This all started with Eldritch Blue Love & Sex in the Cthulhu Mythos - a disappointing volume picked up on a lark which then saw me treading through some of the weirdest stuff this side of Philip Jose Farmer. So I'm back at the used bookstore where I bought Eldritch Blue, vowing I would sell it back to them one day, and the guy says he's got something for me.
Cthulhurotica.
I was leery, but I recognized Ken Hite's name on the cover. I browsed the table of contents, read the introduction in the store. So I bought it and took it home. At this point, I consider it research more than anything else - I'll wrangle an article or at least a thread out of the last half-dozen books if it kills me - but on an overall opinion, Cthulhurotica is as close as I've seen to adult Mythos fiction done right. Take that as you will.
To begin, this 2010 anthology is 331 pages long, with the short stories broken into four sections by theme, and three sizable essays at the end. The publisher is Dagan Books and the editor is Carrie Cuinn.
Part 1 begins with the beginning of H.P.Lovecraft's poem Astrophobos, which is a kind of curious choice, followed directly by Cuinn's introduction. Probably because the essays at the end of the book are so academic in nature, Cuinn avoided analyzing the Mythos or Lovecraft in any great detail, and the intro is really about trying to justify bringing out the book - namely, to address a real or perceived lack of attention to an important aspect of human culture and behavior. Then, it's straight to the stories.
Part One
I haven't quite figured out the justification for this partitioning.
Descent of the Wayward Sister (Gabrielle Harbowy) is not exactly a Mythos story, although there are sufficient elements or tropes of the Mythos in there that it would fit in almost seamlessly. The protagonist is a lesbian or bisexual - hard to tell exactly which - and there are some...original bondage elements here as well.
The C-Word (Don Pizarro) is a modern-day story set in Lovecraft Country - Innsmouth, to be specific - and a decent third-generation Mythos story, dribbling references to local families and placenames from The Shadow Over Innsmouth. Indeed, it's one of those stories where knowledge of the latter is absolutely essentially to understand that conflict in this story - which is otherwise a relatively benign bit about a relationship between a younger man and an older woman.
Infernal Attractors (Cody Goodfellow) is essentially an adult sequel to From Beyond, although only a fan that recalled the original story would be aware of this, as it avoids dropping any of the familiar names as the previous story did.
Daddy's Girl (Madison Woods) is not Mythos fiction. It is well written and original, which I applaud it for, but aside from some intimations of tentacle sex, there is really nothing Mythos about it.
Part One ends with a fragment from Shoggoth on the Roof and a small black-and-white illustration.
Part Two
The Cry in the Darkness (Richard Baron) is a very well-done development off a throw-away bit in from The Dunwich Horror, in the form of the character Mamie Bishop. The plot is fairly predictable one you recognize the elements of it, but I enjoy reading the same stories again with their minor variations. Honestly, I thought Baron would go further with it than he did, but I don't think the ending hurt the tale.
Riemannian Dreams (Juan Miguel Martin) is a collision between The Dreams in the Witch-House, erotic dreams, and what I think is supposed to be famed mathematician Bernhard Riemann, which is weird because he should have been long dead by the time the original Lovecraft story took place, and the Mi-Go. It's...okay. Nothing particularly special or earth-shattering.
TURNING ON, TUNING IN, & DROPPING OUT AT THE MOUNTAINS OF MADNESS (Ahimsa Kerp) is probably the first Mythos story I've ever read set in '60s hippie culture. Definitely the most original characterization of Nyarlathotep I've seen, at least since Alan Moore's Neonomicon.
Song of the Catherine Clark (Maria Mitchell) is another Innsmouth story. The thing about Innsmouth stories is waiting around to see when (not if) the Deep Ones come out. This one has some distinct parallels to The Shadow Over Innsmouth - I'm half of the opinion that "old, drunken storyteller" is an official, possibly hereditary, town position.
Between A Rock and An Elder Goddess (Mae Empson) is, more or less, an approach to the Mythos by way of Greek history, mythology, and a new tome called the Pantalica Papyrus. The narrative - and this is a bit confusing - goes back and forth between a modern scholar of Ancient Greece and the Greek philosopher whose narrative is the Pantalica Papyrus. It's weird and a little rough, but I like it for taking a chance with something a bit new. I might have liked it better if the results were more strongly Mythos-based, but that's more of a quibble.
The Fishwives of Sean Brolly (Nathan Crowder) is one part Deep Ones, one part the legend of Sawney Bean. There is a tenuous Mythos connection here, but the bulk of the story is psychological, or maybe psychosexual. It is followed with, appropriately enough, a black-and-white illustration entitled Deep Ones.
