Still Wakes the Deep review

    STILL WAKES THE DEEP is a cosmic horror "walking simulator" that is produced by The Chinese Room (Vampire: The Masquerade: Bloodlines 2). It takes place on a Scottish oil rig during the 1970s with issues like labor politics, xenophobia, and poor safety standards being background before things utterly go to hell when they do as the dwarves of Moria did and dig too deep. I am an easy sell for almost anything H.P. Lovecraft inspired and was already sold on the premise.  In 2005, I watched The Rig and also played The Iron Rig DLC for the similarly Cthulhu Mythos-esque Dredge.

    The protagonist, Caz, is an electrician who is presently on the run from the police. Having gotten into a bar fight that went too far, Chaz isn't wanted for murder but did put a guy in the hospital. Getting a job on the oil rig thanks to a friend, he is almost immediately sussed out and fired on the spot. It turns out that a shoddily maintained oil rig isn't the best place you want to bring police attention.

    This early part of the game introduces us to many of the working class stiffs on the oil rig that range from their union representative (nicknamed "Trots" because he's a little too enthusiastic about collective bargaining) and the sole woman onboard, Finley, who is as nontraditional as women in video games come being a stoic middle aged working mother.

    Despite describing this as a walking simulator, I'd argue that this is actually a full fledged video game even if the controls are somewhat simple. You do a lot of puzzle solving, platforming, and stealth throughout the game. The monsters are invincible and will instantly kill you if they lay their hands on you but the stealth is pretty forgiving. Their designs seem inspired by The Thing and are very effective but for one that looks absolutely silly. The story seems to draw a lot from The Colour out of Space as the Entity warps both the sanity as well as bodies of those involved.

    The atmosphere throughout the game is thick with tension and while significantly easier than, say, Alien: Isolation, I felt that it worked wonders. The old creaking and damaged oil rig is a place that Chaz must race around trying to keep operational long enough to evacuate. While I would have appreciated more time with the survivors, I also felt like Chaz genuinely knew all of the people that we find dead around him.

    The game is on the short side with four to five hours if you don't get stuck. There's no collectibles or sidequests but only a linear progression from area to area. I think this is a good thing rather than a bad thing because horror games benefit from shortened length so they don't wear out their welcome. Sadly, they don't learn this lesson in the DLC expansion Siren's Rest, as there's just not enough scares to justify the purchase price.

    In conclusion, Still Wakes the Deep is a great video game and one that I had a huge amount of fun playing. Chaz is an excellent protagonist and the setting is extremely creepy even before the Entity starts making it more Dead Space than Scotland. The attention to detail is so good that they actually included an option for the subtitles to translate all of the Scottish slang used by the workers. 

Available here

Dredge review

    DREDGE is a fascinating game concept and one that I deeply enjoyed but also sounds insane if you want to explain it to someone who hasn't played it. Specifically, it is an H.P. Lovecraft inspired fishing game. It is a "cozy" horror game where the picturesque cartoonish world is frequently interrupted by horrifying monsters as well as the danger of insanity. 

    Dredge's premise is pretty simple, even going beyond the description above. You are a fisherman who ends up washed up on the shores of a quaint New England fishing village on an isolated island. Your boat needs repair and the mayor offers to cover it if you go into debt by fishing for them. Eventually, you set out from the island to discover a much vaster collection of islands that have a variety of climates as well as unique threats. The history of the Fisherman and his link to the mysterious curse on the island are also revealed if you pay attention.

    The game is extremely fun and doesn't wear out its welcome. You must keep your boat in good repair, upgrade your rods, and upgrade your hull in order to continue catching frequently deformed seafood that keeps you in the black. There is also the mysterious Collector who wants you to retrieve strange relics from the bottom of the ocean. The minigame for fishing is very simple and you'll be doing it a lot. The insanity system is probably the most tension inducing as you swiftly discover that traveling at night and looking at the monsters attracts horrific abominations.

    Exploring the map is incredibly fun, even if the early game slowness of your fishing boat is incredibly frustrating. Each of the island zones have their own unique threats and the cuteness of the art makes the revelation of the truly terrifying all the more effective. One of the scariest moments of the game was when I was exploring an island atoll and discovered it was actually over the mouth of a gigantic monster.

    The game really does its atmosphere well and everything from the soundtrack to the characters builds a tension that never fully disipates. As a fisherman, you don't really have any ways to defend yourself against the monsters outside and going insane is an ever present threat. The only way to keep your panic down is to take regular rests and that's impossible on the open waves. There's sidequests throughout the story and two DLC campaigns but I admit I liked the main game most.

    In conclusion, Dredge is a fun and entertaining game that surprisingly manages to maintain the HP Lovecraft feel despite being about, well, fishing. There's themes of madness, cursed ancestry, degenerative inhumanity, and ancient horrors beyond the scope of man. I also feel like the God of the Deep in the "bad" ending is probably the best portrayal of Cthulhu we've seen since it fully encapsulates just how huge the mountain that walks is. Definitely recommended.

Available here

Eldritch Prisoners edited by David Hambling review

    ELDRITCH PRISONERS is a cosmic horror anthology edited by David Hambling and containing a variety of other Neo-Mythos authors. It is the sixth installment of the Books of Cthulhu series, which started with the Tales of the Al-Azif novel, continued with Tales of Yog-Sothoth, and is still ongoing as of the writing of this review.

    The Books of Cthulhu series are a pulpier more adventure-coded version of the Cthulhu Mythos with the horror element still present but usually downgraded to something that the protagonists can deal with (even at considerable cost). They also tend to tie into other series like Cthulhu Reloaded, Harry Stubbs, and the Andrew Doran novels.

    The premise for Eldritch Prisoners is that it is a collection of novellas dealing with being held prisoner by eldritch forces. Not all of these stories do a great job of tying with this theme but I enjoyed all of them nevertheless. While technically a horror anthology, they’re much like Lovecraft’s work itself in that it also nicely fits into fantasy and science fiction categories. You don’t have to read any of the main series or the tie-in series to enjoy the book either.

    The first story is “Broken Singularity” by David Conyers, which stars his Australian Special Forces protagonist, Harrison Peel (or does it?). Harrison has found himself kidnapped from the Earth and transported through space/time to a space station overlooking a black hole. All of the other prisoners are from later points in time where humanity has merged with machines until they’re unrecognizable. This story is spread throughout the anthology and provides a bittersweet ending that ties it altogether.

    “The Prisoner from Beyond” by Matthew Davenport is probably my favorite of the stories and the closest to the pulpy occult adventures of the other Books of Cthulhu. Basically, a pair of “Esoteric Cavalrymen” working for Coolidge are sent to investigate a town that is being held prisoner by a supernatural force. The protagonists are pretty relatable as they find themselves way in over their heads facing things beyond mortal comprehension.

    “Body Snatchers” by David Hambling is a tie-in to the Harry Stubbs series. Harry Stubbs is a 1920s boxer turned detective with a past as a WW1 veteran. As the title of the story proclaims, Harry has to deal with someone stealing the bodies of other individuals before leaving them imprisoned as madmen in asylums. A straight-up occult adventure and one that I really enjoyed as the Stubbs series is fantastic for incorporating RL history and occult facts.

    “Leng’s Labyrinth” by John A. DeLaughter is the most complicated of the stories and a crisscross quilt pattern of Cthulhu Mythos references ranging from “Rats in the Walls” to “Into the Mountains of Madness.” There’s the military industrial complex, French catacombs, VR, cults, and so more that turns this into a kind of Lovecraftian Dan Brown novel. I didn’t always follow it but I enjoyed the ambition of the project.

    In conclusion, Eldritch Prisoners is a solid and entertaining anthology with some great work by people working into the century-old mythology of Howard Phillips Lovecraft. I think this is a good introduction for some of these authors as well. They’re not always well tied to the theme of imprisonment and I wouldn’t have minded some more shorter stories but it’s still a pretty good accomplishment.

Available here

The Ravening Deep (Arkham Horror) by Tim Pratt

    THE RAVENING DEEP is the first volume of the Sanford Files that develops the character of archvillain Carl Sanford from the Arkham Horror (and Call of Cthulhu before it) games. Despite this being named after him, Carl plays a relatively small role in the book. Instead, the stars are Ruby Standish, Diana Travelers, and Abel Davenport. Two out of three being pre-established Investigators from the Arkham Horror card game.

    The premise is Abel Davenport (who I suspect is named after Cthulhu Mythos fiction author Matthew Davenport) finds a magical amulet that briefly makes him the prophet of a new Great Old One named Asterias (“Starfish”). Abel swiftly finds himself overthrown because he’s not evil enough to run a proper cult and is replaced by his inhuman clone, Cain. Wandering into the best place possible, Abel finds an unlikely ally in Diane Travelers who is not only an occult expert but also determined to stop the forces of darkness herself.

