This is an impressive collection of scholarly essays designed to uncover the true nature of Lovecraft’s Mythos. In which two hypothesises are tested and contrasted between Lovecraft’s mechanistic atheistic worldview and that of August Derleth’s neo-Catholicism impinged with elements of Paganism. As Lovecraft is the originator of his own fiction, it is natural that he wins. If that is the thread that runs through this collection of essays, it shatters the belief that Call of Cthulhu RPG should be played as a classic Good versus Evil D&D game. That said, there is also a few other essays that digress into other topics such as the impact of Robert Howard on Lovecraft and also placement of the different locales that Lovecraft wrote about on some sort of Real World grid but the diatribe against Derleth is deafening. Robert Price leads the charge against Derleth and rails against a perceived injustice toward Lovecraft’s legacy.

But, what does this mean for gamers? Well, if your worldview is shaped by a titanic battle between Order and Chaos & Good versus Evil then by implication you have not been playing Call of Cthulhu RPG correctly (or at least not following Lovecraft’s vision of the bleak and uncaring cosmos) is the direct implication. For Great Old Ones are not Evil, they simply do not care about humanity in the least. For if the entire planet Earth is but a speck on the back of a flea, humanity is but the microbe on the back of that speck. Our whole existence is not determined by warring Gods or Space aliens – the Universe simply does not care. It is this nihilism that makes the horror in Lovecraft’s prose and the hardest thing to convey to players that their actions may have held back the water in the dam but they will be washed away when the tsunami hits. In the meantime, they have their lives and if they are lucky their sanity intact to fight another day. But, that is the “joy” of playing Call of Cthulhu. So, if you are hunkering for understanding the Mythos – then this book is an invaluable guide that takes the Mythos apart repeatedly.

The writing is top notch but very, very scholarly befitting more literary criticism than a guide for gamers notwithstanding, as gamers tend to be a highly educated subset of the population – so they may find this level quite comfortable. The essays were lovingly chosen by noted Lovecraft scholar – S.T. Joshi from the range obscure Lovecraft studies journals mainly from the 1980s – kudos, to MRP for rescuing these essays and bringing them to a larger audience. I would have liked it more if there were greater representation from other scholars but I think it speaks to the small number of academics that actual engage Lovecraft’s work – despite several accolades that have promoted Lovecraft to one of the twentieth century modern masters not only in the field of the weird novel or horror fiction but of American literature as a whole.

Reading this volume in one go, as this reviewer had to do it, is not the way to fully enjoy these essays – rather savouring and reflecting in a timely way – much like a good wine is the way to do it otherwise the diatribe is a tad repetitive and repetitive. That said, as much it rails against Derleth – I wonder how much of an impact that this will have on Call of Cthulhu games and gamers themselves. Certainly, the motives of the Mythos ought to remain a mystery for most players – but the Us against Them mentality certainly must pervade otherwise, players are likely to lapse into depression at the utter futility of it all. What makes excellent fiction does not always make for an excellent game. Thus, the Call of Cthulhu RPG is laden with Derleth and other writers of Lovecraftiana that take the game into monumental skirmishes with the minions of the Great Old Ones and usually end with an encounter that is likely to leave them babbling incoherently for years to come. So savour this volume as vintage insanity in a nice bottle. Do not get turned off by academics who like to utilize the full extent of their vocabulary as way of fighting a pitched battle for Lovecraft’s legacy – the game is yours – while it is important to situate the Mythos correctly and humanity also a role to play.

For one of the things about Lovecraft – he foresaw the dawn of the transhuman age that our games also reflect and refract in different ways – as in the words of Old Castro (one of the characters in the tale that spun the game):

The time would be easy to know, for then mankind would have become as the Great Old Ones; free and wild and beyond good and evil, with laws and morals thrown aside and all men shouting and killing and revelling in joy. Then the liberated Old Ones would teach them new ways to shout and kill and revel and enjoy themselves, and all the earth would flame with a holocaust of ecstasy and freedom. Meanwhile the cult, by appropriate rites, must keep alive the memory of those ancient ways and shadow forth the prophecy of their return.

(Lovecraft, Call of the Cthulhu)

Thus the encroachment of the darkness is already upon us and the Stars are aligning. One can fight back, as Derleth would have liked to see happen or one can succumb to Cosmic Horror, as Lovecraft did. The game is yours.