Cthulhu Mythos Fiction Contest: Vote for your favourite
- carnage_lee
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Cthulhu Mythos Fiction Contest: Vote for your favourite
Here they are the five entries that made the final for the Cthulhu Mythos Fiction Contest.
Please read the stories and then decide on your personal favourite. You may only choose one entry but you can change your mind (up until the close of the poll at the end of the month).
We had a wonderful collection of entries to the competition, at first it looked like we would only have two but a whole raft of entries late in December saw the numbers grow. We were very impressed by the stories and choosing five to go through wasn't easy by any means.
Thanks again to all those that took part, it's really appreciated.
Good luck!
Please read the stories and then decide on your personal favourite. You may only choose one entry but you can change your mind (up until the close of the poll at the end of the month).
We had a wonderful collection of entries to the competition, at first it looked like we would only have two but a whole raft of entries late in December saw the numbers grow. We were very impressed by the stories and choosing five to go through wasn't easy by any means.
Thanks again to all those that took part, it's really appreciated.
Good luck!
Last edited by carnage_lee on Wed Feb 11, 2009 10:07 am, edited 2 times in total.
Re: Cthulhu Mythos Fiction Contest: Vote for your favourite
I liked them all. I thought A Death of Ages was excellent with Lovecraftian dreamlike qualities but in the end it was Misatonic Moon that made me smile hoilding good atmosphere and pace for a short story. The other three were also great, I think it's too tempting to try and cram everything in to a short piece. I'd like to read more of all of your work.
- Victimizer
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Re: Cthulhu Mythos Fiction Contest: Vote for your favourite
I'm going to go ahead and explain my choices in voting here as well (under cover of a spoilers-thingie), as wella s some other related criticism:
(The reason I'm doing it with spoiler tags is that I don't want to...well, spoil the enjoyment of any of these tales)
(warning, somewhat lengthy)
(The reason I'm doing it with spoiler tags is that I don't want to...well, spoil the enjoyment of any of these tales)
(warning, somewhat lengthy)
Spoiler:
Re: Cthulhu Mythos Fiction Contest: Vote for your favourite
I enjoyed reading the stories, two are stand outs for me, one because it is so well written the other because it is amusing; the spoiler reveals my personal favourite:
Spoiler:
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Re: Cthulhu Mythos Fiction Contest: Vote for your favourite
The thing that gets me about "A Death of Ages", is that, from a Lovecraftian point of view, the "horrible" afterlife is more like a heaven, a paradise of chaos and destruction.
Re: Cthulhu Mythos Fiction Contest: Vote for your favourite
I have to say that I like Death of Ages quite a bit. I appreciated End of it all for being experimental in form and it reminded me of the Cthulhu solo adventures. I liked Remnant of the Deep's retelling of Moby Dick as a Cthulhu story- a nice twist on a classic! The hard toss up for me is Miskatonic Moon- which as a grad student I thought was great and a thousand dead names- which made me think- yes, a real defender from the forces of darkness would probably be kind of like this. Overall, A thousand Dead Names is, to me, the most polished story and I really enjoyed the many arcane references. Tough choices.
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Re: Cthulhu Mythos Fiction Contest: Vote for your favourite
Do I deduce that Miskatonic Moon is your own submission, Welsh?
In general, I'm wondering if it would be a good idea or not for the authors to come forwards, and maybe talk about what they wrote?
In general, I'm wondering if it would be a good idea or not for the authors to come forwards, and maybe talk about what they wrote?
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Re: Cthulhu Mythos Fiction Contest: Vote for your favourite
Please do not do this. I deliberately removed references to names, etc. After the vote, then yes by all means, this would be good thing to do. At this stage I think it is fairer to all to have the stories stand for themselves.Mi-Go Agent wrote:Do I deduce that Miskatonic Moon is your own submission, Welsh?
In general, I'm wondering if it would be a good idea or not for the authors to come forwards, and maybe talk about what they wrote?
I hope you understand....
Re: Cthulhu Mythos Fiction Contest: Vote for your favourite
Hey bud-Mi-Go Agent wrote:Do I deduce that Miskatonic Moon is your own submission, Welsh?
In general, I'm wondering if it would be a good idea or not for the authors to come forwards, and maybe talk about what they wrote?
No, I didn't submit. I had an idea for a story, but was too busy. Instead, I got to judge- which was a lot of fun. The other stories that were submitted were pretty good as well, but I think these five were probably the best.
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One man's meat may very well be another man's person-
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One man's meat may very well be another man's person-
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Re: Cthulhu Mythos Fiction Contest: Vote for your favourite
What a pity that only 13 people voted on this.
I hope and assume that a lot more read the entries, which were all worthy of a wider audience.
