John Sunseri

The Spiraling Worm is the latest offering by Chaosium. It contains a series of linked stories by John Sunseri and David Conyers, talented young authors active on the mythos scene. This book is the first fiction publication from Chaosium since Arkham Tales, and it represents a shift in their philosophy. For many years, the most we could get from Chaosium were the cycle books, collections each centered on some mythos theme or entity with a diverse collection of stories (perhaps mostly selected by the mainstay series editor, Robert Price). This mostly consisted of reprints, often a story from HPL and then works either from the remote mythos past or from some of the magazines active at the time, like Crypt of Cthulhu. Results were wildly uneven, mostly mediocre, a few gems and a lot more truly dreadful dogs. Now Chaosium is aggressively publishing books of all new (well, with a few reprints) stories, paying more attention to the quality of the author and story than particular thematic elements. On the horizon we have Frontier Cthulhu, old west mythos, and hopefully a lot more books as successful as their predecessors.

I am pretty familiar with the weird fiction of David Conyers; he has been a fixture in many of the new anthologies. We had the very nifty `Outside Looking In' in Hardboiled Cthulhu, a story were perception and reality are not the same thing, `Regrowth' from Arkham Tales, which concerned the melding of disparate forms of life and `False Containment' which is here and originally appeared in Horrors Beyond. I think `A Shared Romance' was in the short-lived Cthulhu Express. Mr. Conyers has had a fair number of his other stories in magazines of weird fiction. I am a bit less familiar with the stories of John Sunseri. I recall the very fine `The Hades Project' from Horrors Beyond, and the enjoyable `A Little Job in Arkham' from Hardboiled Cthulhu.

The mythos subgenre for this collection is by now well established, that is, the action packed noir cloak-and-dagger the government-is-in-it-up-to-their-necks mythos. For years great fiction of this sort has been published in the Delta Green books from Pagan Publishing, Cody Goodfellow's Radiant Dawn and Ravenous Dusk are masterful examples and Charlie Stross has weighed in with The Atrocity Archive and The Jennifer Morgue. He has also written what may be the absolute finest modern mythos story, `A Colder War', available in his collection Toast and the upcoming Cthulhian Singularity. The Spiraling Worm fits very comfortably into this company. If this is the sort of story you like, you are in for a real treat with this book. No helpless pasty-faced recluse cowering in a garret driven mad by his special knowledge of how terribly indifferent the universe is. Red blooded action heroes throw themselves into the breech, refusing to go gentle into that good night. Some housekeeping: The publisher is Chaosium. The Spiraling Worm is a 320 page paperback listing for $15.95 but discounted to $10.85 from Amazon, and available for free shipping if you order > $25 worth of books (like preordering Frontier Cthulhu...). The cover art looks kind of cool on the website but I don't know who did it and can't say much about it. Why? This is my biggest gripe about the book. I got the special edition hardcover, and while it is a nice cloth bound book, it does not have a slipcover and, thus, no artwork! Man did that peeve me! I guess I should have noted this before I bought it. Now I am left to wonder if I should buy the soft cover too.

Here are the contents:

Introduction: CJ Henderson
Made of Meat: Conyers (Originally published in Temple of Dagon, revised)
To What Green Altar: Sunseri (new)
Impossible Object: Conyers (Originally published in Dreaming in R'lyeh #2)
False Containment: Conyers (Originally published in Horrors Beyond)
Resurgence: Sunseri (new)
Weapon Grade: Conyers (new)
The Spiraling Worm: Sunseri and Conyers (new)
Afterward
About the Authors

************Spoilers may follow so stop reading if that bothers you!!*******

First of all, the Introduction and Afterward are very entertaining and also very useful in getting a handle on where the authors are coming from. Best of all, they let us now a follow on volume with the characters from this book is in the works already, and CJ Henderson will be contributing some stories!! I keep saying we are in the golden age of mythos fiction. The first three stories by Conyers were not written with this book of linked stories in mind. Instead Mr. Conyers was creating Major Harrison Peel, developing his character and stretching his wings in this particular subgenre. After Conyers and Sunseri decided to collaborate on The Spiraling Worm the original Peel tales were ordered and perhaps slightly altered to fit into the timeline/story arc here.

