For the Innsmouth Free Press blog, Allen Griffin declares that Lovecraft’s Monsters is sheer enjoyment.

With Ellen Datlow at the helm, there was never really any doubt about the quality of the selections on hand and while this is a reprint anthology, the stories selected are not the same titles usually present in other Mythos titles. Some of the best Cosmic Horror authors are on hand, including Laird Barron, Nick Mamatas and John Langan, to name a few. The stories themselves are culled from a variety of sources such as “Black as the Pit, from Pole to Pole” by Howard Waldrop and Steven Utley, which was originally published in 1977 in New Dimensions 7, or Thomas Ligotti’s “Sect of the Idiot” published in 1988 in Robert M. Price’s Crypt of Cthulhu.

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Lovecraft’s Monsters is certainly a worthy addition to any horror library. The tome can be read for sheer enjoyment and the quality of the writing certainly holds up, or one can use the stories as a vehicle to contemplate the role these Mythos creations play in each piece. When one sees the metaphorical weight assigned to each creature, one can begin to see Lovecraft’s horrors in their own lives, be it in the form of cosmic insignificance or humanity’s extinction. And these musings, in the form of our own perverse fascination, are what keep us coming back for more.

Read the rest of Griffin’s review at the Innsmouth Free Press blog.

For more information on Lovecraft’s Monsters, visit the Tachyon site.

Cover and illustration by John Coulthart.