    Meanwhile, Ruby Standish is a cat burglar similar to Countess Zorzi and even predates her in the card game. However, Ruby doesn’t quite have the same level of charm as the Countess, though. Working for the starfish clones, called comets in-universe, she swiftly realizes that they are not people to trusted. This results in another coincidence where she ends up rescued by Diana and setting herself up against Asterias.

    Carl Sanford plays a relatively minor role as the heroes’ unlikely ally. Unlike the original Shadows of Yog-Sothoth, where Carl is someone who wants to awaken Cthulhu to destroy the world, this one is quite devoted to preventing that. He even quotes The Tick that the Earth is where he keeps his stuff (and props to Tim Pratt for that reference). Having an evil teammate is something more Call of Cthulhu/Arkham Horror games should have so I approve but his portrayal doesn’t give us much insight into the character.

    For the most part, it is a fairly self-contained plot as Asterias’ plan to take over the world is still in its early stages. He’s more interested in doing all of his criminal activities within Arkham, Massachusetts versus a globe trotting adventure. We also get to see the Silver Twilight Lodge from the inside a great deal, which I found to be amusing. Basically, we have to hope the guys defenses hold up for once because they’re being invaded by someone even worse.

    I appreciate the creation of a new Great Old One and his cult of monsters rather than just using preexisting ones but I can’t say that I like Asterias that much. He’s a little too much Starro and Invasion of the Body Snatchers. Still, I’m not going to begrudge the author because it was an, overall, entertaining book from beginning to end. Do I recommend it? Yes, I do.

Available here 

Alone in the Dark (2024) review

    ALONE IN THE DARK (2024) is a survival horror video game that reboots the seminal horror franchise. The original Alone in the Dark predated even the original Resident Evil and established the exploration of a haunted house with private detective Edward Carnby along with socialite Emily Hartwood. It also incorporated elements from H.P. Lovecraft's Cthulhu Mythos before they were as common as black clothing on Goths.

    As a huge fan of survival horror games and the Cthulhu Mythos, I was very excited about this game but am only now getting to review the work. I was also excited by the fact the reboot would star David Harbour as Edward and Jodie Corner as Emily. Really, I think both of them would have been good in a movie version. Certainly, it would have been better than the Uwe Boll version.

    The premise is that Emily has recruited Edward to help bring her uncle Jeremy back from the asylum that he is committed to. She has received a mysterious letter that indicates something sinister is afoot there. Upon arrival, they are surprised to find that the asylum seems to be a warm well-lit location full of lovable eccentrics than some sort of hellhouse. This sense of comfort swiftly dissapates, though, and the pair soon find themselves wandering between pocket dimensions full of monsters as Jeremy attempts to warn them away from whatever dark secret is affecting Decerto manor.

    Essentially, the game functions a great deal like Resident Evil 2. You wander around the mansion picking up ammunition, healing items, and keys inbetween solving simple puzzles. Sometimes you have to deal with the strange monsters that are half-plant, half-zombie. Combat is extremely simple with a pistol, shotgun, Tommy Gun, and melee weapon as your options during it. The melee weapons are breakable and you have a simple dodge button. Honestly, it's all very basic and not terribly difficult to master. The trick is not to run out of ammunition and being able to reload fast enough to take down enemies.

    The real heart of the game is the exploration as you follow the various clues scattered around the mansion before moving to your next room. The puzzles are a bit on the simple side but a few of them jump in difficulty and rely on things like astrology that I have almost no experience with. There's also the quest for forbidden knowledge items that can't be completed on a single run with the total of them requiring you to play the second game as the other player character. There's only two bosses in the entire game and I managed to beat them within a couple of tries.

    If it seems like I'm running the game down, I'm not. I like a light easy experience but it does play into the game's biggest flaw: it's not scary. It's far closer to PG-13 than R and while it does get more menacing in the latter quarter of the game, I feel like it should have probably started there. Too many of the characters are on the cutesy side and the art style doesn't help, being somewhat cartoonish contrasting against the protagonist's scanned faces. It creates an unintentional uncanny valley, though.

    The use of H.P. Lovecraft's Cthulhu Mythos and the 1920s Louisiana setting, though, really elevates this game, though. It's not just some scattered references to HPL's work here and there but a broad collection of them that tickled me every time I found one. The accents aren't always perfect but the developers made an effort to incorporate history from the Depression, Civil War, Prohibition, and Jazz eras. The characters may be a bit too goofy for a horror movie experience but all of them are memorable and enjoyable to deal with, which is a rare thing in video games. I actually wish the 7-8 hour game was longer so I could interact with them more.

    In conclusion, I really enjoyed Alone in the Dark (2024). It's not a spectacular experience like Resident Evil 2 or Silent Hill 2's remake but it is a fun and immersive video game that I enjoyed. Its biggest flaws are they could have gone harder on the horror and it's a little too easy (amping up the difficulty won't fix the puzzles ease). If you're a fan of 1920s Cthulhu Mythos fiction like the classic Call of Cthulhu, this will be absolutely up your alley.

Available here 

Bloodborne review

    Bloodborne is one of the seminal Souls-like games and is something that was recommended to me if I liked “Castlevania, HP Lovecraft, and Ravenloft.” Which, by and large, I certainly do. It has been out for about ten years and pretty much the opinion has been decided on the game: it’s good, very good. Great even. However, there’s a decent chance you might not have played it even if you picked up Elden Ring. It was a PlayStation exclusive and remains so. I managed to miss it the first time around but as I did enjoy Elden Ring, I thought it’d be a fun excursion to try the game as an almost complete newbie. I would go in cold on the game and experience it as a player who was running it on the PS5.

    The premise of Bloodborne is left deliberately vague and the storytelling is primarily done through gameplay and inference rather than actual dialogue or narration. Still, it starts off as reasonably straightforward. In a Enlightenment-Era world of Muskets and Top Hats, you are a sickly man who has journeyed to the city of Yharnam to seek a supposed miracle cure. You take this cure but are forced to sign a strange contract before you do. You wake up in an abandoned clinic, find out the city is overrun with werewolves, and everything gets worse from there.

    While not quite the technical marvel that Elden Ring would be, you can clearly see where most of that game’s best parts came from. The big differences between it and Bloodborne are that you can’t jump, you don’t use a shield (but a gun), and that the open world is much smaller as well as more compact. Even if these come with caveats as you can fall on top of enemies from above, the gun is the chief parrying mechanic (you shoot during enemy attacks), and the maps are incredibly well-designed to make use of every bit of space.

     A comparison to Metroid or Symphony of the Night is warranted as much of the map’s use is based around the fact that you’ll discover shortcuts as well as ways to get around the vertical nature of the design. Much of a level’s exploration will involve backtracking but to discover hidden locations and secrets rather than simply as filler. For example, one of the earliest locations in the game is a multi-story clinic that you pass several gates to on your way out. Later in the game, you find a back entrance that will allow you to the second and third stories that have their own plots.

    The monster design is fantastic with most early game enemies being human mobs, Wolfman-esque enemies, and full on-werewolves. As the Hunter, you ironically find yourself faced with other monster hunters and the corrupt Church of Healing as often as nastier enemies. These give way to massive giant enemies as befitting Dark Souls as the only thing better than fighting a werewolf is fighting a giant werewolf. My favorite boss in the game is a giant werewolf nun and that tells you the kind of wackiness you’ll find in Bloodborne.

    Lore-wise, the world is extremely well-designed with the Lovecraft homages being a late-game addition that I won’t get into lest I spoil some of the enjoyment. Suffice to say, the game is best considered to be Gothic Horror for the first half and cosmic horror for the second. I love the NPCs as well with a definite “less is more” attitude with them: Gehrman, the Plain Doll, Eileen the Hunter and others are all awesome.

    The design is where I really give the game its highest credit because the levels are beautiful beyond belief and successfully invoke the horror movie atmosphere in a way that is distinctly Japanese. It’s simultaneously so over the top that it seems like anime but still serious enough to be taken as horror. Yharnam is a massive ancient city with mammoth constructions but is on its last legs due to the Beast Plague. From the highest towers to the lowest sewers, you get to enjoy its amazing world-building.

    The DLC, “The Old Hunters” is a fantastic expansion to the game and worth picking up if you enjoy the base game. It explains a great deal of the backstory to the game as well as provides context to the many Hunters who are mentioned throughout the game. It also contains a bunch of allusions to “The Shadow over Innsmouth” but with a more depressing take.

