Cthulhu's Dark Cults (Call of Cthulhu Fiction) [Paperback]

Cthulhu's Dark Cults is the latest offering from Chaosium in the Call of Cthulhu fiction series. Lovecraft is getting more attention than ever before, CoC has been a popular role playing game for years, the Cthulhu fiction market is booming and Dungeon & Dragons based books are best sellers, so it was only a matter of time before Chaosium took the plunge. In Cthulhu's Dark Cults, as explained in editor David Conyers' introduction, the stories are based on classic Chaosium gaming scenarios. The author list includes many of those who helped create some of these same COC scenarios or who regularly enjoy the game. The best CoC type fiction has been the Delta Green anthologies and novels from Pagan Publishing. The first such book from Chaosium, Arkham Tales, was pretty successful. The main difference was the generally higher quality of the writing from Delta Green. Except for a few clunkers I was very entertained by Arkham Tales, so I was eager to read Cthulhu's Dark Cults. Here are my up front caveats. I am a Cthulhu mythos fiction fan so I am predisposed to like this genre. However, I do not play any rpg (my D&D days are long behind me and I never played CoC). I am completely unfamiliar with any of the scenarios these stories were based upon. A die hard CoC aficionado might have a different perspective than me, with a better grasp of the background. This is like Arkham Tales. The stories stand or fall on their own merits as far as I'm concerned; their connection to CoC does not influence my opinion.

Cthulhu's Dark Cults is a trade paperback typical for Chaosium. There are 235 pages of text, plus an informative introduction from Mr. Conyers and a few pages of minibiographies about the authors (good luck ever reading a serious bio about Cody Goodfellow). List price is $14.95 with a discount to $10.17 by Amazon; it is also available for free shipping if you order more than $25 worth of stuff (with, say, The Tindalos Cycle). All in all this is a pretty good buy for the money. The cover art is pretty attractive, silhouetted cultists dancing before an idol (*maybe* it's an idol...) but the name of the artist is not listed in the book as far as I can tell; hopefully someone can enlighten me. Production qualities are good but there are some word substitution typos. For the most part I enjoyed reading this book with a few exceptions noted below. The best stories are as good as those in any Cthulhu mythos anthology around these days. Minor spoilers may follow so skip the rest if that bothers you. Here are the contents:

The Eternal Chinaman by John Sunseri - Mr. Sunseri has co-edited the very successful Cthulhu Unbound anthologies, had appearances in Hard Boiled Cthulhu and Horrors Beyond II, and co-wrote a story collection with David Conyers, The Spiraling Worm. Set in 1920's San Francisco, this story follows a rough and tumble sailor who returns to the US and falls in with his cousin, who has made the mistake of acquiring an item from the menacing figure of the title. I enjoyed The Eternal Chinaman well enough, particularly the action bits and the vivid final conflagration, but if I have to nitpick, in some ways I found that it was too obviously derived from an rpg scenario, particularly at the end. Some of the phrases fell clangingly on my ear considering the first person viewpoint was an uneducated sailor: "...aware that I might instantly burst into flames and disintegrate by the godly powers that suffused the joint -" Suffuse and joint? I don't mean to be too critical because I did quite like the story.

Captains of Industry by John Goodrich - Mr. Goodrich is just starting his career as a published author. The Patriot was among the many highlights of Cthulhu Unbound 1. Two impoverished immigrant factory workers, struggling to live and struggling in the battle for workers' rights, infiltrate and industrialists' dinner party to try to get some leverage. They run afoul of the Hermetic Order of the Silver Twilight. Once again Mr. Goodrich gives us a rousing story of superior quality. His characters come alive on the page and the action is actually heart wrenching.

Perfect Skin by David Witteveen - Mr. Witteveen co-wrote Devil's Children, a CoC scenario from the early 1990s. The only other story I ever read by him was Ache, a pretty good yarn in Hard Boiled Cthulhu. In Istanbul a newlywed English couple, the Drakes, come to enjoy the exotic sights but alas the husband, unbeknownst to his wife, has had underhanded dealings with the Brotherhood of the Skin. As Mrs. Drake tries frantically to discover what has become of her new husband a military officer attaché to the British embassy strives to keep her from harm. The pacing and action are quite good and the ending was jarringly unexpected. Perfect Skin is a winner.

Covenant of Darkness by William Jones - The original version of this review took the book and Mr. Jones to task for reprinting a story from The Strange Cases of Rudolph Pearson but another mythos fan told me I was mistaken. My copy is not reaily available so util I can doublecheck I'll just give the story its due. Mr. Jones, head honcho at Elder Signs Press (one of my favorite companies), works tirelessly in the field of dark fiction. He has edited quite a few anthologies I have enjoyed, including Horrors Beyond and Frontier Cthulhu, and has written fiction and CoC scenarios. While I liked the story, I think Covenant of Darkness would work better in context than as a stand alone.

The Whisper of Ancient Secrets by Penelope Love - Years ago I read Unseen in Made in Goatswood but heck if I can remember it. I definitely will dig up my copy and re-read it because The Whisper of Ancient Secrets was outstanding, placing us in the mind of a dabbler in ancient secrets who has lost most of his humanity in his struggle to complete his experiment. The viewpoint and structure were strikingly vivid and original.

Old Ghost by Peter A. Worthy - Mr. Worthy has made numerous contributions to Lovecraftian and related fiction, notably editing the anthology Rehearsals for Oblivion, which was a rousing success. He had proposed an anthology devoted to Nyarlathotep a few years ago but apparently never found any publisher, which is really too bad for us fans. While some of his stories have not jazzed me, Old Ghost was pretty darned good, my favorite story by Mr. Worthy. An ex-minister comes to Shanghai mostly because he is at a loss with what to do with himself in the aftermath of the Great War. By happenstance he ends up in the middle of the machinations of the Bloated Woman, a secretive cult. I was absorbed beginning to end.

