This book is now definitely one of my favorite works by Jordan Krall. The Lovecraftian title is, perhaps, a bit misleading, as none of the usual tropes show up; no elder gods or cultists, no dreamlands, resurrectionists, or alien beings. Krall introduces the 'other' in a much more subtle and insidious way; by placing us in a jigsaw puzzle of people, places, and events where not only are the pieces scattered, but the image on the box perpetually shifts and changes. There are glimmers of something recognizable, but the whole image remains mutable and obscured. Elements familiar to his work, like poetic, almost musical repetitions and variations, and the structurally experimental chapters come in to play, but the stories overall do take a far more linear approach, which makes this a good starting-point to new readers as well. Highly recommended for fans of unsettling weird fiction. ( )

This collection of tales stretches and strains at the borders of what is normally viewed as “Lovecraftian” and although some of the classic Lovecraft tropes may be missing, the overall feel of collection is most definitely “Lovecraftian”. These are difficult tales that are at times wilfully obscure and strangely ambiguous. There is a feeling of the cryptically cosmic but the stories appear much more grounded in the realm of personal nightmare. Many of the tales (or perhaps tone poems) are too obscure to work as normal narrative and even those that begin to follow any sort of formal structure eventually begin to slowly slip out of your grip. All the stories, however, leave you with a strangely uneasy feeling of something below the surface straining to get out – and what could be more Lovecraftian than that? The language is cleverly constructed, with some beautiful and horrific turns of phrase, which at times falls over into pretentiousness, but is in the main very well suited to the symbolism of the stories. The best story in the collection is “Nightmares of a Pampiniform Mind”, which is impossible to describe, but is a dark trawl into a grim, slimy, deadly sub-consciousness – a horrifically bloody story strewn with bizarre imagery and cryptic metaphor. All in all a strange, difficult and disturbing collection, which won’t be to everyone’s tastes but a little perseverance and effort will prove rewarding. Oh - keep a dictionary handy! The full story listing is as follows:

· We Shout Our Omens
· Why Our Fathers Left Us
· A Reptant Hell
· Xnoybistic Fragments Found in An Industrial Park
· His Candescence
· Hail Desire and the Bodies of Cold Gentlemen
· Argon Seizure
· Nightmares of a Pampiniform Mind
· Our Unreliable Structures
· And You Should Believe in Solar Lodges
· Xnoybis Itself ( )