cthulhu – Cannonball Read 17

A disappointing end to a promising series

The Cthulhu Casebooks - Sherlock Holmes and the Shadwell Shadows by James Lovegrove

June 9, 2019 by MarkAbaddon 1 Comment

Endings are always difficult. Wrapping up a series based on someone else’s original work, doubly so (a fact all Game of Thrones fans learned the hard way this year). This book concludes Lovegrove’s trilogy of placing Holmes into a Lovecraftian universe and the results are not that great. The fist difficulty is with the source material. Doyle only returned to Holmes reluctantly, and the stories of Holmes towards the end did not have the same energy or enthusiasm as the earlier works. Yes, Lovegrove incorporates […]

Sherlock Holmes Takes on Cthulhu

Sherlock Holmes & the Shadwell Shadows by James Lovegrove

June 2, 2019 by MarkAbaddon Leave a Comment

I love Sherlock Holmes and I love the world of horror that HP Lovecraft created. Seeing the two of them brought together was almost irresistible to me but I have seen Holmes placed in a world where logic doesn’t apply before, most notably the collection called shadows over Baker Street. There are aspects of this book that are very reminiscent of some of the best stories in that particular collection. Where the author is most effective is in trying to really ground homes in this World where […]

How do you make an enormous, cult-creating, planet-destroying Cthulhu babydoll NOT exciting??

Deadstock by Jeffrey Thomas

April 28, 2019 by Bothari43 Leave a Comment

This book was low-key aggravating. The plot was interesting enough that I wanted to keep going, but the characters were unlikeable enough that I almost gave up on it several times. Spoilers ahead, because nobody else should bother with this weirdness. I picked this one up at a used bookstore because it had a complimentary quote from China Mieville on the cover. You let me down, China! I read very few male authors anymore, and this book reminded me why. A former soldier turned private […]

A monster awakens

April 15, 2014 by AamilTheCamel Leave a Comment

Eighteenth book reviewed as part of the 130 Challenge. There’s something regal and respectable about Lovecraftian horror. It is not gut-wrenching, disgustingly gory or even scary in the right sense of the word. It does not do what a horror story is expected to do. What it does, and exceedingly well, is to fill you with a feeling of dread and leave you uneasy as you try to comprehend the nature of beings that he has described in his story. Lovecraft doesn’t write about Earthly […]

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