I reviewed a paper copy of this back in February, so I won't be writing a summary this time around and don't plan on writing a lengthy review.

I definitely preferred this in paper form. Although Bronson Pinchot did an excellent job reading the product description pages in a cheerful and comforting advertiser voice, it wasn't quite the same as getting to see the images. I know that the library checkout included an enhanced content PDF download that may have had all of those images, but I couldn't figure out how to download them on my phone (if that was even possible) and, even if I could have, it still wouldn't have been the same as reading the text and having it all right there.

Tai Sammons was okay as the narrator of the bulk of the text. She fit Amy reasonably well, and I thought she did an excellent job with Ruth Anne. Her Trinity voice grated, but that was probably the point. I really didn't like her take on Basil, though, and overall I felt like her narration leeched out a lot of the creepiness I remembered from my initial reading of the book. Then again, that might just have been due to me having read it before and knowing what would happen.

My favorite part of the book was still the bit where Amy was trapped in the Liripip. It was an excellent use of the location and Amy's Orsk employee skillset.

All in all, this was a decent audiobook, but I'm glad my first exposure to the story was via a paper copy of the book.

 

Rating Note:

 

Yes, that's a whole star and a half less than the rating I gave the paper version. Again, I'm not sure whether it's the format or my mood.

 

(Original review posted on A Library Girl's Familiar Diversions.)

I'm not going to lie: this collection of 21 short stories mixing Lovecraftian themes into various wars throughout history (and into the future) was a hard slog. At various points I almost gave up on World War Cthulhu, but then I realised returning to consume just one story in between every other book I read wasn't translating well for me, and I put aside most everything else to push through the rest. The problem was, I chose all the authors I liked or had at least heard of to read from that point, meaning the stories I read in the middle of my journey through this collection were by far the best. Or, if you prefer, the ones I read first and last did very little for me.

But let's start with the good. THE PROCYON PROJECT was classic Tim Curran, if a little on the understated side for him; while BROADSWORD by William Meikle was a good old fashioned WWII action-adventure, that just happened to feature creatures imagined by Lovecraft. WUNDERWAFFE was my first introduction to Jeffrey Thomas and his Punktown setting, and was good enough to ensure I'll be revisiting that place in the universe before too long. Then there were three other stories I enjoyed that came from authors I was not familiar with. DARK CELL by the editors of the entire collection, Brian K. Sammons and Glynn Owen Barrass, felt like it could be the bare bones of a Hollywood action-horror movie depicting a law enforcement agent and a career criminal having to join forces to stop the IRA from unleashing something evil into our world. THE YOTH PROTOCOLS by Josh Reynolds was cut from a similar mould but featureed something very different from a career criminal teaming with a law enforcement officer ... My favourite story of the whole collection, however, was THE BOONIEMAN by Edward E. Erdelac. This was a fantastic creature-feature set in the Vietnam war, featuring a beast you're unlikely to forget any time soon.

I should also mention the art which accompanies each tale. Created by M. Wayne Miller, each brings aspects of the story that follows to life, and on occasion assisted me to picture something which my imagination was having trouble conjuring up. Good stuff.

But for every tale I mentioned above, there was at least one that left me very cold. Some I reacted quite neutrally to, but others were either overly detailed, too confusing, or simply non-engaging. Both the stories set amongst the battle for Troy fell to one or more of these issues, while MAGNA MATER by Edward Morris numbed me to a point past caring and THE SINKING CITY by Konstantine Paradias was a good idea which failed to grab me in any way.

I should also mention this collection is long - possibly too long - for a short story collection. Clocking in at over 390 Kindle pages may not sound like a lot, but when it's the same basic theme revisited in different settings, it feels at least half again as long as that page number. The collection likely would have been strengthened had it been a few stories shorter (though the last two tales are not examples that should have been cut.)

2.5 Mad Plans to Win At Any Cost for World War Cthulhu: A Collection of Lovecraftian War Stories.

combines Joyce Carol Oates, Flannery O'Connor, the lightest touch of Scott Fitzgerald, and a dab of A Choir of Ill Children.


just read Karen's review. I'm not even going to try with this one.

 

it's one of the most stylized, essentially the best and only example of zombie literature i have ever found, read, and gobbled up. it isn't really about Zombies, although it does have them as a central component. It's more an exploration into society.

I'm pretty sure that's a shot of Milla Jovovich on the cover.

I'd put this on my To Read list back in Sept. 2010. I got around to listening to it a year and a half later, forgetting what it was about. It looked like another fairy/vampire/demons story. I haven't listened to one of those for awhile and figured it was time, though I wasn't prepared to be impressed.

It's actually about zombies. Actually, it is about the people who survive alongside the zombies 25 years after the zombie apocalypse has happened. They're called "meatskins", "slugs", and other fetching things, but they're zombies.
I so hate zombies. I hate zombie movies, zombie stories, zombie anything, really, though I'm always mistaken as someone who likes zombie miscellanea. I don't. I never have. I think zombies are stupid and boring...because they are. I was a little appalled at myself for having put a zombie story on my To Read list (and don't go looking at the zombie crap I've already read and yes, I did love World War Z but, again, it's about survival. And it is choc-full of handy tips. Don't judge me)
At any rate, right after I was done being irritated with myself over tricking myself into listening to a stupid zombie story, I was then glad that past me read enough about this story to know that it would be enjoyable and that I had put it on my list.

I was completely caught-up in this story. It is definitely less about the walking dead chasing people down and eating them, though their shambling selves make up the entire backdrop, and more about the hard-but-cherished life of a lone fifteen-year-old girl who has learned how to live in the only environment she's ever known. Even though she's supremely capable, she lives with guilt and doubt and some self-loathing. She's a restless soul who cannot settle down with other survivors and finds herself living as a nomad in the American south, meeting people who eke out a living in compounds and mansions, people who have hope for the future and plan to rebuild towns or maybe a new race, and people who want to kill her.

I liked Temple's voice, I liked how she handled herself, I liked that she was very capable, I liked that she tried to do the right thing, I like that she understood and accepted the world and her place in it, and I liked that even with all of that, she was flawed and that she took on too much personal responsibility for things that weren't hers. She was a good, strong, but also frustrating character and I appreciate that.