Free Downloads The Tsathoggua Cycle: Terror Tales Of The Toad God (Call Of Cthulhu Fiction)
Can a god be a pet? Even a devil-god who relishes human sacrifice? It is hard to deny that for his creator and godfather, Clark Ashton Smith and H. P. Lovecraft, Tsathoggua was exactly that. They found the Saturnian-Hyperborean-N'klaian toad-bat-sloth-deity as cute and adorable as horrific, and this strange ambivalence echoes throughout their various tales over which Great Tsathoggua casts his batrachian shadow! Some are droll fables of human foibles; others are terrifying adventures of human delvers who perish in the fire of a religious fanaticism fully as awful as its super-sub-human object of worship. Tsathoggua has inspired many types of stories in many moods. And not just by Smith and Lovecraft! In this arcane volume you will read Tsathogguan tales old and new by various writers, chronicling the horrors of the amorphous amphibian's descent into new decades and deeper waters. The mere fact that such a thing is possible attests mightily the power of the modern myth of Tsathoggua, and the men who created him!
Paperback: 240 pages
Publisher: Chaosium Inc.; First edition (January 1, 2005)
Language: English
ISBN-10: 156882131X
ISBN-13: 978-1568821313
Product Dimensions: 5.5 x 0.5 x 8.5 inches
Shipping Weight: 10.4 ounces (View shipping rates and policies)
Average Customer Review: 4.4 out of 5 stars See all reviews (9 customer reviews)
Best Sellers Rank: #625,681 in Books (See Top 100 in Books) #240 in Books > Literature & Fiction > British & Irish > Horror #466 in Books > Science Fiction & Fantasy > Science Fiction > Short Stories #15672 in Books > Literature & Fiction > Genre Fiction > Horror
Man oh man it's finally here. The saga of The Tsathoggua Cycle is very familiar to those of us who haunt the Lovecraft usenet groups regularly. This book was compiled in the late 1990s for a 1998 release when certain unfortunate financial realities kicked in for Chaosium. At last things turned around for the small press icon and after a lengthy delay we have the finished product. And it was actually finished back in 1997-1998; this is not an anthology of stories new in the last 5 years.List price is $14.95 but 's price is $10.17, and eligible for free shipping if you buy $25 worth of stuff. It is a standard trade paperback with 220 pages. This does not include a 6 page introduction by Robert Price but it does include an introduction to each story. Production qualities are reasonable. The cover art however, continues the dreadful, shameful tradition of the Chaosium cycle books, which have notably poor artwork. The picture looks like pitiful claymation of a dinosaur. After stunning artwork in modern mythos books like Hive, Horrors Beyond and Night Voices, Night Journeys this effort by Mark Achilles White leads me to wonder how much he got paid and that maybe I could become an artist too.The introduction by Robert Price (the workhorse of the Chaosium cycle series) was actually very useful. It laid out the entire history of the creation of Tsathoggua by Clark Ashton Smith and also discussed various pronunciations. Best of all, there was a photo of a sculpture of Tsathoggua by CAS! This would have been a great cover! In fact more CAS artwork throughout the book would have been most welcome. I also think the individual story introductions, also by Price, were mostly good, although not as good as the book introduction.
The long and the short of it...I loved the book. Ok, that was the short...here's the longHere are my opinions on the tales.From the Parchments of Pnom: Clark Ashton SmithThe first tale is more of a setup for the other Tsathoggua tales, the ideaof how he came to earth, his relatives and other bits of tale that getsmore detail in the stories. Never read this one before now, but I knew allthe data already. Still, nice to read it in CAS's own words.The Seven Geases: Clark Ashton SmithFirst tale that Saint Toad actually shows up in, a hunter is cursed to be asnack for Tsathoggua, but instead he's sent on a series of weirder andweirder geas meeting various critters of ancient Hyperborea. Amusing tale.The Testament of Athammaus: Clark Ashton SmithHow the city of Commorian was rezoned for amorphous beings. Not the besttale, but still worth the read. Proof that loosing your head over somethings is a bad idea *wink*.The Tale of Satampra Zeiros: Clark Ashton SmithFirst appears of Satampra Zeiros, thief of Hyberborea. Why stealing fromthe temple of a nearly forgotten god can really disarm you. ;)The Theft of the Thirty Nine Girdles: Clark Ashton SmithNot really a Tsathoggua tale, but staring Satampra Zeiros and set in Hyperborea.More like one of Fritz Leiber's Gray Mouser tales, but enjoyable.Shadow of the Sleeping God: James AmbuehlThird tale of Satampra Zeiros, a wrap of the other two tales, plus with a niceheart to heart with Tsathoggua.
The Tsathoggua Cycle: Terror Tales of the Toad God (Call of Cthulhu Fiction) Encyclopedia Cthulhiana: A Guide to Lovecraftian Horror (Call of Cthulhu Fiction Series) Frog and Toad Are Friends (Frog and Toad I Can Read Stories Book 1) Frog and Toad Together (Frog and Toad I Can Read Stories Book 2) The Call of Cthulhu and Other Weird Stories (Penguin Twentieth-Century Classics) Call of Cthulhu and Other Stories Spawn Of Azathoth: Herald of the End Of Time (Call of Cthulhu Horror Roleplaying) The Great Old Ones (Call of Cthulhu Horror Roleplaying, 1920s Setting) Call Of Cthulhu: Horror Roleplaying In the Worlds Of H.P. Lovecraft (5.6.1 Edition / Version 5.6.1) Secrets of Tibet: An Unknown Land of Mythos and Mystery (Call of Cthulhu roleplaying) H.P. Lovecraft's Dreamlands, 2nd edition (Call of Cthulhu: Roleplaying Beyond the Wall of Sleep) Day of the Beast (Call of Cthulhu Horror Campaign) The Call of the Cthulhu and Oher Stories Eldest (Inheritance Cycle, Book 2) (The Inheritance Cycle) Better Than Fiction: True Travel Tales from Great Fiction Writers Cthulhu Lies Dreaming: Twenty-three Tales of the Weird and Cosmic Covered Call Cash - Using Call Options to Create Your own ATM - (Stocks For RentTM) Follow Me: A Call to Die. A Call to Live. Terror in the Mind of God: The Global Rise of Religious Violence (Comparative Studies in Religion and Society) How to Win a Cosmic War: God, Globalization, and the End of the War on Terror
