A fun collection of "replays" of Call of Cthulhu games. These are basically the opposite of dramatised readings, I suppose? The game sessions are turned into short stories, but not completely: rather than writing a novel based on an RPG campaign (which several other authors have done), these retain the players' interjections, the GM's comments and so on, so it's like reading a mixture of a playscript and a novel. It sounds weird, but it really isn't hard to get used to.

The stories and the players' misfortunes are entertainingly written, and they sound like quite a fun bunch. It's also really nice to get a Japanese perspective on the game, which gives a novel feel to everything. They bring different assumptions, genre conventions and cultural background to the table, and I really enjoyed that aspect. The GM has also come up with three quite original stories that seem to be quite strongly rooted in Japanese history and culture. The second story is deliberately trying to evoke a "splatter horror" feel, and so I liked it rather less than the other two, but the premise was still interesting. I also liked the little discussions after each game where they talk about what worked, what didn't, and what to work on for next session. If I have criticisms, it's mostly that I get impression the scenarios were rather linear, but it's not really fair to conclude that from a writeup like this.

I can't tell how interesting this would be for someone not interested in RPGs but interested in Lovecraft. Probably not hugely, to be honest, because the game aspect is a big part of it. If you are interested, though - and you can read Japanese! - this is well worth a look. ( )