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Apotheosis: Stories of Human Survival After The Rise of The Elder Gods
Humanity struggled to grow and evolve as a species for thousands of years forever caught in the shadow of a dread threat known only to a devoted few. When the stars are right, the Old Ones will return to claim utter dominion of this world. Lovecraft Mythos stories often climax at the moment of the fateful return of the Elder Gods and the audience is left to ponder what might happen next. This anthology features stories about humanity under the reign of the Elder Gods and ancient terrors. Featuring stories from A.C. Wise, Glynn Owen Barrass, Steve Berman, Gustavo Bondoni, Jeff C. Carter, J. Childs-Biddle, Evan Dicken, Jeffrey Fowler, Cody Goodfellow, Andrew Peregrine, Peter Rawlik, Joshua Reynolds, Adrian Simmons, Jason Vanhee, June Violette, L. K. Whyte, and Jonathan Woodrow.
284 pages, Kindle Edition
First published October 2, 2015
39 people are currently reading
84 people want to read
About the author
Jason Andrew
99Ìýbooks27ÌýfollowersJason Andrew lives in Seattle, Washington with his wife Lisa. He is an Associate member of the Science Fiction and Fantasy Writers of America, Active Member of the Horror Writer’s Association, and member of the International Association of Media Tie-In Writers.
By day, he works as a mild-mannered technical writer. By night, he writes stories of the fantastic and occasionally fights crime. As a child, Jason spent his Saturdays watching the Creature Feature classics and furiously scribbling down stories. His first short story, written at age six, titled ‘The Wolfman Eats Perry Mason� was severely rejected. It also caused his Grandmother to watch him very closely for a few years.
His short fiction has appeared in markets such as Shine: An Anthology of Optimistic SF (Harper Collins), Frontier Cthulhu: Ancient Horrors in the New World (Chaosium), and Coins of Chaos (Edge Science Fiction and Fantasy Publishing). In 2011, his story “Moonlight in Scarlet� received an honorable mention in Ellen Datlow’s List for Best Horror of the Year.
In addition, Jason has written for a number of role-playing games such as Call of Cthulhu, Shadowrun, and Vampire: The Masquerade. His most recent projects include Hunters Hunted 2 (The Onyx Path), Anarchs Unbound (The Onyx Path), and Atomic Age Cthulhu: Terrifying Tales of the Mythos Menace (Chaosium). Recently, he served as Developer for Mind’s Eye Theatre: Vampire The Masquerade for By Night Studios.
By day, he works as a mild-mannered technical writer. By night, he writes stories of the fantastic and occasionally fights crime. As a child, Jason spent his Saturdays watching the Creature Feature classics and furiously scribbling down stories. His first short story, written at age six, titled ‘The Wolfman Eats Perry Mason� was severely rejected. It also caused his Grandmother to watch him very closely for a few years.
His short fiction has appeared in markets such as Shine: An Anthology of Optimistic SF (Harper Collins), Frontier Cthulhu: Ancient Horrors in the New World (Chaosium), and Coins of Chaos (Edge Science Fiction and Fantasy Publishing). In 2011, his story “Moonlight in Scarlet� received an honorable mention in Ellen Datlow’s List for Best Horror of the Year.
In addition, Jason has written for a number of role-playing games such as Call of Cthulhu, Shadowrun, and Vampire: The Masquerade. His most recent projects include Hunters Hunted 2 (The Onyx Path), Anarchs Unbound (The Onyx Path), and Atomic Age Cthulhu: Terrifying Tales of the Mythos Menace (Chaosium). Recently, he served as Developer for Mind’s Eye Theatre: Vampire The Masquerade for By Night Studios.
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Displaying 1 - 22 of 22 reviews
June 17, 2018
Apotheosis is the elevation or exaltation into godhood - to make something grand from the ordinary. Can you pluck something from the muck and transform it into your image? If that is possible, then surely the Lovecraft Mythos has become radically diverse and thereby immensely more interesting.
