently written, a lot are done by the numbers or not very original. I guess this is the biggest challenge on writing Mythos tales. To do something new while including the Mythus.

Sometimes this trend depresses me, yet I'm a sucker for these anthologies myself.

After years of looking down on Derleth's Lovecraft pastiches, I even have to admit that I kind of enjoyed his The Trail of Cthulhu (which I read for the first time last month).

Derleth is a dependable writer. Trail is a good read as is Mask of Cthulhu, if you ignore the lame crucifix waving of his Van Helsings and his rewriting of the Mythos. I can understand why Derleth had to re-work the Mythos to suit his own worldview. It is regretable that he had to tame Lovecrafts pessimistic and bountless imagination to keep it alive. A kind of we have to destroy it to save it. I would argue that his mindnumbingly simple and safe version of HPL has enabled less imaginative writers to continue the Mythos and keep it alive over the years. Did Derleth betray Lovecraft with his dumbing down or did he safe his legacy? Who can say?

I have read some really great fiction of the writers of Action-Cthulhu! like Delta Green or from other writers which would never existed if not for Derleth's work.  Personally I find DeCamp's treatment of the Howard material much more distasteful.