The Cthulhu Mythos Encyclopedia Paperback – August 1, 2008

Been looking for this for some time and found it on Amazon. If your a Lovecraftian this book is for you. Helps define who, what, where and how things make sense in this book. Great read.

This is a necessary resource for anyone serious about the Cthulhu Mythos. Whether you are a writer, gamer or an enthusiast of HP Lovecraft and other horrors, this book is highly recommended. The information in this book is great for creating plot hooks, or what stories to search for to learn more about a specific topic for further exploration.Need to find out more about Ubbo-Sathla to write a time travel story about wizards?Look up Ubbo-Sathla, find out that Clark Ashton Smith wrote Ubbo-Sathla, and that god is mentioned in the Book of Eibon. You'll find an appendices about the Necronomicon.More importantly Dan Harms included a guide on how to handle and use others intellectual property from a non-legalistic standpoint, but more from a standpoint of being ethically creative while respecting to the continuity.Somewhere in storage I have the second edition of this book, but I have a digital copy on my iPhone, laptop and desktop computer. For my podcast I find this to be a great resource.Unfortunately I have occasionally ran across instances where Mr. Harms references a story that is no longer in print and hard to find(even after contacting the author or the story). That would be my only gripe. Otherwise this is wonderful, also I am happy that it is a book that covers literature as well as RPG source material due to the fact that the two have become intertwined in the last 30+ years. I am also thankful that the book doesn't rely on any goofy lovecraftian tricks, spooky typefaces or faux-aged paper. It's nice to have some people take this space monster business seriously.

I'm glad I got this book. It's a straight-up reference book, and that includes annotations so you know which author(s) used whatever beast, location, etc. I really appreciated that because that means I get to read novels, short stories, and novellas I'd not already ready or in many cases even known about. The only thing I'd like for the book to have included was some illustrations, and that's a small quibble. -- For the money, this book's a really good one to have on your horror shelf. Recommended. 9/10

I purchased this as a resource for one of my own projects. My expectation was that I'd look up a few things, probably using it to check some names or clarify some ideas from the Lovecraft Mythos. But as I thumbed through the book, more and more entries caught my eye. I began cross referencing creatures and checking the relationships between various deities, sects, etc. And I ended up spending most of an afternoon browsing. Ideas are percolating! Very glad I purchased this one!I detected a few typos, and would have liked to see more graphics (not monster pics, but graphics that clarify relationships among the various listings). Some "meta structure" might be nice too, where (for example) keywords might be used to distinguish between major and minor aspects of the Mythos. Lovecraft and those he influenced/inspired have written a lot of stuff, some of it fascinating. Anything that can help an interested person tease out relationships would be helpful.All-in-all, however, this promises to be a useful reference book.

I'm very pleased with the book, though I did not expect Shannon Appel's Timeline in Appendix D. to have been omitted from this Edition from the Second Edition. In short, "Oh well...".

comprehensive and complete. I love this reference! If you're a HPL fan, you need this reference. If you'ever gotten a headache trying to remember what story(ies) had a certain thing/god/item/ritual/whatever in it, this is for you. If you're trying to put together a good idea of exactly what something is, this book has it. It will not take the place of reading a story, but it can help you remember which stories you want to read. It does go beyong just HPL, and it makes notice of when the information comes from Derleth or someone else. It is not exhaustive in going into every single author who has written in the Mythos, but that's good, because discriminating carefully avoids the need to catalog every internet fanfic ever written. The author does not dwell on a lot of the HPL/Derleth controversies - which is also good, because that really should be a separate text - think ST Joshi if you're looking for that.

I liked this book, interesting information I didn’t know!

Best affordable replacement for the old chaosium Encyclopedia Cthulhiana!