The Taint is a collection of seven novellas from Brian Lumley concerning the Cthulhu Mythos. It contains every novella he wrote between 1971 and 2005 based within the Mythos with the exception of his Dream Lands cycle involving the characters Hero and Eldin, and the main stories of Titus Crow. The stories range from amateurish to brilliant, Lumley being one of those rare examples of an author who improves vastly with age. This book is a good companion to another title called 'Haggopian'; a collection of most of his Mythos short-stories. Completists will also want to get the three Titus Crow collections and the short story anthology 'The Compleat Crow' as well as the four Dream Cycle titles to complete their 'Lumley does Lovecraft' library.