In `Made of Meat' we are introduced to Major Peel, an Australian intelligence officer. Over the next few stories we get to know him quite well. Conyers doesn't write mythos stories for their own sake; the trappings are always at the service of clever plotting, believable character development, snappy dialogue and tightly written action scenes. The major is sent to look in on the Tcho Tcho people in Southeast Asia with the help of a British MI6 Agent James Figgs, a more jaded, hard bitten and enigmatic figure than the duty driven Major Peel. Someone in some government wants samples of Shub Niggurath spawn to develop into weapons.

`To What Green Altar' introduces us to NSA agent Jack Dixon. He and the ubiquitous Figgs go to Siberia on the trail of an insane cult that wants to invoke Cthugha in the middle of the Vatican. The Tunguska event from 1909 is finally explained. The aims of the cult are depressingly plausible in the modern world. The first two sections of this are my favorite prose by Sunseri.

`Impossible Object' is my favorite story by Conyers (What a wonderful dilemma to have! What is your favorite story by David Conyers?). It is the best story in the book and also, perhaps, the most Lovecraftian. The Australian government has uncovered an incredibly ancient city and found the title object in one of the rooms of this city. The Impossible Object is different to all observers, as well as mysterious and frequently deadly. Major Peel is on the scene and figures out what it must really represent. Tautly written, suspenseful and an edgy ending. Definitely worth a few rereads! I originally read it in its magazine version and am glad to have it in this collection.

`False Containment' is another winner from Conyers, probably my next favorite here. I already reviewed when I wrote about the anthology Horrors Beyond (I would rather have seen a different new story as this is already in a book we are all likely to own, but I see the appeal to having all the Major Peel stories in one collection). I think there has been a very slight modification, inclusion of a sentence or two to allow `Impossible Object' to better fit into the story arc. This was a pity, as my view in hindsight is that it lessens the power of the ending of `Impossible Object.'

After these stories we get into the main story arc of the anthology. `Resurgence' shows us some how or other, shoggoths are loose from their prison in Antarctica and are swarming to the mainland, including Australia. A few sentences are a nod toward Tim Curran's Hive and perhaps portend that Mr. Curran may be joining forces with the authors in future projects. Agent Dixon is point man against a shoggoth that is scouring Isla de los Estrados near Argentina while Major Peel must try to fend off its twin approaching Australia. What would it take for you to go nuclear? Unfortunately Major Peel is caught in the radioactive aftermath of the saving of Sydney. Also unfortunately a famous landmark (almost a world wonder...) had to be sacrificed.

`Weapon Grade' shows how the military applications of extra dimensional gates and shoggoth technology are too tempting to resist, and how far the cloak and dagger men of any government are willing to go to get an edge. Major Peel shows his true dedication to duty as well as resourcefulness as he tries to prevent the theft of shoggoth secrets while dying of radiation poisoning.

`The Spiraling Worm' brings all the players together (including Joss Plenary of the NSA). The setting is the Congo, where a grotesque band of rebels (cultists) have perhaps kidnapped a special forces Major Charles Ackerman. Figgs, Peel and Dixon (and a small army of SEALs and special forces) set out to track him down in the trackless jungle. The Spiraling Worm is one of the many names of Nyarlathotep, as ever trying to open holes in reality for Cthulhu et al to step/slither through. This was the longest story in the book and the culmination of some pretty remarkable story telling, as two talented authors combine their skills and characters. While I liked it a few details bugged me. First of all there was (a very small amount) some lecturing about the mythos pantheon, something that never jazzes me. I had some issues with a gang rape scene, although it was suitably horrific and not gratuitously specific. I cannot argue with it, but I did not like the denouement of agent Figgs. Maybe that's too harsh; rather, I liked him the way he was before the end of the story. At > 100 pages this is maybe a novella. It was necessary to have a story of some length to be able to tie all the plot threads together but it did miss some of the snap that made the other stories such corking good reads. Finally, at the very end Peel, Dixon and Plenary decide to form an agency to try to fend off mythos type threats (similar to Stross' Laundry or to Delta Green) and the way this was done seemed a bit pat. I guess it's too easy to be a critic; `The Spiraling Worm' (the story) all in all was a very satisfying read.

