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Gary Wolfe liked the book a lot and says so in a lengthy and detailed review in the January issue of Locus:
A few nice quotes:
"There are no cheap knock-offs or ersatz sequels among these nineteen fine stories—no “Roderick Usher Meets Cthulhu” or M. Dupin pursuing Hannibal Lecter—but it’s easy to see how in the hands of a lesser editor or lesser contributors this could have been a bad idea. And it would also be a bad idea to approach each of these stories simply with an eye to guessing which of Poe’s works inspired it (though each author provides a brief explanatory afterword); for one thing, the stories stand perfectly well on their own, and for another, a fair number are based on poems or fragments that you’re not likely to recognize anyway."
****much more in between (you'll have to buy Locus to see it)
"Lucius Shepard’s weirdly titled but elegantly written novella “Kirikh’quru Korkundor” is set in an abandoned Andean village where researchers find themselves inexplicably possessed by sexual mania. It sounds exploitative, but Shepherd’s characteristically brilliant writing and acute portrayals of the mutually manipulative characters at its center make it one of the strongest pieces in the book. And, like some of the other best stories here, like the Rickert or the Cadigan or the Royle or the Charnas—it reminds you of the seductive power of Poe’s sometimes maddeningly perverse aesthetic while letting you forget that Poe is lurking there at all."
and from from Blog Critics Magazine 1/4/09 Richard Marcus ends with:
"The nineteen stories commissioned by Ellen Datlow for the collection Poe are works of mystery and imagination that not only do justice to the author they celebrate, but are fine stories in their own right. Datlow has once again shown an uncanny talent for approaching just the right writers for the task at hand, as not one disappoints."
A few nice quotes:
"There are no cheap knock-offs or ersatz sequels among these nineteen fine stories—no “Roderick Usher Meets Cthulhu” or M. Dupin pursuing Hannibal Lecter—but it’s easy to see how in the hands of a lesser editor or lesser contributors this could have been a bad idea. And it would also be a bad idea to approach each of these stories simply with an eye to guessing which of Poe’s works inspired it (though each author provides a brief explanatory afterword); for one thing, the stories stand perfectly well on their own, and for another, a fair number are based on poems or fragments that you’re not likely to recognize anyway."
****much more in between (you'll have to buy Locus to see it)
"Lucius Shepard’s weirdly titled but elegantly written novella “Kirikh’quru Korkundor” is set in an abandoned Andean village where researchers find themselves inexplicably possessed by sexual mania. It sounds exploitative, but Shepherd’s characteristically brilliant writing and acute portrayals of the mutually manipulative characters at its center make it one of the strongest pieces in the book. And, like some of the other best stories here, like the Rickert or the Cadigan or the Royle or the Charnas—it reminds you of the seductive power of Poe’s sometimes maddeningly perverse aesthetic while letting you forget that Poe is lurking there at all."
and from from Blog Critics Magazine 1/4/09 Richard Marcus ends with:
"The nineteen stories commissioned by Ellen Datlow for the collection Poe are works of mystery and imagination that not only do justice to the author they celebrate, but are fine stories in their own right. Datlow has once again shown an uncanny talent for approaching just the right writers for the task at hand, as not one disappoints."