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The Call of Cthulhu and Other Weird Tales
Between these pages you will find things that lurk, things that scurry in the walls, things that move unseen, things that have learnt to walk that ought to crawl, unfathomable blackness, unconquerable evil, inhuman impulses, abnormal bodies, ancient rites, nameless lands best left undiscovered, thoughts best left unspoken, doors best left closed, names best forgotten. You have been warned.
562 pages, Kindle Edition
First published May 5, 2011
230 people are currently reading
790 people want to read
About the author
H.P. Lovecraft
6,040 books19.2k followersHoward Phillips Lovecraft, of Providence, Rhode Island, was an American author of horror, fantasy and science fiction.
Lovecraft's major inspiration and invention was cosmic horror: life is incomprehensible to human minds and the universe is fundamentally alien. Those who genuinely reason, like his protagonists, gamble with sanity. Lovecraft has developed a cult following for his Cthulhu Mythos, a series of loosely interconnected fictions featuring a pantheon of human-nullifying entities, as well as the Necronomicon, a fictional grimoire of magical rites and forbidden lore. His works were deeply pessimistic and cynical, challenging the values of the Enlightenment, Romanticism and Christianity. Lovecraft's protagonists usually achieve the mirror-opposite of traditional gnosis and mysticism by momentarily glimpsing the horror of ultimate reality.
Although Lovecraft's readership was limited during his life, his reputation has grown over the decades. He is now commonly regarded as one of the most influential horror writers of the 20th Century, exerting widespread and indirect influence, and frequently compared to Edgar Allan Poe.
See also Howard Phillips Lovecraft.
— Wikipedia
Lovecraft's major inspiration and invention was cosmic horror: life is incomprehensible to human minds and the universe is fundamentally alien. Those who genuinely reason, like his protagonists, gamble with sanity. Lovecraft has developed a cult following for his Cthulhu Mythos, a series of loosely interconnected fictions featuring a pantheon of human-nullifying entities, as well as the Necronomicon, a fictional grimoire of magical rites and forbidden lore. His works were deeply pessimistic and cynical, challenging the values of the Enlightenment, Romanticism and Christianity. Lovecraft's protagonists usually achieve the mirror-opposite of traditional gnosis and mysticism by momentarily glimpsing the horror of ultimate reality.
Although Lovecraft's readership was limited during his life, his reputation has grown over the decades. He is now commonly regarded as one of the most influential horror writers of the 20th Century, exerting widespread and indirect influence, and frequently compared to Edgar Allan Poe.
See also Howard Phillips Lovecraft.
— Wikipedia
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November 26, 2024
That is not dead which can eternal lie,
And with strange aeons death may die.
Is HPL the most paradoxical author to read in recent times?
Probably not. There's arguably countless waiting in the shadows, ready to lay claim to that title. But it's a given fact that reading Howard is never easy. Be it owing to the nature of his personality, his set of beliefs, or simply his utter inability to write well. It's pretty common to find yourself stranded within the foggy confines of his 'eldritch' world. And yet, we read him to this very day. And will probably continue to do so until the end of time.
Such has been his impact upon the musty underbelly of weird fiction and greater cosmic horror. Not the first ever to do so. But a revolutionary nonetheless whose influence still pulsates throughout pop culture and the unforgiving pits of nerd haven. So much so that reading him through a starkly modern lens might come off as repetitive. A sense of deja vu engulfing your nodal points as you meet the maker after wrestling down knock-offs all your life!
Nevertheless, despite everything, I've been an ardent Lovecraft fan since my school days. I have owned this particular edition for around eight years now. And do remember reading a few of the stories from within. However, my memory was threatening to betray me. And there rose an urge inside to revisit 'The Dunwich Horror' again. Something that I originally read only in translation and was keen to test again, against Howard's muddy prose.
As such, if you pick this one up and look past the 3D cover (glasses included!) As well as the lack of annotations and introductory material, you'll find yourself with twelve of his tales, all connected through the (filmsy) thread of the Cthulhu Mythos. Do not take offence with my choice of words, however, for Lovecraft's world-building, including the ever-modern notion of a shared universe, was mostly in jest. A clever little device that the man tinkered with but never really enforced upon his readers.
