I got the review copy for this book back in December. I wrote the review in April and now I’m posting a shortened version of that bloated mess here, in October.
You can’t say I don’t finish what I start and here we have The Flock of Ba-Hui (And Other Stories), a translation of a series offbeat and original horror stories set in the Lovecraft universe by Chinese authors. I’ll admit I’ve never read anything by Lovecraft–my horror experience began with Goosebumps in elementary school, jumped to Edgar Allan Poe in junior high, and then pole-vaulted over Lovecraft all the way to The Stand. So I don’t have an opinion of Lovecraft’s work to influence what I think of Ba-Hui, and while if you spend two seconds googling Lovecraft you’ll no doubt be shocked to learn that a white man born in the 19th century harbored some racist leanings, it has nothing to do with this review.
Like I said, The Flock of Ba-Hui is a translation of a series of Lovecraftian stories. What makes these stories different is that they’re set in China, written by Oobmab, a fan who originally posted them on the Call of Cthulhu subforum on The Ring of Wonder (http://trow.cc), an online fantasy and gaming community. Doing the translating are Arthur Meursault and Akira, two dedicated Lovecraft fans themselves, who had the tall task of translating these stories while preserving the tone of the originals and making them understandable for Western audiences.
The four tales of horror range from the mountains of Sichuan province (the titular story, The Flock of Ba-Hui) to an ancient tower (Nadir) to the former German colony of Qingdao (Black Taisui, with a nod to Xu Fu, whose ultimate fate might’ve been as Jofuku in Japan to Tibet (The Ancient Tower). To help explain certain references to Western audiences, the translators have provided footnotes and a framing device linking all stories together, with a nice ending.
If you enjoy action-packed horror, look elsewhere. But if you like atmospheric slow burns, then you’ll have a great time with The Flock of Ba-Hui. For me, I can appreciate the atmosphere, as well as the dedication needed to translate these stories in the first place. I thought the titular story was the best, and I hope The Flock of Ba-Hui will provide an impetus to rescue other Chinese stories from obscurity. There’s much to be discovered, and we can’t let big publishing force-feed us the same boring, workshopped shit forever, right?
Check out The Flock of Ba-Hui, and get the paperback copy; leaving it out on your desk at work sparks some interesting conversations.
