Product Description
The Fall 1989 issue of Weird Tales showcases Featured Author Karl Edward Wagner (who contributes a major Kane novella and an interview) and Featured Artist J.K. Potter (who contributes all the artwork). Also includes work by Jonathan Carroll, Nina Kiriki Hoffman, Brian Lumley, and more. ... Read more

Customer Reviews (1)

Super Reader
Unfortunately, this book didn't really hold my interest. It was ok, but something seemed a bit on the dull side, and this stops me from recommending it, really. I may try it again some time in the future and see if the wizards and ancient Cthulhoids is more fun then.

Or, try one of the others, but a bit disappointing. ... Read more

Customer Reviews (1)

Super Reader
This is a grand, sweeping work, it perhaps suffers from being disjointed. However, that is deliberate, as a lot of the narrative is told under the artifice of 'recovered audio cassettes and papers' from what remained of Miskatonic University after The Fury unleashed by Cthulhu levelled it.

Henri de Marigny returns from travelling via the four dimension clock with Crow, but Crow does not appear with him, and when he wakes up in hospital, it is ten years later.

Eventually, with the aid of Mother Quarry, he realises Crow's plight, and aids him in his return.

Crow and the audio fragments and papers recount to Marigny, while in hospital and talking to him, what went on.

Titus has returned looking 25 years younger, and is a post human now. A robot intelligence rebuilt his body in android form, he has a mastery of time and space travel and mental powers beyond the minor telepathies he employed before.

He has travelled through all earth's times, to alien galaxies, and alien places, and taken a fated alien lover, and met one of the 'good' Elder Gods. Not to mention cavorting with lisping dragons with Hawkman anti-gravity harnesses. The Hounds of Tindalos have been pursuing him, as have elements of Cthulhu and Hastur, but his now developed abilities enable him to avoid being killed, or pulled into black holes, even.

All this in fragments, through a short book. A transitional information phase almost, and what is unfolded here may be too rapid and overloaded for some people to want to keep up with.

Crow takes off again, leaving de Marigny behind, with the devices and guidance to undertake a journey similar to that Crow has undergone.

The form of the novel is a hybrid type version of The Time Machine and The Dream Quest of Unknown Kadath, with a dash of Burroughs or Moorcock. ... Read more

Product Description
Once David Hero was an ordinary man living in the real world. Now he is trapped in the Dreamlands, cut off from the waking world. David Hero's dreams and nightmares have become his only reality.

Led by wickedly beautiful Queen Zura, the zombie armies of the dead are on the march. They will destroy the beautiful Dreamlands, making them a permanent, deadly nightmare.

Unaware of the marauding zombies, David Hero and his friend Eldin voyage through the clouds in a wondrous skyship. Their journey is interrupted by a pack of faceless nightgaunts, terrifying creatures, half-man and half-bat--and all evil!

David Hero is one of Zura's first targets. Asa man of the waking world, he can withstand her terrible seductive power and shatter her shambling armies. David Hero must be the first Dreamlands hero to die.
... Read more

Customer Reviews (2)

Swash-buckling adventure in Lovecraft's Dreamlands
Continuing with the characters and swords-and-sorcery style of the first Dreamlands book, this book moves the action into the seas and skies.Plenty of swashbuckling adventure aboard ships, with cannons roaring, fierce battles by boarding parties, and prisoners forced to walk the plank.However, since these ships spend most of their time flying through the air, this isn't your normal naval adventure!If you like a rip-snorting adventure tale, there's plenty of action here, which I think you'll enjoy whether or not you're interested in the Lovecraftian setting.

The hard-core Lovecraft fan might react a bit differently. Although the story is set in H.P. Lovecraft's Dreamlands, Lumley puts his own twist on things.In the original dreamlands stories, magic and mystery surrounded most of the amazing aspects of the setting.Lumley puts a more pragmatic, scientific explanation behind things.For example, he provides a scientific, practical explanation for how the floating city of Serranian stays airborne, and how the sky ships fly.Another twist on the original HPL stories is the role of the Nightgaunts.In Lovecraft's stories, they are loathesome, inscrutable, and usually operating on behalf of greater powers.Lumley has a human character who can control a grim of Nightgaunts to do his bidding, whether his goal be evil or good.

