Weird Shadows Over Innsmouth

December 19, 2005
Not just H.P. Lovecraft fans will revel in this fine follow-up to Jones's Shadows Over Innsmouth
(1994), a World Fantasy Award finalist. As in its predecessor, the stories in this anthology draw inspiration from Lovecraft's classic novelette of alien miscegenation, "The Shadow Over Innsmouth," but avoid Cthulhu Mythos clichés. The two best tales are Kim Newman's metafictional "Another Fish Story," which involves a quest for a subterranean sea in the Mohave Desert by Charles Manson and Lon Chaney Jr., and Paul McAuley's affecting "Take Me to the River," which explains why people would seek the gods known as the Old Ones. Other contributors include Richard A. Lupoff, Basil Copper, Caitlín R. Kiernan and Ramsey Campbell.