From the introduction, that paragraph really captures what it is I like about Lovecraftian fiction - and this is a collection that makes the most of such a setting. A lot of this type of fiction ends with the final descent into madness, a protagonist staring into the maw of the unpronounceable and unfathomable. But these stories go beyond that and to the greater question of - what happens to those still hanging on? The human species is good at survival, and it was fascinating seeing what that meant to each writer.
The Smiling People by Andrew Peregrine, What Songs We Sing by L.K. Whyte, and Footprints in the Snow by June Violette stood out even in a fantastic collection. Creepy, hopeful and unsettling respectively, all three were absolutely spectacular short stories.
A collection I wouldn't hesitate to recommend to anyone in need of a little non-Euclidean creepy in their life.
From the introduction, that paragraph really captures what it is I like about Lovecraftian fiction - and this is a collection that makes the most of such a setting. A lot of this type of fiction ends with the final descent into madness, a protagonist staring into the maw of the unpronounceable and unfathomable. But these stories go beyond that and to the greater question of - what happens to those still hanging on? The human species is good at survival, and it was fascinating seeing what that meant to each writer.
The Smiling People by Andrew Peregrine, What Songs We Sing by L.K. Whyte, and Footprints in the Snow by June Violette stood out even in a fantastic collection. Creepy, hopeful and unsettling respectively, all three were absolutely spectacular short stories.
A collection I wouldn't hesitate to recommend to anyone in need of a little non-Euclidean creepy in their life.
November 1, 2015
A few weeks back, I was asked if I'd be interested in reviewing a new Cthlulhu Mythos anthology. My own failed attempt to plow thru a shelf full of Mythos stories last winter inclined me to say no, but then I learned it was a themed collection: all the stories were set after the victory of the monsters. So I said yes.
It's called Apotheosis: Stories of Human Survival After The Rise of The Elder Gods and is edited by Jason Andrew. The book is from Simian Publishing and is available in paperback and e-book forms.
In all my years of (which is exactly 38 years, 3 months, and 17 days - The first HPL story I read was "The Festival" on the night of the NYC Blackout of 1977), I've come across only a few that dared to look at a world under the thumb of the Old Ones and their minions. In fact, the only one that leaps to mind is Basil Cooper's "Shaft Number 247" and it's over thirty years old.
Too often, Mythos stories fall into familiar patterns involving all too familiar props. We all know them: things no man should know, Byakhees, inbred families, evil tomes, etc. There's only so many variations on those things even the best writers can do, so Apotheosis intrigued me even before I cracked the cover.
Between the two covers of this collection of grimmer than the grimmest Warhammer Space Marine, are eighteen tales by authors I am mostly unfamiliar with. On finishing it, I found a few writers I'll keep a weather eye open for in the future and one or two I'll probably pass on.
Apotheosis kicks off with one of the best Mythos stories I have read in a very long time: "The Smiling People" by Andrew Peregrine. In a city surrounded by a high wall built of rubble and bodies, the narrator and his fellow humans live under the constant attention of the titular Smiling People.
They always stand perfectly still, and move quickly when you aren't paying any attention. The most unnerving thing about them though is their faces. They are all the same, blank white ovals, broken only by a huge smiling mouth of sharpened teeth
In "The Pestilence of Pandora Peaslee" by Peter Rawlik, pro-human partisans attempt to overthrow the Yithians. Even though they've turned the Earth into a paradise of clean energy and halted global warming. Its lengthy historical exposition is a little too lengthy, but it doesn't hamper the story too much.
"Daily Grind" posits the place of a psychiatrist under the Old Ones' dominion. The madness of the protagonist's patients loops in and out of her own as she struggles to stay on the right side of her masters. Perhaps one of the blackest tales in the book as instead of tired old monsters it looks at how a person's soul is twisted in a time when the stars are right and all the angles wrong.
L. K. Whyte's "What Songs We Sing" holds out the slenderest reed of hope against the Old Ones, as a woman manages to escape to the countryside.
Adrian Simmons, editor extraordinaire of Heroic Fantasy Quarterly (and a friend), brings on the mayhem with "Dilution Solution." The surviving remnants of humanity live in deep underground warrens. Soldiers augmented with cybernetic enhancements lead raids into the world above. In this tale, one of them sidelined by a failed psych eval is itching to get back into the fray. Unlike the previous tale, this one holds out no hope, only madness.
