Reviews

Whispers from the Abyss by James Brogden, Tim Pratt, Dennis Detwiller, Alasdair Stuart, Lee Finney, Corissa Baker, J.C. Hemphill, A.C. Wise, Sarena Ulibarri, Greg Stolze, Greg Van Eekhout, Lance Axt, David Tallerman, Tim Jeffreys, Chad Fifer, Stephen Brown, Charles Black, Jeff Provine, Brandon Barrows, Nick Mamatas, John R. Fultz, Mason Ian Bundschuh, Jason Andrew, Josh Finney, Martin Hill Ortiz, Kelda Crich, Nicholas Almand, Jonathan Sharp, Nathan Wunner, Silvia Moreno-Garcia, Kat Rocha, Erica L. Satifka, Aaron J. French, W.B. Stickel

daveversace's review

3.0

A very uneven collection of modern Cthulhu Mythos short stories. It contains some outstanding stories - Nick Mamatas' 'Hideous Interview with BriefMan' is one of the best pieces of short fiction I've read in the last couple of years; the opening piece of diarised horror by Greg Stolze 'Iden-Inshi' is excellent; and I had a special fondness for the H.P. Lovecraft/Hunter S. Thompson mashup 'Fear and Loathing in Innsmouth: Richard Nixon's Revenge'. A few others are almost as good, and as you would expect there were a good number that were okay but either unmemorable or just not to my taste.

But there are also at least five stories in this collection which - naming no names - read like half-arsed first drafts, with undeveloped ideas that go nowhere. And I'm not even beating up on the Tweet-length story, which at least has the virtue of brevity. One or possibly two clunkers I could accept, but they just kept popping up, presenting an interesting premise or character before ending abruptly having done nothing to justify their existence. Ugh.

But bonus points for the Mamatas story, which is just delightfully horrifying.