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bbird's review against another edition
- Plot- or character-driven? Plot
- Strong character development? No
- Loveable characters? N/A
- Diverse cast of characters? No
- Flaws of characters a main focus? No
4.0
Graphic: Body horror and Blood
Moderate: Animal death, Death, and Gore
torismazarine's review against another edition
- Plot- or character-driven? Plot
- Strong character development? No
- Loveable characters? No
- Diverse cast of characters? No
- Flaws of characters a main focus? It's complicated
3.5
Graphic: Animal death, Death, and Schizophrenia/Psychosis
librarymouse's review against another edition
- Plot- or character-driven? Plot
- Strong character development? No
- Loveable characters? No
- Diverse cast of characters? No
- Flaws of characters a main focus? It's complicated
2.0
Graphic: Body horror, Death, and Mental illness
judassilver's review against another edition
- Plot- or character-driven? Plot
- Strong character development? No
- Loveable characters? No
- Diverse cast of characters? No
- Flaws of characters a main focus? It's complicated
3.0
Graphic: Animal death, Death, and Racism
Moderate: Xenophobia, Colonisation, Murder, Slavery, and Schizophrenia/Psychosis
Minor: Medical content and Mental illness
therealratking's review against another edition
- Plot- or character-driven? Plot
- Strong character development? No
- Diverse cast of characters? No
- Flaws of characters a main focus? No
4.0
Graphic: Death, Racism, Racial slurs, and Body horror
parenthesis_enjoyer's review against another edition
- Plot- or character-driven? A mix
- Strong character development? No
- Loveable characters? No
- Diverse cast of characters? No
- Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes
4.0
Graphic: Body horror, Animal death, Mental illness, and Gore
Moderate: Panic attacks/disorders and Death
Minor: Slavery, Colonisation, and Racism
dawson64's review against another edition
- Plot- or character-driven? Plot
- Strong character development? No
- Loveable characters? No
- Diverse cast of characters? No
- Flaws of characters a main focus? No
2.5
While provoking and fascinating at first, this book became boring, drawn-out, and overwhelming to the point of neural shutdown. Simply too much information.
Graphic: Body horror, Death, Blood, Gore, Murder, Panic attacks/disorders, Schizophrenia/Psychosis , Violence, and Animal death
erebus53's review against another edition
- Plot- or character-driven? A mix
- Strong character development? No
- Loveable characters? It's complicated
- Diverse cast of characters? No
- Flaws of characters a main focus? No
2.75
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2t0Dg4qhnsk
As a novella published in 1931, this story has a lot of floral prose and references to Classical myth and literature. It is a heavily descriptive book and recounts an Antarctic exploration and the surprising things that are discovered.
Although this book is sold as a horror novella, I found its slow pace a little difficult to stick with and the preamble and circumloction doesn't hold tension well. It ambles where it feels like it ought to loom, and hints where it out to explain. Although I get the idea that leaving things to the imagination of the reader can sometimes be a lot more suspenseful and horrifying, I just don't feel like this was horrific.
I think this story could easily be used as a party game where one has to do something any time you hear a specific word (may I nominate "cyclopean" or possibly "blasphemous"?).
Readers of Lovecraft's other works may recognise a lot of call-backs. Some of the repetitive lines and the frenetic form of the story, especially near the end, bring to mind the works of Edgar Allan Poe (a similarity that does not seem lost on the author, whether it was deliberate or not).
Clearly, the lands described in the story are imaginative, but as someone raised on science fiction and anime, none of it seemed very challenging to me, and certain scenes reminded me of Antarctic parts of the anime series Neon Genesis : Evangelion. If this story inspired that anime it might explain the presence of a particular side-kick.
I'm glad this finally comes off my TBR list as it has been floating about in my cultural background for decades and I never bothered to pick it up.
Moderate: Panic attacks/disorders, Grief, Death, Animal death, Schizophrenia/Psychosis , Gore, and Blood
erikwmj's review against another edition
- Plot- or character-driven? Plot
- Strong character development? No
- Loveable characters? No
- Diverse cast of characters? No
- Flaws of characters a main focus? No
5.0
Moderate: Animal death, Death, and Xenophobia
gameraim's review against another edition
- Plot- or character-driven? Plot
- Strong character development? No
- Loveable characters? No
- Diverse cast of characters? No
- Flaws of characters a main focus? No
4.0
Moderate: Gore, Animal death, Violence, and Injury/Injury detail
Minor: Mental illness, Slavery, Colonisation, Blood, Forced institutionalization, Death, and War