"Earth Worms" by Cody Goodfellow, editor of last year's Deepest, Darkest Eden, a collection of Clark Ashton Smith-inspired stories, posits the real purpose of humanity: preparing planets for the cockroaches.
A mutated girl, tries to escape the control of Empress Tsan-Chan, in Joshua Reynold's "Eliza." I won't claim to understand exactly what happened in this, but I like the mad mix of cloned Whateleys, magic, and the appearance of the Hounds of Tindalos.
June Violette introduces a Dunsanian tone in "Footprints in the Snow." A young girl promises a new land free of terror to the children of a small town.
"To the Letter" by Jeffrey Fowler is about what a man and his family do when he's drafted by the Fungi from Yuggoth for immortality. Short with a double dosed nasty ending.
Madness, mad gods, and drugs make set the stage for Steve Berman's Namimbian-set "The Balm of Sperrgebiet is the Krokodil." A little vague and hazy for my tastes, but reflective of the narrator's mental predicament.
"Of the Fittest" by Evan Dicken (whom I've reviewed at Black Gate) is another military themed story. In this one, a veteran of Hastur's armies returns from his enlistment to find his friends and neighbors ready to draft him into the resistance. This is another existentially bleak story. Only those able to balance the coldest of equations stand a chance to survive in a world of endless insanity and misery.
"Overcome" by Jason Vanhee makes clear there's as little hope for Christians as anybody else in an Old One run world.
Escape is illusory in "Paradise 2.0" by Glynn Owen Barrass. Again, there is no hope whatever you might think you see or believe.
Madness provides a sort of shield against the advent of the Old Ones to a patient at the Arizona State Mental Hospital in Jeff C. Carter's "The Divine Proportion." Just not enough to survive.
In "The Resistance and the Damned" by Gustavo Bondoni (whom I've also reviewed at Black Gate), the Old Ones taunt a man who has tried to thwart them with murder and insanity.
Jonathan Woodrow's "Twilight of the Gods" assumes the worst of some people and to what depths they will sink to survive under the Old Ones. People can sell other people to the gods who now rule the world from office suites. While I like the idea that the seller gets more money based on much the loss of the particular person they sell costs them, the basic setup feels very out of place in a Mythos setting.
The closing story is "Venice Burning" by A. C. Wise. The first line, "When R'lyeh rose, it rose everywhere, everywhen." is a curiosity piquing one that is never satisfied with a story that is diffuse and unclear.
For a Mythos story to be successful, for me, it must find a new way to approach material that's been mined for eighty years now. If it can catch the mood, the atmosphere of Lovecraft's not just juggling the bits of timeworn stagecraft around for the umpteenth time. Enough stories in Apotheosis manage that difficult task that I can recommend it to Mythos readers.
For those not already fans of Lovecraftian stories, be prepared for darkness. There are no happy endings, no room for sentiment, nor relief. Not that it's a genre given to those things, but the despair that fills this particular volume is so dense not the least bit of light can escape its pages.
It's called Apotheosis: Stories of Human Survival After The Rise of The Elder Gods and is edited by Jason Andrew. The book is from Simian Publishing and is available in paperback and e-book forms.
In all my years of (which is exactly 38 years, 3 months, and 17 days - The first HPL story I read was "The Festival" on the night of the NYC Blackout of 1977), I've come across only a few that dared to look at a world under the thumb of the Old Ones and their minions. In fact, the only one that leaps to mind is Basil Cooper's "Shaft Number 247" and it's over thirty years old.
Too often, Mythos stories fall into familiar patterns involving all too familiar props. We all know them: things no man should know, Byakhees, inbred families, evil tomes, etc. There's only so many variations on those things even the best writers can do, so Apotheosis intrigued me even before I cracked the cover.
Between the two covers of this collection of grimmer than the grimmest Warhammer Space Marine, are eighteen tales by authors I am mostly unfamiliar with. On finishing it, I found a few writers I'll keep a weather eye open for in the future and one or two I'll probably pass on.
