Thanx Penguin!

So I got this huge box from Penguin just now, and I got all excited. I thought, wow, they must be sending me a bunch of cool books that I don't remember ordering! Did I order a big book on Amazon and forget about it? The last big tome I have purchas'd is ye handsome THE ANNOTATED POE, but that's already arriv'd. As I picked up ye box from the porch where ye UPS bloke dropped it, I was surprised to find it rather light, not weighty. So I gets me scissors and slice through the packaging tape, dig through the bubble packing and found--one book. 

Ah--but whut a book! Of course, Titan's ridiculous decision to change ye original title, Black Wings, to BLACK WINGS OF CTHULHU still annoys me. I'm hoping that ye day comes soon when the hideous and alien word "Cthulhu" isn't such an advantage to selling books, such a commercial gimmick. One of the editorial stances for this series is that cliche Cthulhu stories will not be consider'd. This is not a book of Cthulhu Mythos stories; as ye sub-title insists, these are "Seventeen New Tales of Lovecraftian Horror." 

I love the strange green cover stock for this volume, on which the gold image of ye illustration looks very fine in good light (in poor light the illustration almost vanishes). I think this is my favourite volume in the series, I love each and every story. The opening story, a long piece by Fred Chappell, is absolutely remarkable. The one constant complain'd that dimwitted "reviewers" on Amazon and other online forums have concerning such series as this and Ellen Datlow's Lovecraftian anthologies is that the stories selected "aren't Lovecraftian." This is just pathetic stupidity. These writers have given us Lovecraftian fiction that is new and original, extremely modern. (Except for my own work; my story in this book is a traditional Lovecraftian tale set in Kingsport.) 

I love this series from S. T. and am overjoy'd that he has selected tales of mine for the next two volumes.