Subscribe to Read | $0.00
Join today and start reading your favorite books for Free!
Quick and Easy Sign Up!
It takes less then 1 minute to sign up, then you can enjoy Unlimited eBooks.
Join today and start reading your favorite books for Free!
Quick and Easy Sign Up!
It takes less then 1 minute to sign up, then you can enjoy Unlimited eBooks.
Read Anywhere and on Any Device!
Rate this book!
Write a review?
Hardboiled Cthulhu is billed as an anthology of "Two-Fisted Tales of Tentacled Terror", and mostly it delivers. However, the quality is quite uneven, though in some cases pretty creative. For example, "Eldritch Fellas" by Tim Curran, a "Goodfellas" pastiche with the Great Old Ones as mobsters, while initially amusing, was far too long. It wasn't really clever enough to justify its genre-bending inclusion here.Likewise "Day of Iniquity" by Steven Shrewsbury is neither particularly hard-boiled nor...
Some good stories, but the anthology could have been tighter. Four of the stories didn't have a hardboiled (PIs, Gangsters, Molls) setting at all.
Reasonably fun read, with the added advantage of being able to skip to the next one if you're not enjoying a story.
So many good stories! Lots of different feels even with the overlying theme.Read, "enjoy", and worry abt what else is out there with us...
Hardboiled Cthulhu is the latest jewel in Elder Sign Press' splendored crown. I wish there was an editor's introduction explaining the history of this title, who thought of it, how the stories were selected and the publication history, because this book is fabulous. So many mythos collections have workman-like slogs through common mythos tropes that are really burdensome to read. I bought a very expensive copy of Weird Shadows Over Innsmouth and I am still working my way through it months later....
Free advice to the editor: place the good, non-amateur (fan fiction) stories FIRST. There is some awful crap in this anthology, but once you get beyond that there's some quite good stories as well. My favorites, as always, are the ones that play with the genre and the Mythos in equal proportions, like "Eldritch Fellas," Cthulhu and the other Old Ones in _Goodfellas_. What I also found interesting (and somewhat disappointing) were the several stories that didn't fit the "hardboiled" genre. I gues...
This anthology is a great idea, but badly executed. While some of the stories within manage to echo the feel of a good Raymond Chandler or Dashiell Hammett story and still maintain an original voice -- not an easy trick -- many just fell flat.The first line of the first story blatantly rips off a well known Chandler line. And it was written by the editor of the collection, no less. Had I noticed that in a book store, I would have put the damned book back on the shelf and spent my money on anothe...
This compendium of short fiction tales ties into H.P. Lovecraft's fictional realm Call of Cthulhu. Most of the tales are hard hitting P.I. or Gumshoe type tales that are action/mystery related to that specific genre. This is a rough edged diamond of short stories that is perfect blend of horror and action/mystery. This book will get you to turn on the light at night or read it during the daytime to keep yourself from getting the chills.
I really enjoyed this book both as a fan of noir and a fan of Lovecraft. I thought many of the stories were hilarious--especially EldritchFellas by Tim Curran--anyone who loves gangster flicks and Lovecraft--come on...this was a hoot! I enjoyed the fact that each story really had a slightly different take on the Lovecraft vibe---some were more heavy on that and others were more heavy on the noir but I felt all were excellent. I was amazed to find that White Mountains by Jonathan Sharp was his fi...
Oy! I had such high hopes for this one after looking at the writers' names in the contents. I realize that when you read an anthology of stories that you're going to get some that are awesome and some that are just, well, plain bad. This book is no exception. There are some gems, some stories that could have been a lot better and some that I just rolled my eyes up while reading, thinking "just move to the next one." Stories in this one (with a *by the ones I really liked) The Pisces Club, by Jam...
This anthology promises "hardboiled Cthulhu Mythos" tales, so that's the premise I am rating it on. Nothing serious, but pure fun.MARCH 27:"A Change of Life" by William Jones:An okay story, but nothing above average, in my opinion. The premise of seeing the events through the eyes of a Great Race who has possessed the body of a hitman is funny enough, but somehow it never really got beyond the "nice idea" level. Maybe it's because I have a more general problem with tales where such entities disp...
I like anthologies, in part because my attention span is that of a gnat. However, anthologies to me are always diminished because of my visceral dislike of some of the stories included. This book lived up to my expectations.This book stayed within the realm of noir and was generally solid. However, frequently it descended into cliched conventions. I understand that's the point of anthologies tied by a theme, but regardless. The stories blended into one another to the point of repetition. Protago...
