Ride the Star Wind edited by Caroline Dombrowski and Scott Gable.

Tor's Great Lovecraft Reread is a valuable resource. I don't necessarily always agree with their conclusions, that's life. But given the vast amount of mythos material published, it is handy to have someone identify the most noteworthy collections and anthologies. I often track down the stories they feature, both old and new. 

It was there I found the wonderful anthology Ride the Star Wind: Cthulhu, Space Opera, and the Cosmic Weird edited by Caroline Dombrowski and Scott Gable. It sports a lovely cover by Nick Gucker. The title is based on the quote below which appears in the book

"Madness rides the star-wind . . . claws and teeth sharpened on centuries of corpses . . . dripping death astride a Bacchanale of bats from night-black ruins of buried temples of Belial . . . —HP Lovecraft, “The Hound” 

One thing I am finding interesting is the different threads that have emerged from Lovecraft work and that of the other writers of weird tales/new weird style stories. We still see many faithful pastiches with writers revisiting many of the iconic locations, both real and fictional, including Providence, Innsmouth, Arkham etc. There are also occult detectives with elements from Sherlock Holmes, Blackwood's John Silence, William Hope Hodgson's Carnacki, and Raymond Chandler's Philip Marlowe etc. However we are also seeing a more inclusive literature which features more women and minorities both as writers and characters. One trend I am especially interested in is the increasing use of science fiction elements in these stories. Two of Lovecraft's last works "The Mountains of Madness" and "The Shadow Out of Time" and "The Color Out of Space" considered by many his greatest story all owe more to science fiction than the supernatural. I have read three stories from this anthology so far and enjoyed all of them 


Lucy Snyder's “Blossoms Blackened Like Dead Stars” was covered by the reread
at the link below. Since they have provided a great synopsis my comments will be brief.

https://www.tor.com/2019/05/29/kudzu-from-beyond-lucy-snyders-blossoms-blackened-like-dead-stars/

Beatrice Munoz is a Special Space Operations recruit aboard the warship Apocalypse Treader. Beatrice was a botanist following in the footsteps of her father Giacomo Rappaccini Munoza, She was working on the International Lunar Research Station studying plant alkaloids when the spawn of Azathoth attacked both the Moon and Earth. The only other recruit we are introduced to is Joe Jorgensen a huge white supremacist whose family was killed in the attack on San Angelo, Texas. Joe has since has realized that all humans must stand together regardless of race. Joe and Beatrice will be part of a force intended to attack the spawn using captured technology and some innate abilities that their training is designed to bring out. Snyder's story openly includes elements from Nathaniel Hawthorne’s “Rappaccini’s Daughter”. Whether this makes it a pastiche, a tribute, a nod to I am not sure. I do not think it matters, since we are firmly in pastiche territory with the reread, this site and the anthology itself. What it is is effective. I loved it, I agree with Ruthanna's comment that it is important that the story remains that of Beatrice. Joe is an interesting addition, and plays a useful role in providing background and later, collaboration for Beatric'e experiences, but Beatrice is the star. I have not read Hawthorne's story, I have read about it, and on a trip to Gallegos Islands a young girl told my wife and I her version, which I recognized from my background reading. (She was sharing the Pringles we had bought to use the containers to transport my poster of Darwin's finches.) I have always remembered that. I really enjoyed this story, Snyder has merged the works of two classic weird author's into a compelling story. She has also provided a science fiction twist I loved and a female protagonist I really enjoyed. 

Hawthorne's story was covered by the reread here.

https://www.tor.com/2016/09/07/juggling-allegories-nathaniel-hawthornes-rappaccinis-daughter/

Illustration by Yves Tourigny

I found this Hawthrone collection the other day so I will be reading his story shortly. The cover is unattributed. 

The Children of Leng  by  Remy Nakamura

"My children are on their way to the surface of Leng. I send them only because the risk of staying is greater than the risk of venturing forth. You cast us adrift in a deadly universe against such terrible odds. If you receive this, I strongly advise against future missions, speaking as one parent to another."