Creating a sense of inclusivity not only for his audience but also for his later admirers, who'd go on to build upon and expand the plethora of unspooled loose ends. Lovecraft himself borrowed judiciously from his peers and predecessors. And in a way, he created a benchmark for being borrowed likewise. Sure, he was historically stuck up about his work, often threatening to quit it altogether in the face of poor reception. But then, such was typical of him and his cranky, haughty headspace that oozed brilliance aplenty.
Although it misses the timely quips of Lovecraft researcher S.T. Joshi, this edition gleefully starts off with one of HPL's most grotesque short stories, 'The Rats in the Walls'. Something that I'd read back in school but completely forgotten over time. And boy was I in for a renewed sense of surprise, alongside the gut-churning stench of pathos, so typical of his reveals. Surprisingly Gothic, it utilises the tested 'creature behind the partition' trope and magnifies it with a demented slither of degradation.
This is then immediately followed by another one of my shorter favourites. ''The Picture in the House'. This is Lovecraft playing completely into the macabre. Flexing his creepy muscles, despite little Cthulhu connections beyond a 'Necronomicon' namedrop. All culminating with an utterly memorable final stretch that left me jittery with a case of the late-night dread!
The following two stories are also short but are not my absolute favourites, despite the cosmic inquisitiveness shown abundantly in 'The Nameless City' of Arabia. And the murky cult of horrors hinted towards in 'The Festival'. They aren't Lovecraft's best work and leave a lot to be desired. But at the same time, they help one acclimatise oneself before the eventual arrival of the bigger fishes. It's a rite of passage, almost. The mandatory endurance of wordy circulation before you're presented with the real heavyweights.
The likes of 'The Call of the Cthulhu' and 'The Dunwich Horror'.
It's actually quite funny, now that I think of it. All these years of being a fan, and I'd never once read 'The Call...' itself. And my first ever experience was not entirely positive as well. Despite being introduced to the 'figurative' granddad of a very popular universe, I found the didactic style of storytelling really taxing. Something that worked relatively well for his other longer texts, but just felt a bit banal here on. The finale and its marine 'madness' were also anti-climactic (get used to it!) and just didn't tempt me the way I'd hoped it would. Making this one an actual miss in my book.
"Do better, Howard!" I might have screamed, yelled, and shouted towards the pages in vain, but thankfully, 'The Dunwich Horror' showed up immediately to pacify it all. A deeply atmospheric, well-written tale that balances the allure of cosmic trickery with that of the despicable. Lovecraft commands the tension surprisingly well and crawls towards a solid finale. One that's greatly embellished with an extremely chilling final sentence that made me put the book away and compose myself for a good minute.
Some might take offence to HPL's tendency to greatly oversell his reveals with exclamations and italics. But it mostly works out for me, despite the shoddy literary value, or lack thereof. You can find something similar in 'The Whisperer in Darkness', as well.
A much longer story, the longest yet of the book, which I personally felt could have benefitted from a crisper edit. And yet, I was never bored for a minute traversing it's varied length. Lovecraft descends into proper science fiction right here, introducing the Mi-Go creatures as well as strengthening his brand of interstellar doom. As usual, the final stretch is tense, lively and memorable. It shakes you greatly and makes you forgive the author for the obvious plotholes and his inability to remain concise (for the love of all things holy!).
This brings me to a story that I really wanted to love. 'The Dreams in the Witch House'. A fairly straightforward tale of a mathematical research student inclined towards the occult, taking residence in the eponymous witch house, and the dreams that he's plagued with almost instantaneously. For his part, Lovecraft had ambition writing this thing. He invoked the spirit of science and witchcraft with a vivid sense of grotesqueness while playing up the surrealism tenfold.
However, it's not an easy read. Especially when Howard goes overboard with all the technical jargon in the game. Which is a shame, for this one is generally a more well-loved story. Recently filmed under Guillermo Del Toro's tutelage as well. But I couldn't enjoy it as much as I'd have loved to. A personal bummer, despite that deliciously wretched culmination. Maybe watching it unfold on the screens would be a better fit? Fingers crossed.
Anyways. We move on to another one of my absolute favourites. 'The Shadow over Innsmouth'. There's a distinct sense of wonder in the way Lovecraft helps you visualise the shady coastal town of Innsmouth. Almost overdoing it in his exhaustive approach with the details. But making it all worthwhile with the slow-burning buildup of dread, which in turn pulsates within the core of its ever-rotten mythology.
