In A BRIGHT AND BEAUTIFUL ETERNAL WORLD, horror author James Chambers provides a new collection of Lovecraftian stories, each hitting a different dark note.
I’d read Chambers’s ENGINES OF SACRIFICE on a lark a few years back and loved it. I say “lark” for two reasons: One, I tend to read novels far more often than I do novellas and short stories, an art form I’m still learning to appreciate as time passes. Second, all the stories were based on the Lovecraft mythos, and I’m weird in that I love everything Lovecraft except reading the actual stories.
With these two collections, Chambers in my honest opinion improves on the original, giving me all the mystery and cosmic horror I love but told through the lens of modern prose and contemporary stories. Each is highly distinct, creating flavors of horror both cosmic and grisly. In A BRIGHT AND BEAUTIFUL ETERNAL WORLD, the unifying device is a fishing town called Knicksport, where weird things happen, and they might happen to you.
Overall, this collection is a lot of fun and highly recommended if you’re interested in a fresh and thoughtful take on the Lovecraft mythos.
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