Illustration by Mike Dubisch

This story is told from the point of view of nine year old Mirai one of a lineage of clones aboard the generation starship Amankawa. The ship was launched from Earth many years ago three ships were launched but contact with the other two has ceased. There are two other living clones of her lineage, Yukiko who is part of the advance party to the moon Leng, a mars analog where they hope to settle, and Grandma who is 80 years old. Another clone referred to as Auntie Kiyomi has died of burns and is currently held in a cylinder in the Ancestral Grove before being recycled into the habitat. The living clones indulgent in a form of ancestor worship and visit the grove to pray and provide offering. The Amakawa is divided into three habitats each with a controlling AI. Mirai lives in Hab Three which is run by Momma Calliope. The clones in the other habits maintained by the AI's Thalia and Urania are all dead or brain damaged so the clones of Hab 1 are all that are left and Leng appears to be their only chance. More diverse voices writing within the somewhat flimsy boundaries of the mythos means more diverse stories. Here we have a engrossing story of space travel with an Asian or Oriental flavour very different from the conventional tropes New England of Lovecraft's preferred landscape. Nakamura's story is also interesting in that the society is a matriarchy. He has blended the many elements together seamlessly. And it feels very much like a mythos despite the many tropes of science fiction that inform it. I was also interested in the fact that there were three ships and three habitants perhaps a nod to Clarke's Rendezvous with Rama? I was reminded of the works of writers like like Aliette de Bodard and Yoon Ha Lee who are offering us a very different view of mankind's exploration of outer space and the far future.

Sense of Wonder by Richard Lee Byers

Illustration by Michael Bukowski

The protagonist of Byers story Pablo Valdez is basically the engine of a ship exploring the universe for habitual planets that can be used by Earth colonists. But there is no FTL here instead Valdez has a patron. This patron enables Valdez to transport the ship to a number of preselected destinations. And it all is perfectly safe as he explains while discussing his abilities with another crew member,

“But not how the physics work, or what Yog . . . the consciousness truly is, or even why it’s willing to help us. You’re the one who communes with it. Do you have any idea?” I shrug. “It’s everywhere and everywhen. So vast and powerful that obliging us is no more difficult than not obliging us. It grants our petitions in the same sense that you grant permission to the bacteria in your intestines to go on doing what they do.”

Another great story. I really enjoyed how Byers enlivened the staid space exploration story with a little Yog-Sothoth gate action, wouldn't Wilbur Whateley be jealous. But despite the fact Yog-Sothoth is a mechanism and not the baddie the universe is a scary place.

As quick look at three stories I really enjoyed in one of my favourite anthologies. I am a bit rushed today so I apologize for any typos, omissions or oversights etc. Sorry about the spacing Yog-Sothoth did it.

New Eldritch Tomes / Matt Cardin

  I have not posted in quite a while. Since my wife and I have a trip planned in a couple of weeks, I wanted to sneak in a couple of posts.

First some new arrivals. I have long been a fan of Donald Wandrei so when I saw this post on Ralph E. Vaughan's Book Scribbles I was intrigued. I have several of Wandrei's books, but the items from Necronomicon Press looked very interesting. I found a vendor that had both books at a reasonable price and ordered them. (Thanks Ralph) Sadly he could not find the poetry volume. I have been on a bit of a Bradbury kick lately, so I ordered this edition of The October Country at the same time. I loved the cover illustration. The artist was not credited in the ISFDB database. 

http://bookscribbles.blogspot.com/2011/12/eternal-wandrei.html  

This summer I read some well-written mythos tales and some that were quite disappointing. I will not identify them. I have decided in all my blogs to focus on the positive unless I am extremely offended. Some time ago, I added Matt Cardin's blog, The Teeming Brain to the list of blogs I follow. When I returned from the cabin, I checked to see if I had any of his work on hand. I had read half of his short story "Teeth" in the anthology The Children of Cthulhu when I decided to order his collection of short stories To Rouse Leviathan. While I was waiting for the book to arrive, I looked around to see what else was on my shelves. I realized I had read and liked his short story "The New Pauline Corpus" in one of my favourite mythos anthologies Cthulhu's Reign edited by Darrell Schweitzer.

In "Teeth" Jason, a lecturer at Terence University, meets up with his friend Marco while visiting the library. Marco, a brilliant visiting student from Guatemala, is triple majoring in physics, philosophy, and history. Marco is usually quite friendly, but today he seems to be obsessed with something he is writing. Marco invites Jason back to his room and presents him with a spiral notebook. He instructs Jason to look at page 46. While he flips through the book, Jason notices it consists mostly of quotations. Page 46 contains an elaborate and beautifully executed mandala. The illustration begins to move, and Jason realizes he is "staring into a nightmare of abyss of endless teeth." Jason passes out. Marco wakes Jason up, gives him a couple of pills to relax him and begins to tell Jason of his research. It seems that Marco has been attempting to understand the true nature of reality. He then asks if people want to know the truth about their lives, "To know why we are here, why we live and die, why it thunders and rains? Most of all, to know who and what we are." Marco has concluded that most people cannot handle the truth preferring illusion instead. At this point, he gives Jason the notebook to read telling him they will talk later. He also tells him to avoid looking at the mandala a second time. 

