A party hosted by a recently escaped AI machine. A coding program that enables a portal to a world you are very familiar with. A terrible sense of doom, hovering over your e-mails, your bank accounts, your Twitter feeds. That and much more is what Tomorrow’s Cthulhu: Stories at the Dawn of Posthumanity is all about.
“An anthology of near-future transhumanist sci-fi tales set in the Cthulhu Mythos,” as the editors put it, the book features stories from a great bunch of authors: Desirina Boskovich, Lynda Rucker, Kaaron Warren, Damien Angelica Walters, Darrell Schweitzer, Cody Goodfellow, and Molly Tanzer.
I believe any author would jump at the opportunity of writing about Lovecraft monsters. Neil Gaiman did (twice). Joe Hill did. Alan Moore did. It’s just a world too engrossing to ignore; just knowing about the Dungeon dimensions makes you want to write about them.
The particular quirk of this anthology is the fact that all the stories are set in the 21st century, and that the internet of things has changed our world: how we behave, how we respond to attacks, and how we will bring about our doom in this time and age… these stories will tell us.
A fun twist on an ancient world, they explore those “what ifs” in depth, and constitute a great book for summer reads, queues, and any old nook in time and space you may find yourself enclosed in.
Other great Broken Eye books are:
Izanami’s Choice, a robots vs. samurai tale set in 1901. The Meiji Restoration has abolished the old ways and ushered in a cybernetic revolution. Androids integrate into society at all levels, following their programming for the betterment of every citizen, as servants, bodyguards, and bureaucrats. Jinzou are the future. As a ronin steeped in the old ways, Itaru wants nothing more to do with the artificial creations posing as human. But when a jinzou is suspected of murder, he’s pulled into a mystery that could tear the nation apart.
Ghost in the Cogs: Steam-Powered Ghost Stories, an anthology of supernatural steampunk tales from authors such as Siobhan Carroll, Folly Blaine & Randy Henderson, Howard Andrew Jones, Nayad Monroe, Nick Mamatas, James Lowder, and Cat Hellisen.
Scott Gable and C. Dombrowski are great editors, and they obviously enjoy their work. You can trust them to have a good time.
All books are available for pre-order from Broken Eye Books, Amazon, Kobo, and Barnes & Noble.
Disclaimer: I received a copy of these books for review purposes.
