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heggs's review against another edition
4.0
Once every year and a half I get into a need for some good scares. Who better than the man that invented modern horror? Some of it is quite wordy today, but the mood he conveys is one that will stick with you. All of his classics are here: The Call of Cthulu, Shadows over Innsmouth, Beyond the Mountains of Madness. If you are looking for something to make you wonder about what could be lurking in the dark, this is for you.
shane_tiernan's review against another edition
4.0
The Whisperer in Darkness (Kind of long for what you get. I read it before but didn't realize. Mi Go trick main character into coming to a farm in the hils. Then he finds face and hands of friend in chair.)
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In the Vault (Creepy - great last line ending, similar to Statement of Randolph Carter.)
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The Call of Cthulhu (Awesome writing. Great famous lines, "Only poetry or madness could describe...", "Then the Old Ones would teach them new ways to shout and kill and revel … and all the earth would flame with a halocaust of exstacy and freedom.")
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The Colour Out of Space (Can't remember)
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The Dunwich Horror (Very cool and Lovecraftian, the good guys actually win though. A bit too long, but scary and the first real description of one of the creatures.)
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The Haunter of the Dark (Pretty standard Lovecraft. Like the fact that this thing lived in a really old building right in the middle of town.)
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The Music of Erich Zann (Awesome. Playing keeps the monsters away and his window looks into incalculable depths.)
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The Picture in the House (Would have been better but the accent was annoying.)
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The Terrible Old Man (Good but too short, not scary enough)
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The Thing on the Doorstep (Started out sounding contrived, and the writing wasn't as good as usual. But then it got creepy at the end. Was also pretty original.)
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Cool Air (Guy's body is dead, to preserve it he keeps his room cold and soaks himself in chemical baths. He's living through force of will. Then his body starts to deteriorate.)
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Pickman's Model (Cool, more easy going style than most Lovecraft. Scary and dark.)
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The Outsider (Not sure when I originally read this story but I never forgot it. This is the one where the narrator has lived all his life in a closed off castle and doesn't realize he's a monster until he sees a mirror. Kind of silly though because he could have seen his arms and legs.)
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The Rats in the Walls (Man rebuilds the ancient residence of his family and finds a subterranean world where humans were bred for food and his family was part of it. Creepy but hard to understand while you're reading it.)
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In the Vault (Creepy - great last line ending, similar to Statement of Randolph Carter.)
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The Call of Cthulhu (Awesome writing. Great famous lines, "Only poetry or madness could describe...", "Then the Old Ones would teach them new ways to shout and kill and revel … and all the earth would flame with a halocaust of exstacy and freedom.")
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The Colour Out of Space (Can't remember)
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The Dunwich Horror (Very cool and Lovecraftian, the good guys actually win though. A bit too long, but scary and the first real description of one of the creatures.)
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The Haunter of the Dark (Pretty standard Lovecraft. Like the fact that this thing lived in a really old building right in the middle of town.)
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The Music of Erich Zann (Awesome. Playing keeps the monsters away and his window looks into incalculable depths.)
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The Picture in the House (Would have been better but the accent was annoying.)
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The Terrible Old Man (Good but too short, not scary enough)
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The Thing on the Doorstep (Started out sounding contrived, and the writing wasn't as good as usual. But then it got creepy at the end. Was also pretty original.)
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Cool Air (Guy's body is dead, to preserve it he keeps his room cold and soaks himself in chemical baths. He's living through force of will. Then his body starts to deteriorate.)
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Pickman's Model (Cool, more easy going style than most Lovecraft. Scary and dark.)
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The Outsider (Not sure when I originally read this story but I never forgot it. This is the one where the narrator has lived all his life in a closed off castle and doesn't realize he's a monster until he sees a mirror. Kind of silly though because he could have seen his arms and legs.)
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The Rats in the Walls (Man rebuilds the ancient residence of his family and finds a subterranean world where humans were bred for food and his family was part of it. Creepy but hard to understand while you're reading it.)
krigjer's review against another edition
4.0
Books don't generally scare me, but some of Lovecraft's creations left me jumping at things that went bump in the night.
I can see why Lovecraft is considered the master of eldritch horror.
I tried Poe first and couldn't stomach his redundant, slow, almost pompous prose, and was a little afraid of Lovecraft going into it.
I found the writing delicious- sufficiently descriptive while not feeling overwhelming.
My favourites include The Colour out of Space, The Vault, Cool Air, The Thing on the Doorstep, and Herbert West-Reanimator.