Apotheosis kicks off with one of the best Mythos stories I have read in a very long time: "The Smiling People" by Andrew Peregrine. In a city surrounded by a high wall built of rubble and bodies, the narrator and his fellow humans live under the constant attention of the titular Smiling People.
They always stand perfectly still, and move quickly when you aren't paying any attention. The most unnerving thing about them though is their faces. They are all the same, blank white ovals, broken only by a huge smiling mouth of sharpened teeth
In "The Pestilence of Pandora Peaslee" by Peter Rawlik, pro-human partisans attempt to overthrow the Yithians. Even though they've turned the Earth into a paradise of clean energy and halted global warming. Its lengthy historical exposition is a little too lengthy, but it doesn't hamper the story too much.
"Daily Grind" posits the place of a psychiatrist under the Old Ones' dominion. The madness of the protagonist's patients loops in and out of her own as she struggles to stay on the right side of her masters. Perhaps one of the blackest tales in the book as instead of tired old monsters it looks at how a person's soul is twisted in a time when the stars are right and all the angles wrong.
L. K. Whyte's "What Songs We Sing" holds out the slenderest reed of hope against the Old Ones, as a woman manages to escape to the countryside.
Adrian Simmons, editor extraordinaire of Heroic Fantasy Quarterly (and a friend), brings on the mayhem with "Dilution Solution." The surviving remnants of humanity live in deep underground warrens. Soldiers augmented with cybernetic enhancements lead raids into the world above. In this tale, one of them sidelined by a failed psych eval is itching to get back into the fray. Unlike the previous tale, this one holds out no hope, only madness.
"Earth Worms" by Cody Goodfellow, editor of last year's Deepest, Darkest Eden, a collection of Clark Ashton Smith-inspired stories, posits the real purpose of humanity: preparing planets for the cockroaches.
A mutated girl, tries to escape the control of Empress Tsan-Chan, in Joshua Reynold's "Eliza." I won't claim to understand exactly what happened in this, but I like the mad mix of cloned Whateleys, magic, and the appearance of the Hounds of Tindalos.
June Violette introduces a Dunsanian tone in "Footprints in the Snow." A young girl promises a new land free of terror to the children of a small town.
"To the Letter" by Jeffrey Fowler is about what a man and his family do when he's drafted by the Fungi from Yuggoth for immortality. Short with a double dosed nasty ending.
Madness, mad gods, and drugs make set the stage for Steve Berman's Namimbian-set "The Balm of Sperrgebiet is the Krokodil." A little vague and hazy for my tastes, but reflective of the narrator's mental predicament.
"Of the Fittest" by Evan Dicken (whom I've reviewed at Black Gate) is another military themed story. In this one, a veteran of Hastur's armies returns from his enlistment to find his friends and neighbors ready to draft him into the resistance. This is another existentially bleak story. Only those able to balance the coldest of equations stand a chance to survive in a world of endless insanity and misery.
"Overcome" by Jason Vanhee makes clear there's as little hope for Christians as anybody else in an Old One run world.
Escape is illusory in "Paradise 2.0" by Glynn Owen Barrass. Again, there is no hope whatever you might think you see or believe.
Madness provides a sort of shield against the advent of the Old Ones to a patient at the Arizona State Mental Hospital in Jeff C. Carter's "The Divine Proportion." Just not enough to survive.
In "The Resistance and the Damned" by Gustavo Bondoni (whom I've also reviewed at Black Gate), the Old Ones taunt a man who has tried to thwart them with murder and insanity.
Jonathan Woodrow's "Twilight of the Gods" assumes the worst of some people and to what depths they will sink to survive under the Old Ones. People can sell other people to the gods who now rule the world from office suites. While I like the idea that the seller gets more money based on much the loss of the particular person they sell costs them, the basic setup feels very out of place in a Mythos setting.
The closing story is "Venice Burning" by A. C. Wise. The first line, "When R'lyeh rose, it rose everywhere, everywhen." is a curiosity piquing one that is never satisfied with a story that is diffuse and unclear.