    In conclusion, Bloodborne was a fantastic game in 2015 and remains so in 2025. Perhaps it’s not quite as impressive as Elden Ring these days but its gothic atmosphere and surreal mythology are all things that make it worth playing. The game is punishing for beginners but gradually you will learn the rhyme and reason of the combat system. A lot of enemies are better run around getting to where you need to go than run through. Even so, there’s a lot of ways to make the game easier too if you know where to look. 

Available here 

The Eldritch New Adventures of Becky Sharp by Micah S. Harris

    THE ELDRITCH NEW ADVENTURES OF BECKY SHARP by Micah S. Harris is a peculiar example of a novel, starring the villainous co-lead of VANITY FAIR as she's granted immortality by the forces of the Cthulhu Mythos then put through a variety of oddball adventures that roughly resemble A LEAGUE OF EXTRAORDINARY GENTLEMAN. This despite, or perhaps because, she is one of the most selfish and self-absorbed antiheroines in English literature. It's a bit like PRIDE AND PREJUDICE AND ZOMBIES or Phillip Jose Farmer's Wold Newton books. If that seems like a bit of a mouthful, it's a rather hard book to describe even if it's straightforward in its plotting.

    The premise is that Becky Sharp gets forcibly dragooned into the service of the British Empire and goes from misadventure to misadventure. These involved confronting African jungle queens, secret cults, Sherlock Holmes, a serial numbers filed off version of Tarzan, Captain Nemo, the villainess of Arthur Machen's The Great God Pan, and a few other references I'm not literature literate enough to get. There's even a confrontation with Great Cthulhu himself as Becky finds herself on a Norwegian vessel during the events of "The Call of Cthulhu"'s climax.

    This is a wacky book. That's about the only way I can describe it. The Cthulhu Mythos is involved in a lot of the science fiction and period fiction of the time. There's the Great Race of Yith, Cult of the Black Pharaoh, Cult of Tulu (Cthulhu), and other groups. The treatment of the Mythos is far pulpier and one-dimensionally evil than terrifying or inscrutable, though. This pulpy handling of the characters is contrasted with the fact that Becky remains as doggedly determined to do the least amount of heroism as necessary in order to save her own life or the world (where she leaves).

    The prose style is deliberately simple and straight forward, often daring the reader to figure out who various characters and stand-ins are. Some of them are very simple like "The Great Detective" who still pines for Irene Addler but others take a bit more to figure out. This is quite a bit of fun but some of the stand-ins are a bit too obvious and unnecessary given the nature of public domain. After all, why would you rename a still-white whale "Mocha Dick"?

    This is a fun and entertaining read that took me a little to get into. I’m mostly familiar with Vanity Fair through the various movie adaptations so the use of Becky as a protagonist wasn’t as effective as it might have been. I suspect those who don’t know her at all will also wonder why we should care if she’s being made into the world’s most poorly chosen secret agent. There’s also some period accurate racism on display, though Becky sees other races as no worse than her own (and treats them both like garbage). I give it a solid 4/5 stars since I set it down a few times but always picked it back up.

Available here

Tales of an Eldritch Wasteland coming out on July 23rd!

Hey folks,

A lot of interesting news this month with the release of TALES OF AN ELDRITCH WASTELAND happening on July 23rd. This is the fourth volume of the CTHULHU ARMAGEDDON series that will be finishing later this year with the fifth volume, CTHULHU'S CANYON.

Tales of an Eldritch Wasteland is a collection of the various short stories and novellas I've written for the Cthulhu Mythos over the years, including several important ones for understanding the main series. Mostly, they've been divided over the Books of Cthulhu and other anthology books I've participated in but now they've been assembled into a single volume.

There's going to be plenty of John Henry Booth stories but also contemporary Cthulhu Mythos tales as well as a few set back in ye olden times of the Middle Ages or Al-Hazred's days. All of them are canon to the setting. Well, except the Cinderella meets Nyarlathotep one. Probably.

"There are a million tales of the Mythos. Here are some of mine.” - C.T. Phipps

Author C.T. Phipps wrote the post-apocalypse meets H.P. Lovecraft novel Cthulhu Armageddon in 2015 but he had been a fan of the Cthulhu Mythos for far longer. Having written stories ranging from Assassins in Acre to detectives in the Dreamlands, he’s tackled every part of the sinister tentacle-filled world that has been influenced by authors ranging from authors Robert E. Howard and Brian Lumley to film directors George Miller and Stuart Gordon.

TALES OF AN ELDRITCH WASTELAND collects over a dozen of his short stories, novelettes, and novellas set both before as well as after the Great Old Ones’ rising. Stories of action, horror, and everything in between.

“I’m a sucker for anything C.T. Phipps. I can’t get enough of his style of writing.” - Brian’s Book Blog
“Dark and sinister with a side order of action.” - The Bookwyrm Speaks

“Phipps [...] should appeal to those who like full kitchen sink Cthulhu Mythos stories and the attendant sports of restructuring the Mythos.” - Marzaat.com 

 Available for preorder here

Lair of the Crystal Fang by S.A. Sidor review

    LAIR OF THE CRYSTAL FANG by S.A. Sidor is the third book in his "Andy Van Nortwick" trilogy with THE LAST RITUAL and CULT OF THE SPIDER-QUEEN. It takes the story back to Arkham, Massachusetts after the events of the Spider Queen novel and proceeds to follow up on several of the characters. It also makes use of several characters from the board game, which I always enjoy. 

    The premise of the books is a fairly simple one with a serial killing operating in Arkham, much to the show and horror of the city's citizens. The Lamprey operates from the Arkham sewer system and is taking advantage of the many tunnels as well as unmarked passages throughout. He is working for an entity living inside a crystal meteorite buried within said sewers and trying to bring about the end of the world, as you do in ARKHAM HORROR.

    Honestly, I feel like a serial killer is a somewhat lazy plot thread to introduce into Arkham Horror. The equivalent of "cheap heat" for professional wrestling. Serial killers are exciting and interesting as well as fit into the pulp feel but I feel like the other books had a lot more interesting hooks to base the story around. That doesn't mean that this isn't an enjoyable story, it's very well-executed but it is a small complaint I had during the story.

    It's great seeing characters like Rex Murphy, Wendy Adams, Carolyn Fern, Mandy Thompson and Charlie Sinclair spread throughout the story. Usually, the Arkham Horror board game characters are restricted to being cameos and are more like Easter Eggs than actual personalities. This is not the case here. I particularly like the handling of Wendy Adams, who is a street urchin trying to survive in a city full of monsters.

    I appreciate the follow up from The Cult of the Spider Queen as we see Jack Williams becoming a rare disabled hero as he lost his right leg during the events of that book. We also see Maud Brion, former actress and director, struggling to recover her sanity after her ordeal. Finally, Andy Van Notwick has lost his job at the paper because he wasn't able to find gold in the jungle.

    Seeing the characters attempt to bounce back from the events of an encounter with the Mythos is a rare treat in the world of Cthulhu adventures and works quite well for characterization. I also think Wendy Adams is a great character as a young woman who doesn't realize how weird the things she deals with truly are. Doctor Fern also strikes a nice balance between someone who wants to help with supernatural maladies and an objective scientist.

    Ironically, one of my favorite parts of the book was the scenes with Charlie Sinclair. The Mayor of Arkham, he's an individual who believes in the occult and supernatural spookiness of his town. However, his political ambitions and stubborness is so great that when he discovers a mysterious magic crystal as well as a cult worshiping it, his primary concern is that it doesn't disrupt his attempt to replace the Arkham sewer system with a modern one.

    In conclusion, this is a pretty fun book. While I think a serial killer plot in Arkham is somewhat low-hanging fruit, the story is engaging and the characters quite enjoyable. I'd love a fourth Andy Van Notwick novel and see the characters continue to develop. I'm even low-key shipping some of the characters, which I never thought I'd do.

Available here

Song of Carcosa by Josh Reynolds review

    SONG OF CARCOSA is the third of the Countess Zorzi series by Josh Reynolds. I’m a huge fan of these books and their Catwoman-esque protagonist. The Countess is a multi-dimensional protagonist who straddles the line between the upper class of the 1920s as well as the increasing social tensions of the working class. She’s an ex-con woman and cat burglar but has made her fortune through multiple generations of her family being very good at both. It makes a fascinating sort of character to explore the Cthulhu Mythos through and I have no doubt she’d be one of the rare survivors of Masks of Nyarlathotep or Horror on the Orient Express.

    This book has the Countess ally herself with questionable company in the Red Coterie. A group of sorcerers and aristocrats that may not be as evil as the Silver Twilight Lodge but are absolutely not to be trusted. This takes her and her companion, butch cab driver and thief-in-training Pepper Kelly, back to her hometown of Venice. While I prefer stories set in Arkham Horror’s titular city, I appreciate the international nature of the Countess Zorzi books. We get a romanticized view of the floating city at this point in time that involves lots of secrets, intrigue, Old World aristocrats, and the rising tide of fascism.

