A review by cesspool_princess
The Shadow Out of Time by H.P. Lovecraft

4.0

Ok so the concept of the Yithians is rly fascinating, the whole mind trading thing and also how fair they seem, allowing the captive to explore the grand halls and libraries (although they had their ulterior motives of having those ppl write the annals of their own world/ time's history). I am particularly fascinated by the Yithians ability to project into new bodies/ times en masse in order to avoid cataclysmic extinction events. Bc they are able to travel into the future and see what will happen this basically enables them to never go extinct bc they can always escape before their presaged destruction. I rly loved the descriptions of the gardens, the vast buildings, the city in its hayday, it was fascinating. Also i ofc loved the archeological dig leg of the journey which was very reminiscent of mountains of madness. The ending scene where he escapes into the desert was v fun/ tense. Overall I give this a 4.5 partially bc I don't think I was in as good of a mood but also (bc of that probably) this simply didnt grip me as much as at the mountains of madness or especially shadow over innsmouth. I recognize that some of the concepts are much cooler/ more novel (the yithian time brain transplant stuff) and that from a technical perspective this book is excellent and the scope is simply marvelous but It didnt leave as deep an impression as some of his other work. I think AtMoM did the archeological dig aspect better and on the whole I think I prefer the more intimate/ isolated feelings of Shadow over Innsmouth or the Dunwich Horror. I'm sure I'll revisit this in like 2 or 3 years and I will see it in a whole new light.