The Nature of Faith by Oscar Rios - Mr. Rios has written CoC scenarios but this is the first story by him that I have read. An ancient history professor at Columbia comes across a Celtic coin that appears to have been minted in the New World. He traces it back to Dunwich. While I liked the plot and the ending, I wasn't convinced by The Nature of Faith. The characters were pretty much one dimensional and their dialogue didn't ring true for residents of Dunwich. Similar to The Eternal Chinaman there was a very `lifted from a rpg scenario' feel.

The Devil's Diamonds by Cody Goodfellow - You never know what to expect from Cody Goodfellow. I view Radiant Dawn as a towering masterpiece of Cthulhu mythos fiction and I have pretty much enjoyed everything he has written. His Perilous Press has some good things on the horizon as well. Set in the Galla tribal lands of Kenya, a representative of the British crown is sent to investigate excesses at a diamond mine. While readable, I liked this story rather than loved it. I think the constraints of dealing within a rpg scenario shackled him too much, like some others here.

Requiem for the Burning God by Shane Jiraiya Cummings - Mr. Cummings has published quite a few short stories but I swear I can't think on any that I have read. Some mercenaries are hired to provide security at a mine in Peru. One finds out more than is good for his health. This was an action story more than suspense or mystery; as such I liked it but I think the canvas was too broad. First the main character, Max Calder, leads his small band expertly in infantry operations and then he pilots a small plane to attack a ship. After that he is able to use an antiaircraft weapon. OK, this is too much scrutiny for what is actually a fun bit of pulp fiction.

Sister of the Sands by David Conyers - I really like David Conyers; writing. Impossible Object, published in several places, is a brilliant little piece. Sister of the Sands is just great. An Australian intelligence officer based in Cairo assists a woman lost in the desert and becomes mixed up with the Brotherhood of the Black Pharaoh. This was a bang up way to close a successful anthology.

On the whole I really enjoyed Cthulhu's Dark Cults and thought it was well worth the money; most of the stories were very good and I did not dislike anything. I doubt anyone will come to it de novo, as their first experience with modern Lovecraftian fiction. Certainly CoC fanatics all already bought a copy. For more casual mythos readers I still think there are plenty of good reads here. While Goodrich, Witteveen, Conyers and Worthy particularly shine, pride of place has to go to The Whisper of Ancient Secrets by Penelope Love. I hope she writes more Cthulhu stories for us soon. Regarding the 5 star rating, I a bit limited by Amazon's system and the wide disparity of book quality in the Cthulhu mythos world. Horror Between the Sheets was just dreadful so it gets 1 star. I gave 3 stars to Black Sutra and Lair of the Dreamer where I found the prose pretty tedious. Looking for Darla had somewhat less appeal than my favorite Cthulhu mythos anthologies so it got 4 stars. I was happy wih Cthulhu's Dark Cults, I thought there were a number of very fine stories and probably liked it better then Frontier Cthulhu, so 5 stars. I'd rather just write what I think than rate the book on a scale. Due next from Chaosium is R'lyeh Rising; I would love to read it but there is often a lag of several years from when a Chaosium title is submitted to when it gets published.

A bit of a spoiler, but the stories in this collection are connected. That doesn't become apparent until you're halfway through it, but the connections are so contrived that they grate on the mind of the reader. While these are stories of "secretive orders", the connection to HPL is more of a marketing thing than anything else.

Sunseri's "Eternal Chinaman" is pretty good. About a sailor who finds himself involved in the chase over some artifact belonging to the enegmatic title character is classic; but there's no real understanding or horror (sorry John). A good story, but not up to HPL or cthulhu levels.

"Captains of Industry" left me feeling like a few pages were missing. Lots of union rhetoric (all good), and a few "who are these guys and what are they doing" issues, but nothing chilling. I was confused as to why this had been written, as it seemed to have no overall point or connection to the cthulhu concept. Yes, union busters and early industrialists were bad news at times, but this left me confused.

"Perfect Skin" was a good story, but it seemed to be a midpoint between two other chapters I never got to read. The idea of the skin cult was really good, but this only served as a reference for other stories to refer to. It was a between story in a book that hasn't been written, so I have no idea where Witteveen could have taken it.

"Covenant of Darkness" was great. A nice, contained story with a start, a gradual explaination of what was going on, and a resolution. I loved the concept of an underground cult of "sin eaters" and it held together well.

I couldn't even finish the story "Whisper of Ancient Secrets". Too confusing, even for mythos.

Now "Old Ghost" was a pretty good mythos tale. Too bad it was tied into the other stories in the work to the point where it seemed to be another midpoint story. Still, the tale of the lapsed priest finding himself in the middle of something sinister and great worked fairly well.

"The Nature of Faith" puts a whole new spin on the "Dunwitch Horror", but I'm not sure that it rang true. Sure, the Black Goat (or her young) shows up, but the approach seemed to lack the flavor of HPL. The cult of Dunwitch being not only spread widely in the town, but also about nature magic was a fairly wide departure.

"The Devil's Diamonds" was pretty good. A bit of HPL's "Color Out of Space" action happening.

"Burning God" was also OK. A british merc in Peru where Germans are mining black oil from what must be n'kai for some reason. The mindless piping was good, but the material cause seemed to be a cheap exit.

And lastly, "Sister of the Sands" was so non-lovecraftian that I couldn't believe it. Teaching the child of Nyarlathotep that love exists because of a cat and sending it off to the stars? Please. The writing was OK, but too many references to other stories in the collection by other authors mixed it up.

Not a collection to buy. I'm sorry I did.