    Song of Carcosa, as the name implies, is about Hastur. The most famous Great Old One not invented by H.P. Lovecraft but adapted from Robert W. Chambers’ King in Yellow. Once more, we have the mysterious entity connected to an adapation of a mysterious play, madness inducing writing, and artists obsessed with bringing the supernatural to the world in order to bring about its end. In this case, the artist has the semi-sympathetic motive that he thinks that summoning Hastur is the only way to short circuit a second World War.

    This is a good book for Pride month. Countess Alessandra is confirmed as bisexual with a reference to a past girlfriend of hers that she broke up with because of her cousin ratting her out to their family. Pepper has always been subtextually lesbian and gets more “hints” to this as her dream self is revealed to be a warrior woman in love with the Queen of Carcosa. We also get the confirmation that both of Zorzi’s parents received “fencing lessons” from the Red Cavalier in a revelation that shocks the Countess. The 1920s isn’t a great place to be when you’re LGBTA but it’s certainly a setting that Arkham Horror acknowledges them existing.

    As mentioned, the book deals with the fact that fascism is now rising in Italy and the specter of World War 2 is starting to loom over the supernatural as well as mundane forces of Europee. I think this is an interesting element and adds to the story greatly. It is an all-too-human evil and we don’t have an Andrew Doran figure to fight Nazi aligned Cthulhu cultists. I think it’s all too appropriate that everyone, sorcerer and opponent of sorcerer alike, looks down on the fascists.

    In conclusion, I continue to recommend the Countess Zorzi series as an excellent example of adventure horror. They’re Indiana Jones and Lara Croft-esque expeditions except our heroine is even more of a criminal than them. I also like Pepper’s development as she continues to go from a tagalong sidekick to an increasingly interesting heroine in her own right. It also is a pretty good story for Pride Month because it’s nice to have queer characters just being awesome, though I wish they’d stop dancing around with Pepper.

Available here

Call of the Sea (2020) review

    CALL OF THE SEA is an exploration based game that is perhaps appropriate to refer to as a “walking simulator” but that would be more of a pejorative than it deserves to be done so as. It’s similar to MYST from way back when in which the game is mostly just about visiting the very lovely locations and solving some very light puzzles. There’s no chance of dying and very little character interaction but this isn’t necessarily a bad thing. It’s also a game that if you figure out its primary selling point then you’ll figure out the game’s big plot twist so I’m not sure how to talk about it.

    So, instead, I’m going to say that I recommend the game if you need something very relaxing to play and aren’t really interested in purchasing at any price higher than $7.99. It’s worth it to get for under ten dollars but I wouldn’t spend any more money on it. As stated, this is barely a game but it’s a fun way to waste a few hours exploring the pretty island with its cartoonish Monkey Island-esque graphics and Pacific Island ambiance. The mystery is a fun one to unravel, even though I figured it out in the opening scene. Now if you want to know more, stay and read on but consider yourself warned.

    Okay, the game’s central premise is that you are Norah Everhart, 1930s New England high society woman who has traveled to a remote island in the South Pacific looking for her missing husband, Harry. There’s some questions from the beginning about why she’s going to this island alone on a rowboat, what she hopes to accomplish, and how she plans to get back once she’s found whatever it is she’s looking for. However, these are mild issues in the grand scheme of thing. Norah suffers from some strange illness covering her in odd patches on her body and she dreams of strange underwater cities.

    Yeah, the big twist of the game is almost immediately spoiled by the fact I tagged, “Cthulhu Mythos” when discussing this game. It’s a Pacific island, there’s a bunch of fish-shaped iconography across the place, Norah is from Newberryport, and the expedition was almost funded by a bunch of people called the “Starry Wisdom” society. If you can’t figure out what’s going on by the end of the second chapter, you’ve probably never read The Shadow over Innsmouth. Except, I don’t think that twist is actually a bad thing to have spoiled because everything becomes about the anticipation instead.

    The funny thing is, this isn’t a horror game. The island is bright and cheerful, the atmosphere is wistful, and the (let’s call them what they are) Deep Ones are at least threatening. Hell, I’d argue the Innsmouth Legacy has more a terrifying interpretation of the creatures and they’re protagonists of the series. This is definitely more an urban fantasy interpretation of Lovecraft’s Mythos but those expecting some horrible twist or dread will be disappointed.

    The puzzles are generally well-designed but not always intuitive. One puzzle might just consist of writing down all the symbols on tiki statues spread throughout a camp site, another might be assembling a puzzle out of torn paper pieces, and a third might be trying to assign symbols to musical notes on a piano. Sometimes there are issues that you wouldn’t expect like after getting all of the electrical grid of an old ship back online, you still have to flip switches to turn on the electrical wires without any clue that’s necessary.

    This is definitely a game with a lot of trial and error mixed with touching everything (or using a guide). The art style is really nice with the illustrations being extremely well done and the non-realistic graphics will probably age far better than a more advanced Triple A game. The island is a beautiful place to wander and sometimes I just stopped to look around at the giant diamond shaped stone monuments or beautiful lagoons. There’s only one main character but she does a good job of being likeable as she just talks to herself the entire time.

    In conclusion, Call of the Sea is an enjoyable game where you wander around a beautiful island and explore a bunch of ruins with a minimum amount of danger as well as some cyclopean ruins. I don’t regret my purchase but I wonder if they could have gone in a more horror-driven direction. The best chapter is Chapter 3, which is a dark and stormy level with an abandoned steamer and ancient creepy temple.

Available here (Steam)

Xbox Store

Playstation Store

[Book Sale] Moon Cops on the Moon and Tales of the Al-Azif on sale for 99c

A pair of sales are ongoing for the last bit of Summer for those people who still want to pick up some of my lesser known works. MOON COPS ON THE MOON and TALES OF THE AL-AZIF (Books of Cthulhu #1) are on sale for 99c from May 27th to the 31st. The tale of a corgi cop and his human partner (or maybe it's the reverse) in a cyberpunk humor setting next to a bunch of pulpy action tales including a Cthulhu Armageddon one.

Blurb: "Welcome to the moon!"

Neal Gordon screwed up his assignment on Mars and they reassigned him to Antarctica. Now he's being reassigned some place even worse: Luna City. A crime ridden hellhole with a super-rich ruling class, he almost immediately finds himself targeted by bounty hunters and cyborg terrorists. Thankfully, Neal has an unusual set of partners in robot dog, Barksley, and the snarky but badass Lucy Westenra. Yes, make all the vampire jokes you want.

It's tough being a corporate cop on humanity's foremost colony and before this adventure is over, he's going to have to deal with deranged influencers, mysterious female secret agents, and a 1970s themed flying car called the Purple Rain. Can he survive to get reassigned? Who knows.

MOON COPS ON THE MOON is set in the Futurepunk setting of Agent G, the Cyber Dragons Trilogy, and Space Academy novels but functions as a standalone series. It is a humorous action-filled romp that fans of The Expanse, Robocop, Demolition Man, and Blade Runner will enjoy.

Link: https://www.amazon.com/Moon-Cops-C-T-Phipps-ebook/dp/B0CD7QKBQJ/

Blurb: The Necronomicon was not the first book by H.P. Lovecraft to terrify readers with tales of dark and twisted horrors from beyond. No, the Al-Azif, or Book of the Insect, is the first work that told mankind of Cthulhu, Azathoth, and other terrors. Indeed, it was the book that inspired "The Mad Arab" Abdul Al-Hazred to write its more famous successor.

Join us for a collection of novellas written by some of the best Neo-Lovecraftian authors today: Matthew Davenport (Andrew Doran, The Trials of Obed Marsh), David Hambling (Harry Stubbs, The Dulwich Horror), David J. West (Porter Rockwell, Redneck Eldritch), David Niall Wilson (The Call of Distant Shores), and C. T. Phipps (Cthulhu Armageddon) in telling stories of this mysterious book.

Find out where the nightmares began!

 

Link: https://www.amazon.com/Tales-Al-Azif-Cthulhu-Mythos-Anthology-ebook/dp/B07PYZDF8D/

Shadows of Pnath by Josh Reynolds review

    SHADOWS OF PNATH by Josh Reynolds is the second of the Countess Zorzi novels and part of the Arkham Horror series. The Arkham Horror series is a loose spin-off of CALL OF CTHULHU by Chaosium now published by Fantasy Flightr Games with the books published by Acnyte books. A corporate web that I'd honestly love to know the exact circumstances regarding but I suspect would cause me to lose SAN. The Arkham Horror novels are a pulpier, more action heavy version of the Mythos with a slight chance of a a bittersweet ending rather than just everyone ending down Shub-Niggurath's fifteen gullets.