It's curious how HPL himself was not fond of this piece. Judging it harshly in his later days. But to me, this might be one of the best examples of Lovecraft, the author, and his ability to balance action with that of the informative. There's this riveting chase sequence by the end of 'Innsmouth' that's arguably one of the best pieces of moving action ever written by the author. But his acute underconfidence meant that, more than ever, we'd find him resorting to the tested shelter of the didactic and nothing else.
'The Shadow over Innsmouth' also sees Lovecraft exploring his preferred themes of sin persevering through bloodlines, intermixing of races, and hereditary mania. Elements of which can be visible throughout the book. A breed of paranoia that's widely believed to have been born out of Lovecraft undergoing sudden poverty as a child, health issues persisting in his family, and his infamous sense of racial superiority.
Nevertheless, we dredge on and reach the mountain itself. A literal mountain of a text, the extremely long, extremely potent, and infuriatingly wasteful 'At the Mountains of Madness'.
This angered me in real time. Feeling interminable at point with it's dry prose, purple paragraphs, and exhaustive amount of technical details. (Take 'Witch House' and multiply it with a hundred.) I do understand what HPL was attempting here. He was notoriously famous for scientific accuracy. And even edited information out in later prints, owing to them being out of date since the time of completion. But the goodwill itself doesn't make it a palatable read, does it?
It almost hinders the story rather. More so in this one, which is undoubtedly the most mythology-heavy tale in the entire book. Providing a surprising amount of answers and context to questions you'd probably wondered throughout and googled on with varied levels of success. It is this allure and intrigue of such vivid, tempting lore that kept me afloat and helped me brave the awful writing. In modern times, we might call this the classic case of a good concept, bad execution.
However, such cannot be said about the next in line, 'The Haunter of the Dark'. Nothing in it actively tickled my imagination, and it lost me pretty soon amidst the muck of purple prosing. It's an important story, however. Being the last one Lovecraft ever penned. Making people usually more kinder to this tale. And there's a genuine feeling in the circles about how Lovecraft's 'writing had improved a lot' by this point. But unfortunately, I didn't find any of that for myself.
It does warrant a later re-read, for sure. But for now, this takes the designation of being my least favourite story in the whole book.
And there we have it. We've arrived at our final station. 'The Thing on the Doorstep'. A much simpler tale that almost evokes the spirit of 'The Dunwich Horror' in its approach. It's nothing revolutionary per se and was generally looked down upon unfavourably by critics back then. But as we can sense a pattern here, I loved this one a lot. If nothing, despite it's predicatable nature, the story starts off with one of the most unhinged openers ever written by HPL. ("It is true that I have sent six bullets through the head of my best friend, and yet I hope to show by this statement that I am not his murderer.") And ends with a devilish image of degradation that rivals his very best. Can't recommend it enough!
(3.75/5 || October-November, 2024)
And with strange aeons death may die.
Is HPL the most paradoxical author to read in recent times?
Probably not. There's arguably countless waiting in the shadows, ready to lay claim to that title. But it's a given fact that reading Howard is never easy. Be it owing to the nature of his personality, his set of beliefs, or simply his utter inability to write well. It's pretty common to find yourself stranded within the foggy confines of his 'eldritch' world. And yet, we read him to this very day. And will probably continue to do so until the end of time.
Such has been his impact upon the musty underbelly of weird fiction and greater cosmic horror. Not the first ever to do so. But a revolutionary nonetheless whose influence still pulsates throughout pop culture and the unforgiving pits of nerd haven. So much so that reading him through a starkly modern lens might come off as repetitive. A sense of deja vu engulfing your nodal points as you meet the maker after wrestling down knock-offs all your life!
Nevertheless, despite everything, I've been an ardent Lovecraft fan since my school days. I have owned this particular edition for around eight years now. And do remember reading a few of the stories from within. However, my memory was threatening to betray me. And there rose an urge inside to revisit 'The Dunwich Horror' again. Something that I originally read only in translation and was keen to test again, against Howard's muddy prose.
As such, if you pick this one up and look past the 3D cover (glasses included!) As well as the lack of annotations and introductory material, you'll find yourself with twelve of his tales, all connected through the (filmsy) thread of the Cthulhu Mythos. Do not take offence with my choice of words, however, for Lovecraft's world-building, including the ever-modern notion of a shared universe, was mostly in jest. A clever little device that the man tinkered with but never really enforced upon his readers.
