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3.49 AVERAGE
3.49 AVERAGE
adventurous
mysterious
slow-paced
Plot or Character Driven:
Plot
Strong character development:
No
Loveable characters:
No
Diverse cast of characters:
No
Flaws of characters a main focus:
Complicated
adventurous
challenging
dark
mysterious
tense
fast-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
Plot:
In At the Mountains of Madness, an Antarctic expedition uncovers the remnants of an ancient civilization, leading to horrifying revelations about its alien inhabitants. As the explorers piece together the grim history, they realize they are not alone in the frozen wasteland. The story unfolds through a chilling descent into cosmic horror, where scientific curiosity turns into sheer terror.
Characters:
The narrator, a geologist, serves as the voice of reason, struggling to comprehend the nightmarish discoveries. His colleague, Danforth, is deeply affected by the horrors they witness, leading to psychological instability. The unseen yet omnipresent entities—the Elder Things and the Shoggoths—loom large, making their eerie presence the real driving force of fear.
What stood out:
Lovecraft’s unsettling descriptions make the horror feel disturbingly real, especially when detailing the remains of past inhabitants. The way scientific exploration morphs into existential dread is masterfully done. And the oppressive, isolated atmosphere of the Antarctic setting adds to the overwhelming sense of insignificance and terror.
Notable Quote:
"It marked my loss, at the age of fifty-four, of all that peace and balance which the normal mind possesses through its accustomed conception of external Nature and Nature’s laws."
#HPLovecraft #CosmicHorror #BookReview #AtTheMountainsOfMadness #HorrorReads #ClassicHorror #Lovecraftian
In At the Mountains of Madness, an Antarctic expedition uncovers the remnants of an ancient civilization, leading to horrifying revelations about its alien inhabitants. As the explorers piece together the grim history, they realize they are not alone in the frozen wasteland. The story unfolds through a chilling descent into cosmic horror, where scientific curiosity turns into sheer terror.
Characters:
The narrator, a geologist, serves as the voice of reason, struggling to comprehend the nightmarish discoveries. His colleague, Danforth, is deeply affected by the horrors they witness, leading to psychological instability. The unseen yet omnipresent entities—the Elder Things and the Shoggoths—loom large, making their eerie presence the real driving force of fear.
What stood out:
Lovecraft’s unsettling descriptions make the horror feel disturbingly real, especially when detailing the remains of past inhabitants. The way scientific exploration morphs into existential dread is masterfully done. And the oppressive, isolated atmosphere of the Antarctic setting adds to the overwhelming sense of insignificance and terror.
Notable Quote:
"It marked my loss, at the age of fifty-four, of all that peace and balance which the normal mind possesses through its accustomed conception of external Nature and Nature’s laws."
#HPLovecraft #CosmicHorror #BookReview #AtTheMountainsOfMadness #HorrorReads #ClassicHorror #Lovecraftian
dark
tense
Plot or Character Driven:
Plot
Strong character development:
No
Loveable characters:
No
Diverse cast of characters:
No
Flaws of characters a main focus:
No
adventurous
challenging
dark
mysterious
medium-paced
Plot or Character Driven:
Character
Strong character development:
No
Loveable characters:
Complicated
Diverse cast of characters:
No
Flaws of characters a main focus:
No
adventurous
challenging
mysterious
slow-paced
Cosmic horror is one of my absolute favorite genres and this just didn’t live up to my expectations AT ALL. Perhaps I misjudged the meaning of cosmic horror. I thought it was an exploration of the fear of the unknown—-indescribable, inexplicable, incomprehensible things that drive people to insanity. I guess HP Lovecraft’s version is just introducing enormous deities that have immense power and make humanity feel insignificant, which is also nice but not what I was expecting. The first 60% were promising: a mysterious, isolated Antarctic setting that set the stage for something genuinely unsettling. But all of that potential was squandered when the story took a hard left into dense, speculative anthropology. It became a slog of pseudo-zoology and pseudo-biology — exhausting and immersion-breaking. The creatures were explained to death. They had furniture. They kept slaves. They painted murals. They had homes. Like how am i supposed to fear these things if you’re giving them human traits? Cosmic horror should shake your understanding of reality, not read like a museum exhibit. The only truly inexplicable event happens at the 96% mark, but that was not enough to redeem the rest of the story. This Thing Between Us is still the best cosmic horror I’ve read yet. I propose we create a new subgenre of cosmic horror altogether so that I can avoid the disappointment of traditional Lovecraftian stories like this one ever again.
slow-paced
Plot or Character Driven:
Plot
Strong character development:
No
Loveable characters:
No
Diverse cast of characters:
No
Dull, boring and tedious.
dark
mysterious
slow-paced
Plot or Character Driven:
N/A
Strong character development:
No
Loveable characters:
No
Diverse cast of characters:
No
Flaws of characters a main focus:
No
dark
mysterious
slow-paced
Plot or Character Driven:
Plot
Strong character development:
Complicated
Loveable characters:
No
Diverse cast of characters:
No
Flaws of characters a main focus:
No
dark
informative
tense
slow-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
H.P. Lovecraft is called the father of cosmic horror. Maybe for the time period his tales seems horrifying, but to me it was ridiculously dense. He throws so much science jargon at you that one is immediately lost. In this book in particular the scientific terms become unbearable and I just tuned most of it out…and the horror was more mental than descriptive. I am not sure what all the fuss is about with this tale, but it was very lackluster.