    The Countess Zorzi series is based around the fantastic character of the Coutness Alessandra Zorzi, a Catwoman-esque burglar and femme fatale who previously dealt in occult artifacts as well as books despite the fact she didn't believe in the supernatural. In THE WRATH OF N'KAI, she is unfortunately confronted with this being a very arrogant attitude to have in the face of the Cthulhu Mythos. I really enjoyed the Graphic Audio adaption and suggest if you're going to listen to them then this is the best way to experience it.

    The premise for The Shadows of Pnath is that the Countess is running low on her discretionary funds due to having switched from stealing for rich would-be supervillains to working for the less wealthy Miskatonic University. Her latest attempt to get back one of the books she stole for a client backfires, though, and her young protege, Pepper, is kidnapped by an ex-lover, the Comte de'Erlette. He is obsessed with acquiring the original Cultes des Goules written by his ancestor and using it for an unconventional plot: to take the fight directly to the Great Old Ones. Which is suicidal and stupid but not unprecedented in the Arkham Horror universe.

    There's a lot of expansion to the Arkham Horror universe by this book as it introduces the Black Chamber, the same predecessor to the NSA that Charles Stross used in his Laundry books, as a potential new power player in this world. There's also a mysterious secret society called the Red Coterie that would eventually be the stars of the Secrets in Scarlet anthology. Basically, they're like the Silver Twilight Lodge but closer to neutral than evil. I liked seeing the Countess up against spies in the post-WW1 period but was actually more interested in her past as a associate of more malevolent sorcerers (while not being a believer in the supernatural herself).

    I feel the book suffered a bit for the fact that Countess Zorzi and Pepper were separated for the majority of the story. I think much of the series' fun comes from the two individuals from different social spheres playing off of one another. Still, I had a lot of fun. I also enjoyed the Count de'Erlette as a villain as while he's a thoroughly repulsive individual, he's actually attempting to fight for humanity. Under different circumstances, he might have been a hero of the series.

    In conclusion, I really enjoyed The Shadows of Pnath and think it's a worthy sequel to the original novel. I preferred The Wrath of N'Kai more because there were slightly more interesting characters to bounce off of. I feel Trish the Black Chamber let Alessandra walk all over her a bit too much to be a credible spy and I actually feel like the Comte deserved some more attention. Still, I am definitely picking up the third book in the series.

Available here

Hammers on Bone by Cassandra Khaw review

    HAMMERS ON BONE by Cassandra Khaw is a rare gem in what I’ve always felt should have been a larger genre: the Cthulhu Mythos detective novel. I’ve played a few video games with the premise like Dark Corners of the Earth, The Sinking City, and Call of Cthulhu (2018) but I feel like it’s something that should have been as popular a genre in paperback fiction as the Dungeons and Dragons novel was in the Nineties. I feel like Chaosium and other parties could have made some serious bank on this and I’ve always wondered at that missed opportunity.

    Personally, my theory is that in addition to the nebulous status of Cthulhu copyright ownership, I also felt like there were people who felt that Pulpy fun “Tommy Guns and Two Fisted Action” Cthulhu playstyle was something that people in charge disdained. This despite the fact that I think it’s the absolute best way to play Call of Cthulhu and why I will always choose Pulp Cthulhu over its regular counterpart. I know my friend Seth Skorkowsky prefers to run the games that way and if you don’t mind a digression, I suggest if you haven’t checked out his YouTube channel then you should. I also recommend David Hambling’s Harry Stubbs series for another Cthulhu detective adjacent series.

    Hammers on Bone is a detective novel set in the Cthulhu Mythos with protagonist John Persons. John acts like a detective from the 1940s in the Modern Era and very few people comment on it. He’s also got a touch of the Mythos as well, possessing the ability to see things that other people do not see and interact with the supernal world. However, despite this, he doesn’t want to do these sorts of cases as a general rule and is annoyed when a young boy asks him to kill his stepfather. Doubly annoyed when the boy make san excellent case for why it should be done.

    Cassandra Khaw did a short interview where she said the book was primarily an allegory for domestic abuse (link: http://www.thebooksmugglers.com/2016/11/hammers-bone-cassandra-khaw-inspirations-influences.html ) and I can certainly see that. John Persons wants to help the family out of their situation but finds himself stymied at every opportunity. There’s a certain argument that John is also suffering from “The Hamlet Question” where if he’d just straight up murder McKinsey then things might end better than they do. However, murder isn’t something that is easy to do for our protagonist and I appreciate it is treated with suitable gravity.

    Cassandra Khaw has a great mastery of the weird and disturbing. Her interpretation of the Cthulhu Mythos is that reality is a a thin wallpaper over something nauseating and terrifying. Many of the encounters John has with the creatures around him are viscerally disturbing and work to underscore the all-too-human evils being conducted around him. Unlike Lovecraft, she does have an interest in the petty awfulness of mankind and the juxtaposition works very well.

    John Pearson is a likable enough protagonist that manages to explain away a lot of his unusual insights into the occult and sixth sense without overpowering him. He’s also someone who is neither superhuman nor particularly effective against the human evils around him, let alone the human. You feel his sense of frustration and desire to do the right thing but no real sense of how to even figure out what that would look like.

    Hammers on Bone is a short novel, really a novella, and yet is worth the full price. Not every novel is measured in the quantity of its pages after all. I think if you like horror novels, detective fiction, and the Cthulhu Mythos then you’ll definitely enjoy this book. The ending is a gut punch but feels appropriate to everything that happened before in the novella. I’m definitely going to check out the sequel as well.

Available here

Ten Recommended New Cthulhu Mythos novels II

Howard Phillips Lovecraft remains one of the more controversial yet influential genre writers of the early 20th century. A man like his friend and contemporary, Robert E. Howard, who has stood the test of time. His creations in the Great Old Ones, Necronomicon, Nyarlathotep, and Deep Ones have resonated with generations of readers.

Perhaps his most admirable quality as a writer was the fact that he was never afraid to let anyone play with his toys. An early advocate of what we’d now call “open source” writing, he happily shared concepts and ideas with his fellow writers. Howard Phillips would be delighted at the longevity of his creations and the fact that he has entertained thousands of people through things like Call of Cthulhu and Arkham Horror tabletop games or the Re-Animator movies.

Speaking as the author of the Cthulhu Armageddon books as well as participant in such anthologies as Tales of the Al-Azif and Tales of Yog-Sothoth, I thought I would share some of my favorite post-Lovecraftian fiction created by writers willing to play around with HPL’s concepts. Many of these examine the alienation and xenophobia themes while keeping the cool monsters as others address them head on from new perspectives.

I admit my tastes have influenced me to choose the pulpier works over the scarier but it’s not like the former didn’t have plenty of HPL stories (The Dreamquest of Unknown Kadath, The Dunwich Horror, and The Case of Charles Dexter Ward) nor is the latter lacking for advocates. For the earlier Cthulhu novel recommendations, check out this.

10. The War of the God Queen by David Hambling

Link

Blurb: Jessica: a modern woman, thrown back into the bronze age, alone among a strange and violent people.

Amir: a nomad warlord, leading a hopeless battle against monstrous invaders, looking for a miracle.

To Amir, the beautiful stranger is a sign from heaven. And Jessica, though no warrior, has hidden talents even she does not appreciate. When Jessica recruits other women abducted through time, they band together to fight back against the seemingly invulnerable Spawn

The future of humanity is at stake, and Jessica's supposed friends may be more dangerous than her enemies..

You’ll love this epic fantasy driven by characters facing the challenge of becoming what they could only dream.

Review: David Hambling is a master of fantastic and weird fiction. I am very fond of his Harry Stubbs series and writings in the Books of Cthulhu series. However, this is probably my favorite weird fiction work by him. A feminist tale of a number of time-lost women that have been transported back to the Bronze Age where cthulhoid creatures intend to use them as breeding stock. Well, they have objections. A bit of A Connecticut Yankee in King Arthur's Court mixed with Conan the Barbarian, mixed with plucky heroine stories.

9. The Statement of Andrew Doran by Matthew Davenport

Link

Blurb: Dr. Andrew Doran has been out of touch with the major civilizations for quite a while. When an emissary from his Alma Mater demands his assistance, Andrew is in such a state that he has no choice but to help. The Nazis have taken the Necronomicon from Miskatonic University’s library. With it they could call upon every form of darkness and use the powers of the void to destroy all who stand in their way of unlimited power.

For years Doran has been at odds with Miskatonic University.

