Reviews

The Thing on the Doorstep by H.P. Lovecraft

babayagba's review against another edition

adventurous dark mysterious tense medium-paced

• Plot- or character-driven? A mix
• Strong character development? Yes
• Loveable characters? It's complicated
• Diverse cast of characters? It's complicated
• Flaws of characters a main focus? It's complicated

5.0

dequantavious's review against another edition

dark emotional mysterious sad medium-paced

4.5

r0b3rta's review against another edition

4.0

Always wanted to read Lovecraft but never got around until now. I read most of the short stories - At the Mountain of Madness, The Music of Erich Zann, etc - all at night. Definitely got chills as I read the stories. Look forward to reading more of his works.

tasentrelibros's review against another edition

dark tense medium-paced

• Diverse cast of characters? No

4.0

oragrace's review against another edition

dark mysterious slow-paced

• Loveable characters? No
• Diverse cast of characters? No

2.0

grayjay's review against another edition

4.0

This was a great collection. My favourites were the similarly-themed "Case of Charles Dexter Ward" and "The Thing on the Doorstep." The later, as well as having one of Lovecraft's only female characters, actually brought on the sense of dread that Lovecraft's stories were meant to, because, although I saw it coming, the actual story hadn't been spoiled for me before I read it. Another strong story was "Beyond the Wall of Sleep" which presages my favourite of his stories, "The Shadow Out of Time".

There were a number of other minor stories in the collection, some from his Dunsany style, and some other oddballs included, it seemed, out of historical interest, such as "Under the Pyramids" which he ghostwrote for Houdini.

cute_monkey_girl's review against another edition

challenging dark emotional mysterious reflective sad tense medium-paced

• Plot- or character-driven? A mix
• Strong character development? It's complicated
• Loveable characters? N/A
• Diverse cast of characters? It's complicated
• Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes

4.75

For The Thing on the Doorstep, I'd recommend reading The Shadow over Innsmouth first.

charlie_x's review against another edition

dark mysterious tense fast-paced

• Plot- or character-driven? Character
• Strong character development? Yes
• Diverse cast of characters? No
• Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes

5.0

I loved this one. What a great story - didn't see the ending coming either. It's nice that it's its own story yet ties in with other Lovecraft lore like Innsmouth and the Necronomicon. 

mirtlifthewise's review against another edition

dark emotional mysterious sad tense fast-paced

• Plot- or character-driven? A mix
• Strong character development? Yes
• Loveable characters? It's complicated
• Diverse cast of characters? No
• Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes

4.75

lezreadalot's review against another edition

2.0

Great holes secretly are digged where earth’s pores ought to suffice, and things have learnt to walk that ought to crawl.

My first adult experience with Lovecraft, and because I was prepared for all of his nonsense (read: racism) I didn't have as bad of a time with this as I could have. But I mean, I didn't have a great time either. I'm pretty sure I read some abridged versions of his stories when I was a teen, but none of these were familiar to me. There were only about six stories in this version of the collection, and they were all a version of the weird eldritch horror that I expected. I have to say, there were several times when a terrible thing happened or was seen, and all the narrator would say about it was that it was too horrible or gruesome to be spoken of or described? That kinda felt like a cop-out. Some interesting lines here and there, but otherwise the writing kinda bored me. The titular story did make me think a lot (mostly because I anticipate reading some queer horror based on it, not because of any merit of its own). The last line of "The Festival" was metal.

Listened to the audiobook as read by William Roberts, and it was actually pretty good. He went hard on those bits where he had to perform any sort of emotion. This isn't something that I would recommend, but I'm content to read it myself and get a taste of Lovecraft's oeuvre. I might have given this a 2.5, but the fucking cat is in one of these stories. You know the one.

ETA 19/11/2023: I also read "The Dunwich Horror", and since it's a short story that's included in most editions of this anthology (but wasn't included in this edition) I decided to just tack on my review here. And my review is... it basically reads like the rest of the stories. This one was more explicitly paranormal and otherworldly, and the concept of a fast-growing monster child eager to unleash his father onto the world is a cool one? I probably liked this one better than the others. But not enough to change my rating.