For a Mythos story to be successful, for me, it must find a new way to approach material that's been mined for eighty years now. If it can catch the mood, the atmosphere of Lovecraft's not just juggling the bits of timeworn stagecraft around for the umpteenth time. Enough stories in Apotheosis manage that difficult task that I can recommend it to Mythos readers.
For those not already fans of Lovecraftian stories, be prepared for darkness. There are no happy endings, no room for sentiment, nor relief. Not that it's a genre given to those things, but the despair that fills this particular volume is so dense not the least bit of light can escape its pages.
October 23, 2015
Hi, all! So I read "Apotheosis: Stories of Human Survival After the Rise of the Elder Gods" this weekend. It's a collection of short stories that, as the title indicates, takes place after the stars were right.
I hope to have a nice discussion on this, because it's raised some questions for me. I found the collection to be mostly well written, frequently entertaining or engaging, and just utterly depressing. I know, I know: what did you expect from an Earth owned by the Elder Gods, Rob? LOL
I get that. Cthulhu or Hastur or any of them would not make pleasant land lords. But I think I was unprepared for how strongly many of the stories echoed real-world events. The claustrophobic terror of being discovered reminded me of stories of life in the Soviet Union or Nazi Germany. The knowledge that at any moment you could be betrayed or found was so strong in some of the stories.
I'm left with the conclusion that maybe I should stick mostly with HPL's writing itself, as well as some of the modern stuff that is set prior to an Elder Gods victory.
This post isn't doing a great job of capturing all my thoughts on "Apotheosis." I hope that others have read it and would like to talk about it.
I hope to have a nice discussion on this, because it's raised some questions for me. I found the collection to be mostly well written, frequently entertaining or engaging, and just utterly depressing. I know, I know: what did you expect from an Earth owned by the Elder Gods, Rob? LOL
I get that. Cthulhu or Hastur or any of them would not make pleasant land lords. But I think I was unprepared for how strongly many of the stories echoed real-world events. The claustrophobic terror of being discovered reminded me of stories of life in the Soviet Union or Nazi Germany. The knowledge that at any moment you could be betrayed or found was so strong in some of the stories.
I'm left with the conclusion that maybe I should stick mostly with HPL's writing itself, as well as some of the modern stuff that is set prior to an Elder Gods victory.
This post isn't doing a great job of capturing all my thoughts on "Apotheosis." I hope that others have read it and would like to talk about it.
June 7, 2017
Easily the best theme-concept anthology as any I have ever seen in cosmic horror. What about taking a glimpse beyond 'the end' of the world (for people, anyway)? John Langan's 'The Shallows' did this, but proportionally its not a common thing to see in stories.
With such a strong central concept, this is one of the rare collections of multiple authors that stays consistently strong. There are, however, a few worth singling out for particular strength in this topic:
'Venice Burning' by A.C. Wise, 'Twilight of the Gods' by Jonathan Woodrow, 'The Divine Proportion' by Jeff C Carter, 'Of the Fittest' by Evan Dicken, and above all the first story in the collection, 'The Smiling People' by Andrew Peregrine. These are the stories that I felt most perfectly captured the theme of an irrelevant humanity still, if barely, hanging on when the food chain gets upended.
With such a strong central concept, this is one of the rare collections of multiple authors that stays consistently strong. There are, however, a few worth singling out for particular strength in this topic:
'Venice Burning' by A.C. Wise, 'Twilight of the Gods' by Jonathan Woodrow, 'The Divine Proportion' by Jeff C Carter, 'Of the Fittest' by Evan Dicken, and above all the first story in the collection, 'The Smiling People' by Andrew Peregrine. These are the stories that I felt most perfectly captured the theme of an irrelevant humanity still, if barely, hanging on when the food chain gets upended.
August 12, 2016
'Why the blasted smiling faces?'
'We thought it would put you at your ease.'
'We thought it would put you at your ease.'
February 20, 2016
A FINE BASKET OF TALES OF THE OLD ONES IT IS...
Hello, these are good stories. These are sad stories. These stories do not have a good ending. Unimaginable horrors that have become tangible and ruthless. Keep your gun loaded and plenty of bullets. Thanks.
