Black Wings of Cthulhu (Volume Four)

When you deal with stories inspired by and based in the Cthulhu Mythos and the works of H.P. Lovecraft, you anticipate a certain level of weirdness. Whether it’s mind-bending or horrific, enthralling or baffling, the weirdness remains. The tales collected in Black Wings of Cthulhu 4 are no exception.

There are wheels of weirdness within wheels of weirdness in these stories. In one, a man becomes so obsessed with dark matter that he loses all connection with reality. In another, a girl begs her boyfriend to go into a cave and stare at the moon, so she’ll understand what drove her father mad. There are militaries at war with demons and inmates whose very dreams are gateways to evil and Native American myths about the old ones.

And although not all of the stories are satisfying — in fact, most of them seem determined to be more confounding than engaging — the ones that do wriggle inside you and resonate are invariably ones that feel like nothing you’ve read before. They make you look around the world and question it, making everyday life just a tiny bit stranger and more ominous.