I recently read (and reviewed here) a new collection of Lovecraftian stories by Will Murray. I think most pulp fans know him for his many scholarly articles on pulp heroes like The Shadow and Doc Savage. Or perhaps his many new Doc Savage novels, as well as new Tarzan and The Spider novels.
But he has also been involved with H.P. Lovecraft‘s Cthulhu mythos, writing both non-fiction works but also fiction works. Thus he put out a collection under his Wild Adventures line as The Wild Adventures of Cthulhu, published by his own Odyssey Press.
Toward the end of 2022, we got a second collection: The Wild Adventures of Cthulhu, Vol. 2. Here we get 10 tales, most of which appeared from 2004 through 2022. However, three are original to this collection. A few feature the secret government group, the Cryptic Events Evaluation Section (CEES) of the Department of Defense’s National Reconnaissance Office, and has a re-occurring character, Raymond Redpath, a Lakota Indian. Most stories are set along the Miskatonic River Valley. We again get a nice map by Jason Eckhardt showing all the locations. And a few are not purely Lovecraftian.
The first story, “God General Nakji,” introduces us to Ray Redpath, a Lakota medicine man, who is recruited by the CEES to look into something strange going on in North Korea. This was an interesting mix of Lakota and Korean beliefs with the mythos.
In “Evacuation Day,” we get a story set in Innsmouth about 10 years after Lovecraft’s “The Shadow Over Innsmouth.” Here our unnamed protagonist is touring through the Bay State, when he happens upon Innsmouth as they are having the forenamed festival, and decides to drop by. A mistake that at least he will live to regret.
We then get a modern-day tale set in Arkham, “The Hindmost Abomination.” Someone seems to be doing something to make it Halloween forever. An Arkham cop is working to stop it, but can he? What will it mean? “Moonday,” a new story, is the direct sequel with the cop, now joined by a federal agent (part of the CEES?), working to stop Halloween forever and dealing with things in nearby Kingsport as well.
“Smoking Mirror” is set in 1750s Mexico, and is centered around an Aztec who still worships Qzechotal. He thinks he’s summoning him to go after the Spanish missionaries, but instead, it’s something else.
Another new story, “In the Lightless Chambers of Hellish N’gah-Kthun,” is another CEES story. They had digitized all the forbidden tomes and decided to use an AI to review them. It comes back saying that N’gah-Kthun is where Cthulhu et al came from. So they tried to have a remote viewer check it out. And things don’t go as you’d expect. Or maybe you did.
“The Purple Emperor” makes use of Robert Chambers‘s “The King in Yellow.” Not the story, but the play. How, I’ll not say. You’ll learn what is meant by the title when you read the story.
We get a western tale set in Arizona in “The Cow-Men of Coburn,” where a couple of men looking for a missing cattle drive to find something much more sinister in the small town of Coburn — which is a town of cow-men, not cowboys.
“The Arcade” is set in Foxfield, located in the far western part of the Miskatonic River Valley. The title refers to a row of elm trees that form an archway. It’s unclear their origin, but they are thought to be about 300 years old. So what is its connection to a girl abducted by Indians in the early 1700s? This is more of a melancholy ghost story than Lovecraftian horror.
Our final story is another CEES tale, “The Wild Ones of Weirport,” again starring Ray Redpath, and is another new story. It introduces a new city to the Miskatonic Valley, Weirport. There with a new partner, Redpath must look into matters going on there and maybe put a stop to it. Hopefully, we’ll see more of him.
Now, will we get a third collection? Yes, but it’s unclear when since Murray says he doesn’t yet have enough for another collection. But as he continues to write them, he will. He does have other works that should be appearing soon, though.
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