Modern Cthulhu Mythos fiction that doesn't suck

[wyrmis]

Black Wings has several good modern takes on Cthulhu Mythos fiction, and there is supposedly a sequel on the way.

But I think my tolerance for the namedropping is almost done. Just...done. I have seen several excellent stories...perfectly pitched and built up...and then it gets towards the end and the big reveal is that it is Shubby or something, and unless it is done really, really well: I mostly sigh. In this light, when reading Black Wings I was most pleased with the generalized aspects of the stories. Like "Copping Squid" by Michael Shea, where everything about the story is nice and moody right up until it gets the most-mythos portion and then my mythos-pastiche antibodies started kicking in and even though I got the story and I got into the vibe, I simply couldn't enjoy it as much as I wanted.

The idea of an outsider being powerful and trying to get in still works. The idea of strange old rituals and ancient blood thirsty cults still work. Dripping reality right behind a veil? I'm cool with that. The idea of even direct Dunwich Horror or Colour out of Space style stories still work for me. There is just something in the structure that a lot of the current mythos works that raises my "meh" up. Something almost undefinable. Name-dropping is a big part of it. And "Ia!" has been used to a degree of triteness. I'm going to dive into a handful of Price-edited anthologies and see if I can narrow it down.

[Genus Unknown]

So I just picked up Brian Lumley's Haggopian and Other Stories, and much to my surprise, I'm really enjoying it! Here's a writer actually making Lovecraft pastiche work, and not annoying me at all!

Into what strange parallel universe have I fallen?

[catamount]

So I just picked up Brian Lumley's Haggopian and Other Stories, and much to my surprise, I'm really enjoying it! Here's a writer actually making Lovecraft pastiche work, and not annoying me at all!

Into what strange parallel universe have I fallen?

It's just the Crawling Chaos messing with your head! DON'T read any of the Titus Crow novels, unlike you would enjoy some Derleth pastiche. 

[Genus Unknown]

Well, my problem with Derleth isn't so much what he did with the Mythos, but simply the quality of the stories. The ones I've read (his HPL pastiches, anyway - when he's playing in his own sandbox, he's pretty good) don't grate me for departing from Lovecraft's vision, they grate me because they're just really, really bad. They read like badly written, overly complicated parodies of Lovecraft rather than tributes.

If Lumley can take Derleth's approach to the Mythos, and do it well, then I have no problem with it. That's what he's done in the stories I've read so far (a few of them Titus Crow stories), and I've enjoyed every one of them.

[ahtzib]

I started reading Derleth's stories this week. I had only previously read a couple of his HPL "collaborations." They're in a Barnes and Noble edition I picked up sometime ago, called "The Cthulhu Mythos."

Terrible. The first several are all virtually identical, about Ithaqua, with only one of them showing any originality. Even worse, several of them are straight up advertisements, shameless ones, for Arkham House's recently published Lovecraft collection. As in the characters in the tale consulting the work alongside mythos tomes, mentioning how its just been published, how it contains all the secrets, and so on. Terrible.

Honestly, playing a game of Arkham Horror feels more original and less contrived than reading these.

[Humots]

I'm a fan of Charles Stross.  "A Colder War" was flat-out fantastic, the best non-period Lovecraft-inspired work I have ever read.  Stross successfully combines Lovecraft's cosmic horror with the cold war "thinking the unthinkable" theme.

I loved "The Atrocity Archives".  In this novel, Stross updates Lovecraft's original idea of a hostile universe filled with powerful, totally non-human entities with some well-chosen hard-science concepts.  He does a very good job of creating a technology/Lovecraftian magic blend that is both interesting and darkly dangerous.

I didn't like "The Jennifer Morgue" quite as much.  It isn't simply "James Bond vs. Cthulhu", as Stross is very good at keeping the really big guys safely out of sight but not out of mind.  It's more of a James Bond-style evil criminal mastermind piece.  Stross brings in the Deep Ones as a race that has been around at least since the dinosaurs, and regards humans as barely intelligent.  And the evil criminal mastermind has access to something that terrifies them.

"The Fuller Memorandum" was great.  Stross is heading for a "Stars are Right" climax of some kind, and there is nothing to suggest that humanity will survive.

Stross's characters know very well what they are facing, and how small humanity's chances are.  But they have the courage to at least go down fighting.

One caution: Stross is a major tech geek, and he loves to sling the jargon.  I'm a software engineer, and he has me consulting Wikipedia every other sentence.  But he makes it work.  I'm looking forward to "The Apocalypse Codex".

[catamount]

Well, my problem with Derleth isn't so much what he did with the Mythos, but simply the quality of the stories. The ones I've read (his HPL pastiches, anyway - when he's playing in his own sandbox, he's pretty good) don't grate me for departing from Lovecraft's vision, they grate me because they're just really, really bad. They read like badly written, overly complicated parodies of Lovecraft rather than tributes.

If Lumley can take Derleth's approach to the Mythos, and do it well, then I have no problem with it. That's what he's done in the stories I've read so far (a few of them Titus Crow stories), and I've enjoyed every one of them.

I just had a really hard time with Crow flying around the universe in a clock (the Clock of Dreams), which apparently was owned by Randolph Carter.

[Genus Unknown]

Hm. That does sound stupid. None of that in this collection, though. I finished it last night, and can honestly say I enjoyed every single story.

[yumegari]

Hm. That does sound stupid. None of that in this collection, though. I finished it last night, and can honestly say I enjoyed every single story.

I just finished reading this entire thread and I'm glad you came around and decided to give the Mythos another chance, Genus.  I'm not gonna lie, I was a little angried up by your original post, mainly because it hit one of my pet peeves with enough force to dent concrete:  I absolutely hate it when people say "[subject of distaste] sucks" because it sounds like one is stating opinion as fact.  Or, at least, to me it does.  Again, that's just my brainwave and I know people say it all the time but that doesn't mean I have to like it.  I'll just shake my tiny fist at the world in general and be done with it.

