"The Fisherman of Falcon Point"

by August Derleth
originally published The Shuttered Room and Other Pieces, Arkham House, 1959

 Enoch Conger is a grumpy local fisherman who no one likes very much.  He tends to hang out in a tavern near Innsmouth.  One night he tells a tale of fishing up a "mermaid" sort of thing off Devil's Reef.  The "mermaid" promised to save his life someday, if he would let her go.  This gets him laughed at.  After that, Conger doesn't come around much - mostly just keeps to himself, staring out at the ocean.

Conger is found injured.  He asks to be carried back to his tiny house at Falcon Point.  When a doc arrives, Conger is gone.  But webbed footprints are found outside.  Conger is never seen again - except local salts who sometimes report seeing him swimming with schools of Deep Ones, singing hymns to Dagon...

Obviously a very minor story.  Still I have always found this one entertaining and evocative in its slight way.

"The Whisper of Ancient Secrets"

by Penelope Love
originally published Cthulhu's Dark Cults, Chaosium, 2010

In Victoria Australia lives the Prof., so-called even though he has no educational credentials.  The Prof also has no eyes, or genitals, or apparently several other body parts.  He has sacrificed them in his search for enlightenment. He lives with a group of mutants, or possibly lowlives he has altered in some way.  In addition, he keeps something he refers to as "The Experiment" trapped in caverns below the house they occupy.  Periodically, they steal cows from local ranches and sacrifice them to The Experiment, which has tentacles and wings and who knows what else.

The Prof's explorations are interrupted by the arrival of Robert Huston, another seeker, but one whom the Prof considers highly inferior.  He is on the run from two men and a woman who have apparently disrupted his own nefarious plans.  

The Prof learns that his mutants are plotting to kill him and take off with Huston on a killing spree.  He enlists the two men and the woman to kill them, while he escapes with The Experiment.  The sky opens up and they fly off to meet Azathoth.

This unpleasant little tale is dependent on the reader understanding who Robert Huston is.  As it happens, Huston is a character in Chaosium's Terror Australis campaign, an offshoot of the Masks of Nyarlathotep scenario.  Lacking that information, the tale is largely obtuse.

Even knowing that, the story is not exactly a fun read, being weird, confusing, and more than a little gruesome.  We're inside the head of a completely crazed cultist - and its not a fun place.  Good writing doesn't make this one any more pleasant.

"Perfect Skin"

by David Witteveen

originally published Cthulhu's Dark Cults, Chaosium, 2010

Charles and Evelyn Drake are celebrating their holiday on the Orient Express, now stopping in Istanbul.  They are accosted over breakfast by a Col. Phelps, a badly-scarred officer who claims to have important issues to discuss with Charles.  Charles runs him off, complaining that his appearance is spoiling their breakfast.

Evelyn is taken by Istanbul's exotica, and Charles buys her a monkey at the bazaar.  But, a couple nights in, Charles is suddenly called away on business - something to do with "The Brotherhood".

The next day, he still hasn't returned.  An alarmed Evelyn starts asking questions, but is stonewalled.  She contacts Col. Phelps, who is alarmed at mention of The Brotherhood.  He advises her to leave Istanbul immediately, that her life is in danger.

Back at the hotel, Evelyn encounters Charles in the hotel room.  But he doesn't seem to recognize her.  His eyes and teeth have changed, and his skin looks strange.  He threatens her with a knife, then flees without a word.  She finds the monkey has been skinned. Evelyn passes out.

She comes to with Col. Phelps on hand.  They're making arrangements to get her back to England.  Phelps explains that The Brotherhood (of the Skin) is a shunned and feared cult that allegedly removes the skins of their sacrifices and wears them in their ceremonies.  

Evelyn seeks out Mustafa, the hotel manager and a friend of Charles', and demands he take her to The Brotherhood.

A short time later, Phelps finds the Drakes on the train.  When he enters their compartment, he finds Evelyn's eyes are now black.  She kills him with a dagger.

Good writing and strong characterization elevate this otherwise slight story.  The Brotherhood of the Skin is a Clive Barker-ish cult presented in Chaosium's Horror on the Orient Express, but without knowledge of that scenario, this story has far less meaning.