So that's about it! All in all I give The Spiraling Worm a rave. Two skilled authors at the height of their mythos story telling power give us the Lovecraftian smash of the summer. See if it doesn't keep you reading way past your bedtime, like me. Highly recommended! Can't wait for the sequel!… (plus d'informations)

Honesty compels me to say that I received a free reviewer copy from Permuted Press, at the behest of John Goodrich. I would have bought one anyway and it did not affect what I thought of the book.

Cthulhu Unbound is a new anthology from Permuted Press. Permuted Press is a small press specializing in zombie apocalyptic fiction. I can only hope that this foray into Cthulhu mythos fiction portends the start of some serious Lovecraftian publishing by this enterprising small press. CU is a high quality trade paperback with 264 pages of text; list price is $14.95 with a discount by Amazon; I think with this page count it is good value for the money. Production qualities and editing were both excellent. I didn't note any typos to speak of. The lovely cover art is by Cyril van der Haegen; I saw some other fantastic images of his with a quick image search online. Editing duties were shared by Thomas Brannan (a new name to me) and John Sunseri (well known to mythos fans). Here is where I have my major complaint with this book: there is no editor's note explaining the philosophy behind it, or how the stories were chosen, and no authors' notes or biographies. Another opportunity squandered! All stories are copyright 2008, but CJ Henderson's Locked Room saw print before in The Tales of Inspector Legrasse from 2005.

The premise of this book is that there are no preconceived genre boundaries that should limit the imagination of Lovecraftians. Anything was on the table. Of course it means I was predisposed to like CU before I ever opened it! On the other hand maybe I'm not as flexible as I would like to think. Minor spoilers may follow, so you are forewarned.

Noir-lathotep by Linda Donahue - I am familiar with Ms. Donahue from The Star of Istanbul in High Seas Cthulhu, a story which gave me some heartburn. The basis of Noir-lathotep is pretty clever. One of the aspects of the Crawling Chaos has been murdered and it is up to the Crawling Chaos to figure out what happened in fine gumshoe fashion. I liked it well enough although it did not knock my socks off.

The Invasion Out of Time by Trent Roman - Mr. Roman is new to me. This story was outstanding, The flying polyps who were once enemies of the Great Race are engaged in a war against a desperate humanity; the major resistance is coming from China, the setting of this work. Like I said, this is a gem.

James and the Dark Grimoire by Kevin Lauderdale - This author is also new to me. This story is told with tongue firmly in cheek. Imagine if Wodehouse's upper-class nitwit Bertie and his competent manservant Jeeves need to save the world. I usually am not fond of mythos humor but this was a very engaging story.

Hellstone and Brimfire by Doug Goodman - Mr. Goodman gave us the highly enjoyable The Orion Man from Horrors Beyond. This story has similarly highly crafted prose. A Texas ranger type is tracking the Mi-Go. I really liked it.

Star Crossed by Bennet Reilly - Another new author for me. This story was a romance between Shub Niggurath and Hastur. As usual, trying to express the viewpoint of an incomprehensible, immensely powerful alien makes them seem....mundane. The romance was conducted at a level familiar to fans of Twilight. Not a winner for me.

The Covenant by Kim Paffenroth - Lots of authors I am unfamiliar with here, which is a good thing. Mr. Paffenroth has won a Bram Stoker award before. This story is a rewrite of Chapter 23 of Moby Dick. What gods did Ahab really make compacts with? This was a very enjoyable read, and I hope Mr. Paffenroth gives us more mythos in the future.

The Hindenburg Manifesto by Lee Clark Zumpe - Early on in the story, we find out Solditas Invictus and the Sentinels were eliminated from the world years ago. Woohoo! Finally! Now Mr. Zumpe can get back to writing stories like The Breach, a fine effort in Horrors Beyond....not so fast. It turns out this story is all about the resurrection of Solditas Invictus during the late 1930s. I was not won over by the stories in High Seas Cthulhu or Frontier Cthulhu and I was similarly disaffected here. The history of this secret organization takes precedence for Mr. Zumpe over the story itself, and he misses an opportunity to let us see what really happened during the flight of the Hindenburg. I hate it when the major action takes place offstage, as it were. Then later we also don't get to see when one of the bad guys gets their comeuppance.

