Quest for Cthulhu

Quest for Cthulhu is the August Derleth-collected omnibus of his Lovecraft Mythos continuation and expansion stories, gathering decades of Derleth's work in and around the Cthulhu material. The volume sits at the center of the Mythos expansion tradition. Derleth's theological reframing of the Lovecraft cosmology (the elder gods as good, the great old ones as evil, the cosmic struggle as morally legible) is one of the most contested expansions in any continuation tradition.

What Quest for Cthulhu offers separately from the controversy is a sustained example of one writer's long affection for another's material. The "Trail of Cthulhu" sequence is the volume's spine and is more enjoyable on its own terms than the strict Lovecraft purists tend to admit. Fans of Ramsey Campbell's Severn Valley Mythos stories or Brian Lumley's Titus Crow novels will recognize the careful expansion tradition that Derleth founded.

The collection is uneven, as Mythos collections are. The strongest pieces hold their own next to the source material.

Four stars. Recommended to Lovecraft readers who want to see the actual shape of the post-Lovecraft expansion tradition. The Quest for Cthulhu August Derleth omnibus is a useful overview of one of weird fiction's most influential editorial-and-creative careers.