Lovecraft's Monsters

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.