The Book of Cthulhu Edited by Ross E Lockhart

Mammoth anthologies that collect the most outstanding tales from Lovecraftian fiction over the past several decades are becoming rather. Fortunately, The Book of Cthulhu is changing this trend. This four hundred page trade paperback is due to be published by Night Shade Books in the fall of 2011.

The anthology collects many of the best samples by authors who can do Lovecraft justice, without being boring or pastiche. Editor Ross E. Lockhart has pieced together works by the illuminati of modern Lovecraftiana: Ramsey Campbell, T.E.D. Kline, Thomas Ligotti, Laird Barron, and many more familiar names. Volumes like The Book of Cthulhu are useful not just as enjoyable reading, but as literary snapshots of what weird fiction readers and authorities consider modern triumphs in the Cthulhu Mythos. If you found yourself stranded on a desolate island with just a small library of books by the contributors to this anthology, you might be able to keep your sanity.

The impressive lineup for the anthology is as follows:

Caitlin R. Kiernan - Andromeda among the Stones
Ramsey Campbell - The Tugging
Charles Stross - A Colder War
Bruce Sterling - The Unthinkable
Silvia Moreno-Garcia - Flash Frame
W. H. Pugmire - Some Buried Memory
Molly Tanzer - The Infernal History of the Ivybridge Twins
Michael Shea - Fat Face
Elizabeth Bear - Shoggoths in Bloom
T. E. D. Klein - Black Man With A Horn
David Drake - Than Curse the Darkness
Charles R. Saunders - Jeroboam Henley's Debt
Thomas Ligotti - Nethescurial
Kage Baker - Calamari Curls
Edward Morris - Jihad over Innsmouth
Cherie Priest - Bad Sushi
John Hornor Jacobs - The Dream of the Fisherman's Wife
Brian McNaughton - The Doom that Came to Innsmouth
Ann K. Schwader - Lost Stars
Steve Duffy - The Oram County Whoosit
Joe R. Lansdale - The Crawling Sky
Brian Lumley - The Fairground Horror
Tim Pratt - Cinderlands
Gene Wolfe - Lord of the Land
Joseph S. Pulver, Sr. - To Live and Die in Arkham
John Langan - The Shallows
Laird Barron - The Men from Porlock

-Grim Blogger