Part Three
Flash Frame (Silvia Moreno-Garcia) starts out as fun, slightly seedy romp through Mexico City by a freelance writer in 1982 looking for a story, and finding one. Of all the stories in the book so far, this is the one I think I'd want to read again, or would keep the book for. It has at is essence many of the elements of the film Cigarette Burns, combined with references to the King in Yellow.
Transfigured by Night (K. V. Taylor) is a modern journal piece - same style as Dracula, if you could squeeze Bram Stoker through the lens of an early-twenties Generation Y blogger, maybe. Extra points for referencing Schoenberg. Homoerotic journal entries from a music student encountering a Deep One...I think. If it is, it explains why the following black-and-white illustration is Love From the Black Lagoon.
The Lake At Roopkund (Andrew Scearce) is a love triangle with the Mythos in the middle, set around an Indian family and a strange fertility idol. You've been warned.
Ipsa Scientia (Constella Espj) is a carcrash between a modern-day college romance and The Shadow Out of Time, with a weird anachronistic reference to At the Mountains of Madness thrown in for good measure.
Amid Disquieting Dreams (Leon J. West) - No direct Mythos references, although several indirect ones. This story may not be any more or less explicit than many of the others, but the tone of the narrator makes it feel nastier than the others. Ended with a drawing of one of the characters, the oddly-named Fisheater.
The Dreamlands of Mars (Travis King) follows the Silver Key as it is passed to a distant descendent of Randolph Carter. The format of the story is a series of blog posts from a colony on Mars. Aside from that, the story does not lean too heavily on previous Dreamlands tales, working instead to build something a little more original.
Part Four
The Assistant From Innsmouth (Steven James Scearce) is the second Scearce story in this anthology, though I do not know the relation between the two authors. Despite the title, the beginning of the story brings immediately to mind the "undegenerate Whateleys" mentioned in The Dunwich Horror, and the protagonist Combs brings to mind famed Mythos actor Jeffrey Combs. In truth, the story reads somewhere between a mid-budget horror movie and a decent second-generation Mythos story. There is a weakness to the story - some of the motivations of the eponymous Assistant are left unstated, so we never really solve all the mysteries presented in the text. It is followed by the somewhat clever black-and-white illustration The Brides of Tindalos.
The Summoned (Clint Collins) is a lead-off from The Call of Cthulhu, starting with the character Henry Anthony Wilcox, and the chronology runs roughly the same, or at least as far as the end note goes. The story lacks in many ways a satisfying explanation, preferring to give monstrous hints and suggestions...which I think is entirely to its credit.
Sense (Matthew Marovich) is a pulp detective story with a Miskatonic angle. Short, sweet, well-crafted. Followed by a black-and-white illustration Lovecraftian Love, no relation.
Optional On the Beach at the Festival of Shub Niggurath (Gary Mark Bernstein) is a very brief story set in the modern day in which the Mythos is almost entirely backdrop to a very different social issue. It is, I will say, at least a bit of a fun story, and reminds me somewhat of Wilbur Whateley Waiting.
Le Ciel Ouvert (Kirsten Brown) - "The Open Air," if my rusty French is any good at all. Kirsten Brown also contributed some of the illustrations to this volume. It's a modern Miskatonic U. story set in an Arkham after The Event.
Part 4 ends with the remainder of Lovecraft's Astrophobos, and then it's on to the essays.
Cthulhu's Polymorphous Perversity by Kenneth Hite, which is basically a blistering-pace sketch of the influence and importance of the Cthulhu Mythos, tying the surge of merch into established trends, particularly the periodic best-selling series of Dracula/vampire media, and even devoting a paragraph to Cthulhu's magickal impact. The end neatly ties in Cthulhu's literary elements with the sexual horror element of the previously mentioned vampire fiction. Terrific little essay, worth the price of admission.
The Sexual Attraction of the Lovecraftian Universe by Jennifer Brozek (Admittance time: Jen once rejected a short story I'd submitted to one of her anthologies. I don't hold a grudge, but just to be fair I thought I'd admit it as a point of bias.) It's a fair analysis, but not a literary one. Anyone talking about sex in the Lovecraft Mythos should, in my own opinion, start with Arthur Machen and proceed into The Dunwich Horror, et al. Jennifer also seems somewhat ignorant of the previous efforts of Mythos-based erotica that came before Cthulhurotica, some of which I've subjected myself to over the last several weeks.
Cthulhurotica, Female Empowerment, and the New Weird by Justin Everett, PhD. takes a more literary bent, focusing on the collection itself. The insights put into print here apply equally well to more mainstream Mythos fiction, and I would generally suggest the essay to authors looking to work in the area. You might agree or disagree with his assessments of female empowerment in the stories, but I think the overall picture is very compelling.
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Originally Posted by AncientHistory
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