In Our Darkest Hour by Steven Graham - Another new author. This was a good example of what Cthulhu Unbound was striving for. Some superheroes and a wizard battle some evil doers who want to open dimensional gates after 9/11...and it is strongly implied one of the heroes is a Deep One. I was pleasantly entertained.

Blood Bags and Tentacles by DL Snell - DL Snell has edited some books for Permuted Press. This is not a Cthulhu mythos story strictly speaking but it has Lovecraftian cosmic elements. Someone opened our world to trandimensional horrors and humans are trying to survive in the aftermath. The characters were good, the action scenes were tautly written and the monsters were very creepy. All in all I was very impressed with this story.

Bubba Cthulhu's Last Stand by Lisa Hilton - Yet another new author. This story was pretty humorous and also had some nice dark undercurrents. The Cthulhu family is like a bunch of hick mobsters corrupting everything around them. Can a good unicorn stand up to their machinations? This was a grandly entertaining read, and also genre bending. Maybe the closest thing to it is Eldritch Fellas by Tim Curran.

Turf by Rick Moore - I never read anything by Mr. Moore before. Too bad! This was a fine creepy yarn about a mobster in the UK fighting for turf with a new and difficult to fathom rival. I can't pick a favorite in this anthology, but Turf came close.

The Menagerie by Ben Thomas - also new to me. In this story a prince, perhaps from renaissance Italy gives his keeper leave to use a book by John Dee to obtain new and strange creatures for his bestiary. I was mostly engaged but in the end when the Great Old Ones get miffed and decide to end the proceedings the story fell a bit flat. I liked it well enough if not as much as some other stories here.

The Patriot by John Goodrich - Mr. Goodrich has a story in the upcoming Cthulhu's Dark Cults from Chaosium but otherwise I am uncertain about his publication history. This is a ghoulish yarn set in WWI, reminding me a little bit of Curran's The Chattering of Tiny Teeth from the book Warfear. On its own merits this was a very creepy and well written piece that I enjoyed until the end...and the denouement just blew me away, it was so good!

The Shadow over Las Vegas by John Claude Smith - Another new face to me. This piece was somewhat over the top and absurdist, more like so-called bizarre fiction than anything else. I am not well read enough to know if it was in imitation of Hunter Thompson or someone else I should know. It was pretty engaging on its own merits although I had the feeling I was missing something.

Locked Room by CJ Henderson - CJ Henderson is arguably the most famous author represented here. Mostly I really enjoy his Cthulhu mythos work. I must say I was disappointed that he submitted a reprint to this anthology, which worked a bit better in context in The Tales of Inspector Legrasse.

This book is self recommending to Cthulhu mythos fans. It offers a generous sampling of stories, mostly by new authors, mostly brand new and mostly pretty good. As promised, the content runs the gamut of genres and styles, and mostly the stories are very successful. The best content here stands up to the best content in any mythos anthology. I am quite happy to add this book to my library and I am very eager to see what Cthulhu Unbound volume 2 holds in store for us.… (plus d'informations)

In rapid succession Permuted Press has released two anthologies of wildly original Cthulhu mythos fiction, throwing down a tentacled gauntlet to other genre small presses that there's a new sheriff in town. I loved Cthulhu Unbound #1 and #2 is even better. Congratulations are due to the editors John Sunseri and Thomas Brannon, and the whole zombified crew at Permuted Press for an anthology that stretches the usual limits of Lovecraftian fiction. Cthulhu Unbound #2 is a high quality trade paperback with 276 pages, listing for $14.95 but discounted by Amazon, and eligible for free shipping if you order > $25 worth of stuff (#1 and 2 would make a neat little combo package). The attractive cover art by Michael Dashow, circulating on the net for a few years, shows a boss Cthulhu taking an employee to task and emphasizes that in this book, anything goes. Editing was tight, with few typos, and production qualities were high. I have only two gripes. First, I would have liked minibiographies of the authors. Many of these names were new to me, even if they are well known in their established genres. More importantly, I would have loved authors' notes. Sometimes the genre merged with mythos is obvious, be it spies or noir, but sometimes it wasn't. Hopefully some of the authors will make comments about what they were aiming for.

