Tomorrows Cthulhu By Scott Gable
Super science. Madness. Transhumanism.
This is the dawn of posthumanity. Some things can’t be unlearned.
Gleaming labs whir with the hum of servers as scientists unravel the secrets of the universe. But as we peel away mysteries, the universe glances back at us. Even now, terrors rise from the Mariana Trench and drift down from the stars. Scientists are disappearing—or worse. Experiments take on minds of their own. Some fight back against the unknown, some give in, some are destroyed, and still others are becoming… more.
The human and inhuman are harder and harder to distinguish. Mankind is changing, whether it wants to or not, with brand new ways of thinking. What havoc is wreaked by those humans trying to harness and control their discoveries? As big science progresses and the very fundamentals of this universe are understood, what stories are being hushed up?
Of course, the Old Ones laugh at our laws, scientific and otherwise.
These are transhumanist near-future science fiction tales of the Cthulhu Mythos. These are tales of more than merely cosmic dread. They exist in our world of the next couple years. This is the era of big science and—what is that? We’ll be right back. Tomorrows Cthulhu
Scott Gable Ò 5 Read & Download
Stories stradling the divide between science fiction and horror - based on the Lovecraftian 'mythos'. As this is an intersection of genres that I seem to be exploring a lot as well in recent years, I've thought about it a lot, and I realised that the sense of wonder, of awe, that the best SF makes me feel, is not far from the sense of insignificance and fear that lovecraftian horror instills. The same concepts: deep time, far distances, stellar objects that are so huge our mind can't comprehend them and don't care about our existence, the heat death of the universe - that inspire awe in science fictional context are pretty scary if you think about it. If one really contemplates the distance light travels in a year, or tries to onderstand how large the black hole at the centre of our galaxy is one feels very small, and one's individual concerns seem to melt away against the background of unfeeling matter and energy. Or the elder gods coming again. Most stories here dealt with this area in a convincing fashion. All were pretty well written. None of the stories tried to emulate Lovecrafts sometimes overwrought language, so here there were no gibbous moons, cyclopean architecture or squamous creatures (though there's lots of non-euclidian geometry here). The authors use a science fiction vernacular and modern story telling techniques. Some stories sadly were built upon well worn tropes (R'lyeh rising from the oceans) or reduced the eldritch beings of lovecraft to tentacled monsters. But there was a relatively large portion of stories that managed to estrange me as a reader, made me question reality (if not my own, then reality in the story), suggested the emergence of the inexplicable, not restrained by modern, scientific ways of thought and often helped by our embrace of technology (in itself an all consuming power, that holds us in its grip and of which we still do not really know its effect on our conciousness). It goes to show that Lovecraftian stories need not be set in the start of the 20th century but are just as powerfull in our time or in the near future. Or on Mars, as the case may be. The Stricken was an outlier - a zombie story with the preserved head of Herbert West, the reanimator. I liked 'The five hundred days of Ms. Between' by Joshua Alan Doetch - with some creepy descriptions and a great conclusion. '68 days' by Kaaron Warren delivers on the subtitle of the collection 'stories at the dawn of post-humanity'. It starts out pretty safe with a group of people taking part in an experiment, but it becomes weird fast. Not explicitly lovecraftian, but chilling none the less. In 'a pathway for the broken' Damien Angelica Walters introduces a new treatment for Alzheimers, with some horrifying side-effects. 'Advanced Placement' by Richard Lee Byers has a teacher trying out a new program on her pupils, but there seems something wrong with some of the exercises. I like stories that take the everyday and known, and shows them in a chilling light. Great story. Shannon Fays 'Church of the renewed covenant' introduced some needed humour into the proceedings while 'The posthumous recruitment of Timothy Horne' really made use of the weirdness of the dream lands. 'Curiosity' takes place on Mars and contains some great, nightmare inducing imagery. 'Perfect toy for a nine year old' by Bruce R. Cordell will be a nightmare scenario for parents: a talking doll - but what he says seems just a little off ... chilling. 'The Judas goat' by Robert Brockway takes on the 'cosmic' in cosmic horror, as astronomers go insane when they see stars disappear in deep space ... 'Drift from the windows' has a journalist investigating the work of a company genetically modifying crops ... to nefarious purposes. 'Chunked' by Matt Maxwell had great awe inspiring imagery - as another review described it: 'Lovecraft by way of Pacific Rim'. 'Nimrods Tongue' takes a concept of Lovecraft (the mi-go) and goes a long way with it (pretty disturbing too!). These were the stories that stood out the most, but really they all were at least interesting to read. So: recommended to fans of Lovecraftiana who like to see the mythos breaking through in near future, science fictional scenarios. 1940372178 Last year marked the 125th anniversary commemorating the birth of horror writer Howard Phillips Lovecraft, and, as a result, renewed interest in his writing has inspired a higher number of anthologies collecting short stories inspired by H.P. Lovecraft. Scott Gable and C. Dombrowski, who co-edited By Faerie Light and Ghost in the Cogs, have once again collaborated on a Broken Eye Books title, Tomorrow's Cthulhu: Stories at the Dawn of Posthumanity. In this edition, the editors collected together 29 stories inspired directly by Lovecraft's Cthulhu and Dream Cycle (Dreamlands) mythos while incorporating scientific tones and interests. All channeled the inexplicable call of the characters to the hidden and unknown.