Creating a sense of inclusivity not only for his audience but also for his later admirers, who'd go on to build upon and expand the plethora of unspooled loose ends. Lovecraft himself borrowed judiciously from his peers and predecessors. And in a way, he created a benchmark for being borrowed likewise. Sure, he was historically stuck up about his work, often threatening to quit it altogether in the face of poor reception. But then, such was typical of him and his cranky, haughty headspace that oozed brilliance aplenty.
Although it misses the timely quips of Lovecraft researcher S.T. Joshi, this edition gleefully starts off with one of HPL's most grotesque short stories, 'The Rats in the Walls'. Something that I'd read back in school but completely forgotten over time. And boy was I in for a renewed sense of surprise, alongside the gut-churning stench of pathos, so typical of his reveals. Surprisingly Gothic, it utilises the tested 'creature behind the partition' trope and magnifies it with a demented slither of degradation.
This is then immediately followed by another one of my shorter favourites. ''The Picture in the House'. This is Lovecraft playing completely into the macabre. Flexing his creepy muscles, despite little Cthulhu connections beyond a 'Necronomicon' namedrop. All culminating with an utterly memorable final stretch that left me jittery with a case of the late-night dread!
The following two stories are also short but are not my absolute favourites, despite the cosmic inquisitiveness shown abundantly in 'The Nameless City' of Arabia. And the murky cult of horrors hinted towards in 'The Festival'. They aren't Lovecraft's best work and leave a lot to be desired. But at the same time, they help one acclimatise oneself before the eventual arrival of the bigger fishes. It's a rite of passage, almost. The mandatory endurance of wordy circulation before you're presented with the real heavyweights.
The likes of 'The Call of the Cthulhu' and 'The Dunwich Horror'.
It's actually quite funny, now that I think of it. All these years of being a fan, and I'd never once read 'The Call...' itself. And my first ever experience was not entirely positive as well. Despite being introduced to the 'figurative' granddad of a very popular universe, I found the didactic style of storytelling really taxing. Something that worked relatively well for his other longer texts, but just felt a bit banal here on. The finale and its marine 'madness' were also anti-climactic (get used to it!) and just didn't tempt me the way I'd hoped it would. Making this one an actual miss in my book.
"Do better, Howard!" I might have screamed, yelled, and shouted towards the pages in vain, but thankfully, 'The Dunwich Horror' showed up immediately to pacify it all. A deeply atmospheric, well-written tale that balances the allure of cosmic trickery with that of the despicable. Lovecraft commands the tension surprisingly well and crawls towards a solid finale. One that's greatly embellished with an extremely chilling final sentence that made me put the book away and compose myself for a good minute.
Some might take offence to HPL's tendency to greatly oversell his reveals with exclamations and italics. But it mostly works out for me, despite the shoddy literary value, or lack thereof. You can find something similar in 'The Whisperer in Darkness', as well.
A much longer story, the longest yet of the book, which I personally felt could have benefitted from a crisper edit. And yet, I was never bored for a minute traversing it's varied length. Lovecraft descends into proper science fiction right here, introducing the Mi-Go creatures as well as strengthening his brand of interstellar doom. As usual, the final stretch is tense, lively and memorable. It shakes you greatly and makes you forgive the author for the obvious plotholes and his inability to remain concise (for the love of all things holy!).
This brings me to a story that I really wanted to love. 'The Dreams in the Witch House'. A fairly straightforward tale of a mathematical research student inclined towards the occult, taking residence in the eponymous witch house, and the dreams that he's plagued with almost instantaneously. For his part, Lovecraft had ambition writing this thing. He invoked the spirit of science and witchcraft with a vivid sense of grotesqueness while playing up the surrealism tenfold.
However, it's not an easy read. Especially when Howard goes overboard with all the technical jargon in the game. Which is a shame, for this one is generally a more well-loved story. Recently filmed under Guillermo Del Toro's tutelage as well. But I couldn't enjoy it as much as I'd have loved to. A personal bummer, despite that deliciously wretched culmination. Maybe watching it unfold on the screens would be a better fit? Fingers crossed.
