"The most important idea in this book, however, is: nothing is sacred. Nothing is canon. You need never, ever be faithful to something you’ve read."
The essay has more limited objectives than it might seem if you read only the description and this irritated me a little at first but in reality it was a wise choice on Walmsley's part.
It takes some iconic stories by Lovecraft plus some extras by other authors such as Chambers for Hastur and offers the tools to analyze them, unpack their components (characteristics of the creatures, plot developments, descriptions, etc.) and then take the latter and recombine them at will, generating something of "original" but still with the same soul as the source material.
The objective is not to distort or modernize at all costs but to learn to recycle, to work on the "original sources", on a few but significant stories by the original writer. A return to the origins without limiting itself to lazy emulation. Today it can be paradoxically fresh.
I especially appreciated the analysis of individual creatures. By reading them I rediscovered aspects that I didn't remember or underestimated. Some "recombinations" suggested by the author and the editors are themselves worthy for those who want to prepare Lovecraft-themed scenarios for role-playing.
Although I also greatly appreciated the game described at the end of the book (Cthulhu Dark in his first and basic form), I found the essay a little lacking in giving practical suggestions for managing the dynamics of the stories at table. It is no coincidence that it seems to me to be a more universal and useful essay for potential writers than a specific manual for role-playing players. I understand that the book is rules-agnostic and it is difficult to make certain dissertantions without a specific game to which to apply them, but in my opinion could have been done more.
Personally, I found Stealing Cthulhu mainly focused on the Lovecraft stories that I like least. The Call of Cthulhu is now properly pop but for me, who love stories linked to the Dreamlands such as Celephais and The Silver Key, I feel like I have only read comments on a minor part of the author's poetics. However, I recognize that I give much more weight to these things and Walmsley explains his "limited" approach at the beginning.
Therefore recommended to lovers of Lovecraft and the Cthulhu Mythos who want creative ideas to reread and reuse these classic stories.
(Review from my Goodreads profile)
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