"The House of Cthulhu"

by Brian Lumley

published Whispers #1, 1973

...once upon a time-eth, in a land that was older than old back before anything older than that ever existed, there was a fellow named-eth Zar-thule who was badder than bad, as in really bad, as in he was a pirate and prone to such nasty nasties as sacking and burning whole cities, torturing and killing people, and voting for Republicans.  Anyway, this Zar-thule, who was as always on the lookout for loot, did learn-eth of a forbidden island called "Arlyeh", whereupon he would find-eth the house of the black god Cthulhu, and many treasures.  

And so he and his cruel crew and his dragon ship made-eth their way to the forbidden island of Arlyeh, and there found-eth the priest Hath-Vehm, keeper of the gate of the House of Cthulhu, who was very old-eth but totally uncooperative, refusing to say the magic words that would open the gate, even under torture.

But Zar-thule would not relent on his torture of the old priest, even when one of his crewmen gotteth his arms turned into something so icky that he did burn them off himself.  But finally, realizing that the plot must goeth somewhere, the old priest relented and said the magic words.  But even as the gates-eth of the House of Cthulhu didst open, he didst say other magic words, which would cause the island to sink, taking Cthulhu and everyone else with it, so Zar-thule didst cut off his head.  

And then Zar-thule and his crew were attacked by gloopy tentacles from within the House of Cthulhu, and Zar-thule didst realize that the House of Cthulhu held, not treasure, but ol' octopus-face himself-eth, and thus did flee the island even as it sank.  And he did drift for many days, until his ship came unto a peaceful people who, even though they realized he was-eth a rat bastard, didst stick him in a pit and feed and care for him until finally a mushroom-shaped parasitic growth did take over his whole body and he died.  The end-eth.

The House of Cthulhu is a tale writ by Lumley not in imitation of Lovecraft but in definite imitation of Clark Ashton Smith.  It its most assuredly Klarkash-ton-ian in tone, and I have to confess Lumley pulls off the Smith style pretty effectively.  I should note that it also basically duplicates the plot of Smith's "Tale of Satampra Zeiros" down to the T.

Is it any good?  Well, as I say, it's an effective pastiche.  I suspect Lumley was basically playing with the Smith style for his own amusement more than anything else.  Judged on that, it's amusing.  But seekers of "cosmic horror" will have to seek elsewhere...

"Captains of Industry"

by John Goodrich
originally published Cthulhu's Dark Cults, Chaosium, 2010

Janos and Dimitri work at Emerson's washing machine factory, near Boston, in 1921.  Janos is a big, hulking Hungarian, veteran of the Great War.  Dimitri is a small, slight Russian intellectual. Both are involved in forming a union, and, when we meet them, are heading a strike - that goes very bad when an army of strike-breakers hired by Emerson proceed to pound the living shoggoth-shit out of the strikers.

Bloodied but unbowed, organizer Antonio charges Dimitri and Janos to spy on Emerson, to find out how the skinflint factory owner found the wherewithal to bring in expensive strike-breakers.  They soon learn of his association with a private club called The Order of the Silver Twilight, a haven and network for the rich and powerful of Boston, passing itself off as a Masonic-type lodge.  Arrangements are made for Dimitri and Janos to join the wait staff for the Order's upcoming Xmas festivities.

 This seems to go off reasonably without a hitch.  As the party dwindles down, and clean-up begins, D&J sneak off to explore the lodge, hoping to find something incriminating they can use against Emerson.  

Instead they are captured and tortured by John Scott and Carl Stanford, the sinister heads of the organization, and Max Reed, Stanford's watchdog.  After using some nasty magic on them, Stanford hands off $100 to Janos, and the two are tossed into the streets.

Hard to say what to make of this piece.  Cthulhu's Dark Cults is a themed collection built around cults presented in scenarios written for Chaosium's Call of Cthulhu role-playing game, and the Order of the Silver Twilight, and its evil leaders, are important components of one of the earliest and most famous scenarios, Shadows of Yog-Sothoth. And it should be said that Goodrich sort of provides some personality and good description behind these cipher-ish characters.  

Unfortunately, though Goodrich writes well - Janos is a strong, entirely believable and compelling character, and the evocation of his poverty-stricken immigrant life is finely drawn, the story itself is rather empty.  Unless you're familiar with the original scenario it takes its inspiration from, there's no additional meaning, and the tale simply becomes an exercise in misery as Janos and Dimitri go from broken to more broken.  A bit of a waste of good writing, here.

"The Shadow in the Attic"

by August Derleth

originally published Over the Edge (Arkham House,1964).  

