Future Lovecraft - a book review

Future Lovecraft is not some sort of temporally distanced relative of Howard Philips Lovecraft. Far from it. It is, instead, a book. A proper book, that can also be enjoyed in that newfangled e-book format. A book that has absolutely nothing to do with games, besides the fact that most gamers do seem to have heard of Cthulhu, and a book that's been published by the Insmouth Free Press.

What? No games? Why am I writing about it then? Well, I read it, enjoyed it, was intrigued by the idea behind it and thought I'd let you, oh passionate reader, know. Also thought it would make for a welcome change of pace.

Future Lovecraft, you see, is an anthology of contemporary short stories and poetry inspired by the works of Lovecraft and set sometime in the distant future. It is thus a collection of science fiction literature with a cosmic horror twist, and an approach I always thought would work. Lovecraft's materialist outlook and alien universe were, after all, begging to be explored by spaceships; his elder gods were patiently waiting for adventurous explorers and postapocalyptic fiction could always use Nyarlathotep.

Besides, Lovecraft himself did pen some excellent and very proper sci-fi stories, including the brilliant In The Walls of Eryx.

So, is this anthology any good? Does it fulfill its promise? Yes, yes it does; for the most part at least. You will find a couple of truly brilliant short stories in there and more than a few that, though not masterpieces, will definitely make enjoyable and even interesting reads. Stories definitely worth your time, if only to let them show off their original and odd takes on familiar ideas. 

Then again, there's also the poetry, which I frankly couldn't (and wouldn't) judge. Let's just say that I really can't see sonnets on ominous fungi and old ones replacing Edgar Allan Poe anytime soon and leave it at that. Then again, I did only read three of the included poems and those were the shorter ones.

Anyway. You probably already know whether you care for this sort of thing... You can find out more about Future Lovecraft (and obviously purchase a very reasonably priced copy) here. Let me just say it's brilliantly illustrated and that it did keep me some lovely -and varied- company. 

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