Product Description

Robert M. Price has been the editor of numerous Cthulhu Mythos and Lovecraftian anthologies. Mythos Books is pleased to publish the first collection of Robert Price's own Cthulhu Mythos, Lovecraftian and horror fiction. Contents: Introduction: Fumbler at the Latch / 'Twas the Night / Beneath the Tombstone / Saucers from Yaddith / Black Eons with Robert E. Howard / An Antique Coffin / Wilbur Whatley Waiting / Ashes to Ashes / Midnight Mass / The Deprogrammer / A Thousand Young / The Dweller in the Pot / Exham Priory / The Round Tower / The Strange Fate of Alonzo Typer / Behold, I Stand at the Door and Knock / The Beard of Byatis / Down in Limbo / The Transition of Zadok Allen / Under the Mound / Young Goodwife Doten / The Soul of the Devil-Bought / Dope War of the Black Tong / The Tree-House with W. H. Pugmire / Aquadingen / Annotations for the Book of Night / The Burrower Beneath / Feery's Original Notes / The Green Decay / The Incubus of Atlantis / The Shunpike / The Strange Doom of Enos Harker with Lin Carter/ The Transition of Abdul Alhazred / Wrath of the Wind-Walker with James Ambuehl / The Thing from the Trenches / From the Pits of Elder Blasphemy with Hugh B. Cave / The Ghoul's Tale / The Elephant God of Leng / The Horror in the Genizah / The Mark of Yig / Acute Spiritual Fear / The Devil's Steps / A Mate for the Mutilator / The Prying Investigations of Edwin M. Lillibridge

Product Details

• Amazon Sales Rank: #594799 in Books
• Published on: 2008-11-30
• Original language: English
• Number of items: 1
• Binding: Hardcover
• 514 pages

About the Author
Robert M. Price has been an avid fan of H.P. Lovecraft, his disciples, and their fiction since the tender age of thirteen, having discovered HPL and the Mythos in 1967 Lancer paperbacks. In 1979 he began writing articles on Lovecraft's fiction, eventuating in the founding of the immortal magazine Crypt of Cthulhu. Writing Mythos fiction, the inevitable next step, followed in due course, and his stories were published in Eldritch Tales, Nyctalops, Etchings & Odysseys, and many others. He began editing Lovecraftian anthologies for Fedogan & Bremer, Chaosium, Inc., Arkham House, and others in 1990. Blasphemies & Revelations is the first collection of his fiction.

Customer Reviews

The ultimate Lovecraft fan gets his own collection
It is only fitting that the ultimate Cthulhu mythos fan and anthologizer should finally have his best work compiled in a single author collection. Blasphemies & Revelations is a massive hardcover of the stories of Robert Price, the latest issue from Mythos Books. List price is $50, although Amazon discounts to $36.50; the price reflects the page count of 536. Cover art is by Daryl Hutchinson, a new name to me although he has a number of illustrations posted on EP Berglund's website. He also created the Lovecraft Tarot; nowadays only used copies ever circulate and then for extravagant prices, so I have never seen a copy. The subject is appropriate to the author and the content, a prophet holding an ancient tome evokes some tentacle thing. I liked it well enough. Production qualities were excellent except I noted one major type-setting error in my copy. The last few pages of The Strange Doom of Enos Harker were deleted, and the entire The Horror in the Genizah was printed over it on page 358. The Horror in the Genizah appears complete a second time where it is suppose to be from the table of contents, on page 433. As I have never read it before, I do not know how much of The Strange Doom of Enos Harker is missing.

All Cthulhu mythos fans should know who Robert Price is, and acknowledge the debt we owe him (well, all of us except ST Joshi!) for his literary scholarship of Lovecraft, and both HPL's antecedents and successors, as well as his tireless efforts to bring a comprehensive view of the mythos to the public through the numerous anthologies he's edited. The back inside flap has a very nice photograph of the author with a brief biography. What casual fans may not know is that Mr. Price is a New Testament scholar of great renown (check out his website at [...]. Mr. Price provides his own very engaging introduction. He makes no apologies for the derivative nature of his pastiches; he has never felt any desire to move past his favorite Lovecraftian motifs, leaving that to others. He writes mythos stories for his own enjoyment and his favorite character must be the bookish scholar who uncovers arcane knowledge that leads to a brush with incomprehensible terrors. I suspect that this is because that reflects Mr. Price's own nature; his introductions to the anthologies he has compiled over the year are practically doctoral dissertations! Actually in some ways I view this book as an opportunity missed. The author always has so much to say about the roots and implications of everyone else's mythos stories, why could he have not provided us with the same for himself? I read a lot of mythos but I am not the scholar he is; I don't immediately recognize the inspiration for every pastiche. Stories are printed in their publication order. Because it is not listed elsewhere that I can find, in preparation to writing a review I typed out the table of contents, which I post here for those who want it. I also added the book where I have seen them before, when I could identify it. I don't have a large collection of Crypt of Cthulhu or other periodicals so I likely missed some sources (actually doing this made me realize how big my mythos library has become and that maybe I could just start reading over from the beginning without buying any new books for a few years as I have no hope of remembering how most of the stories were...).

