andjhostet 's review for:

The Call of Cthulhu by H.P. Lovecraft
5.0

I see why this is his most famous story, because so far of what I have read, it's his best. The writing in this one was amazing. Creepy atmosphere, that just gets slowly more creepy and mysterious. Great prose. Impeccable pacing that continuously builds until the end.

Favorite quote:

"Only poetry or madness could do justice to the noises heard by Legrasse's men as they ploughed on through the black morass toward the red glare and muffled tom-toms. There are vocal qualities peculiar to men, and vocal qualities peculiar to beasts; and it is terrible to hear the one when the source should yield the other. Animal fury and orgiastic license here whipped themselves to daemoniac heights by howls and squawking ecstacies that tore and reverberated through those nighted woods like pestilential tempests from the gulfs of hell. Now and then the less organized ululation would cease, and from what seemed a well-drilled chorus of hoarse voices would rise in sing-song chant that hideous phrase or ritual:

"Ph'nglui mglw'nafh Cthulhu R'lyeh wgah'nagl fhtagn."