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The Hastur Cycle: 13 Tales That Created and Define Dread Hastur, of the King in Yellow, Nighted Yuggoth, and Dire Carcosa

The Hastur Cycle: 13 Tales That Created and Define Dread Hastur, of the King in Yellow, Nighted Yuggoth, and Dire Carcosa

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Rating: 4 stars
Summary: Fun with the Cthulhoids
Review: Chaosium starts an attempt to make the works of HP Lovecraft and his followers accessible to fans who haven't subscribed to the esoteric fanzines. The series ranges between general anthologies of mythos stories, works by a single author and studies of certain aspects of the mythos. This book is of the 3rd variety and gives us the history of Hastur. We get works by Lovecraft, Derleth, Chambers and others while tracing the concept of Hastur in the stories. This is an excellent way to get introduced to the classic horror of Chambers King in Yellow. These eerie works are best in short doses as given here. Couple that with a Lovecraft classic and a story by Will Murray (the hardest working man in pulp these days) and you've got yourself a feast of great horror stories. This book is also a good intro to horror fans who haven't discovered Lovecraft yet. Yes, it's like a private eye fan who doesn't know Hammett, but they both exist.

Rating: 4 stars
Summary: Fun with the Cthulhoids
Review: Chaosium starts an attempt to make the works of HP Lovecraft and his followers accessible to fans who haven't subscribed to the esoteric fanzines. The series ranges between general anthologies of mythos stories, works by a single author and studies of certain aspects of the mythos. This book is of the 3rd variety and gives us the history of Hastur. We get works by Lovecraft, Derleth, Chambers and others while tracing the concept of Hastur in the stories. This is an excellent way to get introduced to the classic horror of Chambers King in Yellow. These eerie works are best in short doses as given here. Couple that with a Lovecraft classic and a story by Will Murray (the hardest working man in pulp these days) and you've got yourself a feast of great horror stories. This book is also a good intro to horror fans who haven't discovered Lovecraft yet. Yes, it's like a private eye fan who doesn't know Hammett, but they both exist.

Rating: 3 stars
Summary: good read
Review: lovecraft's story here is my personal favorite. derleth's is a good one. in addition chambers have his Yellow king here, his masterpiece. Bierce is here, though i'm not a fan of him, his stories have an interesting concept. brennan's story is not that great, but i was amused. wagner's story contains a very well written opening, but the concept turns out to be poor. between 3 and 4 stars, i'd say. i have to agree that the last part of the anthology, with this mysterious race or whatever, shouldn't been here. hastur turned out to be an entertaining concept.

Rating: 3 stars
Summary: good read
Review: lovecraft's story here is my personal favorite. derleth's is a good one. in addition chambers have his Yellow king here, his masterpiece. Bierce is here, though i'm not a fan of him, his stories have an interesting concept. brennan's story is not that great, but i was amused. wagner's story contains a very well written opening, but the concept turns out to be poor. between 3 and 4 stars, i'd say. i have to agree that the last part of the anthology, with this mysterious race or whatever, shouldn't been here. hastur turned out to be an entertaining concept.

Rating: 5 stars
Summary: My first Cthulhu Mythos Fiction book, but not my last...
Review: THE HASTUR CYCLE was a very entertaining book of frightening short stories. Some of the stories didn't make sense to me(this may be because I'm just a teenager), but most of them were good. I enjoyed this book immensely, especially Lovecraft's short story "THE WHISPERER IN DARKNESS." The book was pretty good.

Rating: 4 stars
Summary: Excellent contribution to the Cthulhu Mythos
Review: This is Chaosium's first volume of Cthulhu Mythos fiction. The Cthulhu Mythos was created by H.P. Lovecraft in a series of short stories published in the 1920's and 30's. In this mythology, the earth was previously inhabited by alien, "godlike" entities who will return "when the stars are right". This volume tracks the history of writing about one of those entities, Hastur. The book covers early sources of Lovecraft's including Bierce, Robert Chambers, and Arthur Machen, Lovecraft's work, and newer stories. I found the quality of these stories to be outstanding, through and through. My only (minor) gripe is that book isn't really a book all about Hastur. The first half does concentrate on Hastur. The second half focusses on a alien race called the Mi-Go. The connection between halves is weak. However, the stories are still excellent.

Rating: 2 stars
Summary: Not very inspiring
Review: This was the first of Chaosium's collections of out-of-print Mythos tales, and can hardly be expected to be as refined as later editions. The most useful aspects of the Hastur Cycle are the exploration of the evolution of the concept of Hastur and the major stories about the Mi-go. Of course, I agree with everyone here that the two concepts should not have been joined.

The two Chambers tales, "The yellow Sign" and "the Repairer of Reputations" are both excellent, as well as "the Return of Hastur". Some of the Mi-go tales are pretty good, but clearly the best is "The Whisperer in the Darkness", which can be found elsewhere. Otherwise, it all seemed pretty derivative. I would look for the stories separately.

Rating: 2 stars
Summary: Not very inspiring
Review: This was the first of Chaosium's collections of out-of-print Mythos tales, and can hardly be expected to be as refined as later editions. The most useful aspects of the Hastur Cycle are the exploration of the evolution of the concept of Hastur and the major stories about the Mi-go. Of course, I agree with everyone here that the two concepts should not have been joined.

The two Chambers tales, "The yellow Sign" and "the Repairer of Reputations" are both excellent, as well as "the Return of Hastur". Some of the Mi-go tales are pretty good, but clearly the best is "The Whisperer in the Darkness", which can be found elsewhere. Otherwise, it all seemed pretty derivative. I would look for the stories separately.


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