HOWEVER.  That said, I have to make a confession.  I am probably the only person here who doesn't hate August Derleth.  I can't say I'm overly fond of him but I'm not going to throw his writing across the room at first glance, either.  I don't like his 'assigning everyone to elements' schtick either (especially since some of it makes no flippin sense), but that's about all I dislike about his Mythos fiction.  And even that I can sort of gloss over as his characters trying vainly to make sense of a wild and impersonal cosmos, etc etc.  After all, a lot of people think the Outer Gods or whatever are manifestly and actively evil, too, which is just as erroneous.

I guess I just don't really get the whole 'hating the Mythos' vibe, mainly because I've been banging away at my own Mythos story.  Not a lot of monsters but plenty of Arkham and Miskatonic and spooky stuff.  I've liked just about every Mythos tale I've read and I also play the Call of Cthulhu RPG so I guess that kinda makes me a Mythos whore.  Eh.  Worse things to be.

[Genus Unknown]

I am probably the only person here who doesn't hate August Derleth... After all, a lot of people think the Outer Gods or whatever are manifestly and actively evil, too, which is just as erroneous.

Wasn't it Derleth himself who grafted the whole good-vs-evil thing onto the Mythos, turning it into something like Christianity with tentacles?  

Of course, that's fine by me. Again, I don't blame Derleth's Mythos stories for deviating from Lovecraft's vision, any more than I blame HPL for lifting references from Chambers and taking them off in his own direction. It's just that the stories I read were really, really bad. Maybe I just got unlucky and happened to read his three or four worst stories, I don't know. I couldn't even tell you what they were now. I think there was one about a guy who smoked some hash and turned into a dinosaur, another where a guy had a cheesy wizard ancestor who was buried face-down (who he turns around right-side-up with disastrous results), and one where a guy turned out to be descended from Deep Ones, and, uh, that's about it. There may have been an evil pond in the backyard or something. Oh, and "The Return of Hastur," in another book, which was kind of a chore to get through and not very interesting, but not as bad as those others.

I guess I just don't really get the whole 'hating the Mythos' vibe, mainly because I've been banging away at my own Mythos story.

I don't know, I guess the name-dropping just annoys me. And since name-dropping is, as far as I can tell, all the Mythos is...

[Lambda]

I am probably the only person here who doesn't hate August Derleth... After all, a lot of people think the Outer Gods or whatever are manifestly and actively evil, too, which is just as erroneous.

Wasn't it Derleth himself who grafted the whole good-vs-evil thing onto the Mythos, turning it into something like Christianity with tentacles?  

Of course, that's fine by me. Again, I don't blame Derleth's Mythos stories for deviating from Lovecraft's vision, any more than I blame HPL for lifting references from Chambers and taking them off in his own direction. It's just that the stories I read were really, really bad. Maybe I just got unlucky and happened to read his three or four worst stories, I don't know. I couldn't even tell you what they were now. I think there was one about a guy who smoked some hash and turned into a dinosaur, another where a guy had a cheesy wizard ancestor who was buried face-down (who he turns around right-side-up with disastrous results), and one where a guy turned out to be descended from Deep Ones, and, uh, that's about it. There may have been an evil pond in the backyard or something. Oh, and "The Return of Hastur," in another book, which was kind of a chore to get through and not very interesting, but not as bad as those others.

Well I'm not a huge Derleth fan, either. I sort of liked Lurker at the Threshold - a very Lovecraftian story to me - but I was really annoyed at the end as the final chapter just doesn't fit in. Name-dropping is okay when it's done the right way, but this... Let's say, for example, that HP decided to write the final chapter of CoC like this: "And now the evil god Blubberblag-Soth comes and kills the protagonist. ... Wait, what? Cthulhu? Oh no, that was in the previous chapter." I mean, wtf? Most of the story was used very effectively to build up the identity of the evil thing, but in the final chapter he throws it into the trash can and replaces it with Yoggie, completely out of the blue. That was just wrong.

[Fallingtower969]

Hello All,

I go through stretches of anti-Modern-Mythos loathing myself.

I find most (moderny mythos tales) fall into one of two categories; either very jokey, self-referential and groaningly fanboyish or pastichey, name-droppery and uninspired with either a contrived or fizzley ending.

But still I try....ususally before I make another attempt, I cleanse my palette with a Lovecraft original and then dive right in on the next modern anthology. Hoping against hope that I won't be disappointed.

Right now I've been reading Lovecraft Unbound, about halfway through, thusfar, nothing has really grabbed me. But I'm one story away from Caitlin Kiernan....will see.

Next on my Mythos Burner....Mall of Cthulhu....I got it half off at my going out of business Borders.

[Yojimbo]

I just had a really hard time with Crow flying around the universe in a clock (the Clock of Dreams), which apparently was owned by Randolph Carter.

That part didn't bother me too much. In fact, it rather felt like a Doctor Who pastiche inserted into a Lovecraft story, and honestly, the idea of the Doctor vs. the Mythos is just frickin' awesome.

The reason I only ever read one Titus Crow book was actually Cthulhu's blue-eyed twin brother. Ugh.

[Ruth - CthulhuChick]

Next on my Mythos Burner....Mall of Cthulhu....I got it half off at my going out of business Borders.

I found that kind of fun. It's not precisely mythos fic, but for what it does it's an enjoyable read. With mythos.

[Fallingtower969]

Yeah I'm not expecting too much...hopefully mindless fun without too much pain. There's such things as entertainingly stupid and just plain stupid. Ie...The Three Stooges vs. Larry the Cable Guy.