Anyways. We move on to another one of my absolute favourites. 'The Shadow over Innsmouth'. There's a distinct sense of wonder in the way Lovecraft helps you visualise the shady coastal town of Innsmouth. Almost overdoing it in his exhaustive approach with the details. But making it all worthwhile with the slow-burning buildup of dread, which in turn pulsates within the core of its ever-rotten mythology.
It's curious how HPL himself was not fond of this piece. Judging it harshly in his later days. But to me, this might be one of the best examples of Lovecraft, the author, and his ability to balance action with that of the informative. There's this riveting chase sequence by the end of 'Innsmouth' that's arguably one of the best pieces of moving action ever written by the author. But his acute underconfidence meant that, more than ever, we'd find him resorting to the tested shelter of the didactic and nothing else.
'The Shadow over Innsmouth' also sees Lovecraft exploring his preferred themes of sin persevering through bloodlines, intermixing of races, and hereditary mania. Elements of which can be visible throughout the book. A breed of paranoia that's widely believed to have been born out of Lovecraft undergoing sudden poverty as a child, health issues persisting in his family, and his infamous sense of racial superiority.
Nevertheless, we dredge on and reach the mountain itself. A literal mountain of a text, the extremely long, extremely potent, and infuriatingly wasteful 'At the Mountains of Madness'.
This angered me in real time. Feeling interminable at point with it's dry prose, purple paragraphs, and exhaustive amount of technical details. (Take 'Witch House' and multiply it with a hundred.) I do understand what HPL was attempting here. He was notoriously famous for scientific accuracy. And even edited information out in later prints, owing to them being out of date since the time of completion. But the goodwill itself doesn't make it a palatable read, does it?
It almost hinders the story rather. More so in this one, which is undoubtedly the most mythology-heavy tale in the entire book. Providing a surprising amount of answers and context to questions you'd probably wondered throughout and googled on with varied levels of success. It is this allure and intrigue of such vivid, tempting lore that kept me afloat and helped me brave the awful writing. In modern times, we might call this the classic case of a good concept, bad execution.
However, such cannot be said about the next in line, 'The Haunter of the Dark'. Nothing in it actively tickled my imagination, and it lost me pretty soon amidst the muck of purple prosing. It's an important story, however. Being the last one Lovecraft ever penned. Making people usually more kinder to this tale. And there's a genuine feeling in the circles about how Lovecraft's 'writing had improved a lot' by this point. But unfortunately, I didn't find any of that for myself.
It does warrant a later re-read, for sure. But for now, this takes the designation of being my least favourite story in the whole book.
And there we have it. We've arrived at our final station. 'The Thing on the Doorstep'. A much simpler tale that almost evokes the spirit of 'The Dunwich Horror' in its approach. It's nothing revolutionary per se and was generally looked down upon unfavourably by critics back then. But as we can sense a pattern here, I loved this one a lot. If nothing, despite it's predicatable nature, the story starts off with one of the most unhinged openers ever written by HPL. ("It is true that I have sent six bullets through the head of my best friend, and yet I hope to show by this statement that I am not his murderer.") And ends with a devilish image of degradation that rivals his very best. Can't recommend it enough!
(3.75/5 || October-November, 2024)
dipping-in-out-of
February 19, 2014Yes, I bought another Lovecraft anthology with the same stories I already have. But THIS one has a crappy 3D cover! How awesome is that?
May 16, 2022
’Nothing lasts. The world does not exist
Nearly an entire MONTH later and I have finally finished this godforsaken book. The moral of the story is: don’t buy a book because you like the fact it has a 3D cover and comes with 3D glasses. This does not automatically make it good.
A fun fact about me is that I love Eldritch / Lovecraftian horror. I think it’s absolutely awesome, and is the inspiration for some of my favourite pieces of media (SCP Containment Breach and the Mandela Catalogue, to name two examples) as well as one of my favourite video games of all time, Bloodborne. With this in mind, I just assumed that I would enjoy Lovecraft’s stories. Well as the old saying goes, assuming certainly does make an ass out of you and me, except for this time it’s literally just me. I’m an ass. And an idiot.
Similarly to Philip K. Dick, Lovecraft has some truly fantastic ideas that are unique and utterly defining for their respective genres. Also, similarity to Philip K. Dick, Lovecraft is a terrible fucking author. This man could not write a concise and exciting plot if his life depended on it. Endless drivel-like descriptions that waffle on for page after page after page, so much that by the time you get to the ‘scary’ section, you’re so goddamn bored you don’t have the energy to be scared. So much filler, so much pomp, so much just flexing of this excessively large and verbose vocabulary. We get it Howard, you like to read books. So do I, just not yours.