Adam Duncan is the latest in the long line of Derleth inheritees (yes that's a real word - I looked it up) to acquire a big ol' creepy house on the outskirts of Arkahm.  Great-grandpa Uriah Garrison was the usual - creepy, old, kept to himself, read a lot (esp. occult stuff) - and people who crossed him has a way of dying.

Adam inherits the house and some money provided he spends the summer months there on the first year after inheriting.  He agrees, even though the house is run-down and lacks modern conveniences (Adam has a phone put in). Oh, it also comes with a cleaning lady who no one ever sees - or not for very long anwyay.

Adam's fiancee Rhoda shows up to have dinner with him, and warn him that the house is a bad place and he should clear out.  Oh, and she sleeps in a separate room (which is a little odd since Adam tells us they've slept together before).  However, her polite(?) abstinence allows Adam to wake up next to a naked old crone in the bed next to him (the writing takes a surprisingly sexually explicit tone here).  Rhoda sees a mysterious, expressionless woman in the night.  Adam assume it must be the mysterious cleaning woman and dismisses the thought of anything off the beam here.  He sends Rhoda packing off to town.

Up in the attic, from which Uriah had always forbidden others, Adam finds nothing but the cleaning woman's clothing, rubber gloves, a wig, a rubber mask, and a human-shaped shadowy outline on one wall, across from a mouse-hole and some cabalistic symbols. Some typically unfriendly neighbors inform Adam that they never saw a cleaning woman come and go, and suggest they're not convinced Uriah is actually dead.  Adam finds books on black magic in the library.

Rhoda calls - it seems she's researching the house and knows somethings up.  Adam, as usual, doesn't listen.  He begins to dream of Uriah and a masked woman.  Rhoda finally rescues him just as the smoke-form of Uriah is about to envelop him.  Rhoda sets the house afire, and they escape.

This is a very minor-league Derleth tale without much to recommend it.  No one has ever produced any info on the Lovecraftian origins of the tale.  Certainly the up-front sexuality is a surprise, especially in Lovecraft-inspired story.  But, however spicy, it's not enough to spice up an atmospheric but unmemorable tale.

"Recognition"

by Brian Lumley

originally published Weirdbook 1981

Lord David Marriot has gathered a group of psychics and scientist to rid his recently acquired property, "a large, ungainly, mongrel architecture of dim and doubtful origins", of its ghosts.  Or whatever.  Two mediums are to define the entity, and a priest is to exorcise it.

It seems the house has an unsavory rep, including the finding of some pagan worship, involving a spider-like god, and some connection to the De La Poers, of ""Rats in the Walls" fame.

A seance is held, which ends with medium Jason Lavery shouting "Atlach-Nacha" and being tossed about the room.  This leads to Lanford, the priest, bailing.  As does Lavery.  Meaning the only one left is Turnbull, the other medium.  He demands to be left alone in the house while he attempts to do his psychic thing.

This turns out to be a bad plan.  In the morning, Turnbull is found dead, covered in strange wounds.  On his sketchpad is a drawing of, presumably, the house's supernatural occupant - a spidery monster.

Very pulpy but fun tale from The Lum.

"The Eternal Chinaman"

by John Sunseri

originally published Cthulhu's Dark Cults, Chaosium, 2010

Guy is a sailor who's just disembarked at San Francisco in 1920, with a pocketful of cash, ready to get laid.  Unfortunately, he runs into his cousin, David Delmonico.  David takes him to Mama Tropos' speakeasy, and has a favor to ask - a big favor.

It seems David has acquired an item that once belonged to Lang Fu, leader of a Tong-like cult, one that Guy has heard of, and doesn't want to tangle with.  David, however, persuades Guy to be his bodyguard for a night, until his performance at Mama Tropo's tomorrow.  David, it seems, is a magician.

Quite a magician, apparently, as Guy learns when David helps ward off some Deep One assassins with some fiery magic.  

Guy is wounded in a bout with some more terrestrial assassins, and he and David manage to hide out with a hooker until morning, when they make their way to Mama Tropo's, where Guy gets mauled by another Deep One.  Lang Fu is moments away from capturing them, when Mama Tropo intervenes, insisting that David should be allowed to put on his performance, which he insists is critically important, thus demonstrating whether or not he is the true rightful owner of the item (a talisman, btw).  Lang Fu, strangely, agrees.