Lovecraft fans who like pulp adventure and are not bothered by Lumley's shift of style, emphasis and detail from the original will have a great time sailing the skies of the Dreamlands and wandering the streets of Serranian.Purists will take offense.

#2 in the Dreamlands of H.P. Lovecraft series.
The proper background for this book would be to read THE DREAM CYCLE OF HP LOVECRAFT, then the first book of this series, HERO OF DREAMS, but if you insist, you can get by without it.

Take timeless Celephais, and the sky-city of Serannian, for instance - created by the dreams of a young English boy at the seaside, a beautiful place where nothing ages, changes, or passes away. The boy, upon his death as a grown man, re-entered Celephais to rule it as King Kuranes. (All this is recounted in Lovecraft's "Celephais".)

Celephais, ideal city of dreams - no crime, no wars, no problems, no slums - just timeless perfection, marble temples, and a gentle king.

Yeah, right. :)

Enter David Hero and Eldin the Wanderer, once of the waking world but cast in a different mold - two professional questers. Knights-errant, mirrors of chivalry? Not even in your dreams (although you'll note that no language worse than "Damn me!" is ever needed). Having lost the love of his life when she woke up at the end of HERO OF DREAMS, Eldin has been working on staying drunk, and Hero has stayed with him. Not being blessed with much business sense, they've been staying in the same low dives they've always frequented, even though they have (or rather, had) money.

So we begin SHIP OF DREAMS with "Down and Out in Celephais", as the two of them are hauled before a judge for drunkenness, non-payment of debts, vagrancy, assault, seduction, and arson, not necessarily in that order. (Eldin has a touch of pyromania, which comes out when he gets annoyed.) Yes, they're guilty of everything - except that Hero protests the seduction charge, since *she* seduced *him* ("Why, man, I'll carry scars down my back for the rest of my dream-life. That girl has nails as long as --")

Ahem. This puts them right behind the 8-ball, where Kuranes wants them - they have the choice of either accepting his commission, to act as his questers, or to rot for 5 years in jail.

Introducing:

- Curator, the mysterious, silent robot guardian of the Museum, who only comes out when visitors start thinking of stealing the treasures therein. After their first meeting: "If he ever lays eyes on me again, he'll kill me. And I'm sorry but...I think the same goes for you two." "What did *we* do to annoy him?" "You were with me, " the Wanderer answered. "That's enough."

- Zura, the Princess of Zura - a beautiful, living woman, ruling over Zura the land, which carries the stench of death, and to which no living person willingly goes.

- Gytherik, master of night-gaunts - and nephew of Thinistor Udd, the ambitious sorcerer that Eldin, Hero and Aminza faced in the previous book.

- Ula and Una, the lovely twins who are *really* interested in learning about the world...

A lonely princess who wants nothing more than to seduce Hero. A sorcerer's apprentice, grimly seeking vengeance for his fallen master. Two lovely, lusty twins, highborn girls out for a bit of excitement.

And if you take any of this at face value, there's a bridge in Inquanok that we'd love to sell you. :)

Lumley is **NOT** trying to mimic the Dunsany-like style in which "Celephais" was written, nor is he making any extraordinary effort to, e.g., scare the reader into swearing off subways forever (see "Pickman's Model"). If you want Dunsany, check some of my other reviews for links to his books; if you want horror, seek out some non-Dreamlands Lovecraft.