This is a real shame, as not only was I looking forward to his stories, but some of them genuinely did live up to the high expectations I had. The Whisperer in Darkness, The Shadow over Innsmouth and The Thing on the Doorstep were such great reads, and I felt very engaged by the connected multiverse that Lovecraft……crafted. On the other hand, I had to deal with mind-numbing flops like The Nameless City, The Festival and The Haunter of the Dark, which despite all being some of his shortest stories I had a very large urge to throw myself under the nearest lorry.
Overall, The Call of Cthulhu and Other Weird Tales is not an experience I ever want to experience again. 3/5 stars for making me slowly lose my sanity, which being fair, is fitting for a Lovecraftian read.
Read on if you want to see my review and rating of each individual book, but please be warned, there will be ‼️SPOILERS‼️
1. The Rats in the Walls - 3.5/5
- Plot - a man buys a house infested by rats who may or may not turn him into a cannibal.
- Pros - Rats are gross and I thought the last page was actually kinda creepy.
- Cons - Not scary and the name of the man’s cat (and what Lovecraft actually named his cat irl) is fucking disgusting.
2. The Picture in the House - 2.5/5
- Plot - a man goes into an abandoned house and finds a hillbilly who likes to murder people, and then gets struck with lightning and dies.
- Pros - It was only 10 pages long.
- Cons - Still not scary.
3. The Nameless City - 1/5
- Plot - a man goes to an abandoned city in the desert and finds a race of lizard people and then gets scared of some wind.
- Pros - lizard people.
- Cons - the most boring and least scary story I’ve ever read. Insulting to horror.
4. The Festival - 1.5/5
- Plot - a man is summoned by his ancestors to attend a spooky Yuletide festival and is sucked into a weird cavern and is forced to ride a strange bat creature but he instead throws himself into a river and wakes up and it’s all a dream? Maybe? Unclear.
- Pros - The first story to show the link between each story in this larger universe.
- Cons - Still not scary and still not interesting.
5. The Call of Cthulhu - 3.5/5
- Plot - A man picks up the research of his late-departed uncle into the horrors of the ancient ‘Cthulhu Cult’ and the Eldritch God they wish to awaken.
- Pros - Cthulhu is an awesome creature and the plot of this one was well put together and interesting!
- Cons - Still not scary.
6. The Dunwich Horror - 4/5
- Plot - a small-time village is plagued by a creepy ass family who decide to summon an Eldritch being to end the world.
- Pros - The description of Wilbur Whateley was awesome and creepy, the story was interesting and I’m always up for a creepy cult in the woods. The descriptions for this were actually creepy asf and the overall plot was fascinating and well-written.
- Cons - Too long and slightly waffley in areas.
7. The Whisperer in Darkness - 5/5
- Plot - A man befriends another man living in the distant hills of Vermont, who claims that creatures named the Outsiders live in the mountains behind his house, and may mean him harm.
- Pros - Interesting story, likeable characters (weirdly enough), threatening creatures, good atmosphere, nice twist ending.
- Cons - I genuinely can’t think of any, this fucking slapped.
8. The Dreams in the Witch-House - 3/5
- Plot - a man moves into a house haunted by a witch and his life is basically ruined.
- Pros - It was in third person, thank god.
- Cons - Boring and not scary. I don’t care.
9. The Shadow Over Innsmouth - 5/5
- Plot - a man visits a town infested with fish people who want to kill him, only to find out he is one of them.
- Pros - really well written, interesting and engaging plot that wasn’t too descriptive heavy, a character likeable enough to root for, a fun and horrifying ending, and some good spooky scenes.
- Cons - this one actually doesn’t have any either!
10. At The Mountains of Madness - 4/5
- Plot - an expedition to the Antarctic goes very wrong when an ancient city is uncovered housing some very not so happy ‘Old One’s’.
- Pros - I love horror stories set in the Antarctic/Arctic so that was fun and it had a really unique premise.
- Cons - It wasn’t scary and could’ve been like 40 pages shorter - it dragged on way too much and a lot of it was just unnecessary waffle.