David runs through a routine magic act, then produces the talisman, alluding to playing with powers that can wipe out entire cities.  He (apparently) starts summoning Cthugha into the room.   Reckoning that David can't handle the power, Lang Fu magically levitates the talisman out of David's hands and into his own.  Cthugha disappears and David is gorily burned to death.  Guy leaves town for Amsterdam and leads a straight life.

This is an energetically written, pulpish tale (it reminds me of some of R.E. Howard's adventure/Cthulhu crossovers), with an over-the-top evidence on brutal violence (every blow and injury of every fight is described in loving detail) and lowlife shock.  Despite moving along at a nice clip, there's nothing terribly memorable about it.

P.S.  - Lang Fu is an NPC from Chaosium's Fungi from Yuggoth scenario.

"Spawn of the Winds"

by Brian Lumley
Originally published Jove, 1978

Hank Silberhutte, a big ol' Texan working for the Wilmarth Foundation, is a telepath with a hard-on for Ithaqua.   Juanita Alvarez is his "receiver", to whom he telepathically communicates this story.

With a pilot, fellow Foundation-ites Paul White and Jimmy Franklin, and, unbeknownst to them, Hank's sister Tracy stowing away, Hank is off to Edmonton to set up an anti-Ithaqua project, when the big windy dude intercepts them.  They find themselves on Borea, on an endless plain of snow with a pyramid in the distance where Ithaqua sits.

The downed plane is surrounded by an army of eskimos, indians, giant hounds and etc.  Their leader, Boris Zchakow, high priest of Ithaqua, demands they hand over Tracy.  He is burned by a star-stone for his rudeness, and battle ensues.  The cavalry arrives in the form of another army of indians/eskimos, with polar bears.  These are The People of the Plateau.  Their leader is Northan, the warlord.  They are joined by their demi-goddess, Armandra, the Woman of the Winds.  She is a half-human daughter of Ithaqua, and doesn't like daddy one bit!

She's also a hot piece of cosmic ass, and Hank notices.  Northan notices Hank noticing, and jumps in his shit.  Hank responds by knocking Northan on his warlord tush. 

Hank and crew are taken to the People's caverns (One side effect is that Paul, Jimmy, Hank and The Pilot are now less susceptible to cold, thanks to contact with Ithaqua.  Tracy, who was helpfully wearing a star-stone, isn't effected.).  There Hank learns that Armandra actually has to pick a mate soon.  Northan, it seems, has appointed himself to the position.

Meanwhile, Ithaqua kills Zchakow, cuz.  

In the caverns, Hank and Crew are introduced to Charlie Tacomah, a war vet and Native American, one of many missing persons who've ended up on Borea.  Hank makes out with Armandra who's gorgeous but has ugly feet.  She warns him that Ithaqua wants her for a mate, and that Northan is an asshole (duh!).

A month goes by.  Hank trains as a warrior and they learn of a "forbidden" tunnel.  Whitey, psychically-sensitive, is afraid to go down there. He begins to suspect he won't live much longer.

A ceremony is held in which Armandra will choose a mate.  Hank challenges Northan, beats him in a hand-axe battle, but spares his life.  Northan runs off and joins the neighboring Wolf Tribe.  They try to take Tracy but Charlie and Jimmy stop them.

In the forbidden tunnel, Tracy finds a bazillion star-stones.  

A massive attack by Ithaqua's loyalists.  Narthan is killed.  Whitey is killed.  Armandra and Ithaqua slug it out.  Then Hank attaches a star-stone to a spear and rams it into Ithaqua's eye.  Off goes Ithaqua to an Elder Eye Surgeon.  

Hank sends a telepathic warning to Juanita, but she is killed in a freak storm - doubtless the work of You-Know-Who.

This is something a follow-up to the Titus Crow books, giving us more of the Wilmarth Foundation (oh joy!).  And it's certainly an improvement on The Transition of Titus Crow, being as it at least is a coherent story.

On the other hand, it isn't a particularly compelling one, being mostly a series of pulpy cliches.  There's plenty of Howard-y action but no cosmic horror, that's for sure.  If anything, it mostly strongly resembles an Edgar Rice Burroughs action-er, with manly Hank proving himself the superior in fighting, thinking, leading and, of course, screwing, than any members of the primitive alien culture he finds himself in.  Armandra is nuts, and Ithaqua is little more than a cackling villain-oid.  An amusing but unsatisfying read.

