Azathoth

Ordo ab Chao

By: Aaron J. French

Narrated by: Andrew Gibson

The first in a series of anthologies devoted to the Lovecraftian gods, Ordo ab Chao follows the highly successful The Gods of HP Lovecraft (published in 2015 by JournalStone Publishing). We begin our series with the primal origins and the god Azathoth, who represents primordial chaos in the Lovecraftian Mythos.

H.P. Lovecraft described Azathoth as a demon king ruling from a dark throne in the middle of the fiery cosmic void, out of which all created things emanated. Surrounding this orbiting spiral of infinite chaos and creation sounded the repetitive notes of an incessant flute, a reference to the Greek god Pan and the symbol of chaos behind the orderliness of nature. Taking this as our departure, the stories in this volume approach Azathoth through the concept of “order out of chaos” (or Ordo ab Chao in Latin).

Ordo ab Chao includes new work from some of the most talented and respected authors in horror and dark fantasy, featuring stories from T. Kingfisher, Ruthanna Emrys, Adam L. G. Nevill, Kaaron Warren, Brian Evenson, Donald Tyson, Richard Thomas, Richard Gavin, Matthew Cheney, Erica Ruppert, Jamieson Ridenhour, Maxwell I. Gold, Lena Ng, Nathan Carson, Samuel Marzioli, Lauri Taneli Lassila, Akis Linardos, and R. B. Payne.

©2023 Aaron J. French (P)2023 Journalstone

So much better than the previous one

While I enjoyed a couple of the stories in the previous collection, the drastic difference in quality between stories was quite jarring.
That is however not the case with this one.
I liked the vast majority of entries and would even consider one or two of them to be great.

The stories are highly entertaining, and while most of them might not exactly be some unique, groundbreaking masterpiece that will change literature forever... They do accomplish what they set out to do, and they do it well.

Andrew Gibson is also a much more fitting voice for this type of narration. I like David Stifel in general, but unfortunately, he isn't quite suited for this kind of collection.

Overall, I found the entertainment value to be unusually high. I definitely think it was worth the credit spent, and will be listening to this album many times more in the future.

Good anthology of HP adjacent fiction

Recommend to any fan of Gods of HP Lovecraft, Monsters of HP Lovecraft, and other similar anthologies