Order THE ALTAR IN THE HILLS (AND OTHER WEIRD TALES) here
Howard Phillips Lovecraft is what you could refer to as ''an important writer''. I was working night shift the first time I read him. It was a novella called THE WHISPERER IN DARKNESS that triggered some kind of primal fear in me that the sun would go out and that an ancient race of alien would mine the Earth only to leave it a lifeless wreckage, floating in nothingness. The man's writings leave no one indifferent and will strike terror in every serious genre reader's heart at some point. I'm surprised that he doesn't have a bigger cult following, to be honest.
Authors like Brandon Barrows are the willing heirs of this rather new legacy of horror. His short story collection THE ALTAR IN THE HILLS (AND OTHER WEIRD TALES) clearly shows the influence of the master, and a quiet spark of originality that keeps it from capsizing into the land of forgotten eBooks.
THE ALTAR IN THE HILLS (AND OTHER WEIRD TALES) is mainly two long short stories and handful of flash fiction pieces sandwiched in between. THE ALTAR IN THE HILLS is maybe the best crafted story in the collection, and the most Lovecraftian. It's about a young man named Kincaid looking for his friend who disappeared looking for an artifact he was obsessed about. I liked the story despite that it was very alike Lovecraft's own writings. I didn't like the direct references to his mythology, though. Maybe it was the entire point for Brandon Barrows (I don't know the guy), but to me it was a sign of lack of confidence because the themes and the settings carried the Lovecraftian atmosphere more than enough.
My favourite story though was the other longer piece called THROUGH THE ETHER, about the discoveries of Lovecraftian historical figure Nikola Tesla. I don't know why it wasn't made before, but after reading a Lovecraftian Tesla story, it seems like it was begging to get done. The themes of mixing occult and science, and of the knowledge of men really take a life of their own when you take a step away from their Lovecraftian origins. To me, science experiments gone wrong, revealing that men misunderstood the nature of things, are the backbone of horror themselves because the source of men's most primal fears is the unknown. No story in THE ALTAR IN THE HILLS (AND OTHER WEIRD TALES) celebrates this idea better than THROUGH THE ETHER.
Not all the flash fiction pieces in this collection are worth your time. LEWIS for example was disappointing, because it ended right after a promising couple pages. There's also one that's only two or three paragraphs long. PERCHANCE A DREAM was very good. It has more distant Lovecraftian influence and I'd say it's by far the most clever, original and creative piece in the entire collection. If it would've been a little longer, it would've been my favourite piece by far. THE ALTAR IN THE HILLS (AND OTHER WEIRD TALES) highlights two things: 1) Brandon Barrows can write and 2) He loves H.P Lovecraft a lot. I would've loved to see more personal ambition and original ideas in his writing, but he shows just enough to keep the reading hanging in there.
Short story collections have become somewhat of a calling card in the eBook era and that's what THE ALTAR IN THE HILLS (AND OTHER WEIRD TALES) ultimately is. It's a little lean on content and too close to H.P Lovecraft's material for me, it sure will please those who wish to keep the mythos of Cthulhu alive and well. I wouldn't say no to reading Brandon Barrows in long form though. He has strong, original ideas when he dares writing them down.