Putting his negative feelings aside, Andrew takes charge and heads straight into the Nazi-controlled territories of Europe. Along his journey from America and into the heart of Berlin, the dark Traum Kult, or Dream Cult, has sent beasts from the void between worlds to slow his progress.

This is adventure and monsters unlike anything the anthropologist has ever experienced, and only with the assistance of the trigger-happy Leo and the beautiful Olivia, both members of the French Resistance, does Dr. Doran have any chance of success. A sane man would flinch. Dr. Andrew Doran charges in.

Review: Sometimes you want a transparent Indiana Jones versus Cthulhu story. I'm a big fan of the Andrew Doran books. Our protagonist is an occult professor at Miskatonic University who is more interested in hunting down cultists, Nazis, and Nazi cultists than he is about teaching class. They're very much in the Pulp mold of storytelling and perhaps a bit too episodic but our hero runs into every supernatural moster HPL created on his journey to recover the Necronomicon from Nazi Berlin.

8. Cthulhu Reloaded by David Croyden

Link

Blurb: The Stars are Right. Humans… prepare for extinction.

Eldritch gods, cosmic horrors, and weird physics are the enemy, striking from nameless dimensions we can’t perceive, destroying us with strangeness beyond human comprehension. Major Harrison Peel understands these Great Old Ones better than anyone. He wishes he didn’t.

Forced into his latest assignment, Peel must confront an alien Outer God known only as the Impossible Object. Held in a secret facility deep in the Australian desert, no two people perceive it the same way, and it conforms to no known properties of the universe. Then the Impossible Object promises to reveal the secrets of everything, or cause all space and time to blink from existence… forever.

Are humans supposed to choose? And if so, can Peel guess the Impossible Object’s intensions? For the fate of everything could rest entirely in his hands…

For fans of weird science fiction, Delta Green and Charles Stross’s The Laundry, the Harrison Peel series is a collection of interconnected cosmic horror stories that explore the world, and the entire universe, of H. P. Lovecraft’s Cthulhu Mythos, stretched across all space and time.

Review: The Harrison Peel stories are a perfect counter for the Lovecraftian ethos that humans should be helpless victims before unknowable horrors. Major Peel is a soldier for the Australian government who is continually roped into supernatural encounters. The stories work because the horror is still alien and unknowable but he reacts as intelligently as possible to dealing with them. He can't punch or shoot them away like, say, Captain Booth in my books can. You know, except for running away and never thinking about the Mythos again.

7. Ashes of Onyx by Seth Skorkowsky

Link

Blurb: They stole her magic.

They killed her friends.

Nothing in the multiverse will stop her quest for revenge.

Kate Rossdale once held all the promise of becoming Baltimore’s greatest sorceress. But promise is a hard thing to hold when your coven is murdered, your magic is stripped away, and the only solace left to you comes one powdered line at a time.

When she’s offered the restoration of her power by a man she doesn’t know or trust, Kate sets in motion the retribution of her enemies.

Soon she finds herself racing across the globe, and across worlds, venturing into exotic realms of forbidden dreams, to the spires of Lost Carcosa, hunting for the magic-thief who robbed her of everything she held dear, including the most dangerous magic any sorceress can possess—hope.

If you like Clive Barker, Joshua Bader, Shayne Silvers, Jim Butcher, M.D. Massey, and Brad Magnarella, you’ll love this unique urban fantasy adventure!

“Skorkowsky channels heavy themes of guilt, grief, and addiction into a bloody quest for revenge in this explosive, world-spanning urban fantasy. Gruesome fight scenes and wildly imaginative, richly described alternate worlds lend an epic feel to their adventure. Dark fantasy fans will relish this magical thrill ride.” – Publisher’s Weekly

Review: Seth Skorkowsky, one of the best Youtube commentators on Call of Cthulhu adventures, is a good friend of mine. He's also a very talented writer. This book deals with a substance abusing mage, Kate Rossdale, as she finds herself on a quest that will take her to Lost Carcosa in the Dreamlands. If you like the more mystical and surreal elements of the Cthulhu Mythos then this is the book for you.

6. The Last Ritual by SA Sidor

Link

Blurb: A mad surrealist’s art threatens to rip open the fabric of reality, in this twisted tale of eldritch horror and conspiracy, from the wildly popular world of Arkham Horror.

Aspiring painter Alden Oakes is invited to join a mysterious art commune in Arkham: the New Colony. When celebrated Spanish surrealist Juan Hugo Balthazarr visits the colony, Alden and the other artists quickly fall under his charismatic spell. Balthazarr throws a string of decadent parties for Arkham’s social elite, conjuring arcane illusions which blur the boundaries between nightmare and reality. Only slowly does Alden come to suspect that Balthazarr’s mock rituals are intended to break through those walls and free what lies beyond. Alden must act, but it might already be too late to save himself, let alone Arkham.

Review: While so many of these books go in different directions than HP Lovecraft, it's nice to do something more traditional. In this case, a wealthy young dilettante has a strange encounter in Spain with a local festival before discovering that a famous artist has taken up residence in Arkham. The link between art and the supernatural is explored as well as the fact that the protagonist is woefully unqualified to deal with any of this. I think the graphic audio version of this book is the best way to enjoy it personally but the book itself is fun by itself.

5. Let Sleeping Gods Lie by David J. West

Link

Blurb: Louis L’Amour Meets Lovecraft

Porter Rockwell, wanted for a murder he did not commit, is hiding out in Old California selling whiskey to thirsty forty-niners. When his friends dig up some monstrous bones and a peculiar book and offer to sell it for a helluva price, Porter can’t resist the mystery.

But when both his night bartender and the sellers are murdered at his saloon Porter has to find out what the mysterious artifacts are all about. With some Native American legends, Sasquatch, Lovecraftian horror, and murderous bandits thrown in, not even bullets and blades can stop Rockwell from leaving a swath of righteous carnage in his wake.

Let Sleeping Gods Lie is a weird western fantasy in the vein of classic pulp fiction and Louis L’Amour books. If you like frontier justice, larger-than-life characters, and witty humor, then you will LOVE the first installment of the Cowboys and Cthulhu series.

Buy Let Sleeping Gods Lie to get lost in a horrific weird western adventure today!

Review: I'm admittedly biased into loving the combination of Cthulhu and Westerns. There's just something about the American frontier and its unique history that seems perfect for ghost stories. In the Porter Rockwell series, the real life figure has his adventures fictionalized as he deals with various supernatural horrors and baddies that contradict his American Christian background.

4. The Dream-Quest of Vellitt Boe by Kij Johnson

Link

Blurb: World Fantasy Award winner, Hugo, Nebula, John W. Campbell, and Locus Award finalist for Best Novella, and one of NPR's Best Books of 2016

Professor Vellitt Boe teaches at the prestigious Ulthar Women’s College. When one of her most gifted students elopes with a dreamer from the waking world, Vellitt must retrieve her.

Kij Johnson's haunting novella The Dream-Quest of Vellitt Boe is both a commentary on a classic H.P. Lovecraft tale and a profound reflection on a woman's life. Vellitt's quest to find a former student who may be the only person who can save her community takes her through a world governed by a seemingly arbitrary dream logic in which she occasionally glimpses an underlying but mysterious order, a world ruled by capricious gods and populated by the creatures of dreams and nightmares. Those familiar with Lovecraft's work will travel through a fantasy landscape infused with Lovecraftian images viewed from another perspective, but even readers unfamiliar with his work will be enthralled by Vellitt's quest.

"A remarkable accomplishment that repays rereading." ―Pamela Sargent, winner of the Nebula Award

Review: This is an unusual example even for Lovecraftian fiction. Basically, in a women's college in the fantasy world of the Dreamlands, specifically Ulthar the City of Cats, there's a young woman who has gone missing. This young woman being the daughter of a god. Vellitt Boe, a teacher there, decides to cross the Dreamlands in hopes of finding them in order to prevent Ulthar from facing the god's wrath.

3. Miskatonic by Mark Sable

Link

Blurb: Miskatonic Valley holds many mysteries – cultists worshipping old gods, a doctor deadset on resurrecting the recently deceased, a house overrun by rats in the walls – but none more recent than a series of bombings targeting the Valley’s elite.

To Bureau of Investigation (the predecessor of the FBI) chief J. Edgar Hoover, there can be no other explanation than those responsible for similar actions during the Red Scare of the 1920s. But when the brilliant, hard-nosed investigator Miranda Keller is sent to stop the bombings, she uncovers an unimaginable occult conspiracy, one that may cost her both her job and her sanity.

From writer Mark Sable (WAR ON TERROR: GODKILLERS, Graveyard of Empires) and artist Giorgio Pontrelli (Dylan Dog), MISKATONIC is a mix of historical crime fiction and Lovecraftian-horror that dives deep into the American nightmare.