"The Ancestor"

by August Delreth
originally published

by August Derleth
originally published The Survivor and Others, Arkham House, 1957

Henry, our narrator, has a cousin named Ambrose Perry, a retired physician.  It seems Perry had some radical ideas, not accepted by the medical establishment.   He has retired to a remote house in Vermont to pursue his unorthodox research.  He offers Henry a job as his secretary.

Henry finds Ambrose in debilitated shape - gaunt and spooky.  It seems Ambrose has found a way, using drug-and-environmentally-induced trances - to revert his mind as far back as his birth, and before his birth, into the mental fields of his ancestors, thusly he can take a gander at the world before he was born, even back to prehistoric times.

Ambrose starts getting weird.  He has bad table manners and starts locking himself away in his lab for days on end.  He stops eating.  His normally well-behaved dog starts acting up.  Henry thinks he spots a large animal in the nearby woods.  The house starts smelling "musky".

Henry finally breaks down the outside door to the lab.  The dog gets free and runs off that way first, and Henry hears the sound of a vicious struggle.  Inside the lab, the equipment has been wrecked and papers strewn around, and the remains of several half-eaten woodland creatures can be found.  Henry finds the dog having just finished killing a "sub-human caricature of a man".  But it's wearing Ambrose's clothes.  Clearly Ambrose had succeeded in regressing more than his mind...

A perfectly average Derleth story, not especially Lovecraftian.  Its very similar to Leonard Cline's "The Dark Chamber", an obscure 1920's horror novel that Lovecraft was fond of (and I was not), and I suspect that was the true inspiration, and not anything in HPL's "Commonplace Book".

"Beneath the Moors"

by Brian Lumley

Originally published Arkham House, 1974

Prof. Ewart Masters is recovering from a near-fatal car accident, which has left him with a form of brain damage which causes him to black out and suffer memory losses.  Ordered to take it extra-easy while he recuperates, he decides to spend his time in quiet study of archaeology, particularly obscure lost civilizations.

Traveling to the north-east coast of England, where he moves in with a nephew, Masters pursues his hobby.

Of particular interest is a recently-unearthed figurine of a reptile-man, found in the Yorkshire moors, of unknown origin, and looking as if it were carved yesterday and not 12,000 years ago as is believed.  Masters becomes determined to learn more.

After having a blackout while doing some digging of his own on the moors, Masters learns that an identical figurine is in evidence at the local police station.  The police helpfully hand him the paperwork related to the unsolved case, which just happens to be a copy of Lumley's earlier-published tale, "The Sister City".

Prof. Masters follows the leads from the manuscript, and finds himself in the subterranean ruins of Ib, where Bokrug plays host.  Eventually he finds the spawning grounds of the Ib-ians.  And clumsily kills some of their young.  He is thrown into a pit full of bones, where he is stalked by a shoggoth.  A sudden underground explosions hurls him to the surface.  He is cared for by his nephew, but during the night the Ib-ians come, torch the house, and take him away.

This is one of Lumley's first novels, presumably composed around the same time as The Burrowers Beneath.  Unfortunately, it isn't anywhere near as good as Burrowers.

In some ways, its fatal flaw is the mirror opposite of Burrowers' downfall.  Where the former is brimming with ideas and potential - more than its short length can actually hold, Moors is a short story painfully padded to novel length.  And it isn't much of a story, anyway.  Although the idea of sequel-ing "The Doom That Came To Sarnath" is actually kind of clever, far too much of the book is taken up with Masters time spent exploring the underworld of Ib.  There's nothing here, imagination-wise, that a large number of pulp horror and sci-fi authors haven't done more imaginatively.  Only the grim ending gave me any kind of pleasant surprise.  All in all, a highly forgettable work.

"The Silver Key"

by H.P. Lovecraft

originally published Weird Tales, January 1929


Randolph Carter, age 30, has "lost the key to the gate of dreams." The groundedness of everyday life and the mundane world have worn him down, leaving him empty and depressed.  He explores many philosophies and spiritual paths, but nothing satisfies him.

He dreams one night of his grandfather, and his dream leads him to an antique key, inscribed with arabesque symbols, in the attic.  Taking the the key, he returns to his boyhood home in the backwoods of northeastern Massachusetts.  There he enters a cave that he played in as a boy.  In some unexplained way, he is returned to his 10 year-old self, in his past, and his adult self vanishes.  He also recalls that, at the age of 10, he had gained the ability to glimpse events in his future. 

