Catch Hold Of The Taint And Other Novellas Written And Illustrated By Brian Lumley Distributed As Print

of the Winds really is a lovely story and more than makes up for the otherwise mediocre stories in this book, I know that this is a Mythos book but a little less using of the same old tomes in the stories would be more interesting, I like his work though but does he have to talk about him being in the service so muchIt gets a little repetitive in the intros,
I would give this book a solid/though, If you can't get enough Mythos stuff this is right up your ally, I was given this free review copy audiobook at my request and have voluntarily left this review,

I have to admit, I struggled with this one, I had to take breaks, listen to something else and then come back to this one,

While the stories are not bad stories, I found them a bit repetitive and somewhat drawn out,

A couple of the stories however were very good, and held my attention very well, the titled story "The Taint" being one of those, It was really just hit and miss for me with this one,

Narration was well done, Awesome collection of short stories and novellas, I have been Burning through brian lumley's collections lately and loving them, This was also expertly narrated, LOVED this collection! DISCLAIMER
I have NOT gasp read Lovecraft or any other works in the Cthulhu Mythos with the exception of Robert E Howard's Conan stories, which I consider to be only tenuously connected.
Therefore, my review will be based on this book alone on its own merits with no biases or comparisons to other Mythos works,

That said, while novella is a very broad term that can be quite a range of lengths, here we have a nice collection of what I would call mostly short stories.
There are a number of twist endings and reversals that were a pleasure to read,

About the audiobook narrator:
Joshua Saxon has a pleasant, eminently listenable voice and an impressive ability to draw multiple voices and accents, My one complaint is something quite common, particularly with deepervoiced male narrators his female voices are basically just softer toned versions of male voices, However, he has great control of vocal inflections and his tempo shifts throughout the text are spot on,

Now, the stories,
First, I would like to thank the author for the explanation in the opening about what constitutes the Cthulhu Mythos, as heretofore my only exposure to it has been via very brief experience with the tabletop RGP, Call of Cthulhu.


Now, here we have quite an array of stories that cover several different themes and approaches to the mythos, The one overarching idea that comes across is almost all of them is that generally speaking, humans in a Cthulhu story are doomed,

Now, some readers may consider that a point against these stories, as happy endings are a rare thing, But personally, I feel that as a culture we've lost touch with the reality that typically when people encounter monsters, we rarely come out on top, Even most modern horror has lost touch with that,

So, for me, the fact that the protagonist rarely wins is not only a point in favor, but several points in favor, This is what horror is, This is what horror should be, Horror is meant to be, well, horrifying, And while some of these stories lean more toward the grotesque rather than truly horrifying, they still do their work quite well,

I was particularly fond of "The Taint," "Lord of the Worms," and "Born of the Winds, " Each for different reasons.

In short, whether you enjoy realistic while still supernatural horror or if you are specifically a fan of Lovecraft or Cthulhu Mythos, I highly recommend giving this a read.


DISCLAIMER
I received a free copy of this audiobook from the publisher and am voluntarily leaving my honest and unbiased review, This collection was a bit underwhelming I really enjoyed Lumleys “No Sharks in the Med and Other Stories” so I was looking forward to reading more of his work.
Unfortunately these stories werent as well written, I think the fact that they were firmly set in Lovecrafts mythos constrained creativity and restricted Lumleys skills, Thats not to say they were bad, they were still enjoyable Lovecraftian stories, its just not Lumleys best work, Or , for an alternative title, "Lumley does Lovecraft" amp does it very well, !

I've reviewed HP on here , amp said that , although his ideas are good , he went on a bit, . well , these novellas are some of Brian Lumley's work in the mythos amp he has picked up the ball amp ran with it, There isn't a duff tale in the collection , but thestandout stories for me were "Lord of the Worms" an early tale of Titus Crow , amp "The House of the Temple" dark deeds in the Pentland Hills , amp an eldritch horror in a pool.


Brian Lumley crafts his tales well , amp this is an excellent continuation of Lovecraft's work,

Worth the investment, Welcoming the chance to get my Lovcraftian horror on via the excellent narration of Joshua Saxon, I tore into THE TAINT AND OTHER NOVELLAS, What fun!

A collection ofnovellas which were written back in the mid to lates, these

tales do not have the polish of Lumley's later works, like the Necroscope series.
These stories are more the work of a writer starting out, while serving in the military, a writer bewitched by Lovecraft's Cthulhu mythos, The fun parts of the mythos are here, but they lack the racism and other issues of Lovecraft's work,

My favorites of thewere:

LORD OF THE WORMS This tale featured Titus Crow, a name I remember from back in the day, though I can't quite remember the tales in which he featured.
In this story, he's invited to a home under the pretense of cataloging a large book collection at an old estate, Of course nothing is as it appears, Throw in some mesmerizing hypnotism, see what I did there!, some maggots and some spiked wine and you have yourself a great time!

THE TAINT was a fun tale involving fishmen.
That's right, fishmen. With all the creepiness inherent in that phrase, It's not as much a pulp tale as one would think, with just the right mix of horror and perhaps a bit of social commentary, but that's just my take.


Finally, the last story THE TEMPLE HOUSE takes the form of a man inheriting an old estate from his uncle, He takes a friend and goes to Scotland to inspect his inheritance, and soon finds a letter from his uncle asking him to destroy the place, Why You'll have to read this to find out!

Regarding the narrator, Joshua SaxonI've only listened to one other performance of his, which was the excellent THE CIPHER by Kathe Koja.
In that book he was voicing only one character while in this collection, he voices all kinds of people and he does it quite well, English, American, Scottish, he does them all and never for a moment did I doubt the origins of any of the characters, Well done, sir!

This was a collection full of fun Lovecraftian monsters, fish people, maggots and worms, If these are the things that delight you, then you'll enjoy the hell out of this volume!

Recommended!

I received this audio download free from the narrator, in exchange for my honest feedback.
This is it! This collection of short stories and novellas highlights one of the weaknesses of the Cthulhu style story they are very formulaic, Almost every one of thestories here follows a similar pattern, and reading them over several weeks just highlighted that similarity,

That being said, Lumley does write better than Lovecraft did, and the stories were in general entertaining, even if they weren't amazingly original, Lumley explores avenues of the mythos a little different than the norm, and the stories were interesting, It probably wasn't the best introduction to Lumley's writing, though, Not bad, just repetitive. .