Hello, these are good stories. These are sad stories. These stories do not have a good ending. Unimaginable horrors that have become tangible and ruthless. Keep your gun loaded and plenty of bullets. Thanks.
December 23, 2015
Very good selection. I could see myself re-visiting this and giving each short story a closer look.
July 12, 2024
As a collection of short stories by different authors, the result is, well, average
But short fiction is hard, and an art in itself, that most writers are not capable of, and most stories have their ending hushed, landing as soft as a plane without landing gear
Many, if not almost all, don´t have a proper ending. The author opens up a big world and keeps adding story, but then writes itself into a corner because he doesn´t have the time to go smoothly to a closing. Many of the endings are confusing, alucinatory, don´t explain anything and are even against the theme that they were proposing.
For an example, one of the stories is just a Walkind Dead chapter - zombie survivors get into a farm, discover bodies - but then a stranger came, the story has to hush to finishing line, so the obvious evil stranger is evil, protagonist tries to run, stranger say that he is an agent of the old ones that for some reason want the protagonist back from a past that was never stablished before that she had in the city. Ends.
The story about the ring and smiling mosters was one of the few I would give proper 5 stars.
The brain that wouldn´t die is kinda of average but ppl may like because of the twist - but it was clearly more of an alien/future distopy than really about eldritch horrors. The same about the cult that tries to call aliens and calls cthulhu. The old ones are not even the bringers of the end of the world, so the story is an ecology tale.
One of the most interesting is about the guards with VR glasses so they don´t see the abominations, but it completely changes everything in two paragraphs.
The story about the little prophet girl was also fun, but it was mostly fantasy.
I don´t know how those compilations are made but I assume the editor contacts several writers that he has relations with and ask them for a tematic prompt, and then they are all included, not regarding if the writing is actually good of if fits the theme.
But short fiction is hard, and an art in itself, that most writers are not capable of, and most stories have their ending hushed, landing as soft as a plane without landing gear
Many, if not almost all, don´t have a proper ending. The author opens up a big world and keeps adding story, but then writes itself into a corner because he doesn´t have the time to go smoothly to a closing. Many of the endings are confusing, alucinatory, don´t explain anything and are even against the theme that they were proposing.
For an example, one of the stories is just a Walkind Dead chapter - zombie survivors get into a farm, discover bodies - but then a stranger came, the story has to hush to finishing line, so the obvious evil stranger is evil, protagonist tries to run, stranger say that he is an agent of the old ones that for some reason want the protagonist back from a past that was never stablished before that she had in the city. Ends.
The story about the ring and smiling mosters was one of the few I would give proper 5 stars.
The brain that wouldn´t die is kinda of average but ppl may like because of the twist - but it was clearly more of an alien/future distopy than really about eldritch horrors. The same about the cult that tries to call aliens and calls cthulhu. The old ones are not even the bringers of the end of the world, so the story is an ecology tale.
One of the most interesting is about the guards with VR glasses so they don´t see the abominations, but it completely changes everything in two paragraphs.
The story about the little prophet girl was also fun, but it was mostly fantasy.
I don´t know how those compilations are made but I assume the editor contacts several writers that he has relations with and ask them for a tematic prompt, and then they are all included, not regarding if the writing is actually good of if fits the theme.
July 10, 2023
To be honest, a couple of the stories here left me feeling a little confused, but there isn’t a dud amongst them. They’re all decent reads, and there are a few that are genuinely disturbing. Overall, this is one of the better collections of contemporary Lovecraftiana I’ve read, and I’d recommend it to anyone with an interest in the genre- with the caveat that some of the stories will leave you a little depressed or unsettled.
May 25, 2017
Great Anthology
This a unique perspective on the Cthulhu Mythos.
All the stories are written that wrap themselves with the idea of what life would be like if the Old Gods actually ruled.
A great book!!!
This a unique perspective on the Cthulhu Mythos.
All the stories are written that wrap themselves with the idea of what life would be like if the Old Gods actually ruled.
A great book!!!
March 1, 2017
Enjoyable anthology.