A special mention to Pickman's Model for foreshadowing the ending so damn well and still making me gasp at the last sentence.
The Case of Charles Dexter Ward had no business being as long as it is, and was a large part of why this collection took me so long to finish.
I can see why Lovecraft is considered the master of eldritch horror.
I tried Poe first and couldn't stomach his redundant, slow, almost pompous prose, and was a little afraid of Lovecraft going into it.
I found the writing delicious- sufficiently descriptive while not feeling overwhelming.
My favourites include The Colour out of Space, The Vault, Cool Air, The Thing on the Doorstep, and Herbert West-Reanimator.
A special mention to Pickman's Model for foreshadowing the ending so damn well and still making me gasp at the last sentence.
The Case of Charles Dexter Ward had no business being as long as it is, and was a large part of why this collection took me so long to finish.
ksjones's review
dark
mysterious
reflective
medium-paced
- Plot- or character-driven? Plot
- Strong character development? No
- Loveable characters? No
- Diverse cast of characters? No
- Flaws of characters a main focus? No
3.5
baries's review against another edition
challenging
dark
mysterious
tense
medium-paced
- Plot- or character-driven? Character
- Strong character development? It's complicated
- Loveable characters? It's complicated
- Diverse cast of characters? No
- Flaws of characters a main focus? It's complicated
5.0
bookishtory2665's review against another edition
2.0
I'm not sure what to write in this review and that's the honest truth. In Lovecraft's fiction, various cults worshipped Cthulhu but out here in the real world, there have been cases of small cults forming based on the mythos. Books have been written in support of the idea that it wasn't just a literary device and one individual actually wrote his own Cult of Cthulhu Bible (and yes, its available for sale on the Internet).
The author, H. P. Lovecraft never earned a living from his fiction and his life was … unusual. Worth reading about if you have the time.
Okay, enough stalling. Here's what I thought.
Lovecraft is wordy and there are terms that had me searching the Internet for a definition. For me, there were two big problems. One, these stories suffered under the weight of the author's style of writing. He writes about the past and makes it abundantly clear that the protagonist has already survived the events recounted. Nothing is left to the imagination and everyone is uniformly horrified, left with a nervous condition or an outright nervous breakdown and its only afterward that you find out about the events. Maybe for some that works but for me, it tended to water down the tension. Make it all less enjoyable. The second thing that bothered me was the author's apparent bias against certain groups of people.
So, some of the stories had interesting plot lines but ultimately, I found this book a chore to finish and for the first time ever, I was actually counting the pages until it would be over.
The author, H. P. Lovecraft never earned a living from his fiction and his life was … unusual. Worth reading about if you have the time.
Okay, enough stalling. Here's what I thought.
Lovecraft is wordy and there are terms that had me searching the Internet for a definition. For me, there were two big problems. One, these stories suffered under the weight of the author's style of writing. He writes about the past and makes it abundantly clear that the protagonist has already survived the events recounted. Nothing is left to the imagination and everyone is uniformly horrified, left with a nervous condition or an outright nervous breakdown and its only afterward that you find out about the events. Maybe for some that works but for me, it tended to water down the tension. Make it all less enjoyable. The second thing that bothered me was the author's apparent bias against certain groups of people.
So, some of the stories had interesting plot lines but ultimately, I found this book a chore to finish and for the first time ever, I was actually counting the pages until it would be over.
achillea's review against another edition
Will probably finish at some point but I realised it's going to take me yearssssss to get through it. Picked it up because I had it on my shelf, one if the stories was set for the monthly book club, plus I wanted to see what one of the roots of cosmic horror is like (answer: boring and barely readable, at least as far as my own reading preferences go. Not even gonna bother mentioning all the bigotry)
Content Warnings
Graphic: Racism and Xenophobia
splahdown's review against another edition
Just couldn't get over the abhorrent racism. I get that it was written in 1926 but it was a huge turn off for me.
