Synopsis
Earth is home to us, but to others it is a prison planet, where alien convicts are imprisoned in human bodies. Four tales by veteran Cthulhu Mythos authors explore the collisions between humans and unwilling visitors among us.
“Broken Singularity” by David Conyers: Former soldier Harrison Peel is resurrected on a vacuum shrouded moon on the edge of the galaxy after a million-year, dead-but-undreaming slumber and forced to repeat the same day endlessly. Why is he ordered to collect alien artefacts and how is his fate entangled with three peculiar incidents in Earth’s distant past? Can he break the endless repeating day before he descends into eternal madness?
“The Prisoner from Beyond” by Matthew Davenport: After the Civil War, two surviving members of the Esoteric Cavalry head west to recruit, and tame the land. Barrenstand is a town with a problem, a new man at the edge of town is giving them nightmares … that bite. Who is the stranger and where, exactly, did he come from?
“Body Snatchers” by David Hambling: In 1920’s London, investigator Harry Stubbs is drawn into a case involving an apparent madman with impossible knowledge, and discovers a web of strange sects, multiple identities and an ancient conflict between occult powers, leading to an unforgettable graveyard encounter.
“Leng’s Labythinth” by John DeLaughter: Exchange student Francois Delapont is a man on the run. After he witnesses a ritualistic murder in Chartres, inhuman forces pursue him to discover the apocalyptic secrets behind the cabalistic rites he observed. Will he escape them or die during an interrogation that promises to literally turn him inside out?
Review
ELDRITCH PRISONERS is a cosmic horror anthology edited by David Hambling and containing a variety of other Neo-Mythos authors. It is the sixth installment of the Books of Cthulhu series, which started with the Tales of the Al-Azif novel, continued with Tales of Yog-Sothoth, and is still ongoing as of the writing of this review.
The Books of Cthulhu series are a pulpier more adventure-coded version of the Cthulhu Mythos with the horror element still present but usually downgraded to something that the protagonists can deal with (even at considerable cost). They also tend to tie into other series like Cthulhu Reloaded, Harry Stubbs, and the Andrew Doran novels.
The premise for Eldritch Prisoners is that it is a collection of novellas dealing with being held prisoner by eldritch forces. Not all of these stories do a great job of tying with this theme but I enjoyed all of them nevertheless. While technically a horror anthology, they’re much like Lovecraft’s work itself in that it also nicely fits into fantasy and science fiction categories. You don’t have to read any of the main series or the tie-in series to enjoy the book either.
The first story is “Broken Singularity” by David Conyers, which stars his Australian Special Forces protagonist, Harrison Peel (or does it?). Harrison has found himself kidnapped from the Earth and transported through space/time to a space station overlooking a black hole. All of the other prisoners are from later points in time where humanity has merged with machines until they’re unrecognizable. This story is spread throughout the anthology and provides a bittersweet ending that ties it altogether.
“The Prisoner from Beyond” by Matthew Davenport is probably my favorite of the stories and the closest to the pulpy occult adventures of the other Books of Cthulhu. Basically, a pair of “Esoteric Cavalrymen” working for Coolidge are sent to investigate a town that is being held prisoner by a supernatural force. The protagonists are pretty relatable as they find themselves way in over their heads facing things beyond mortal comprehension.
“Body Snatchers” by David Hambling is a tie-in to the Harry Stubbs series. Harry Stubbs is a 1920s boxer turned detective with a past as a WW1 veteran. As the title of the story proclaims, Harry has to deal with someone stealing the bodies of other individuals before leaving them imprisoned as madmen in asylums. A straight-up occult adventure and one that I really enjoyed as the Stubbs series is fantastic for incorporating RL history and occult facts.
“Leng’s Labyrinth” by John A. DeLaughter is the most complicated of the stories and a crisscross quilt pattern of Cthulhu Mythos references ranging from “Rats in the Walls” to “Into the Mountains of Madness.” There’s the military industrial complex, French catacombs, VR, cults, and so more that turns this into a kind of Lovecraftian Dan Brown novel. I didn’t always follow it but I enjoyed the ambition of the project.
In conclusion, Eldritch Prisoners is a solid and entertaining anthology with some great work by people working into the century-old mythology of Howard Phillips Lovecraft. I think this is a good introduction for some of these authors as well. They’re not always well tied to the theme of imprisonment and I wouldn’t have minded some more shorter stories but it’s still a pretty good accomplishment.