One other thing different about this anthology is the greater contribution from women authors, not too common in the Cthulhu mythos genre. I wonder if maybe we will now see a new wave of women writing in the mythos. The brightest women luminaries in the mythos genre for years have been Ann K. Schwader and Caitlyn Kiernan. Now in this volume and its predecessor we have Lisa Hilton, Inez Schaechterle, Sheila Crosby, Kiwi Courters and Linda Donahue. The future looks bright: Elizabeth Loiler (Cthulhu's Chosen) and Margaret Carter (Windwalker's Mate) have begun to explore mythos romances. The widely respected Ellen Datlow is editing the upcoming Lovecraft Unbound (she may be the first woman to edit a mythos anthology), and I keep hoping for more mythos from Denise Dumars.

My bottom line is I cannot imagine anyone with the least bit of inclination toward tentacular fiction not liking this anthology. Minor spoilers may follow, so skip to the end if that bothers you.

Passing Down by Inez Schaechterle - All I know about Ms. Schaechterle is that she is an assistant professor of English at Buena Vista University who has done research on feminism and RPGs. As far as I know this is her first mythos outing in print. Maybe she plays Call of Cthulhu? Passing Down explores another angle on the taint of the Deep Ones, this time using a mob enforcer. There is an interesting twist on the nice girl attracted to the bad boy sometimes seen in hit man stories. This was absorbing, a good start for the book.

The Tenants of Ladywell Manor by Willie Meikle - Mr. Meikle is a well known author of mythos and other dark fiction. I have not yet read The Watchers; my favorites of his works are the Midnight Eye Files books, which are terrific reads. Here the mythos meets Jane Austen, and the heroine really has her mettle tested. Being English, can you doubt she will succeed? I was pleasantly entertained. I guess if you want more horror in this vein, try Pride and Prejudice and Zombies.

The Hunters Within the Corners by Douglas P. Wojtowicz - Mr. Wojtowicz has a story on Robots Beyond, which I have but haven't read. He also writes pulps in the Executioner series under the pseudonym Don Pendleton. I have not previously read anything by him. This masked avenger story was mostly OK, showing the author's pulp roots, but invoked a few too many mythos tropes perhaps, perhaps showing superficial acquaintance. All the critters looked like Brown Jenkin, and the Hounds of Tindalos are supposed to be able to move through angles and be stymied by curves. The hero gave his everything and took some lumps, but in the end this story was only fair for me.

Surely You Joust by Patrick Thomas - I was not able to find out anything about Mr. Thomas. This is a story from days of old when knights flew Byakhee. A dwarf knight-jester and Merlin's sister investigate strange goings on in Lyonesse before it submerged. I was reasonably engaged by the story, even if the fate of the protagonists never seemed in doubt. I wondered if these characters have been used by Mr. Thomas before. The title implied a humorous story but it was more S&S adventure.

References in Cthonic, Eldritch, Roiling Creations are Recondite by Warren Tusk - This is another author I could not find out anything about. Here is where I really really missed authors' notes. I am not sure what this story was modeled after; I hope someone can enlighten me. I think I should recognize it but I just can't place it. Anyway, this is a dialogue between an exhausted hero and a turtle after the apocalypse of the Old Ones. I found it absorbing. (Mr Tusk wrote to me: "The dialogue in RICERCAR is a reference to the inter-chapter dialogues in Douglas Hofstadter's Goedel, Escher, Bach, which include as main characters Achilles and the Tortoise from Zeno's famous paradox. ")

New Fish by Kiwi Courters - I think A. Kiwi Courters has written a few zombie stories for other Permuted Press anthologies. New Fish is a prison yarn and a damn fine story. The new fish of the title is a prisoner transferred to Alcatraz after being picked up in a certain raid in the late 1920s.