The unnamed narrator tells us that he expects to meet Carter soon, in his own dreams, "in a certain dream-city we both used to haunt", where Carter is now the ruler.

"The Silver Key" is an odd, and I suspect, very personal story for ol' HPL.  It seems very much influenced by Arthur Machen's The Hill of Dreams, a moving but frankly self-indulgent novel about an author struggling to reconcile his rich inner life with a rotten outer one, known to be one of HPL's favorites.  It is one of the last of his "Dreamlands"-related pieces, and full of wistful sadness.  Lovecraft would have been nearly 40 when he wrote this, and perhaps he was pining for his youth.  I have always found the story somewhat unsatisfying - it seems there should be more, somehow.  But at 50 myself, I find it rather moving.

"Love Is Forbidden, We Croak and Howl"

by Caitlin R. Kiernan
originally published Sirenia Digest #78, 2010

A ghoul living near Innsmouth spies an Innsmouth girl named Elberith Gilman. It goes to her house at night.  She awakes and sees it at her window.  She lets it in and takes its hand.

Certainly weird, and effectively written.  But this is little more than a vignette.

"The Doom That Came To Sarnath"

Jason Thompson - mockman.com

by H.P. Lovecraft
originally published The Scot, June 1920

(from Wikipedia) According to the tale, more than 10,000 years ago, a race of shepherd people colonized the banks of the river Ai in a land called Mnar, forming the cities of Thraa, Ilarnek, and Kadatheron (not to be confused with Kadath), which rose to great intellectual and mercantile prowess. Craving more land, a group of these hardy people migrated to the shores of a lonely and vast lake at the heart of Mnar, founding the metropolis of Sarnath.

But the settlers were not alone. At the other side of the lake was the ancient, grey-stone city of Ib, inhabited by a queer race who had descended from the moon. Lovecraft described them as "in hue as green as the lake and the mists that rise above it.... They had bulging eyes, pouting, flabby lips, and curious ears, and were without voice."

These beings worshipped a strange god known as Bokrug, the Great Water Lizard, although it was more their physical form that caused the people of Sarnath to despise them.

The people of Sarnath killed all the creatures inhabiting Ib, destroyed the city and took their idol as a trophy, putting it in Sarnath's main temple. The next night, the idol vanished under peculiar circumstances, and Taran-Ish, the high-priest of Sarnath, was found dead. Before dying, he had scrawled a single sign on the empty altar: "DOOM".

Ten centuries later, Sarnath was at the zenith of its power and decadence. Nobles from distant cities were invited to the feast in honour of Ib's destruction. That night, however, the revelry was disrupted by strange lights over the lake and heavy greenish mists, and that the tidal marker, the granite pillar Akurion, was mostly submerged. Not too much later, many of the city's inhabitants fled, maddened by fear, as the king and the people in the feast had been transformed into the original creatures from Ib.

After this some of the survivors reported seeing the long-dead inhabitants of Ib peering from the windows of the city's towers, while others refused to say exactly what they had seen. Those that returned saw nothing of those unlucky enough to be left behind, only ruins, many water lizards, and most disturbingly, the missing idol. Ever since then, Bokrug remained the chief god in the land of Mnar.

Another early, Dunsany-ish tale.  This one clearly points to some ideas HPL will develop later.  It's not a great story, though - more a colorful sketch.

"The Dark Brotherhood"

by August Derleth

originally published The Dark Brotherhood and Other Pieces, Arkham House, 1966

Arthur Phillips is a bookish recluse who lives with his mom and aunts in Providence, RI.  He doesn't do much with his life and likes to take rambling walks through the city and surroundings, late at night.   He meets a girl named Rose Dexter who's as weird as he is, and the two take up late-night walks together.

One night they meet an odd man, dressed in a somewhat shabby, 19th century style, who wants to see "the cemetery where Poe once walked."  He seems to be interested in Poe, and in Providence, and calls himself Mr. Allan.  It is only after they've parted that Rose points out that Mr. Allan bears a striking resemblance to Mssr. Poe.

A couple nights later, as Arthur is on his way out for another stroll, he meets Mr. Allan again (Arthur has the feeling this is no accident).  Mr. Allan engages him in conversation about astronomy (Arthur writes an astronomy column for the local paper) and asks him if believes in life on other planets (Arthur does).  Mr. Allan asks if he and his brothers can come visit Arthur next Monday, whence they will offer proof of life on other planets.  Arthur, who apparently doesn't mind letting cranks into his house, agrees.  Mr. Allan takes his leave, but Arthur follows him home in secret.