Review: Independent comics are a different breed from independent books. They require a lot more effort in production than your typical ebook or even print on demand work. Still, this is definitely an indie production and a fantastic one at that. Following the adventures of one of the last female detectives of the Bureau of Investigation before J Edgar Hoover fires them, they find themselves neck deep in the Cthulhu Mythos as well as the reactionary politics of the day.

2. New Cthulhu: The Recent Weird by Various

Link

Blurb: For more than eighty years H.P. Lovecraft has inspired writers of supernatural fiction, artists, musicians, filmmakers, and gaming. His themes of cosmic indifference, the utter insignificance of humankind, minds invaded by the alien, and the horrors of history — written with a pervasive atmosphere of unexplainable dread — remain not only viable motifs, but are more relevant than ever as we explore the mysteries of a universe in which our planet is infinitesimal and climatic change is overwhelming it.

In the first decade of the twenty-first century the best supernatural writers no longer imitate Lovecraft, but they are profoundly influenced by the genre and the mythos he created. New Cthulhu: The Recent Weird presents some of the best of this new Lovecraftian fiction — bizarre, subtle, atmospheric, metaphysical, psychological, filled with strange creatures and stranger characters — eldritch, unsettling, evocative, and darkly appealing.

Review: A well-chosen and smartly edited anthology of such luminaries as Kim Newman, Neil Gaiman, Cherie Priest, Charles Stross, Sarah Monette, and China Mieville among others. There's some truly great stories throughout this work like "Pickman's Other Model" which is about a sexualized ghoul in the turbulent 1920s, "A Study in Emerald" which has been rightfully reprinted many times, and "Shoggoths in Bloom" which asks the question whether the shoggoths could ever have been as horrifying as the people who enslaved them.

1. The Brotherhood of the Beast by the Hp Lovecraft Historical Society

Link

Blurb: A hardened archaeologist and a wealthy adventurer join forces to look into inexplicable murders in Boston. Before long, their investigation reveals a nefarious conspiracy, with tentacles reaching from their own past to the furthest corners of the globe. Will the duo and a team of trusted comrades be able to thwart an unholy alliance of dark forces, or does our very world stand upon the precipice of a terrifying doom? 

Review: This is a radio play and doesn't quite qualify as a novel but it's got all of the enjoyment I got out of the Masks of Nyarlathotep one produced by Dark Adventure Theater. Here, a group of adventurers are caught up in plot to install a reincarnation of the Black Pharoah in as the Anti-Christ-esque ruler of the world. It's based on the classic Chaosium adventure, The Fungi from Yuggoth and goes in different directions from HPL's classic tales but I have to admit some of the stories like the opening one with a child murderer in an old lady's house are just fantastic. I hope they make a sequel someday.

Ten Recommended New Cthulhu Mythos Novels

    Howard Phillips Lovecraft remains one of the more controversial yet influential genre writers of the early 20th century. A man like his friend and contemporary, Robert E. Howard, who has stood the test of time. His creations in the Great Old Ones, Necronomicon, Nyarlathotep, and Deep Ones have resonated with generations of readers.

    Perhaps his most admirable quality as a writer was the fact that he was never afraid to let anyone play with his toys. An early advocate of what we’d now call “open source” writing, he happily shared concepts and ideas with his fellow writers. Howard Phillips would be delighted at the longevity of his creations and the fact that he has entertained thousands of people through things like the Call of Cthulhu and Arkham Horror tabletop games or Re-Animator movies.

    Speaking as the author of the Cthulhu Armageddon books as well as participant in such anthologies as Tales of the Al-Azif and Tales of Yog-Sothoth, I thought I would share some of my favorite post-Lovecraftian fiction created by writers willing to play around with HPL’s concepts. Many of these examine the alienation and xenophobia themes while keeping the cool monsters as others address them head on from new perspectives.

    I admit my tastes have influenced me to choose the pulpier works over the scarier but it’s not like the former didn’t have plenty of HPL stories (The Dreamquest of Unknown Kadath, The Dunwich Horror, and The Case of Charles Dexter Ward) nor is the latter lacking for advocates.

10. The Wrath of N’Kai by Josh Reynolds

 

Blurb: The first in a new range of novels of eldritch adventure from the wildly popular Arkham Horror; an international thief of esoteric artifacts stumbles onto a nightmarish cult in 1920s New England.

Countess Alessandra Zorzi, international adventurer and thief, arrives in Arkham pursuing an ancient body freshly exhumed from a mound in Oklahoma, of curious provenance and peculiar characteristics. But before she can steal it, another party beats her to it. During the resulting gunfight at the Miskatonic Museum, the countess makes eye contact with the petrified corpse and begins an adventure of discovery outside her wildest experiences. Now, caught between her mysterious client, the police, and a society of necrophagic connoisseurs, she finds herself on the trail of a resurrected mummy as well as the star-born terror gestating within it.

Review: Tabletop gaming and Lovecraft have a rich history with the Call of Cthulhu games being incredibly successful and long lived. However, they never took the TSR route of churning out stories set in the Mythos, perhaps out of fear they’d undermine the horror. Arkham Horror, by contrast, embraces the kind of pulp sensibility I love to write about and includes books mixing horror with “blow the monster up with dynamite.” This one is particularly good with a Catwoman meets Lara Croft-esque protagonist and her sidekick Pepper planning to steal a mummy recovered from Midwestern America. There’s a full Graphic Audio production of the book and I recommend picking that up over the regular audiobook version if one must choose.

9. Hammers on Bone by Cassandra Khaw

Blurb: Cassandra Khaw bursts onto the scene with Hammers on Bone, a hard-boiled horror show that Charles Stross calls “possibly the most promising horror debut of 2016.” A finalist for the British Fantasy award and the Locus Award for Best Novella!

John Persons is a private investigator with a distasteful job from an unlikely client. He’s been hired by a ten-year-old to kill the kid’s stepdad, McKinsey. The man in question is abusive, abrasive, and abominable.

He’s also a monster, which makes Persons the perfect thing to hunt him. Over the course of his ancient, arcane existence, he’s hunted gods and demons, and broken them in his teeth.

As Persons investigates the horrible McKinsey, he realizes that he carries something far darker. He’s infected with an alien presence, and he’s spreading that monstrosity far and wide. Luckily Persons is no stranger to the occult, being an ancient and magical intelligence himself. The question is whether the private dick can take down the abusive stepdad without releasing the holds on his own horrifying potential.

Review: Private detectives are always a good choice for Lovecraft protagonists and the video game adaptations (Dark Corners of the Earth, Call of Cthulhu, The Sinking City) tend to default to them. Here, the protagonist seems unusually well-versed in the Mythos and trying to do something simple by protecting a boy from his father. The combination of real life evils with the ones of the Mythos makes a very effective novella.

8. Miskatonic University: Elder Gods 101 by Matthew Davenport and Michael Davenport

Blurb: Miskatonic University is bathed in the blood of the students who have walked its halls. A place where the darkness is more than just shadows.

As with many of the best universities, many students having a distinguished family name—but at Miskatonic this can be as much a curse as a blessing.

Such an aged repository of occult histories has secrets of its own. Miskatonic University is an anchor for all reality. Held tentatively in place by spells woven into its walls over generations.

Someone, somewhere, is breaking those spells and all of the universe is on the brink of tearing apart.

A spell was cast to alter causality and bring together the strongest bloodlines to have ever walked through the halls of Miskatonic University. The Scion Cycle.

Some of this year’s freshmen have their own secrets. Their veins pumping with the cursed blood of their families. They must overcome the horror of their lineage and unearth who they truly are if reality is to be saved.

The power of Kaziah Mason, the brood of Innsmouth, the madness of R’lyeh, the quest of Randolph Carter, and the insane brilliance of Herbert West in the hands of teenagers.

What could possibly go wrong?

Review: Perhaps the lightest entry on this list, Miskatonic University: Elder Gods 101 isn’t even horror but urban fantasy. It’s written in the same vein as Drew Hayes’ Super Powereds with a bunch of freshmen at college discovering they have superpowers and need to save the world. Much like the Andrew Doran series by the same author, it may send Lovecraft purists heading for the hills but you actually get more enjoyment from the book the more you know about the minutia of HPL’s writings as the Davenport brothers’ knowledge runs deep.

7. The Atrocity Archives by Charles Stross

 

Blurb: The first novel in Hugo Award-winning author Charles Stross’s witty Laundry Files series.

Bob Howard is a low-level techie working for a super-secret government agency. While his colleagues are out saving the world, Bob’s under a desk restoring lost data. His world was dull and safe – but then he went and got Noticed.

