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3.48 AVERAGE
3.48 AVERAGE
dark
mysterious
tense
medium-paced
Plot or Character Driven:
Plot
Strong character development:
Yes
Loveable characters:
No
Diverse cast of characters:
No
Flaws of characters a main focus:
Complicated
Probably Lovecrafts best work. Truly chilling and suspenseful stuff that provides a lot of history and tie-ins to the rest of the mythos
adventurous
dark
mysterious
tense
slow-paced
I listened to the audiobook for this one at work today. The whole Lovecraft mythos is gaining attraction in my eyes more and more the more of it I read/listen/discover. I absolutely loved the E.A.Poe references. I will absolutely be coming back to this tale again and again in the coming years.
A very easy 5 stars from me.
A very easy 5 stars from me.
dark
mysterious
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
This story had real potential, especially since it (very welcomely) does not have the absurdly overt racism of much of Lovecraft’s work. The writing is even a bit better than Lovecraft’s usual, with slightly less repetition of adjectives (someone really needs to limit him to one “cyclopean” per story.)
The biggest problem is the middle chapter telling the extended history of the Old Ones just makes the thing seem so goofy. The unknown and suggestion of danger make the beginning of the discovery scary, but the more detail gets put in the more silly the whole thing seems. Especially the Old Ones flapping their way through space on bat wings. Goofy.
Really can see how this inspired a lot of better stories, so credit for that. And at least it wasn’t super racist like usual.
The twist of what the explorers should really have feared was a pretty interesting idea, but wasn’t really played for the best effect.
Go read Dark Matter by Michelle Paver for better arctic horror or The Colour Out of Space for a better Lovecraft story.
The biggest problem is the middle chapter telling the extended history of the Old Ones just makes the thing seem so goofy. The unknown and suggestion of danger make the beginning of the discovery scary, but the more detail gets put in the more silly the whole thing seems. Especially the Old Ones flapping their way through space on bat wings. Goofy.
Really can see how this inspired a lot of better stories, so credit for that. And at least it wasn’t super racist like usual.
The twist of what the explorers should really have feared was a pretty interesting idea, but wasn’t really played for the best effect.
Go read Dark Matter by Michelle Paver for better arctic horror or The Colour Out of Space for a better Lovecraft story.
It's crazy how much this is such a clear influence on everything from John Carpenter to Guillermo Del Toro to Alan Moore to Dan O'Bannon and Ridley Scott to GWAR.
However, this story is pretty similar to The Shadow Out of Time, which I read first and like more, which takes some of the bite out of this story for me.
However, this story is pretty similar to The Shadow Out of Time, which I read first and like more, which takes some of the bite out of this story for me.
mysterious
tense
fast-paced
Plot or Character Driven:
Plot
Strong character development:
No
Loveable characters:
No
Diverse cast of characters:
No
Unbearably dry. I never enjoyed reading Lovecraft. Only read it out of necessity for CoC campaign. Still, better than A. G. Pym, which I’m struggling my way through.
Plot or Character Driven:
Plot
As my first ever Lovecraft story, I wasn't really sure what to expect, since the Lovecraftian genre has grown quite beyond the original author, but I did enjoy this book quite a bit!
What perhaps surprised me most was how analytical the novel as a whole was. For a genre that is typically extrapolated as "seeing anything otherworldly drive you instantly insane", At the Mountains of Madness instead spends quite a bit of time systematically and painstakingly describing the dimensions and nature of strange beings. While this might hurt the pacing for some, I found it wonderful, as that sense of concreteness to these beings, in my opinion, adds to the mind breaking realization of how old their society is and how chronologically insignificant humanity is.
Also, for how much Lovecraft is (deservedly) remembered for his horrific racism, even for the time, I found the narrator's final conclusionthat the Elder Things were ultimately men, no matter their form , to be remarkably poignant. Also, the extraordinarily purple prose feels fitting for any story that's grappling with revelations as profound as stories about Great Old Ones.
It was at times repetitive ("did I mention my buddy saw something that drove him totally mad?"), but I don't really hold that against the work, seeing as it was originally published in a magazine over the course of months. Much more of a problem is one of the largest exposition dumps I've seen in a novel, proportional to its size, about the entire history of a long-forgotten race that the narrator gleams entirely from murals and carvings. The idea is fine, but it really stretches belief how much information the narrator can discern from wall carvings by a species not our own.
Overall, I can definitely see why this is held up as one of Lovecraft's best. It holds up extremely well, the atmosphere is wonderful, and it ties together many greater elements of the greater Lovecraftian mythos. Its narrative is only held back by a clunky contrivance.
What perhaps surprised me most was how analytical the novel as a whole was. For a genre that is typically extrapolated as "seeing anything otherworldly drive you instantly insane", At the Mountains of Madness instead spends quite a bit of time systematically and painstakingly describing the dimensions and nature of strange beings. While this might hurt the pacing for some, I found it wonderful, as that sense of concreteness to these beings, in my opinion, adds to the mind breaking realization of how old their society is and how chronologically insignificant humanity is.
Also, for how much Lovecraft is (deservedly) remembered for his horrific racism, even for the time, I found the narrator's final conclusion
It was at times repetitive ("did I mention my buddy saw something that drove him totally mad?"), but I don't really hold that against the work, seeing as it was originally published in a magazine over the course of months. Much more of a problem is one of the largest exposition dumps I've seen in a novel, proportional to its size, about the entire history of a long-forgotten race that the narrator gleams entirely from murals and carvings. The idea is fine, but it really stretches belief how much information the narrator can discern from wall carvings by a species not our own.
Overall, I can definitely see why this is held up as one of Lovecraft's best. It holds up extremely well, the atmosphere is wonderful, and it ties together many greater elements of the greater Lovecraftian mythos. Its narrative is only held back by a clunky contrivance.
Cientistas numa expedição em zona jamais explorada descobrem bem mais do que esperavam. O que poderia dar errado, não? Mesmo com um ritmo lento e excessivamente, a atmosfera macabra e opressiva que se acumula jamais cessa, culminando em uma conclusão aberta, perturbadora, que mostra que este é o maior ato do racistinha feioso de Rhode Island.