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The Three Impostors and Other Stories: Vol. 1 of the Best Weird Tales of Arthur Machen (Call of Cthulhu Fiction) (v. 1) |  | Author: Arthur Machen
Creator: S. T. Joshi
Publisher: Chaosium Inc.
Category: Book
List Price: $14.95
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Seller: smokymtnbooks
Rating:  18 reviews
Sales Rank: 64896
Media: Paperback
Pages: 240
Number Of Items: 1
Shipping Weight (lbs): 0.7
Dimensions (in): 8.4 x 5.4 x 0.7
ISBN: 1568821328
Dewey Decimal Number: 813
EAN: 9781568821320
ASIN: 1568821328
Publication Date: June 2007
Availability: Usually ships in 1-2 business days
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Product Description
Some of the finest horror stories ever written. Arthur Machen had a profound impact upon H.P. Lovecraft and the group of stories that would later become known as the Cthulhu Mythos. This first volume of Chaosium's Arthur Machen collection begins with the chilling "The Three Impostors" in its complete form, including the rarely seen sections "The Decorative Imagination" and "The Novel of the Iron Maid." Rounding out the first volume are "The Great God Pan," "The Inmost Light," and "The Shining Pyramid," all are excellent tales. Introduction by S.T. Joshi. This book is part of an expanding collection of Cthulhu Mythos horror fiction and related topics. Call of Cthulhu fiction focuses on single entities, concepts, or authors significant to readers and fans of H.P. Lovecraft.
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Showing reviews 1-5 of 18
 It was the face of a woman, and yet it was not human... January 20, 2009
Mark Giordano (Fort Campell, KY)
Having read and loved many of H.P. Lovecraft's stories, I wanted to peruse the works of some of his influences, of which Arthur Machen is one. As an introduction to the works of Machen, _The Three Impostors and other stories_ did not disappoint. This anthology was collected by S.T. Joshi who has worked on several Lovecraftian-influenced story anthologies for Chaosium. He also penned the introduction which contains an excellent summary of Machen's life and an in-depth analysis of the following stories. This book contains the complete text of "The Three Impostors", a series of stories within stories with an over-reaching theme. These embedded stories, or "novels" as named by Machen, within the sections of "The Three Impostors" are self-contained and complete; I've read one of them collected by itself within another horror story anthology.
"The Three Impostors" follow the stories "The Great God Pan", "The Inmost Light" and "The Shining Pyramid". Machen evokes the atmosphere of Victorian London remarkably well along with a chilling, gas-lit feeling of powerful eldritch forces just beyond our ken creeping through into our dimension through the well-meaning but ill-advisable efforts of scientists exploring the limits of knowledge and perception. Reflective of Victorian sensibilities of his time, Machen uses subtle allusions rather than overtly describing the horrifying habits of the evilly inclined characters with much greater effect than if he went into coarse detail (not that he avoided outraged criticism from his Victorian readership this way!). Fans of Victorian literature and of H.P. Lovecraft will treasure this anthology of Machen's work, and will likely enjoy the following volumes published by Chaosium under the editorship of S.T. Joshi. Those with more modern inclinations might find Machen's styles somewhat dry and verbose, but if you keep an open mind, you'll find there's a lot to get out of the unsettlingly disturbing stories of Arthur Machen.
Marvelous Machen November 4, 2008
S. R. Carter III (Ashland, Virginia United States)
2 out of 2 found this review helpful
Subtle but penetrating, Arthur Machen's sinuous prose slips over the reader like a chill London fog. The path he traces in the novella and three short stories that comprise this book veers from the mundane course of daily life into searing glimpses of what haunts the periphery of the known.
A momentary vision of that horror splinters the mind of the seer and cracks open a doorway to the world in "The Great God Pan." Cryptic markings and the disappearance of a girl in the hills of the countryside lead to a shattering revelation in "The Shining Pyramid."
Take the journey with Machen, and by the end you'll agree with one of his characters in "The Three Impostors" ..... "that matter is as really awful and unknown as spirit, that science itself but dallies on the threshold, scarcely gaining more than a glimpse of the wonders of the inner place."