He sees Mr. Allan enter the house, but no lights come on.  From his hiding place, a short time later, he sees Mr. Allan again come from the same direction as before, and enter the house.  How did Allan slip out of the house while he was watching? Puzzled, he leaves - only to encounter Mr. Allan out on the streets yet again! Even more oddly, Allan says nothing and take no notice of him.

Thing get weirder the next night.  It seems that she, too, encountered Mr. Allan on her night walk.  He walked her home, in fact. Arthur realizes that Rose must have been walking with her Mr. Allan at the same time as he was walking with his Mr. Allan.  Huh?

Well, some solution is offered next Monday, when seven identical Mr. Allans show up at Arthur's door, and gather in a circle with him, in order to "produce certain impressions of extra-terrestrial life."

What they end up showing him is a kind of hologram of the Great Race farting around with some glowing cubes.  This freaks Arthur out no end.  

The next day, Arthur heads over to the Allans' house.  Since no one answers the door, he lets himself in.  The house is empty and appears unoccupied, but he finds a cube or rectangular, transparent box, glowing with purple light, and another "hologram" of a Great Racer (Yithian?) floating over it.  Naturally, he flees.

Then, naturally, he goes to the library (where else?) to research ... I dunno ... "holograms of cone-shaped aliens floating over guys who look like Edgar Allan Poe"?  Anyway, said research is fruitless.  Arthur meets Mr. Allan (or one of the Mr. Allans, I suppose) in the street again, and said Mr. Allan confirm that he was shown life on a distant, dying planet.  Arthur immediately decides that his holographic vision was telepathically sent by the Seven Allans.  

Arthur calls Rose, asking if she has seen Mr. Allan (which Mr. Allan, one wonders).  She confirms that she has, and that she has been invited to the Allans' house to "watch an experiment".  Arthur tells her not to go, which offends the thorns out of Rose.  

Arthur makes his way to the house, where he finds the Allans in a trance, and Rose in the process of being duplicated in the glass case, ala "Invasion of the Body Snatchers".  He shoots the cases, shattering them, then hauls a hysterical Rose out, while the Allans' machinery explodes, causing the house to catch fire and burn to the ground.

Arthur is charged with arson by the police, though not murder, since the remains they find are not human.  He begins to wonder if the Rose he rescued was the real Rose, or the duplicate.  He goes to see her. 

A newspaper report tells us that Rose Dexter was attacked by Arthur Phillips near the cemetery.  She fought him off and killed him.

Okay - this is one of the most frustrating stories - no, make that the most frustrating, in the "posthumous collaboration" canon.  Partly because its probably the most nonsensical, but also because its the most unique, and because the first portion is actually pretty damned interesting.

I have a distinct memory of first coming across this tale, early in my Lovecraft-lust - say 8th-9th grade, in an anthology I found at the local library.  I read the first half, then, for whatever reason, did not finish it, despite finding that first half tantalizing.

It wasn't till a couple years later that I read the complete story.  I remembered finding the second half disappointing, but all these years later, didn't recall exactly why.  Guess I should have left well-enough alone.

Now, coming back to it 30+ years later, my reaction is largely the same.  I genuinely like the first half of this story, which is well-written, amusing, and genuinely odd.  Any story that has seven clones of Edgar Allan Poe chanting in a living room while conjuring up visions of the Great Race of Yith deserves some kind of award for sheer surrealism, if nothing else!

Unfortunately, the second half completely falls apart.  Not one thing Arthur, Rose, or the various Mr. Allans does makes even the slightest bit of sense.  Exactly what the intentions of the Mr. Allans have is entirely unclear, and I'm not sure Arthur really needs to be too worried about the evil plans of a bunch of aliens so frightfully stupid that they'd turn themselves into clones of Edgar Allan Poe and then waltz around Providence.  

The first half, and, I confess, the slight knife-twist of the ending give this story a certain resonance.  I suspect I'll always have a fondness for it.  But I must remember never to read the second half.