March 28, 2018
Good idea, moderately executed
January 18, 2019
So many typos. And some of the stories weren't that good. Disappointing.
September 6, 2022
A few really great stories in here, but the rest I didn't connect with much.
Halloween 2022 Marathon, book 3 of 13.
Halloween 2022 Marathon, book 3 of 13.
January 28, 2024
Some of it is good, some of it is bad but mostly it doesn’t rise beyond being mediocre at the best of times.
October 3, 2022
What if the bad guys win?
That's the premise at the bleeding heart of this cosmic horror anthology - and the bad guys here are the elder gods of Lovecraftian mythology.
It starts with a belter of a story. The Smiling People, by Andrew Peregrine, follows the last survivors of our world, going about their daily business in a city surrounded by a wall made of the dead bodies of their loved ones. As they struggle to exist, they are followed by the Smiling Ones, strange entities who watch, and provide packages of food, and follow, and destroy whoever they wish. And they smile.
It follows one character as he hides his remaining secret, as he tries to talk to a woman he works with, as he perhaps hopes of escape. Brilliantly written, and utterly terrifying. My first work I've read by this author, I look forward to more.
I also thoroughly enjoyed The Pestilence of Pandora Peaslee, in which partisan resistance fighters take on Ythians who have occupied the world, but might just open the door to worse.
Some of the other stories aren't as strong, and a couple are a little muddled - but The Smiling People makes the anthology worth reading alone.
That's the premise at the bleeding heart of this cosmic horror anthology - and the bad guys here are the elder gods of Lovecraftian mythology.
It starts with a belter of a story. The Smiling People, by Andrew Peregrine, follows the last survivors of our world, going about their daily business in a city surrounded by a wall made of the dead bodies of their loved ones. As they struggle to exist, they are followed by the Smiling Ones, strange entities who watch, and provide packages of food, and follow, and destroy whoever they wish. And they smile.
It follows one character as he hides his remaining secret, as he tries to talk to a woman he works with, as he perhaps hopes of escape. Brilliantly written, and utterly terrifying. My first work I've read by this author, I look forward to more.
I also thoroughly enjoyed The Pestilence of Pandora Peaslee, in which partisan resistance fighters take on Ythians who have occupied the world, but might just open the door to worse.
Some of the other stories aren't as strong, and a couple are a little muddled - but The Smiling People makes the anthology worth reading alone.
January 3, 2016
The first story is the best one. I honestly think you're better off reading the free preview on amazon, but just story then buying and reading this book. Maybe if you read this genre more and follow the elder gods lore you might enjoy it more. I felt burned by the many lackluster stories especially since the preview and first story was so engaging. It was just a ok collection of stories to me, but I've not a elder god fan so that may be part of it. I felt like this was more for established readers in the genre then someone like me who isn't.
November 25, 2015
I wanted to rate this higher, but the good-to-bad story ratio was far too high. The good stories were excellent, though most of them could have had a tad more depth/detail. There were at least two different times I'd made it to the end of a story before the author deemed it the right time to tell us the narrator was a woman. Kinda throws it off when you have to rearrange a character in your head at the end of a story.
March 13, 2017
I think this is one of the better short story collections I've read in a while. The editor did a great job as I can honestly say that I found pretty much all of the stories in this collection either fascinating, tense, or exciting.
If you're not into Lovecraftian stuff this may leave you flat but for fans of Lovecraftian horror I definitely recommend checking it out.
If you're not into Lovecraftian stuff this may leave you flat but for fans of Lovecraftian horror I definitely recommend checking it out.
August 17, 2016
The first story was the best. Some of the others were good too, but overall it was an uneven collection.
September 12, 2022
There were some hits and some misses, but there were a couple of standouts, so I loved it overall.
April 13, 2017
Yesssss! I read a lot of Mythos stories and love them but most seem to end when the whole horrible truth of what's about to happen is discovered by some poor bastard. But what I've always wanted were stories taking place AFTER the return of The Great Old Ones. They have arisen. And THEN...?! Cthulhu awakens... And THEN!? I'm so so so happy this collection gave me just that!
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