Content Warnings
Graphic: Racial slurs, Racism, and Cultural appropriation
bookishwendy's review against another edition
4.0
"On the barren shore, and on the lofty ice barrier in the background, myriads of grotesque penguins squawked and flapped their fins..." ~H. P. Lovecraft in At the Mountains of Madness
"Indeed, all that a wonder story can ever be is a vivid picture of a certain type of human mood. The moment it tries to be anything else it becomes cheap, puerile, and unconvincing." ~H. P. Lovecraft in "Notes on Writing Weird Fiction"
I don't consider myself much of a reader of horror or science fiction, but I do appreciate a good, slow-burning, atmospheric story that makes me question reality, sanity, and all of human existence...at least for a little while. At at the same time, I found myself enjoying this as "pulp" in the same way I might enjoy a monster movie out of the 50's (see the first quote above!). This particular Lovecraft story collection served as a perfect introduction to early 20th century "weird fiction", and I liked the way the stories lengthened, matured, and increased in complexity as I worked my way through. The first few stories are short, somewhat confusing and dreamlike. "The Shunned House" was the first story to feel--in that signature Lovecraft style--more or less grounded in reality, while the creepiness slowly accumulates like the fungi in a damp cellar. In At the Mountains of Madness I became fully immersed in the scientific minutiae of a 1930's antarctic expedition (it's like Into Thin Air with monsters, or maybe Indiana Jones and the Crystal Skull done right). "Shadow Over Innsmouth" was the most gripping and fast-paced of all the stories complete with a thrilling chase scene. Of course, Lovecraft takes his time getting to the point, so I imagine that what some people will find intriguing (all the pseudo-science and cultish history) others will find dead dull.
Lovecraft's stories are are very internal and cerebral, and as such there is very little human emotion beyond horror and fear: by that I mean his characters seem to have little, if any, interest in human relationships. There are no love interests, the few families mentioned are horribly disturbed (as was Lovecraft's own), but there is a lot of Indiana-Jonsing about in dangerous subterranean abyssi (that's the correct HPL plural, right? :) However, the stories on their own terms are certain to provoke thought and doubt about the mere shadow of reality we humans are capable of perceiving.
"Indeed, all that a wonder story can ever be is a vivid picture of a certain type of human mood. The moment it tries to be anything else it becomes cheap, puerile, and unconvincing." ~H. P. Lovecraft in "Notes on Writing Weird Fiction"
I don't consider myself much of a reader of horror or science fiction, but I do appreciate a good, slow-burning, atmospheric story that makes me question reality, sanity, and all of human existence...at least for a little while. At at the same time, I found myself enjoying this as "pulp" in the same way I might enjoy a monster movie out of the 50's (see the first quote above!). This particular Lovecraft story collection served as a perfect introduction to early 20th century "weird fiction", and I liked the way the stories lengthened, matured, and increased in complexity as I worked my way through. The first few stories are short, somewhat confusing and dreamlike. "The Shunned House" was the first story to feel--in that signature Lovecraft style--more or less grounded in reality, while the creepiness slowly accumulates like the fungi in a damp cellar. In At the Mountains of Madness I became fully immersed in the scientific minutiae of a 1930's antarctic expedition (it's like Into Thin Air with monsters, or maybe Indiana Jones and the Crystal Skull done right). "Shadow Over Innsmouth" was the most gripping and fast-paced of all the stories complete with a thrilling chase scene. Of course, Lovecraft takes his time getting to the point, so I imagine that what some people will find intriguing (all the pseudo-science and cultish history) others will find dead dull.
Lovecraft's stories are are very internal and cerebral, and as such there is very little human emotion beyond horror and fear: by that I mean his characters seem to have little, if any, interest in human relationships. There are no love interests, the few families mentioned are horribly disturbed (as was Lovecraft's own), but there is a lot of Indiana-Jonsing about in dangerous subterranean abyssi (that's the correct HPL plural, right? :) However, the stories on their own terms are certain to provoke thought and doubt about the mere shadow of reality we humans are capable of perceiving.
breezie_reads's review against another edition
dark
slow-paced
- Strong character development? No
- Loveable characters? No
- Diverse cast of characters? No
2.0
There was really only 5 stories in this entire collection that I actually enjoyed. And, no. One of them was NOT The Call of Cthulhu. Most of the stories were boring and were just TELLING you that you are supposed to be scared (i.e. The Call of Cthulhu). The descriptions are so lazy. You can't scare someone just by saying something is "too terrifying for your mind to comprehend." Shut up.
I understand how these could possibly be considered top horror in the time frame they were written in, but the fact that Lovecraft could only get published in obscure pulp magazines should probably be a big hint as to how unpopular his work actually was. And how shitty of a person he was, which definitely didn't help and it does show in his writing.
I understand how these could possibly be considered top horror in the time frame they were written in, but the fact that Lovecraft could only get published in obscure pulp magazines should probably be a big hint as to how unpopular his work actually was. And how shitty of a person he was, which definitely didn't help and it does show in his writing.