Grim Investigations

Arkham Horror: The Collected Novellas, Volume II

By: Jennifer Brozek, Richard Lee Byers, Amanda Downum

Narrated by: Todd Menesses

The bold investigators of Arkham Horror are humanity's best hope against monstrous terrors from beyond the void in this second collection of extraordinary eldritch novellas.

To Fight the Black Wind by Jennifer Brozek - psychologist Carolyn Fern's treatment of a patient's terrifying nightmares tears open a doorway into the Dreamlands and the Elder Gods.

The Blood of Baalshandor by Richard Lee Byers - the arcane tomes of Miskatonic University are an irresistible lure for stage magician Dexter Drake and his assistant Molly Maxwell, where they soon fall prey to dark forces.

Dark Revelations by Amanda Downum - when author Gloria Goldberg visits Arkham to complete the unfinished novel of her fellow author, its words escape the page and transform Arkham.

©2022 Fantasy Flight Games (P)2022 Tantor

A fun listen; but overall, there are better compendiums

Reading is executed well enough, but to be frank the stories are not as impactful as some other compendiums. It still has value for its easy listening though to be sure, I found it enjoyable in that it didn’t require too much thought or engagement on the part of the listener.

After Laird Barron, Lumley, or the authors in the book of Cthulhu, Rise of the Deep Ones, tales of the abyssal plain, tales of the Al Azif, or HPL himself…Grim Investigations is a nice palette cleanser for a decidedly more lighthearted portrayal of the mythos…Particularly in that you are not forced to feel the trauma of individual characters through either the writer’s prose or imagery.

That does perhaps build the first of the two critiques I have on this compendium; the characters feel generic, cut and paste for the lack of intimacy in the writing.

The second critique, is that the deity concerned in this compendium isn’t impactful. More so used as an opportunity to make callouts or provide cameos to other monsters present in the mythos.

Not as Good as the First Collection

Overall this is a pretty good set of stories. One terrific story, one okay story, and a pretty forgettable one.
First, the excellent story, The Blood of Baalshandor, was fantastically written and interesting about a Harry Houdini-type magician searching for occult items is worth a listen.
The decent story is Dark Revelations, which had a confusing ending about writing a new end to a tale to avoid the world's end. The build-up was good, but I could not quite get around that ending, with even a couple of listens.
The forgettable story was To Fight the Black Wind, which is undercut by the fact that it mainly takes place in The Dreamlands. The Dreamlands are not a scary place, in my opinion, and even throwing in a Nyarlathotep reference does not save it, ultimately.
I thought the performance was fantastic, but this is probably the weakest set of stories I have listened to from the Arkham Horror series.

Low-hanging fruit

The main stories are slow , drawn-out, and bland. A poor sequel to Dark Origins. Save your credit.

Vol. 1 was way better

I loved vol. 1 of this series so I was shocked that vol 2 was so poor. These stories could have been so so much better, but they failed to keep my interest despite loving the subject.

"Incomprehensible Horror!"

I love Lovecraft.
Okay.

BOTTOM LINE
I wanted "The Thing That Could Not Be!” instead I got "The Thing That Could Not Be Understood!”

(Heavy sigh.)
As good as Vol one is... Vol 2 is not.
I really wanted to enjoy it.
I was disappointed.
I got angry at the writers and editor.
When they got Vol 1 so right, how could they miss so badly on vol 2?

Again we got a Cthulhu Mythos book with no Cthulhu Mythos in it.
Okay, HARDLY any Cthulhu Mythos.
If you're an undergrad in psychology it might be fun.

However, the narrator, Todd Menesses, is amazing!
I had to check to see if there were more than one reader on this book. Wow, his range of voices for women & men is astounding. His accents sometimes get a little confused, but mostly he's right there. Very rarely doers he 'over act' the parts and 'chews up' the literature. He gives you a good read. I'm looking for more books read by Todd!

I feel sorry he had to read hours and hours of mostly confounding & confusing story.

Sorry, I can't recommend this audio book.