Wednesday, February 28, 2018

The Tindalos Cycle (2010): edited by Robert M. Price




The Tindalos Cycle (2010): edited by Robert M. Price, containing the following stories and poems:


  • But It's A Long Dark Road (2008) by Joseph S. Pulver, Sr.
  • Confession of the White Acolyte (2008) by Ann K. Schwader
  • Death Is an Elephant (1939) by Robert Bloch
  • Gateway to Forever (1984) by Frank Belknap Long
  • Juggernaut (2000) by C. J. Henderson
  • Mind-Pilot (2008) by William Laughlin
  • Nyarlatophis, A Fable of Ancient Egypt (2002) by Stanley C. Sargent
  • Pompelo's Doom (2008) by Ann K. Schwader
  • Scarlet Obeisance (2000) by Joseph S. Pulver, Sr.
  • The Death of Halpin Chalmers (2008) by Perry M. Grayson
  • The Death of Halpin Frayser (1891) by Ambrose Bierce
  • The Dweller in the Pot, By Frank Chimesleep Short (1990) by Robert M. Price
  • The Elephant God of Leng (2008) by Robert M. Price
  • The Firebrands of Torment (2007) by Michael Cisco
  • The Gift of Lycanthropy (1979) by Frank Belknap Long
  • The Horror from the Hills (1931) by Frank Belknap Long
  • The Hound of the Partridgevilles (1999) by Peter Cannon
  • The Hounds of Tindalos (1929) by Frank Belknap Long
  • The Letters of Halpin Chalmers (1994) by Peter Cannon
  • The Madness Out of Time (1986) by Lin Carter
  • The Maker of Moons (1896) by Robert W. Chambers
  • The Shore of Madness (2008) by Ann K. Schwader
  • The Space-Eaters (1928) by Frank Belknap Long
  • The War Among the Gods (2008) by Adrian Cole
  • The Ways of Chaos (1996) by Ramsey Campbell
  • Through Outrageous Angles (1986) by David C. Kopaska-Merkel and Ronald McDowell
  • When Chaugnar Wakes (1932) by Frank Belknap Long


Highly enjoyable, immensely long anthology of stories related in some way to HPL pal Frank Belknap Long's two major contributions to the Cthulhu Mythos, the space-time bending Hounds of Tindalos and the malign, elephantine Old One Chaugnar Faugn. As is usual in a Robert Price anthology, the notes on the stories are lengthy and detailed in their contextualization of the various stories. 

As is also usual, Price has cast a wide net both before and after the publication of the pertinent Long stories. Thus we get stories by Ambrose Bierce and Robert Chambers that predate Long's work and stories and poems that go pretty much right up to the year of the anthology's publication. Price has an eye for historical curiosities. The three chapters included here from a shared-universe novel may not be good, but they're both fascinating and so far as I know never before anthologized. 

This is more an anthology for someone familiar with the Cthulhu Mythos than a casual reader, as some of those afore-mentioned curiosities are not particularly good. Long's own work is idea- and energy-charged when it's early work and enervated and disappointing when it comes from later decades than the 1920's and 1930's. 

Long was one of those pulp writers who was at his best in his youth -- it's not style that one goes to Long for, but the substance of his strange and cosmic visions. Well, and a bunch of people in a vintage car chasing an animated elephant statue around the Jersey Shore so as to save the world by shooting the elephantine god with an Entropy Reversal Cannon. Recommended.

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