Cthulhu's Reign

As with most anthologies, there are mixed levels of quality and enjoyment to be gotten from these short stories. This anthology's particular theme caught my attention, having started reading Lovecraft's Cthulhu mythos.

I must say that the first story, by Ian Watson, gave the wrong impression of the rest of the book. I found Ian's story to be the best of the bunch, having succinctly caught the feeling of dread, despair, and horror. The majority of the other stories didn't really manage to hit the right notes. Most were well-written enough, if looked at from a horror point of view. But that Lovecraftian feeling of dread is missing from a few of them.

Granted, I suppose the primary draw of the Cthulhu mythos lies in the horrible unknown. Once exposed, it sort of loses a bit of that which made it alluring. Another short story I found myself particularly liking was the one by Brian Stableford. It was sufficiently weird enough to be quite interesting.

Here's how I found each of the short stories, your mileage may vary of course:

The Walker in the Cemetery - Ian Watson - 4/5
Sanctuary - Don Webb - 2/5
Her Acres of Pastoral Playground - Mike Allen - 3/5
Spherical Trigonometry - Ken Asamatsu - 2/5
What Brings the Void - Will Murray - 3/5
The New Pauline Corpus - Matt Cardin - 1/5
Ghost Dancing - Darrell Schweitzer - 3/5
This is How the World Ends - John R. Fultz - 3/5
The Shallows - John Langan - 3/5
Such Bright and Risen Madness in Our Names - Jay Lake - 3/5
The Seals of New R'lyeh - Gregory Frost - 3/5
The Holocaust of Ecstasy - Brian Stableford - 4/5
Vastation - Laird Baird - 1/5
Nothing Personal - Richard A. Lupoff - 2/5
Remnants - Fred Chappell - 3/5