Reading – Cthulhu Unbound

A 280-page anthology from Permuted Press (website, Twitter), Cthulhu Unbound* features 15 Lovecraftian short stories that cover superheroic action, a “lost” chapter of Moby Dick, a post-apocalyptic scenario beneath a city, a murder mystery, and more. I grabbed the book a few weeks ago and after several evenings of reading the various stories I think I’ve settled on five that jump out as my favorites.

• The Invasion Out of Time – Written by Trent Roman, this story came in as my favorite in the book because it’s well-written, deals with a near-future world in which combat aircraft engage Cthulhoid horrors in an attempt to drive them from human settlements, and was generally a lot of fun to read. The twist ending wasn’t all that much of a twist — I kinda saw it coming — but the semi-obvious ending didn’t damage my enjoyment of the story.

• Blood Bags and Tentacles – Easily my second favorite in the book, this post-apocalyptic tale by D.L. Snell pits our hero, Ryan, against blood bag monstrosities in a destroyed city. It feels like one of the short stories in the book, but that has more to fo with the pace — Snell wrote a fast-paced adventure with very few slow spots — than it does the actual word count. This is military-like fiction with guns, tactics, and a few deaths.

• Noir-Lathotep – Written by Linda L. Donahue, this murder mystery has Nyarlathotep and a Yith working to locate the killer of one of Nyarlathotep’s thousand aspects. A great story, I think this story’s only real problem is that the reader needs to know something about the Cthulhu Mythos to make sense of the story. Actually, this is a common problem throughout all of the stories inside — Jorge Solis states this as a problem in his review of the book — but I don’t completely agree; as long as you get the basic ideas you should be fine if you try and tackle most of the stories in the book. This one also has a minor twist, again not a shocking one, but that’s to be expected in murder mysteries, right?

• Hellstone and Brimfire – Doug Goodman’s western contribution should probably be ranked higher in this list than it is — I hate making ordered lists because it’s so tough to choose exactly where to place each item in the list — because it’s a great story of a “Dead Ranger” and a battle with evil. I know I enjoyed this story because as soon as I finished reading it I remembered the Frontier Cthulhu* collection that was a released a few years ago. I haven’t read that anthology, but this western horror story was so much fun I’m thinking I may have to give that collection a try pretty soon. This is a story of possession and again has a twist, but this time the twist worked for me.

• In Our Darkest Hour – Steven Michael Graham’s contribution to the story is the superheroic effort that feels almost like Graham read a little too much Watchmen before sitting down to write the story. A trio of heroes fights cultists . . . well, how can that not be fun? And while it does have a Watchmen feel at times, it’s still a good read and I’m always a fan of superheroic horror.

That covers exactly one-third of the stories in Cthulhu Unbound*, and for more thoughts on the collection don’t miss the reviews at Fatally Yours and Horror News. I can say that this isn’t the greatest collection of short stories on the shelves, but it’s fun and worth checking out if you’re a fan of Cthulhu tales.