I enjoyed Guran's first New Cthulhu collection, so when I saw this new one at Barnes and Noble I had to pick it up.

This is another dandy collection of Lovecraftian stories, often with very modern settings and sensibilities, though there are some nicely retro tales here as well. Among my favorites:

Laird Barron's "Mysterium Tremendum", in which a group of friends and lovers with an interest in esoteric books and other topics fall foul of something very, very nasty. The story relies on the relationship details for much of its effect, since I came to think of the characters as people I cared about, not random monster-fodder.

John Langan's "Bloom" opens with a couple finding an abandoned Red Cross organ-transfer cooler on the side of the road, an intriguing setup that - of course - goes wrong rather quickly.

"The Litany of Earth" by Ruthanna Emrys is among my favorites here. It opens with the narrator describing her gradual recovery while living in San Francisco and working at a bookstore - but we learn that what she is, and what she's recovering from, is a bit unusual. There's more poignancy here than in many Mythos-type stories, and I enjoyed it.

"The Wreck of the Charles Dexter Ward" is another of Elizabeth Bear and Sarah Monette's delightful collaborations about sentient, eldritch-abomination-type spacecraft in a distant future, where horror authors seem to provide the name-themes for nearly everything - there's even a ship named the Caitlin R. Kiernan {wry grin}. (Other stories in the Boojumverse include "Mongoose" and "Boojum"; I do hope there's a collection of these tales some day.) Sort of an "adventures in space" theme, where smugglers and pirates and good-hearted rogues do their best to survive - and where one might find tentacled monstrosities purring happily in one's arms...

Carrie Vaughn's beautifully chilling "Fishwife" mixes Lovecraftian elements with the "caught something from the sea that offers to grant wishes" fable. Gee, I wonder how that will work out?

"Who Looks Back?" by Kyla Ward features a young couple hiking on the Waimanga track in New Zealand when a seismic disturbance kicks in - but it's not an ordinary earthquake...

"The Boy Who Followed Lovecraft" by Marc Laidlaw seems at first to be a typical "young fan seeks to meet idol" story, with - or so I'd have guessed - some horrifying truth about the Mythos waiting to confront the fan. And in a way that's what happens, but in a much different - and more wrenching - manner than I'd expected.

There are Deep Ones as political prisoners, eldritch horrors as... semi-trailer trucks?, an Aztec god of war, a disastrous attempt to breed war-machines out of Lovecraftian monstrosities, and much more.

I'm adding this to the Otherworldly bookbox, which will be on its way to its next stop soon!

*** Released for the 2015 Allergic to A challenge. ***

I debated whether or not to pull this one from the box....only because it's so large and heavy. Finally decided to keep it ;)

I do love short stories for reading one at a time, when time is short. Too cumbersome to be my 'ride along' book, it took me awhile, but now I'm ready to put it back in the Otherworldly box to find it's next reader.

As always with collections, some appeal more than others, some styles I simply couldn't get into, others I wanted more of . My favorite? Elizabeth Bear and Sarah Monett's The Wreck of The 'Charles Dexter Ward'

I've decided to add this to the Otherworldly Bookbox~~taking a Cthulhu2 out, so it only seems fair :)

Removed from the Otherworldly bookbox.