 I will leave my discussion of the plot here focusing instead on why I liked this story so much. I find Cardin's writing conveys the moods or impressions of his characters quite concisely. Jason's feeling of despair and oppression upon reading the notebook are presented effectively in two or three lines. Jason's anxiety seemed to be a natural outgrowth of reading the journal. We are spared the neat summary of the pantheon of mythos deities that you so often get at this point in a pastiche. instead Lovecraft's cosmicism is subtly represented, and the reactions of both Marco and Jason fall within the Lovecraftian tradition.

Also part of the joy of mythos inspired stories for me lies in recognizing echos of Lovecraft's work. I enjoy reading something new and imaginative, but with a flavour of Lovecraft, not just Wilbur Whateley renamed. 

Mild spoilers follow, in "Teeth" I see faint echos of so many stories, "Dagon", "Nyarlathotep", "The Dreams in a Witch-House", "The Rats in the Walls", "The Call of Cthulhu" that I could not help but enjoy it. 

Cardin's "The New Pauline Corpus" begins with an unidentified narrator reading a letter or letters from a renegade Protestant theologian (Paul) to his Catholic friend Francis. The letters contain his theological musings interspersed with visions of a horrific new reality of wrecked cities, flames, night gaunts and a strangely altered humanity. 

" I turn my eyes skyward and see the gargoylish figures still commanding the open air between the coiling columns of smoke. Rubbery black demonid shapes with smooth black faces and leathery wings swoop and careen like flakes of ash on a hot wind." 

A voice speaking from behind him, and addressing the narrator as "My Son" urges him to reread the letters. There is some information or nuance that is escaping him. The voice also reminds him, "but remember that we are waited upon". Indeed even as he reads, the narrator is aware of "the ocean roar of voices" from outside.

For Cthulhu has risen, not at least initially, as the raving monster seen only by the crew of certain ill-fated merchant ships. Rather images of Cthulhu and R'lyeh have appeared to humanity as a form of beatific vision that heralds a "New Awakening."  

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Beatific_vision

In my mind, this was a great read. I was only sorry I did not know enough theology to understand many of the references and their significance. It is interesting to read a mythos tale which deals with the issues of Christianity when faced with the revelations of Lovecraft's cosmicism, something Lovecraft ignored.

"The philosophy of cosmicism states "that there is no recognizable divine presence, such as a god, in the universe, and that humans are particularly insignificant in the larger scheme of intergalactic existence."(4)

"Lovecraft's cosmicism was a result of his complete disdain for all things religious"

"As such, Lovecraft's cosmicism is not religious at all, but rather a version of his mechanistic materialism."

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cosmicism

Lovecraft's narrators often share his mechanistic materialism. In his stories Lovecraft does not deal in detail with what the reality of what the mythos means for conventional religion because religion did not interest him. Also since the calamity is normally avoided within the story the bulk of humanity are spared the knowledge of their actual place in the universe.

Indeed, in stories like "The Dreams in a Witch-House" the narrator exhibits nothing but disdain for the superstitious  (conventionally religious) immigrants. This despite the fact that in the end the immigrants prove to be correct, their children are being menaced by a witch.

Cardin on the other hand really embraces this topic. His story contains not only biblical quotes, but quotes from religious thinkers like Luther. Nothing should be taken at face value. As the story progresses, it raises more and more questions, the nature and timing of the letters, the identity of the various characters, the nature of reality. After my first reading I noted the story was good with an interesting religious theological focus. After my second reading, my copy was a mass of underlining and marginal. Cardin's writing style in this story fits the subject matter.  It is beautifully in character with the proposed setting and mood of the story as demonstrated by the quote that follows.

 "that instead of pointing directly toward spiritual and metaphysical truths, the great concepts, words and icons of our tradition were in fact mere signals, hints, clues, that gestured awkwardly toward reality whose true character was and is far different from and perhaps even opposite to the surface meanings?" 

He understands Lovecraft work but explores the different issues that it raises. Since this anthology collects stories about what happens after Cthulhu rises there is ample scope for Cardin to address the wider ramifications. This scope and Cardin's obvious interest in religion are what distinguish this story from the bulk of the mythos writing. And his use of night gaunts, rare in a non-Dunsany style tale is brilliant.

Cover credits

To Rouse Leviathan: Cover Art Michael Hutter, design Daniel V. Sauer

Studies in Weird Fiction: Robert H. Knox

The October Country: unattributed

The Children of Cthulhu: Dave McKean

Cthulhu's Reign: unattributed