From rec.arts.sf.reviews Fri May 19 16:55:32 1995 Newsgroups: alt.horror.cthulhu,rec.arts.sf.reviews Path: news.ifm.liu.se!liuida!sunic!sunic.sunet.se!psinntp!psinntp!psinntp!psinntp!newsgw.mentorg.com!frankensun.altair.com!simtel!news.kei.com!uhog.mit.edu!news!nobody From: jacob@plasma2.ssl.berkeley.edu (Fungi from Berkeley) Subject: Review: Shadows Over Innsmouth, ed. by Stephen Jones Message-ID: <3op25c$t9d@agate.berkeley.edu> Followup-To: rec.arts.sf.written Sender: news@media.mit.edu (USENET News System) Organization: U. C. Berkeley Space Sciences Laboratory Date: Fri, 12 May 1995 20:09:22 GMT Approved: wex@media.mit.edu (Alan Wexelblat) Lines: 94 Xref: news.ifm.liu.se alt.horror.cthulhu:11901 rec.arts.sf.reviews:771 Shadows Over Innsmouth Edited by Stephen Jones Illustrated by Dave Carson Martin McKenna Jim Pitts Fedogan & Bremer, 1994 A review by J. D. Jacob "Howard Phillips Lovecraft is probably the most important and influential author of modern supernatural fiction." This is how Stephen Jones opens his introduction to _Shadows Over Innsmouth_, a compilation of short stories styled after HPL's 1931 tale "The Shadows Over Innsmouth". He loses no points with me here. As a devoted HPL fan(atic), new (and more importantly, good) stories set in one of the genres of Lovecraft are treasures. This compilation is no exception. The first story is the original HPL 26,000 word tale. This tale, to me at least, forms one of the cornerstones of modern horror. Man is not pitted versus the forces of nature, but the servants of it. And it is all too obvious who will win in the end. This story holds up well when faced with its descendents. It is one of HPL's more tightly woven tales, even if it is one of his longer works. The stories herein range from straight HPL pastiche (that is *not* by definition a bad thing) to Chandleresque styled gum-shoe mysteries to stories only vaguely connected to the mythos. The best stories tend to be those that go their own way and do their own thing, using the original tale's atmosphere and premise, not building directly from it. The stories seem to be arranged in chronological order of the events within them, but as most of the stories are set in modern times, this is hard to distinguish. Basil Copper's "Beyond the Reef" takes place only a few years after the original events in TSOI and tends to follow it rather faithfully. It falls flat for me due to this, but it is nicely followed by Jack Yeovil's "The Big Fish", a "Big Sleep" set in the slime underworld of Bay City, Ca. This story is truly a gem, even if it is laid on a bit thick at times. Other highlights include Nicholas Royle's "The Homecoming" and Adrian Cole's "The Crossing". HPL regulars Brian Lumley and Ramsey Campbell are also here, though at least the latter's offering is another collection ("The Church in High Street" appears in _Cold Print_). The short prose pieces tend to stand out among the longer, traditional stories. Guy N. Smith's "Return to Innsmouth", D. F. Lewis' "Down to the Boots", and Kim Newman's "A Quarter to Three" are good examples of this, and David Langford's "Deepnet" will make you think differently about your computer from now on. Neil Gaiman (yes, *that* Neil Gaiman) has a nice entry as well. I usually find it very difficulty to read a book of short stories on one subject, but the renderings here are so varied that I found I was eager to read the next story, instead of put off. Besides the previous mention, there really isn't a poor story in the lot. I won't name them all, but including HPL's original TSOI, there are a total of 17 tales in just under 330 pages. One odd detail is that all of the authors are British. Why the editor chose this to honor a story about a Massachusetts town written by a New England resident who never left the continent is confusing, but it doesn't detract from the compilation. I can't review this book without commenting on the illustrations. Wonderful. Three artists truly collaborated on this work, including four full-page drawings, the three styles interweaving to give only a vagueness of disparate minds. This is a perfect case of when illustrations add to the mood of the prose, even though the drawings are not directly related to the works they are embellishing. All in all, a good read. For HPL fans, a must. For everyone else, the price is a bit steep, but I would recommend borrowing it and reading the pieces that appear interesting. %B Shadows Over Innsmouth %E Stephen Jones %C Minneapolis %D 1994 %I Fedogan and Bremer %O clothbound, US$27.00 %G ISBN 1-878252-18-6 %P 339pp Common human laws and interests I have looked into the abyss, and emotions have no validity and the abyss has or significance in the vast looked into me. cosmos-at-large... Neither liked what we saw. -HP Lovecraft -Brother Theodore jacob@sunspot.ssl.berkeley.edu -- --Alan Wexelblat, Reality Hacker, Author, and Cyberspace Bard MIT Media Lab - Intelligent Agents Group finger(1) for PGP key Voice: 617-253-9833 Pager: 617-945-1842 wex@media.mit.edu http://wex.www.media.mit.edu/people/wex/ "Are we fugitives from the law?" "Yes." "Idiocy is our only option."