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Rating: This anthology by Wilum H. Pugmire encompasses some of his best stories set in the Sesqua Valley region. Pugmire was the quintessential cult writer: an eccentric and morbidly decadent figure, a gay punk who dressed like a drag queen but who was literally obsessed with the fiction of H.P. Lovecraft and Clark Ashton Smith. Highly acclaimed by S.T. Joshi, he is considered one of the foremost epigones of Lovecraftian fiction.
Personally, I find his lush and decadent prose closer to that of Clark Ashton Smith than to Lovecraft, albeit with his own personal and modern touch. In this sense, the first story Immortal Remains exemplifies his style: it is a true prose poem about a tomb on a hill where a mummy from ancient times is enclosed. But my favorite story is The Strange Dark One featuring a young girl as the protagonist who inherits from her grandfather a collection of cursed tomes well known to HPL enthusiasts. She decides to travel to Sesqua Valley to sell them to a collector (Adam Webster) who hosts her at his home, but he immediately understands that the girl is under some kind of curse due to her grandfather's dealings with unnamed and occult secrets. Ultimately, the result will be the awakening of the Crawling Chaos, namely Nyarlathotep. Beyond the Gates of Deeper Slumber and Dream Quest (the latter evokes the Dreamlands of Lovecraftian memory) are also noteworthy. Pugmire describes a reality where waking states alternate with dream states, thereby creating a hypnotic effect on the reader from which it's hard to disengage. The character of Simon Gregory William, who (like others) frequently appears in these stories, is very well-conceived. He is a monstrous being from Sesqua Valley who lives in a tower where there is a room filled with blasphemous tomes and esoteric symbols. He constantly seeks to contact the Other Reality, the one populated by Nyarlathotep and the deities of the Lovecraftian pantheon. Generally, in these stories, it is always the atmosphere and the rich, decadent style that take precedence over the plots. This makes Pugmire's stories unique and imbued with a timeless charm. Perhaps it takes some time to fully appreciate them, but I believe it's worth it. We are in the presence of an anti-commercial writer who writes what he feels and possesses an extraordinary macabre imagination.
His fantasies are very close to that cosmic horror theorized and evoked in his masterpieces by the great H.P. Lovecraft. Although some may wrinkle their noses at imitators, I continue to believe that a well-done imitation is still art. And this is precisely the case with Pugmire.
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