Lovecraft's Monsters

Disclaimer: I received a eARC of this anthology from netgalley.

Lovecraft and his works hold a special place in my heart. So when I got a chance to review one of Datlow's latest anthologies I took it. This is the 2nd Lovecraftian anthology Datlow has edited. Datlow says in the introduction, “I had three goals in choosing stories: the first, as usual, was to avoid pastiches; the second was to use stories that have not been overly reprinted in the many recent mythos anthologies; third, I wanted to showcase Lovecraftian-influenced stories by at least some authors not known for that kind of story.” And she hit the mark because this book is really entertaining.

The stories in this tome vary in the decades they write about. There's some steampunk flavored stories, there's some noir, and there's some weird futuristic sci-fi. However, they all share one thing, they celebrate Lovecraft's works through his monsters and the horrible things they do to us as mortals.

Bottom Line: Love anthologies? Love Lovecraftian style prose and monsters? Need a break from those novels you've been reading? Get this book. The stories within will entertain you, gross you out, and long for the good old days of reading Lovecraft for the first time.

I have a soft spot for Ellen Datlow– I've been reading any of her compilations I could get my hands on since I found a copy of “Snow White, Blood Red” in the early 90s. On the other hand, while I want to like the Cthulu and other attendant mythos in theory, I generally dislike Lovecraft and the people who write homages to him. I tend to find it overly verbose, aggressively unscary, with a shiny patina of racism. But if anyone could put together a book of stories that would bring out the horrifying elements of Lovecraft that I want to like, it would be Datlow.

In the end, the book was a profoundly mixed bag. Some decent stories, including ones by well-known writers like Neil Gaiman and Elizabeth Bear, and a few clear stand out stars that featured characters and settings profoundly different from the standard Northeast/Wild West/Victoriana that makes up much of the Lovecraft genre:
“Red Goat Black Goat” by Nadia Bulkin is set in Indonesia, with a young nanny caught up by a family watched over by The Goat With A Thousand Young. Brian Hodge's “Same Deep Waters As You” involves an animal whisperer pulled into something strange when she's asked by the US government to communicate with the Deep Ones. “The Bleeding Shadow”, by Joe R. Landsdale, is a Lovecraft twist on the blues musician making a deal with the devil.

On the other hand, there were also stories that came close to making me throw my Kindle against the wall. “Bulldozer”, about a Pinkerton detective and “The Dappled Thing” by William Brown Spencer about steampunk victorian colonialist bullshit both did very well at replicating both Lovecraft's wordiness and his semi-explicit racism. Fred Chappell's “Remnants” involved an autistic girl who was so low functioning as to have thought processes akin to a dog. Also autistics are usually telepathic. Also all telepaths are skinny and pale and blond. Also I hated this story and if I could rip it out of every copy of this book I would.

So, there were some great stories, and some really hideously awful ones. If you like Lovecraft and/or Datlow, you could do worse than giving it a try since there were more decent stories than not, but be warned– there are definitely a couple of stinkers.