`Twas the Night - 1976
Beneath the Tombstone (The Book of Iod from Chaosium) - 1984
Saucers from Yaddith (The New Lovecraft Circle from Fedogan & Bremer) - 1984
Black Eons (with Robert E. Howard) (Nameless Cults from Chaosium) - 1985
An Antique Coffin - 1987
Wilbur Whateley Waiting (The Dunwich Cycle) - 1987
Ashes to Ashes - 1988
Midnight Mass - 1988
The Deprogrammer - 1989
A Thousand Young (Shub Niggurath Cycle from Chaosium) - 1989
The Dweller in the Pot - 1990
Exham Priory - 1990
The Round Tower - 1990
The Strange Fate of Alonzo Typer - 1991
Behold, I Stand at the Door and Knock (Cthulhu's Heirs from Chaosium) 1994
The Beard of Byatis (Made in Goatswood from Chaosium) - 1995
Down in Limbo - 1995
The Transition of Zadock Allen - 1995
Under the Mound - 1995
Young Goodwife Doten - 1995
The Soul of the Devil-Bought - 1996
Dope War of the Black Tong (Disciples of Cthulhu from Chaosium) - 1996
The Treehouse (with WH Pugmire) - 1996
Aquadingen - 1997
Annotations for the Book of Night - 1997
The Burrowers Beneath - 1997
Feery's Original Notes - 1997
The Green Decay - 1997
The Incubus of Atlantis - 1997
The Shunpike - 1997
The Strange Doom of Enos Harker (with Lin Carter) -
The Transition of Abdul Alhazred - 1997
Wrath of the Wind-Walker (with James Ambuehl) - 1998
The Thing from the Trenches - 2000
From the Pits of Elder Blasphemy (with Hugh B. Cave) - 2000
The Ghoul's Tale (Song of Cthulhu from Chaosium) - 2001
The Elephant God of Leng- 2002
The Horror in the Genizah (Cthulhu's Creatures from Rainfall Books) - 1997 p 358 and p433
The Mark of Yig - 2002
Acute Spiritual Fear (Tales Out of Dunwich from Hippocampus Press and Disciples of Cthulhu II from Chaosium) - 2003
The Devil's Steps - 2003
A Mate for the Mutilator (Eldritch Blue from Lindisfarne Press) - 2004
The Prying Investigations of Edwin M. Lillibridge - 2004

This is really too large a book for me to give a synopsis of every story. One thing about Mr. Price's fiction is that the viewpoint is almost always a first person after the fact narration by a bibliophilic student or professor. You don't get stunning action sequences, any character development or even dialogue to speak of; there are no new mythos entities or tomes. In his best work, there is some further exploration of a Lovecraft (or other writer) story or event, with a clever twist on the plot. His style has not evolved over the years but his prose has become more polished. Here are some of my favorites: Wilbur Whately Waiting is about whatever happened to Wilbur after he was mauled by the dogs at good ole Miskatonic University. A Thousand Young is a pretty good Shub Niggurath yarn. Behold, I Stand at the Door and Knock is my very favorite Price tale, and concerns recruiting tactics for Glaaki. In The Horror in the Genizah Mr. Price shows his full talents as a master of comparative religion. Acute Spiritual Fear is another exploration of The Dunwich Horror, where Wilbur is viewed as the second coming! I didn't like everything. Sometimes I found the prose boring or disjointed, like A Mate for the Mutilator, or The Round Tower, where I never liked the Derleth original anyway. Mythos humor mostly falls really flat, so The Dweller in the Pot did nothing for me. `Twas the Night is non mythos juvenilia. One story, at least, surely requires some accounting. Dope War of the Black Tong is a pulp fiction homage to Lin Carter's character, Anton Zarnak and is written in the style of that bygone era. The problem is I found some of the pulp parts had a racist feel. I think the author was going for the atmosphere but I don't know. I also know this is not a complete omnibus of Price's stories, and he hopefully will keep writing for many years to come, so perhaps another collection will be on the horizon someday.

I am really glad to have Blasphemies & Revelations on my bookshelf. Unless you have a much bigger collection than I do, you won't have most of these stories. Mr. Price's best prose is highly readable and entertaining. Even the clunkers are grounded firmly in the Cthulhu mythos milieu. Lovecraft geeks (as the author describes himself) will have enormous fun trying to identify the antecedent story for Price's corresponding pastiche. I know I thoroughly enjoyed this book. It is a beautiful hardcover with a very generous selection of stories and will look quite handsome on your shelf.

Addendum: Dave WYnn of Mythos Books reports he has fixed the typesetting error. If you received one of the defective copies, you can contact Mr. Wynn directly and he has said that he will replace it for you.

An enjoyable source of the forgotten an forbidden lore
Having followed the authors literary career for a while, it was a pleasure to get and read this anthology of his fiction.