Tomb on a Dead Moon by Tim Curran - Mr. Curran may be the most famous dark fiction author in this anthology with many mythos titles to his credit. This wonderful space opera mythos story is my new favorite by him, as prospectors/surveyors come across a moon floating in space where it has no business being has an artificial structure on it that has no business being there. Moody and intense, it was almost my favorite story in the book.

The Long, Deep Dream by Peter Clines - Mr. Clines is another new member for the latest Lovecraft Circle. In this noir story, a gumshoe is given a case and it turns him about in directions he couldn't suspect. In some ways the end echoed Charlie Stross' A Colder War. I thought this was brilliant, clearly my favorite story here.

Santiago Contra el Culto de Cthulhu by Mark Zirbel - Mr. Zirbel has actually published Double Maim Event, a book of wrestling horror. Maybe that's why he did such a fine job with this tongue in cheek look at a masked Mexican wrestler. Is this a real subgenre of wrestling fiction? The only related story I know is Nacho Libre and I kept visualizing Jack Black as the protagonist who books a bout in Innsmouth.

Stomach Acid by David Conyers and Brian M. Sammons - Once again we and Australia's finest, Major Peel, have been asked to do the impossible, given no choice but to risk life and limb (or other organ) and sanity at the intersection between humanity and the unknowable cosmos. In some ways I feel like I haven't been keeping up with the Major. The last I saw him was at the end of The Spiraling Worm where he, and the US' Jack Dixon and Joss Plenary were forming an agency essentially devoted to thwarting the Crawling Chaos. Now he is set down in the remote areas of South America encountering a new US operation and there just has to be some intervening story somewhere. I wish the story had been about double the length so we could have had more exposition; I think the initial assault on the Fungi would have made for some good story telling and came across as a little rushed in the flashbacks. Oh well, I'm a big fan of both Conyers and Sammons and I have to be grateful for what we have (feel free to expand it for the next collection, guys). Stomach Acid was a fine edition to their ongoing story arc.

Sleeping Monster Futures by Brandon Alspaugh - I don't know much about Mr. Alspaugh. I think he has written a few science fiction stories in other anthologies. I loved this funny and gritty story of Wall Street greed trying to corner the market on all things eldritch.

Nemo at R'lyeh by Joshua Reynolds - Joshua Reynolds also has a story in Robots Beyond (that I also have not read). I sheepishly confess that when I read the title I suspected it would be Nemo from Finding Nemo at R'lyeh. Instead we are treated to an excellent story involving the captain of the Nautilus confronting the mythos.

What's a Few Tentacles Among Friends? by Sheila Crosby - I am unfamiliar with Ms. Crosby. Too bad! This is amusing story of a poor shoggoth who finds it difficult to make it in the human world and in politics.

An Incident Occurring in the Huachuca Mountains, West of Tombstone by Gary Vehar - Mr. Vehar is another new voice to me. This story would not have been out of place in Frontier Cthulhu. Wyatt Earp confronts mythos spawn just outside of Tombstone. I had a bit of an anachronistic bone to pick with this story. Would an army officer have referred to information as classified back in those days? Would they have referred to Plan B and Plan C? I really enjoyed the first part of the story, which focused on Earp and his cronies, and had some good action. The latter part was a bit disconnected and seemed much more passive, with a bit of a let down in the ending.

Abomination With Rice by Rhys Hughes - Mr. Hughes is a well known Welsh writer of absurdist and progressive fiction, having published many short stories. I am so glad he looked at the mythos to close this book. It starts out as a sort of WWII espionage story and then veers off into a very odd direction. I loved it.

So what else is there to say? I loved these books: great cover art, lots of new authors, generous page counts and high production qualities all in the service of excellent story telling. They give me great hope that the publishing future for the mythos is bright, and that it will not stay ingrained in a few old tropes. By turns, thrilling, intense and humorous, these stories are essential reading for all Cthulhu mythos aficionados. I hope they are monster hits and that Permuted Press can be prevailed upon to give us volume #3 in short order.… (plus d'informations)