Three Impostors and Other Stories: Best Weird Tales of Arthur Machen v. 1 (Call of Cthulhu Fiction) (Call of Cthulhu Novel)

I appreciate that Machen's appeal lies in his ideas and the Aleister Crowley-like quest to find the doorway to another dimension, but as stories, although they make an impact, they can also make you feel short-changed. "The Great God Pan" COULD have been a great story. The central theme is excellent, in that a young woman, the product of one man's misguided scientific experiments, has become imbued with the essence of pure evil and brings tragedy to all who get involved with her. Fine, nothing wrong with that as a plot whatsoever. But I find it gets farcical that everyone who gets a glimpse of the God Pan basically falls down in a foaming fit of terror and expires. As a plot-device it quickly loses all feel of suspense. It's almost as if Machen should have just come up with the ideas, and then passed them onto another writer to flesh them out. Because that's what's badly lacking in these stories, any real substance. The stories too often feel like jottings hastily scribbled down and then cobbled together, not like the finished product.

"The Shining Pyramid" too starts off promisingly. Dyson, the central male character and investigator in most of these tales, is called to a small English village to look into the disappearance of a young local girl. Dyson comes to the conclusion that she has been spirited away by the Little People. This would be a difficult scenario to pull off at the best of times, but this is hampered too by some absolutely turgid writing. What is clearly meant to be A Slow Build-Up Of Tension, with the finding of the strange symbols drawn on the garden wall, and the arrow-heads laid in a pattern on the ground, is quite frankly just BORING!

"The Three Imposters" is much-respected, and on the whole deservedly so. It is highly complex, being tales within tales, like a puzzle, and extremely original (particularly for its time). It is a highly influential work. Worth reading for anyone who likes a genuine conundrum, but again the characterisation is poor.

My favourite is actually "The Inmost Light", which has a genuinely unnerving air to it. It concerns a Dr Black and his pretty young wife, who move into a suburb of London and who appear to be blissfully happy together. Then Mrs Black completely disappears from view over the winter months, and when she is glimpsed again, quite by chance, through a bedroom window, it appears that a horrific change has come over her. This is quite disturbing, although, once again, Dr Black's written confession at the end about what he has done to his wife to cause this terrible change, could have done with more detail, and Dr Black's motivation, even going for the idea that he is at the mercy of something stronger than himself, isn't satisfactory. Nevertheless I would go so far as to rate "The Inmost Light" as one of the most effective short stories I have ever read.


Murder Most Queer   April 3, 2003
Mrs. Sarah Crabtree (UK)
3 out of 7 found this review helpful

A hark back to the days of old when London was a smoggy Victorian town and evil spirits dwelt in the misty streets. The writing is eloquent and lyrical. The author takes the reader by the hand and guides him through labyrinths of horror and on into the world of the supernatural. The mind is a canvas for one's own over-active imagination and once one is engaged in the language, then it is easy to flow along with the storylines.

Weird and wonderful.


This novel is a must for the fan of imaginative literature.   June 14, 1999
9 out of 10 found this review helpful

Some of the best prose I have ever had the intense pleasure of reading. Machen's works, and especially this novel, are essential reading for anyone who appreciates stylish occult horror over the merely grotesque. He was a master craftsman at weaving together ancient Celtic and pre-Celtic legend with the gothic and macabre themes of witchcraft and the paranormal. Machen was one of the great masters of macabre and fantasy literature and it's a crime that his works aren't more available.