Five great indie Cthulhu Novels
As the author of the Cthulhu Armageddon books, I'm both a huge fan of HP Lovecraft's Cthulhu Mythos as well as a supporter of indie authors. HP Lovecraft was an early supporter of open-source IP and happily encouraged other authors to use his creations. This has led to many books that have done just that.
However, as with most things, there's ten bad examples for every good one. So, I thought I'd throw out five of the best indie books that are set in the Cthulhu Mythos.
5. The Elder Ice by David Hambling
Despite the popularity of the Call of Cthulhu games, there’s a surprising lack of Lovecraftian detective fiction out there. You’d think the company would have been marketing books like TSR had been fantasy in the Eighties and Nineties. The Harry Stubbs series, starting with the Elder Ice, is as close to it as I’ve found. A WW1 British boxer, he is always coming within a hair’s breadth of destruction at the Mythos’ hands but avoids enough of it to keep his sanity and life. For the most part.
4. Miskatonic University: Elder Gods 101 by Matt and Mark Davenport
Perhaps the lightest entry on this list, Miskatonic University: Elder Gods 101 isn’t even horror but urban fantasy. It’s written in the same vein as Drew Hayes’ Super Powereds with a bunch of freshmen at college discovering they have superpowers and need to save the world. Much like the Andrew Doran series by the same author, it may send Lovecraft purists heading for the hills, but you actually get more enjoyment from the book the more you know about the minutia of HPL’s writings as the Davenport brothers’ knowledge runs deep.
3. The Call of Distant Shores by David Niall Wilson
David Niall Wilson is the former Horror Writer Association (HWA)’s chief, a multiple Stoker Award winner, and a guy who gave me my big break, so I’m horribly biased in this recommendation. However, this collection of HPL-inspired fiction really appealed to me. It’s an assemblage of eldritch stories and weirdness from multiple other publications over the years and I really enjoyed it. My favorite story being “Cockroach Suckers” that is what happens when redneck hustlers find magical power than your typical New England atheist scholar. I recommend the audiobook version of this over the book because the performance by Eric Dove is excellent.
2. Ashes of Onyx by Seth Skorkowsky
Seth Skorkowsky, one of the best Youtube commentators on Call of Cthulhu adventures, is a good friend of mine. He’s also a very talented writer. This book deals with a substance abusing mage, Kate Rossdale, as she finds herself on a quest that will take her to Lost Carcosa in the Dreamlands. If you like the more mystical and surreal elements of the Cthulhu Mythos, then this is the book for you.
1. Cthulhu Reloaded by David Croyden
The Harrison Peel stories are a perfect counter for the Lovecraftian ethos that humans should be helpless victims before unknowable horrors. Major Peel is a soldier for the Australian government who is continually roped into supernatural encounters. The stories work because the horror is still alien and unknowable, but he reacts as intelligently as possible to dealing with them. He can’t punch or shoot them away like, say, Captain Booth in my books can. You know, except for running away and never thinking about the Mythos again.