All you need is to appreciate this book for what it is - fantasy with a bit of humor. The *settings* are the same as Lovecraft's - I don't think anybody's going to catch Lumley out in a discrepancy with Lovecraft's framework, mythology, or characters, e.g. Kuranes, Randolph Carter. The tone is generally lighter than Lovecraft. ... Read more

Product Description
This chilling cycle book includes thirteen tales related to Ithaqua, the Wind-Walker, collected together for the first time. Ithaqua was created by August Derleth and is based upon the terrible winter spirits, or Wendigo, of Native North American mythology. Includes stories by August Derleth, Brian Lumley, Algernon Blackwood, Joseph Payne Brennan, and others. A perfect book for those cold winter nights.

This book is part of an expanding collection of Cthulhu Mythos horror fiction and related topics. Call of Cthulhu fiction focuses on single entities, concepts, or authors significant toreaders and fans of H.P. Lovecraft. ... Read more

Customer Reviews (2)

Also known as the Derleth Cycle
If you are reading this right now, you owe August Derleth a debt of gratitude.That is, if you enjoy Lovecraftian fiction, it is probably due to Derleth's efforts to keep it in print and widely read.This is certainly an inestimable service and one for which I appreciate him greatly.

His writing is another matter entirely.

This collection starts off with one of the best weird stories ever, "The Wendigo" by Algernon Blackwood.A deadly creature in the Canadian hinterland issues a siren call, summoning those who hear it to run alongside it in the air, and in the process, stealing the hearer's humanity.This concept is brought to life by atmospheric detail and ruminations on the cowering of men's souls when confronted with the vastness of the unknowable North.This is a masterpiece, recognized even by HP Lovecraft himself.

The next three stories are Derleth's work.Perhaps something about the Wendigo legend caught his fancy - perhaps he just saw an opening to be exploited.In any case, he created a mythos deity "Ithaqua" to be part of the Lovecraft pantheon that would fulfill the duties of the wendigo spirit.His first two stories in this book are the same, "The Thing that Walked on the Wind" and "The Snow Thing".They deal with "cultus interruptus", intruding on a deity's private worship and incurring that wrath.But of course, the trespasser has enough time to write a testimony before being gathered into the great beyond.These are certainly not his worst work; "Beyond the Threshold" would give that title a run for its money.Derleth descends to a new low in pulpishness while shilling for his own publishing press - THE OUTSIDER AND OTHERS is mentioned along with fan-favorite mythos tome THE NECRNOMICON as a source of forbidden knowledge.Why?Because Derleth was trying to sell his own press's copies!Well, a guy's gotta make a buck... In both this and "Dweller in the Darkness", Derleth shills his own books within the story and alternates between mythos baddies Ithaqua and Nyarlathotep as the actual source of the evil occurrences.As editor Robert Proce points out, many of Derleth's stories seem to be put together post haste as if he couldn't decide which Lovecraftian qualities to throw into the story.The collection would have been better selecting only the first Ithaqua story and just making an apology for Derleth and moving on.

That being said, the rest of the book, which builds on the foundation Derleth erected, is pretty good.Lumley has an entry "Born of the Winds", which is a rewrite of Derleth's original Ithaqua atory but with real character this time.Although the outcome was inevitable, I found the story engaging."Spawn of the North" is a wendigo story involving a mountain man and a Texan in the Yukon, executing frontier justice against a corrupt mining company and trying to escape the bounty on their heads.In "Jendick's Swamp", Ithaqua is an Indian wind god without the arctic connotations, allowing the story to be set further south.This one was entertaining if for no other reason than variety.There are a few other stories with the same idea (Ithaqua as wind god), one involving an occult society and one with WWI fighter pilots.

