The Mammoth Book of Cthulhu

As Guran (Warrior Women) freely acknowledges in her introduction, “This anthology has little to do specifically with Cthulhu and everything to do with ‘new Lovecraftian fiction.’ ” But with the large number of similar volumes appearing every year, it’s a challenge to come up with a memorable evocation of Lovecraft’s vision of cosmic horror. Brian Hodge’s “It’s All the Same Road in the End,” one of the best such stories in recent years, is about two brothers on the trail of their amateur musical historian grandfather, Willard Chambers, who disappeared 50 years earlier. Hodge displays a gift for subtle atmospherics and fully develops the unlikely setting for his sunlit horror. Despite contributions from genre luminaries such as Laird Barron and John Langan, the other 22 entries here won’t linger in the reader’s mind. (June)