Minireviews of the stories in /A Season in Carcosa/, a new Miskatonic River Press anthology of "Yellow Mythos" tales, hashtag #Carcosa

BLOT: (27 Sep 2012 - 11:08:24 AM)

Minireviews of the stories in /A Season in Carcosa/, a new Miskatonic River Press anthology of "Yellow Mythos" tales, hashtag #Carcosa

I recieved Miskatonic River Press's A Season in Carcosa in the mail yesterday, and will read it a story or so at a time over the next month. Thought it might be fun to give a H/T [hat tip] to @ImbolcFire [Kai Roberts], and his use of the hashtag #TheWeird to do micro-reviews of stories from Ann and James VanderMeer's The Weird anthology. I will be using the hashtag #Carcosa to do mini-reviews of stories in A Season. What's the difference between a micro- and a mini-review? Well, Roberts is good at sticking to the 140-character limit, while Bolden is known to ramble, you know? I might use 2 or 3 tweets to discuss some stories. Sorry about that.

A Season in Carcosa

And if you are smitten with the "Yellow Mythos" (not to be confused precisely with the "Hastur Mythos" as brought into the Derlethian Mythos), then you have some options for follow up! Project Gutenberg has the The King in Yellow in a number of formats, the first four stories of which are the core Yellow Mythos tales. Chaosium also has an S.T. Joshi edited anthology of the weird tales of Robert Chambers, though only, I think, the first four tales of The King in Yellow fit in, meaning that the Gutenberg edition is probably enough if that's all you want. Robert Chambers took cues from Ambrose Bierce, and you can find both Chambers and Bierce and others writing in the Yellow/Hastur Mythos in the Robert Price edited Chaosium collection of The Hastur Cycle. Finally, The H.P. Lovecraft Literary Podcast Premium Feed (just $6.66 for three months!) has recently covered "The Yellow Sign" and "Repairer of Reputations" (2 of the 4 core Chamber stories in the Yellow Mythos). If you haven't subscribed, you can subscribe now and still get those.

The stories will be given a score, by the way, of -2 to +2 with +0 being Average/Fair. This will help me to "score" the anthology as a whole. I will also be reposting my mini-reviews, possibly with increased notes/links, to here. So maybe bookmark this page and refresh from time to time if Twitter/G+ is a bother to you.

Alright, I'm off to see if I can find the Yellow Sign.

Story Reviews

Joel Lane's "My Voice is Dead": nice juxtaposition of cancer stricken Catholic and sickly fervor of Yellow Mythos, but actual trappings of mythos handled far too bluntly. Needed to be either more cynical or more mystical. More passion. Though need to add that the use of child abuse scandal in the Church to contrast the decadent decay of the mythos: thumbs up for that. (-0.5)

Weird Fiction