Archive.org and Librivox Editions (Both from original 1896 text)
This is the collection of short stories that Robert W. Chambers put out after The King in Yellow. There are a other collections of Chamber’s short stories that use the Maker of Moons title that contain a variety of tales, but this is a review of the original 1896 collection. I started it a few weeks ago because I was in need of an audiobook to listen to while doing housework. I didn’t have very high hopes, as it seems to be common knowledge that Chambers wrote far more bad than good, but anything beats making dinner in silence. I really liked most of the King In Yellow, even some of the more romantic tales, but this collection is of a generally lower quality. Including a few soppy stories in a collection otherwise brimming with ghouls and horror is acceptable, but forcing a few quirky tales into a collection of stories about loverboys going fishing makes for a fairly shit book in my opinion.
Here’s my rundown of the stories:
The Maker of Moons
The ‘weirdest’ and most entertaining tale in this collection, The Maker of Moons features weird creatures and strange dimensions. It’s the only story in here that comes remotely close to horror, but in comparison to Chamber’s earlier stories, this remains very much on the fantasy side of weird. I’d save this one for last if I were you.
The Silent Land
A lad with a pet bird goes fishing and falls in love with a strange woman. This is a bit like a really boring version of the title story of the collection.
The Black Water
A lad is in love with a girl. He has a sore eye. This story is shit.
In the Name of the Most High
Chambers was obviously a fan of Ambrose Bierce, and this story could have been taken right out of the Tales of Soldiers section from Bierce’s In the Midst of Life. Unfortunately, Tales of Soliders was my least favourite of all Bierce’s collections, and this reads as a shit version of a shit story. Awful.
The Boy’s Sister
A lad falls in love with a boy’s sister. Lame.
The Crime
A lad goes fishing and falls in love. The only crime here is the inclusion of this hogwash.
A Pleasant Evening
This is a ghost story about a guy closely resembling the author. It’s not the worst thing in the collection; it starts off promising, but it falls apart towards the end. This is the only other tale that Chaosium deemed worthy to include in their Complete Weird Tales of Robert W. Chambers collection
Probably all you need when it comes to Chambers.
The Man at the Next Table
Weird, yes, but not very good. Although it doesn’t appear in Chaosium’s selections from this collection, it is incorporated into Chamber’s novel, In Search of the Unknown, as the Pythagoreans chapter. In Search of the Unknown is included, in full, in the Chaosium collection, but judging by the original version of the story, I don’t know if I’ll ever get around to it. This is a story about a lad who meets a pair of metaphysical losers, and a cat.
If you have the Chaosium collection, I would recommend sticking to the stories included in there. The other tales in the original collection aren’t horrendously painful to read/listen to, but they are all rather similar and forgettable. I’m not going to rule out reading more Chambers in the future, but I’ll probably wait for a recommendation on which of his texts are actually worth reading.
Nocturnal Revelries 