It looks like the original and the Copper stories are the longest in Shadows Over Innsmouth, so we should rattle through them at a good pace now.
Jack 'Kim Newman' Yeovil's 'The Big Fish' is a Lovecraftian weird tale filtered through the lens of a wartime noir detective thriller, and yet feels as if gets 'The Shadow Over Innsmouth' better than Copper's self-consciously cosmic effort. This is not to say that it is perfect Lovecraftiana, but more that it makes no attempt to be and yet catches the actual menace of the original; infiltration and weird religion more than miscegenation. A minor guest role for recurring vampire Genevieve is a bit of distraction, but most people who know me know that I'm a sucker for noirised retellings, so... yeah; I liked this one.
I've also read it before in a different collection.
'The Return to Innsmouth' by Guy N. Smith is very short, and mostly consists of a narrator replaying the events of the middle section of the original story as he tries to exorcise his nightmares about the town he has never visited. The attempt on his life may in fact be all in his mind, and the shortness of the tale and the high level of repetition from the original detract from the horror of madness which is the primary potential of the offering.
Finally, for this time, Adrian Cole's 'The Crossing' extends the grip of Innsmouth to the Devon coast, as a man learns that his estranged trawlerman father may not only have been trawling for fish. This one is a better length to capture and hold a mood and a tension, although it lacks the pervasive air of revulsion that makes the original so effective. In addition, there is something less horrifying about the Deep Ones if their business is merely sacrifice.
Jack 'Kim Newman' Yeovil's 'The Big Fish' is a Lovecraftian weird tale filtered through the lens of a wartime noir detective thriller, and yet feels as if gets 'The Shadow Over Innsmouth' better than Copper's self-consciously cosmic effort. This is not to say that it is perfect Lovecraftiana, but more that it makes no attempt to be and yet catches the actual menace of the original; infiltration and weird religion more than miscegenation. A minor guest role for recurring vampire Genevieve is a bit of distraction, but most people who know me know that I'm a sucker for noirised retellings, so... yeah; I liked this one.
I've also read it before in a different collection.
'The Return to Innsmouth' by Guy N. Smith is very short, and mostly consists of a narrator replaying the events of the middle section of the original story as he tries to exorcise his nightmares about the town he has never visited. The attempt on his life may in fact be all in his mind, and the shortness of the tale and the high level of repetition from the original detract from the horror of madness which is the primary potential of the offering.
Finally, for this time, Adrian Cole's 'The Crossing' extends the grip of Innsmouth to the Devon coast, as a man learns that his estranged trawlerman father may not only have been trawling for fish. This one is a better length to capture and hold a mood and a tension, although it lacks the pervasive air of revulsion that makes the original so effective. In addition, there is something less horrifying about the Deep Ones if their business is merely sacrifice.
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