Excellent fantasy horror October 30, 2008
C. Bart (Springtown, TX USA)
1 out of 1 found this review helpful
I bought this book thinking it would make for good reading around Halloween and I could not be more pleased. Arthur Machen's tales spin together cult science, mysticism, and Victorian horror to create very atmospheric stories that touch on the darkest human fears. An innocent investigator often narrates these tales after being drawn into a deeper investigation of a news headline that has thrilled the public - getting pulled into the dark secrets that underlie the headline and have been overlooked or ignored by the officials.
Short and sweet!! December 29, 2007
Stephen Curry (New Orleans, LA)
Is it "imposter" or "impostor"--that's the question that nagged me while I read The Three Imposters. Which spelling is correct, and which is the imposter/or? The lexicographers need to come down hard on this issue!
That aside, The Three Imposters is a black diamond of a little dark fantasy, told in hypnotic descriptive prose. The book is structured as a series of stories within a frame story, much like the Decameron or Canterbury Tales, only the frame story has its own plot and is the most interesting of all in The Three Imposters. The sub-stories range from the strange to the macabre, to the frankly paranormal, each entertaining in its own right, besides what it contributes to the whole. Moreover, Machen's style glitters with curious flights of thought and characterizations, wellnigh as entertaining as the story itself.
What struck me most of all about The Three Imposters is how panoramically influencial this short book is, as if it were the whole nine muses of twentieth century literature! The Maltese Falcon owes an obvious debt to the Gold Tiberius. I think that the Novel of the Dark Valley is a clear precursor to the Trial, and obviously, Lovecraft derived his entire schtick from the Adventure of the Lost Brother. Machen himself must have been influenced by Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde, published about 10 years earlier, but Machen amplifies the original, rather than narrowing it.
Altogether, The Three Imposters is well worth the 150 pages or so of reading time. Dyson and Phillipps are my new literary heroes! I would recommend this Chaosium edition, which includes these several other quality Machen works and sells for nearly the same price as other editions.
A great addition to any weird library, from this Welsh seer of the hidden December 15, 2007
The Northern Light (Europa, Close to Ultima Thule)
0 out of 1 found this review helpful
First of all, a warning; do NOT read the introduction to Machen by S. T. Joshi strangely placed in the front of the book before you read the stories. The otherwise excellent introduction contains spoilers to all the stories, something I thankfully noticed at an early time. Being part of my effort to "branch out" beyond H. P. Lovecraft, I purchased all the three books by Arthur Machen that has been published by Chaosium. The tales within turned out to be excellent, and I quickly saw why HPL praised Machen so highly. Even though parts of the tales no longer appear as "shocking" as they once did, with their horror being centred on "sex and pagans", they still have a mild discomfort to offer, and the final tale of the book is, as we shall see, quite the masterpiece.
The first tale is "The Great God Pan", a very good tale, but as I've said; time has not been kind to this. A naked God in the forest don't exactly scare or shock people these days, at least not in the way that Machen intended. Although, it should be noted that I'm not the type of "conventional Christian" that Machen had in mind as his audience when he wrote it. The tale details an experiment gone "wrong", where a young girl sees and interacts with the ancient heathen god Pan. The result pops out nine months later, and several horrific incidents spawn from this. A fine tale, but a bit dated.
The second tale is much more to my taste, "The Inmost Light" (and for fans of the marvellous English musical group Current 93, I assume this is where Tibet got his title), also a taste centred around an experiment, where an occultist attempt to capture the essence of the body, "The Inmost Light", in a gem. A wonderful tale with an eerie feeling throughout.
The third tale is "The Shining Pyramid", a tale about the well-known "Little people", and one of the two best tales in the book. It unfolds somewhat like a detective novel, where two men find strange clues to uncanny activities in connection to the disappearance of a young woman in the Welsh countryside. The protagonists suspect the hands of the pre-Aryan inhabitants of Europe, and the tale is an effective weird tale, with Machen's wonderful prose really showing its best side.
The final tale, or I should say "tales", is the title story, "The Three Impostors", which is a strange creation of interlocking tales many in number. The tale is about a young man in London, a wannabe writer, who through random encounters with a few people hears several tales that all contain a few common elements; "a young man with large spectacles" and some weird and horrific incidents involving this young man. But alas all is not as it appears to be, and we are brought to several places in the search for this man, and what it all means is not revealed before the final phrases, where the real evil is revealed. This tale is among the best work I've read in the genre, and it really gives you the creeps at various parts, some of it being simply excellent.
Highly recommended!
Showing reviews 1-5 of 18
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