"De Marigny's Clock"

by Brian Lumley

originally published The Caller of the Black, Arkham House 1971

Ho hum - another boring night at Blowne House.  Titus Crow is awakened by some burglars, who figure he must have some valuable shit there.  Eventually they find the weird clock and demand that he open it.  Crow explains that he doesn't know how, and would in fact be elated if they could figure it out.  They do.  And some horrible beasties snatch them back into the clock, killing two birds with one stone, so to speak.

This is, I suspect, the first published reference to the magical Time Clock which will figure prominently in Lumley's later, painful Titus Crow sextet.  As a story this is nothing more than an amusing sketch, though I can't help but think of all the pain we'd have been spared if the burglars had just shot Crow.

"To See The Sea"

by Michael Marshall Smith
originally published Shadows Over Innsmouth, 1994

The unnamed narrator and his girl Susan take an unusual holiday. 

It seems Susan has a curious past.  10 years before she was born, her mother was aboard a ship that sank off the English coast.  An oddity - the lighthouse of the coastal village nearby was turned off, and none of the villagers sent for help until the following morning.  But no one died.  Her mother's stories have left Susan with a fear of the sea and coastal areas.  But, she decides they should visit the coastal village where the ship went down - Dawton.

Dawton is dreary and all-but deserted.  There seem to be only a few people there, and none are friendly.  Susan and the narrator have dinner, get drunk, and have some tea with the landlady of the guest house they're staying at.  Susan gets sick and they fall asleep.

When the narrator wakes up, he finds its late afternoon.  No Susan.  The house is deserted, and so are the streets.  He finds a procession of fishy people marching to the sea.  He shouts Susan's name.  He is clubbed over the head. 

When he comes to, he finds a pay phone and calls the cops.  They investigate.  Not much is found, but they do find a pair of shoes he left on the beach.  In the toe is a short goodbye note from Susan.  Police divers find the wreckage of the ship that went down.  There are skeletons inside.  They find the I.D. and some jewelry belonging to Susan's mother.

This ending is a bit ambiguous.  I'm assuming it means that the folks on the ship actually drowned, and were replaced by Deep One hybrids.  That Susan was drawn back to Dawton by her true nature.  This isn't clear though.  The story is well-written but Smith fails to generate the sense of claustrophobic paranoia that Ramsey Campbell or Robert Aickman would have.

"The Horror of the Many Faces"

by Tim Lebbon
originally published Shadows Over Baker Street, Del Rey, 2002

Dr. Watson is suprised one night to come across a man being surgically butchered in the street - by none other than Sherlock Holmes himself!  Despite being an accomplished detective, soldier, and man of action, Watson stands watching in disbelief as Holmes takes the victim's heart and bails.

 Watson reports the incident to Inspector Jones of the Yard, who informs him that there have been six other similar murders - all with organs taken, and many with witnesses, who each claim that they saw the murder committed by someone they knew and trusted.

Watson confronts an ill-looking Holmes at gunpoint.  Holmes speculates and seems to be playing mind games, and is visibly afraid of something he refers to as "they".

Holmes' doppleganger enters.  Holmes and his double struggle.  The double transforms into a man-shaped swarm of bees.  Watson shoots and finally kills it.

Holmes explains that he believes the murders are being committed by an entity, or entities, from "outside", which take the form of trusted friends by reading the minds of witnesses (Holmes himself saw a man murdered by Irene Adler).  He suspects they may be studying humans, possibly preparing the way for an invasion.

 Tim Lebbon is an author who has made a name for himself among hardcore horror aficianados.  Myself, I've found his stories grim, brutal, and puzzling, but not particularly satisfying.  This one is no exception.

The story admirably upends the usual Holmes pastiche cliches - in the other stories in the Shadows Over Baker Street collection, Holmes is either fully knowlegeable of the Mythos already, or quickly learns enough about it to triumph over it. Here, he is genuinely shattered to encounter something so utterly alien to his own ways of thinking.  Also intriguing is the story's lack of resolution in this department.  Holmes hasn't exactly saved the day, nor does he know if he's going to, or how.

Despite this, the story can't overcome its own absurdities.  It's honestly hard for me to believe that Watson would be frozen into inaction, even by the bizarre sight of Holmes murdering someone.  Why does the doppleganger transform into a swam of bees?  Is this an in-joke reference to Holmes own bee interests?  Did it pluck the shape of bees from Holmes mind as it did the other identities it assumed?  The thrust of the story is supposed to be that the beings and their actions are beyond our ken, but, especially for a writer of Lebbon's caliber, the lack of clarity here just seems like a cop-out.