cover image New Cthulhu 2: More Recent Weird

New Cthulhu 2: More Recent Weird

Edited by Paula Guran. Prime (prime- books.com), $16.95 trade paper (480p) ISBN 978-1-60701-450-8

From the seemingly bottomless reservoir of Lovecraftian pastiches and homages, Guran (New Cthulhu) has sieved 19 above-average reprints, all published between 2010 and 2014, and most tailoring their terrors to contemporary times. The monstrous horrors of “Momma Durtt,” by the late Michael Shea (to whom the book is dedicated), are matched by the real-world vileness of toxic waste dumps and organized crime. The otherworldly infestation of Charles Stross’s “Equoid” occurs amid black-ops espionage. Elizabeth Bear and Sarah Monette’s send the intrigues of their futuristic “The Wreck of the Charles Dexter Ward” into outer space. Lovecraft’s “The Shadow over Innsmouth” casts its shadow over several of the book’s selections, the best of which—Brian Hodge’s “The Same Deep Waters as You” and Ruthanna Emrys’s “The Litany of Earth”—are parables whose events evoke modern political responses to terrorism. Some stories are more explicitly Lovecraftian than others, but all demonstrate how Lovecraft’s dark mythology continues to inspire outstanding tales of modern horror. (May)