The universe and the mythology created by HP Lovecraft in his tales of cosmic horror and supernatural evil continue to offer material and inspiration for new stories and anthologies.
The latest, 'Black Wings' published by PS Publishing and edited by the renowned Lovecraftian expert ST Joshi, is aimed to produce not further imitations or pastiches reworking Lovecraftian subjects, but rather to elicit by group of today's writers, new fiction dealing with "cosmic" themes and atmospheres in keeping with the master's view of the world.
In other words, not yet another collection of "Cthulhu Mythos" but a more ambitious literary project which has enrolled twenty-one contemporary authors, including the likes of Ramsey Campbell, David J Schow, Michael Shea, Darrell Schweitzer.
Does the book hit the proposed target? Yes and no.
The anthology does collect a number of accomplished, top-notch tales which make the volume well worth reading, but, alas, also includes a substantial amount of dull and uninspired pieces of fiction so easily forgotten that I'll pretend I've never read them at all.
Thus, I'll just look at the brighter side, which fortunately is very bright indeed.
Caitlin R Kiernan's "Pickman's Other Model (1929)", loosely inspired to the classical Lovecraft's story is centred around an enigmatic movie star, occasionally posing as a model for a mildly successful painter. Slightly overwritten, the tale alternates parts where the plot is exceedingly diluted and strong, effective scenes of unsettling beauty.
Similarly, Brian Stableford revisits the Pickman's story, offering a clever, different point of view in "The Truth about Pickman", a kind of SF whodunit. Sam Gafford contributes "Passing Spirits", an entertaining piece where a bookstore clerk affected by a brain tumour is haunted by Lovecraft's ghost. In Laird Barron's excellent, engrossing novella "The Broadsword", an old hotel turned into an apartment building becomes the venue of strange events and apparitions revealing an alien, horrific reality.
"Rotterdam" by Nicholas Royle is a very dark tale where a novelist and wannabe scriptwriter involved in the adaptation of a Lovecraft's story changes into a bloodthirsty murderer. In "Susie" the distinguished artist Jason Van Hollander abandons for a while his usual craft to pen an effective tale where the death of Lovecraft's mother is retold as a vivid nightmare. "Lesser Demons" by Norman Partridge provides a spicy mix of Lovecraftian atmosphere and zombie horror, while "An Eldritch Matter" by Adam Niswander describes very dramatically how a man gets physically changed after pocketing a metal object of alien origin.
By far the best tale in the volume is the outstanding "Substitutions", a happy return to dark fantasy by the talented Michael Marshall Smith. The story (which, truth be told, is barely consistent with the general topic of the anthology) is an insightful, superb exploration of the desire to live a different life and to share it with a different person. The cruel twist in the tale introduces a horrific ingredient, which makes the yarn suddenly creepy and deeply disturbing. Which proves, once again, that good fiction defies the limits of the assigned subject and mainly relies upon solid storytelling. Even Lovecraft would agree.
08-30-10: Commentary : David Doubilet Captures 'Water Time Light' : Painting with Pixels
Agony Column Podcast News Report : A 2010 Interview With David Doubilet and Jennifer Hayes : "Everything people have always feared about photography comes true underwater."
08-25-10: Commentary : Vendela Vida 'The Lovers' : Reading and Revelation
Agony Column Podcast News Report : A Live Reading and Interview with Vendela Vida At Bookshop Santa Cruz : "...there was an owl that came into this place we were renting one day..."
08-24-10: Commentary : Jeff VanderMeer and 'The Third Bear' : Absurd Is as Absurd Does
08-20-10: Commentary : Joe R. Lansdale Takes 'Deadman's Road' : Deader Than Thou
Agony Column Podcast News Report : On the Phone with Vendela Vida : "You do all this background information, most of which never makes it into the book."
08-19-10: Commentary : Gary Shteyngart Tells a 'Super Sad True Love Story' : Retro-Prescience
Agony Column Podcast News Report : Gary Shteyngart Live Reading and Interview at Bookshop Santa Cruz : "...please like me, this will make up for Hebrew school if all of you like me.."
08-18-10: Commentary : Mark Pilkington Unleashes Weapons of Mass Deception : "ECM+CIA=UFO"
Agony Column Podcast News Report : David Corbett and Barry Eisler for The Agony Column Live at Capitola Book Café, August 7, 2010 Q and A : "This is NewSpeak."
08-16-10: Commentary : Howard Norman Asks 'What is Left the Daughter' : The Past Always Rises
Agony Column Podcast News Report : A 2010 Interview with Howard Norman : "I'd wanted to write from the beginning an epistolary novel; this is just an epistolary novel that's consisting of one letter."
08-12-10: Commentary : James O'Neal Copies 'The Double Human' : Proceeding into the Future
Agony Column Podcast News Report : Barry Eisler and David Corbett Live at Capitola Book Café on August 7, 2010 : "If anyone thinks it's absurd that the government might assassinate the founder of WikiLeaks, it's quite a bit less absurd than I wish it were".... — Barry Eisler
08-11-10: Commentary : Joe R. Lansdale Takes Huck Finn to 'Dread Island' : "Classics Mutilated"
Agony Column Podcast News Report : Barry Eisler Reads at The Agony Column Live on August 7, 2010 : "...they'll pick up that angle and run interference for us..."
08-10-10: Commentary : David Corbett Asks 'Do They Know I'm Running?' : Crossing Borders
Agony Column Podcast News Report : David Corbett Reads at The Agony Column Live on August 7, 2010 : "These Families are making incredible sacrifices..."
08-09-10: Commentary : David Mitchell and The Thousand Autumns of Jacob De Zoet : The World is Ever the World
Agony Column Podcast News Report : A 2010 Interview with David Mitchell : "The periodic table of the human heart is still the same now as it was then."
08-06-10: Commentary : Tim Powers Sails 'On Stranger Tides' : History, Fantasy and the Reality of Reading
08-03-10: Commentary : Robert M. Price Spins 'The Tindalos Cycle' : Terrorize, Horrify, Repeat
Agony Column Podcast News Report : A Short Chat with Gary Shteyngart : "...the technology is outpacing our ability to absorb what it is doing to us..."
08-02-10: Commentary : A Second Tour Through 'The Passage' : Sending Characters into Time
07-30-10: Commentary : Subterranean Press and Robert R. McCammon Wake at 'The Wolf's Hour' : The Time Before Cheese
Agony Column Podcast News Report : Three Books with Alan Cheus : Allegra Goodman, 'The Cookbook Collector,' Noam Shpancer's 'The Good Psychologist' and Elie Wiesel 'The Sonderberg Case'
07-28-10: Commentary : Rule Britannia, In Space 2 : En Route, RJ Frith and Peter F. Hamilton
Agony Column Podcast News Report : Brian and Wendy Froud at SF in SF on Monday, July 19, 2010: Q & A : "The people you deal with at the publishers ... if they last the end of the week, you're lucky."
07-27-10: Commentary : Rule Britannia, In Space : UK Space Opera Demonstrates Excess is Not Enough (Part one, the Arrived)
Agony Column Podcast News Report : Brian and Wendy Froud at SF in SF on Monday, July 19, 2010 : "Well, I thought if I do faeries then nobody's going to say that I've got it wrong."
07-26-10: Commentary : Brian and Wendy Froud Seek 'The Heart of Faerie Oracle' : Cards, Books and a New Perspective
