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joe_spracklen17 's review for:
The Call of Cthulhu and Other Weird Tales
by H.P. Lovecraft
dark
mysterious
tense
medium-paced
My first experience with H.P. Lovecraft and it was a mixed bag of really love and kind of forgettable.
My favourite stories in this collection were The Rats in the Walls, The Call of Cthulhu, The Whisperer in Darkness and The Shadow Over Innsmouth. I felt these stories had all the aspects I wanted and expected from Lovecraft. Monstrous and otherworldly creatures, twists and a deep fear of the unknown. I won't go into details of these because I would highly recommend those stories.
There was one aspect of his writing style that didn't sit well with me and that was the way he handled accents. Certain stories like The Shadow Over Innsmouth and The Dunwich Horror and a few others have certain characters with an accent. He writes them out in a way that is very jarring to read and it makes those stories very difficult to follow. I felt the example in The Shadow Over Innsmouth read better because of the nature of the character speaking. But it really ruined stories of The Dunwich Horror for me personally.
The other short stories I felt were largely either average or forgettable. And in the case of At the Mountains of Madness, I felt like there was too much over-explanation that took some of the unknown out of the story.
Overall I thought this was a pretty good collection and I would ne interested in reading more of his work at some point.
My favourite stories in this collection were The Rats in the Walls, The Call of Cthulhu, The Whisperer in Darkness and The Shadow Over Innsmouth. I felt these stories had all the aspects I wanted and expected from Lovecraft. Monstrous and otherworldly creatures, twists and a deep fear of the unknown. I won't go into details of these because I would highly recommend those stories.
There was one aspect of his writing style that didn't sit well with me and that was the way he handled accents. Certain stories like The Shadow Over Innsmouth and The Dunwich Horror and a few others have certain characters with an accent. He writes them out in a way that is very jarring to read and it makes those stories very difficult to follow. I felt the example in The Shadow Over Innsmouth read better because of the nature of the character speaking. But it really ruined stories of The Dunwich Horror for me personally.
The other short stories I felt were largely either average or forgettable. And in the case of At the Mountains of Madness, I felt like there was too much over-explanation that took some of the unknown out of the story.
Overall I thought this was a pretty good collection and I would ne interested in reading more of his work at some point.