Straight To Darkness »

This well-received collection of original stories and articles inspired by the 'Cthulhu Mythos' created by H.P. Lovecraft was published in Japan in 2002 as a two-volume set under the name Hishinkai. The list of contributing authors is a who's-who of Japanese horror fiction, featuring some of the finest writers in Japan today, and reviews demonstrate that the Japanese taste for horror can send shivers up English-speaking spines as well!
In cooperation with Tokyo Sogensha, the Japanese publishers, and the anthology editor, Mr. Asamatsu Ken, we are proud to present this third volume of the series, with a new selection of eerie masterpieces to delight and chill you. Each story is accompanied by a fascinating introduction by Robert M. Price, the recognized master of the Mythos.
The cover is by Yamada Akihiro, who is already winning fans with his "four seasons" approach to the four books in this series. In addition to handling many of the covers for the Japanese-language editions of Lovecraft and other Mythos works, he has built up a loyal following in the States as well for his work.

The New York Times - Dave Itzkoff

Straight to Darkness: Lairs of the Hidden Gods is the third anthology in a series of fiction by Japanese writers, set in the Cthulhu mythos of the American pulp master H. P. Lovecraft that means dark, weird tales about tentacled beasts, ancient artifacts that ooze unidentifiable slime and baby-eating cultists eager to bring about the end of the world. As the Lovecraft scholar Robert M. Price argues in an insightful introduction, the original Cthulhu stories resonate uniquely in Japan, a nation that has not only a documented affinity for giant green, scaly monsters, but also a longstanding fear of any organized activity that smacks of cultism a land where Christianity was alternately banned and bastardized for centuries.