A review by onceandfuturelaura
Tales of the Cthulhu Mythos: Stories by Robert Bloch, H.P. Lovecraft
3.0
Took me weeks to finish this book. And I really wanted to read it. Cthulhu is fundamental, and every time I read Call of Cthulhu I want to read Terry Pratchett's Jingo. And I think about Buffy. And Hellboy. And Ozzy. And Girl Genius. And Sandman. And Merciful Fate. And Darkover. And The Eternals. And Metallica. [And I could go on]. But all of the overt and unconscious racism and sexism makes it tough going.
There’s a lot of good writing here. Not just Lovecraft, but Fritz Leiber! Stephen King! Joanna Russ!
But reading this excellent compilation makes me realize that unmitigated horror just doesn’t hold my attention. Yeah yeah eldritch, yeah yeah mucous. Yeah yeah, seminal texts of my genre. But horror unmitigated by humor and/or radical feminist agenda just doesn’t hold my attention. HPL put his thumb on the terror that lurks just past what we can see. But it’s the terrors I can see that worry me. Hail unknown! There might be Vulcans.
There’s a lot of good writing here. Not just Lovecraft, but Fritz Leiber! Stephen King! Joanna Russ!
But reading this excellent compilation makes me realize that unmitigated horror just doesn’t hold my attention. Yeah yeah eldritch, yeah yeah mucous. Yeah yeah, seminal texts of my genre. But horror unmitigated by humor and/or radical feminist agenda just doesn’t hold my attention. HPL put his thumb on the terror that lurks just past what we can see. But it’s the terrors I can see that worry me. Hail unknown! There might be Vulcans.