Readers will be able to pick up on shared elements, characters, and locations - if they are familiar with Lovecraft's stories - and make deeper associations with the essays presented in this book.
Please read my full review at Fanboy Comics: http://fanboycomics.net/index.php/blo... 1940372178 A good collection of Lovecraftian short stories without any really disappointing entries. If you are a fan of the Mythos, you 'll definitely find something to enjoy although none of the stories stand out as spectacular. 1940372178 Full disclosure: I wrote one of the stories in this book.
That story aside, there are some great (and terrifying) tales in here. Loved it. 1940372178 I bought this e-book on a whim, and am glad that I did.
The quality of the stories range from OK to very good. One of the things I liked best was the range of writing styles. It was nice to see stories based on Lovecraft's mythos that didn't try to copy that style, but rather aimed to capture the feeling of dread, horror, and things that go squish in the night.
Good stuff, and quite entertaining. 1940372178
The stories in this anthology feature a very nice melange of Lovecraftian horror and futureshock. Some interesting stories that would be suitable for expansion into larger novels. 1940372178 A good collection of modern Lovecraft homage, with a focus on imaginary futures crashing into the Cthulhu mythos.
Stories I liked:
The Stricken By Molly Tanzer--takes Herbert West Re-Animator to its logical conclusion in a zombie apocalypse, and re-orients it around a bold and funny female descendant.
Tekeli-Li, They Cry by AC Wise--At the Mountains of Madness but with genuine human sadness beating at the heart of it.
A Pathway for the Broken by Damien Angelica Walters--One of the most genuinely creepy stories in the collection, about an old man trying an experimental treatment for Alzheimers, and wondering whether he's wasting from the disease or from some supernatural force acting upon him.
Advanced Placement by Richard Lee Byers--The horrors of standardized testing meet other horrors more ancient. Really smart and creepy.
The Judas Goat by Robert Brockway--Another genuinely creepy story that eschews direct reference to Lovecraft's mythos in favor of a more unknowable and overwhelming cosmic dread, where stars blinking out one by one heralds the coming of horror.
Chunked by Matt Maxwell--Cthulhu meets the whaling trade. Grimy and fun.
The Great Dying of the Holocene by Desirina Boskovich--climate change affects human and elder god alike. 1940372178 Actually a bit dissapointed with this. I was very much looking forward to this collection as it combines two genres I really enjoy, Lovecraftian horror and post-humanity. Dont get me wrong, there are a couple of good stories. Unfortunately, some stories didn't develop much of a story or characters, and some didn't even have any lovecraftian or post-humanity elements. 1940372178 This is a refreshing take on the Cthulhu mythos (though some stories have only a tenuous connection, if any.) Fewer garbled 'Wxyrthgarh' like utterances and not a copy of the Necronomicon to be seen! The authors concentrate more on how modern concerns - the internet, nanotechnology, climate change - might result in ol' Cthulhu and his elder chums returning to Earth and the stories are all the better for it. There is, however, a decided lack of humour - and there is such potential for it - with only 'Church of the Renewed Covenant' coming close by slyly looking at the issue of parents becoming religious in order to get their children into the right schools. Altogether though this anthology shows there's still life in old Lovecraft's world. 1940372178 Scott Gable has assembled some interesting takes on the mythos, and what is so remarkable about these stories is that not all of them are cosmic. Sure you have contributions like Peter Rawlik and Cody Goodfellow's that really push science fiction to some awe-inspiring limits, but there are also stories such as Advanced Placement which seem remarkably slice-of-life. It's an excellent demonstration of what work remains to be done in the Mythos. 1940372178