Excepting only Derleth, the tales in this collection are quite good, with a variety of characters, locations, and motivations (and I'll even grant that Derleth's first was seminal).Robert Price's notations were also valuable in helping to understand how Derleth wrote, which was interesting in itself.My only complaint about the volume as a whole is that Price often interjects comments about Biblical higher criticism as he does his editor's notes.Why?The connection seems torturous at best.I don't expect to hear an evaluation of the Cthulhu Mythos in a sermon and I really don't expect to read a discussion on higher criticism when reading about the Cthulhu Mythos.Sometimes these collections are better if you don't read the editor's notes first.Well, caveat emptor!

i have seen the wind, and it's cold enough for me
this book opens with blackwood's great story: the wendigo. B is the master of the setting, noone can create the background and atmosphere like him. a very well written story from Brennan here. and Meloff's story is also an interesting read. derleth is at his best here. i don''t care that much for the guy, have never considered him to be HPL's great successor or anything, but he knows how to write, and i have always considered his story about Ithaqua to be his best contribution. the rest of the stories are well written. i don't think any of chaosium's anthologies contains of so much good writing than this. but good is not great. and the rest of the stories never turns out to be really good. the suspence killed by irrelevant writing going on for too long, mostly. sad. but the book is still wort reading ... Read more

Product Description

Customer Reviews (7)

An excellent companion to the first book
If you're a fan of the original book, "House of Doors" then you're guaranteed to enjoy this one. Although the plot is pretty close to being an out and out rehash, enough new content has been added and some of the more interesting concepts from the first book have been expanded upon to keep things moving along fast.

If you try to read this book without first acquiring its predecessor, prepare for a frustrating experience - there is no way you could get anything out of this book without the background provided by "House of Doors".

The characters are still a little thin, but they're likable and that's all that matters for a book of this kind. I certainly experienced a warm fuzzy feeling revisiting the characters from the first book. The imagery is brilliantly vivid and the action comes fast and thick. The ending could have been beefed up slightly to make this book a classic.

An unnecessary sequel to a so-so original
I'm a big fan of Mr. Lumley's Necroscope series, so I eagerly purchased The House Of Doors, and it's follow-up Maze Of Worlds. I found The House of Doors to be a moderately entertaining book; the literary equivalant of a summer popcorn movie: a group of disparate people, trapped in an alien testing ground, must prove The Earth and her denizens worthy of continued survival by facing (and beating) their worst fears. Not Lumley's best work, but entertaining nonetheless. Maze of Worlds, however, offers nothing more than a virtually blow-for-blow remake of the original. Aside from the fact that the bad guy (Bad Jellyfish?) escaped in first book, what need was there for this sequel? The ending is incredibly rushed, too....it's as if Lumley was given a page limit, and had to wrap things up fast. On the plus side, some of the stuff in this book is truly original, such as the world that is a giant Brain Tumor. Fans of Brian Lumley will undoubtedly find something to like in this book, as I did. The uninitiated, however, will probably want to steer clear. The book also contains a preview of Necroscope: Invaders, which is vastly superior.

Maze of Worlds is science fiction horror!
This is a story that takes you to the outer rim of hard science fictioninto the might-bes of untapped human potential & lets us momentarilydwell on the hidden terrors that exist in our imagination. Science fictionwith a shiver, well done! Do check out my full review at [my website]

Rehashed
I'm surprised by the comments of people that didn't read the first that things made no sense.I read the 1st book when it was first published and LOVED it then again right before I read this one (and still LOVED it).Butthen when I was reading this book I feel a lot of the parts were exactrepeats of the first!In some places I could almost point to places wherecut and paste must have occurred between the two books!

While I did enjoythe ending, this book was bogged down with so many repeats of the 1st thatI feel I should have read one or the other and been satisfied.

Blah as a book, Superb as a sequel
I have always loved Lumley's work, but a common foible in all of those which are later books in a series is that they they falter and are alaborious read if you missed the first installment.I read this bookhalfway before putting it down in despair because I hadn't read "Houseof Doors." After reading it, though, I came back to Maze of Worlds andthoroughly enjoyed it. The plot is awesome and Lumley's incredibleimagery isn't lacking in the slightest.I give it 4 stars because theNecroscope saga is so much more, and there's only one more step up for thatseries to be placed.A must read, but only after reading "House ofDoors." ... Read more