Now, Bob is up to his neck in spycraft, parallel universes, dimension-hopping terrorists, monstrous elder gods and the end of the world. Only one thing is certain: it will take more than a full system reboot to sort this mess out . . .

Review: Combing the absolute horror of the Great Old Ones with the mundanity of being a British civil servant, even one that just happens to be a field agent and spy. The Laundry Files is a fantastic book series that is somehow humorous, terrifying, and philosophical all at once. Bob Howard is a great character and is the only man in the world who can stand against the forces of darkness through the power of mathematics. Except, really, he knows he’s eventually going to lose and he’s mostly just trying to delay CASE NIGHTMARE GREEN for a few years at best.

6. 14 by Peter Clines

 

Blurb: Padlocked doors. Strange light fixtures. Mutant cockroaches.

There are some odd things about Nate’s new apartment.

Of course, he has other things on his mind. He hates his job. He has no money in the bank. No girlfriend. No plans for the future. So while his new home isn’t perfect, it’s livable. The rent is low, the property managers are friendly, and the odd little mysteries don’t nag at him too much.

At least, not until he meets Mandy, his neighbor across the hall, and notices something unusual about her apartment. And Xela’s apartment. And Tim’s. And Veek’s.

Because every room in this old Los Angeles brownstone has a mystery or two. Mysteries that stretch back over a hundred years. Some of them are in plain sight. Some are behind locked doors. And all together these mysteries could mean the end of Nate and his friends.

…or the end of everything.

Review: Peter Clines and I were notably both coming up in Permuted Press when that company got bought out by people who subsequently began printing Oliver North and other Far Right authors. Abandoning ship, both of us found better deals. I was overwhelmed by how much I loved his Ex-Heroes books where superheroes fought zombies. They had their flaws but got better each book until they were cancelled. 14 is even better as our protagonists are staying at a surreal apartment building where the mysteries of what its purpose as well as horrors is an onion to unpeal. Later works like The Fold show Peter has an excellent grasp on the Mythos.

5. The Elder Ice by David Hambling

Blurb: A classic 1920s science fiction novella — with a 2015 twist. Ex-boxer Harry Stubbs is on the trail of a mysterious legacy in South London. A polar explorer has died, leaving huge debts and hints of a priceless find. Harry’s informants seem to be talking in riddles, he finds that isn’t the only one on the trail — and what he’s looking for is as lethal as it is valuable, leaving a trail of oddly-mutilated bodies. The key to the enigma lies in an ancient Arabian book, leading to something more alien and more horrifying than Harry could ever imagine. Harry is not be an educated man, but he has an open mind, bulldog persistence and piledriver fists — important assets when you’re boxing the darkest of shadows.

The story of mystery and horror draws on HP Lovecraft’s Cthulhu Mythos and is inspired by Ernest Shackleton’s incredible real-life Antarctic adventures.

Review: Despite the popularity of the Call of Cthulhu games, there’s a surprising lack of Lovecraftian detective fiction out there. You’d think the company would have been marketing books like TSR had been fantasy in the Eighties and Nineties. The Harry Stubbs series, starting with the Elder Ice, is as close to it as I’ve found. A WW1 British boxer, he is always coming within a hair’s breadth of destruction at the Mythos’ hands but avoids enough of it to keep his sanity and life. For the most part.

4. The Burrowers Beneath by Brian Lumley

Blurb: The Burrowers Beneath is the first book in the Titus Crow series from bestselling author Brian Lumley

The Titus Crow novels are adventure horror, full of acts of nobility and heroism, featuring travel to exotic locations and alternate planes of existence as Titus Crow and his faithful companion and record-keeper fight the gathering forces of darkness wherever they arise.

The menaces are the infamous and deadly Elder Gods of the work of H.P. Lovecraft. Chthulu and his dark minions are bent on ruling the earth–or destroying it. A few puny humans cannot possibly stand against these otherworldly evil gods, yet time after time, Titus Crow defeats the monsters and drives them back into the dark from whence they came.

Review: The Titus Crow series is one of the biggest influences in my writing career because it is such an incredibly batshit crazy series. A Sherlock Holmes and Watsonian pair of occultists, Titus Crow and his assistant Henri de Marigny start with a war against a new Great Old One sending monstrous sandworm-esque monsters around the world to hunt them. Then it goes from there. I love this book and think its the Masks of Nyaralthotep literary equivalent I always needed. My only regret is the fact Tor books refuses to shell out money for new covers or release the rights back to Brian Lumley on the Kindle editions. So I recommend the audiobook version by Crossroad Press and not just because they’re my publishers (*zing*).

3. The Ballad of Black Tom by Victor Lavalle

Blurb: People move to New York looking for magic and nothing will convince them it isn’t there.

Charles Thomas Tester hustles to put food on the table, keep the roof over his father’s head, from Harlem to Flushing Meadows to Red Hook. He knows what magic a suit can cast, the invisibility a guitar case can provide, and the curse written on his skin that attracts the eye of wealthy white folks and their cops. But when he delivers an occult tome to a reclusive sorceress in the heart of Queens, Tom opens a door to a deeper realm of magic, and earns the attention of things best left sleeping.

A storm that might swallow the world is building in Brooklyn. Will Black Tom live to see it break?

Review: Victor LaValle has a complicated relationship with HPL, being a man of color who loved the writings of the author but felt excluded by his world. Re-imagining The Horror of Red Hook, Victor LaValle tells the story of a (not very good) jazz musician who finds himself immersed in a complicated occult conspiracy with the police, an eccentric millionaire, plus unlimited power to a man who might be able to overthrow a corrupt power structure.

2. Dark Adventure Theatre: Masks of Nyarlathotep by The HP Lovecraft Historical Society

Blurb: Dark Adventure Radio Theatre: Masks of Nyarlathotep is an epic tale of globe-trotting adventure inspired by the works of H.P. Lovecraft, presented as a 1930s-style radio drama. Dark Adventure Radio Theatre presents the tale with an absurdly large cast of professional actors, exciting sound effects and thrilling original music by Troy Sterling Nies. 

Like many Lovecraft fans, we played Chaosium’s celebrated role playing game Call of Cthulhu®. Now, in partnership with Chaosium, we’ve adapted their most famed and beloved game supplement of all time –  Masks of Nyarlathotep – into a fully dramatized super episode of Dark Adventure Radio Theatre. And if you’ve never heard of or played the game – don’t worry, you don’t need to know anything about the game to enjoy this super-sized episode. The death of a dear old friend and an inquiry into a doomed archeological expedition spiral into a global investigation with dire repercussions. 

Can a handful of intrepid investigators make a stand against an insidious and bloodthirsty cult? Can a diabolical conspiracy be thwarted before a doomsday plan comes to fruition? Is there any hope for mankind against the machinations of an Elder God or will they meet only despair, death and madness?

Review: I admit I’m probably cheating by including this “book” at all since it’s actually a radio show program made in deliberate homage/mockery of ones from the 1940s. This includes commercial breaks for cocaine pills, asbestos, and other fine products of the time period. However, this is just a delightful adaptation of the classic Call of Cthulhu campaign with a bunch of pulp heroes. It also has the LUDICROUS body count of the original campaign but somehow I cared for each and every one of the heroes getting knocked off left and right.

1. The Litany of Earth by Ruthanna Emrys

Blurb: The state took Aphra away from Innsmouth. They took her history, her home, her family, her god. They tried to take the sea. Now, years later, when she is just beginning to rebuild a life, an agent of that government intrudes on her life again, with an offer she wishes she could refuse.

“The Litany of Earth” is a dark fantasy story inspired by the Lovecraft mythos, set in the world of Ruthanna Emrys’s The Innsmouth Legacy series.

Review: The top recommendation here is by Tor reviewer, Ruthanna Emrys. An interesting interpretation of HPL’s world from a reversed position. Basically, the Deep Ones and their human families were put in internment camps as of The Shadow of Innsmouth but released after WW2. Aphra Marsh is one of the few survivors and is struggling to reintegrate into American society. Dealing with a cult of white people who have misinterpreted her people’s religion, it sets up the excellent Innsmouth Legacy books.

The Litany of Earth sadly has a story to go along with it of executive meddling as the first two books in a sequel series, called The Innsmouth Legacy, were contracted but abruptly cancelled before any real resolution to the series’ plot. The original story works on its own fantastically but I crave more Aphra Marsh in the main series.

Honorable Mentions: Cowboys and Cthulhu by David J. West, The War of the God Queen by David Hambling, the Andrew Doran series by Matthew Davenport, The Dream-Quest of Vellitt Boe by Kij Johnson, Miskatonic by Mark Sable (graphic novel), and A Study in Emerald by Neil Gaiman (he doesn’t need my publicity).