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.

Ghoulish Grab-bag

Nameless Places: edited by Gerald W. Page, containing the following stories: Glimpses by A. A. Attanasio; The Night of the Unicorn by Thomas Burnett Swann; The Warlord of Kul Satu by Brian N. Ball; More Things by G. N. Gabbard; The Real Road to the Church by Robert Aickman; The Gods of Earth by Gary Myers; Walls of Yellow Clay by Robert E. Gilbert; Businessman's Lament by Scott Edelstein; Dark Vintage by Joseph F. Pumilia; Simaitha by David A. English; In the Land of Angra Mainyu by Stephen Goldin; Worldsong by Gerald W. Page; What Dark God? by Brian Lumley; The Stuff of Heroes by Bob Maurus; Forringer's Fortune by Joseph Payne Brennan; Before the Event by Denys Val Baker; In 'Ygiroth by Walter C. DeBill, Jr.; The Last Hand by Ramsey Campbell; Out of the Ages by Lin Carter; Awakening by David Drake; In the Vale of Pnath by Lin Carter; Chameleon Town by Carl Jacobi; Botch by Scott Edelstein; Black Iron by David Drake; Selene by E. Hoffmann Price; The Christmas Present by Ramsey Campbell; and Lifeguard by Arthur Byron Cover (1975).

Some of this classic (and never-reprinted) Arkham House anthology from the demon-haunted 1970's consists of stories submitted to Arkham co-founder August Derleth before his death in 1971. Overall, there's no real theme to the anthology, as editor Gerald Page notes in his introduction. It's simply a large collection of often very-short stories of horror, dark fantasy, and the supernatural.

This being an Arkham House release, and Arkham having been originally founded to get the stories of H.P. Lovecraft into permanent hardcover editions, there's more than a soupcon of Lovecraftian shenanigans at work here. Lin Carter and a few others pastiche for all they're worth, both Cthulhu Mythos-era HPL and earlier Dunsanian HPL.  Joseph Payne Brennan refers to Lovecraft in his story, though the style and content of "Forringer's Fortune" remain much in line with Brennan's other work, written in a much more demotic plain style than anything Lovecraft assayed.

It's interesting to me that two horror writers who began as Lovecraft pastiche writers, Brian Lumley and Ramsey Campbell, both give us tales of non-Lovecraftian supernatural horror set on trains. Both tales are effective, though Campbell's "The Last Hand" is the more effective simply because he doesn't try to explain outright the true identities of the three passengers his protagonist must engage in a poker game with.

Several stories herein have been much anthologized, including Campbell's Christmas-short "The Christmas Present." We also get Arthur Byron Cover's poignant story of small-town inertia, a couple of stories from a young David Drake, and an extraordinarily good riff on Lovecraft's Cthulhu Mythos that I've never seen anthologized elsewhere -- A. A. Attanasio's "Glimpses." The quality of the stories is mostly high, and the relatively large number of very short stories means that dissatisfaction with one story may quickly be soothed by another story. Highly recommended.