I tend to broadly agree with Victimizer's assessments; s/he has obviously put a lot of thought into hir analyses and taken the time to share hir opinions - admirable when compared to my own laziness.
The whole issue of what constitutes a Cthulhu Mythos story was also a factor in my decision to vote for "A Thousand Dead Names" rather than "Death of Ages".
Where our opinions differ is that, on the basis of content rather than style, I still enjoyed "Names" the most.
I wonder if the writer is a fan of the DC "Hellblazer" comic series, as I was fondly reminded of the sort of atmosphere evoked in the better story-arcs from its pages.
A big thank-you to all the writers and of course to carnage_lee for organising the whole thing.
I hope and assume that a lot more read the entries, which were all worthy of a wider audience.
I tend to broadly agree with Victimizer's assessments; s/he has obviously put a lot of thought into hir analyses and taken the time to share hir opinions - admirable when compared to my own laziness.
The whole issue of what constitutes a Cthulhu Mythos story was also a factor in my decision to vote for "A Thousand Dead Names" rather than "Death of Ages".
Where our opinions differ is that, on the basis of content rather than style, I still enjoyed "Names" the most.
I wonder if the writer is a fan of the DC "Hellblazer" comic series, as I was fondly reminded of the sort of atmosphere evoked in the better story-arcs from its pages.
A big thank-you to all the writers and of course to carnage_lee for organising the whole thing.
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Re: Cthulhu Mythos Fiction Contest: Vote for your favourite
Well thanks, but to be fair I probably just wrote that much since I was one of the participants (not one that got into the top five though ).
I also admit that "Names" gave off a distinctive John Constantine/Trenchcoat Brigade vibe. Oddly enough, I like all of those characters (despite not having read all that much about them), i.e. the DC/Vertigo practitioners of Magic and such, but for one reason or another I don't like them mixing with my Cthulhu Mythos - peas to the one side, mashed potatoes to the other and all that.
Perhaps I still suffer from the overdose of that mixture that is Titus Crow. Though I look forward to reading the two newish Lumley collections I've acquired - The Taint and Haggopian - I'm still pretty hesitant to pick up Lumley's other longer works like Khai of ancient Khem or his Dreamlands novels. Though I guess Sorcery in Shad wasn't too terrible.
And now I'll shut up before veering waay too much off topic
*edit*
Oh, forgot to clear that up: I'm a "he"; (despite my avatar's fanbase being composed of a large section of the other gender - or so I've been told) "Victimizer" does tend to be a bit unclear, I really just keep the name around since I've had it for over a decade - Identity changes are such a pain. Sorry for the confusion.
I also admit that "Names" gave off a distinctive John Constantine/Trenchcoat Brigade vibe. Oddly enough, I like all of those characters (despite not having read all that much about them), i.e. the DC/Vertigo practitioners of Magic and such, but for one reason or another I don't like them mixing with my Cthulhu Mythos - peas to the one side, mashed potatoes to the other and all that.
Perhaps I still suffer from the overdose of that mixture that is Titus Crow. Though I look forward to reading the two newish Lumley collections I've acquired - The Taint and Haggopian - I'm still pretty hesitant to pick up Lumley's other longer works like Khai of ancient Khem or his Dreamlands novels. Though I guess Sorcery in Shad wasn't too terrible.
And now I'll shut up before veering waay too much off topic
*edit*
Oh, forgot to clear that up: I'm a "he"; (despite my avatar's fanbase being composed of a large section of the other gender - or so I've been told) "Victimizer" does tend to be a bit unclear, I really just keep the name around since I've had it for over a decade - Identity changes are such a pain. Sorry for the confusion.
- carnage_lee
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Re: Cthulhu Mythos Fiction Contest: Vote for your favourite
Well, the votes are all in and counted - and the winner is <b>One Thousand Names</b>, congratulations to <b>Sara Hughes</b> and commiserations to our other finalists: Mi-Go Agent; The Remnant from the Deeps, S. Hemming: A Death Of Ages, David Howell; Miskatonic Moon and Mr. Handy; The End of It All. Special thanks also to the three authors whose entries weren't short-listed to the final vote: Victimizer; The Woodland, Ash; Hotaru and C. Watson; The Vacation of a Lifetime; you made the choice of finalists especially difficult.
In the words of (young) Mr. Grace.... "You've all done very well."
We will be opening up a forum to 'show-case' all the entries and I'm sure the authors would like to receive your comments in that new forum.
Should we run this again.....?
In the words of (young) Mr. Grace.... "You've all done very well."
We will be opening up a forum to 'show-case' all the entries and I'm sure the authors would like to receive your comments in that new forum.
Should we run this again.....?
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