Post by nickmontelongo on Jan 7, 2014 20:40:59 GMT -6
An aspiring writer inherits a house next to a graveyard which soon becomes his obsession. A man, on his way home from a party, makes a detour to a church ruin and discovers an unsettling secret. A sightseer finds an old railroad car and soon wishes he hadn’t. An aged bohemian is helpless to prevent his young friend’s doom.
W.H. Pugmire is a highly regarded writer of Lovecraftian fiction and with good reason. Pugmire is devoted to Lovecraft’s memory as well as his fiction, but his work is by no means derivative. He has been writing since the 80s and has produced a large body of work. Gathered Dust and Others has become my favorite collection besides his recent collection Uncommon Places.
This collection, in particular, has a few Cthulhu mythos tales, but also a good portion of his other horror fiction. “Gathered Dust” combines some of elements of wish-fulfillment for the devoted horror fan along with some disturbing imagery that no one in their right mind would ever wish to see. Pugmire’s style incorporates poetic language, which is best represented in “These Deities of Rarest Air”. “The Tangled Muse” is one of Pugmire’s best stories, which features his character (a homage to Oscar Wilde) Sebastian Melmoth and the decadent city Gershom. “A Vestige of Mirth” is another effective piece. Some of Pugmire’s best pieces are his vignettes, some of which are not so much stories as they are scenarios; “Cool Mist” is particularly disturbing.
One of Lovecraft’s themes is the inability for people to cope with reality when they realize that the reality is horrible beyond comprehension. He rarely explored the concept that one can see something horrible or amazing and come to embrace it. This is a theme that Pugmire explores extensively. Find this book and Pugmire’s other works.