11. The Haunter of the Dark - 1.5/5
- Plot - a continuation of ‘The Picture in the House’ except somehow this is worse?
- Pros - There are literally none.
- Cons - This was so unnecessary? I did not need to know what happened to Blake after the first story, such a waste of time.
12. The Thing on the Doorstep - 4.5/5
- Plot - a man watches as his friend descends into madness after marrying a former inhabitant of Innsmouth.
- Pros - spooky, really well-written and paced, no unnecessary descriptions and long areas of waffle. Concise and enjoyable, I wish all his stories were like this!
- Cons - I would’ve liked the ending to be slightly longer actually, a bit too sudden of an ending for my liking - not enough suspense.
Nearly an entire MONTH later and I have finally finished this godforsaken book. The moral of the story is: don’t buy a book because you like the fact it has a 3D cover and comes with 3D glasses. This does not automatically make it good.
A fun fact about me is that I love Eldritch / Lovecraftian horror. I think it’s absolutely awesome, and is the inspiration for some of my favourite pieces of media (SCP Containment Breach and the Mandela Catalogue, to name two examples) as well as one of my favourite video games of all time, Bloodborne. With this in mind, I just assumed that I would enjoy Lovecraft’s stories. Well as the old saying goes, assuming certainly does make an ass out of you and me, except for this time it’s literally just me. I’m an ass. And an idiot.
Similarly to Philip K. Dick, Lovecraft has some truly fantastic ideas that are unique and utterly defining for their respective genres. Also, similarity to Philip K. Dick, Lovecraft is a terrible fucking author. This man could not write a concise and exciting plot if his life depended on it. Endless drivel-like descriptions that waffle on for page after page after page, so much that by the time you get to the ‘scary’ section, you’re so goddamn bored you don’t have the energy to be scared. So much filler, so much pomp, so much just flexing of this excessively large and verbose vocabulary. We get it Howard, you like to read books. So do I, just not yours.
This is a real shame, as not only was I looking forward to his stories, but some of them genuinely did live up to the high expectations I had. The Whisperer in Darkness, The Shadow over Innsmouth and The Thing on the Doorstep were such great reads, and I felt very engaged by the connected multiverse that Lovecraft……crafted. On the other hand, I had to deal with mind-numbing flops like The Nameless City, The Festival and The Haunter of the Dark, which despite all being some of his shortest stories I had a very large urge to throw myself under the nearest lorry.
Overall, The Call of Cthulhu and Other Weird Tales is not an experience I ever want to experience again. 3/5 stars for making me slowly lose my sanity, which being fair, is fitting for a Lovecraftian read.
Read on if you want to see my review and rating of each individual book, but please be warned, there will be ‼️SPOILERS‼️
1. The Rats in the Walls - 3.5/5
- Plot - a man buys a house infested by rats who may or may not turn him into a cannibal.
- Pros - Rats are gross and I thought the last page was actually kinda creepy.
- Cons - Not scary and the name of the man’s cat (and what Lovecraft actually named his cat irl) is fucking disgusting.
2. The Picture in the House - 2.5/5
- Plot - a man goes into an abandoned house and finds a hillbilly who likes to murder people, and then gets struck with lightning and dies.
- Pros - It was only 10 pages long.
- Cons - Still not scary.
3. The Nameless City - 1/5
- Plot - a man goes to an abandoned city in the desert and finds a race of lizard people and then gets scared of some wind.
- Pros - lizard people.
- Cons - the most boring and least scary story I’ve ever read. Insulting to horror.
4. The Festival - 1.5/5
- Plot - a man is summoned by his ancestors to attend a spooky Yuletide festival and is sucked into a weird cavern and is forced to ride a strange bat creature but he instead throws himself into a river and wakes up and it’s all a dream? Maybe? Unclear.
- Pros - The first story to show the link between each story in this larger universe.
- Cons - Still not scary and still not interesting.
5. The Call of Cthulhu - 3.5/5
- Plot - A man picks up the research of his late-departed uncle into the horrors of the ancient ‘Cthulhu Cult’ and the Eldritch God they wish to awaken.
- Pros - Cthulhu is an awesome creature and the plot of this one was well put together and interesting!
- Cons - Still not scary.
6. The Dunwich Horror - 4/5
- Plot - a small-time village is plagued by a creepy ass family who decide to summon an Eldritch being to end the world.
- Pros - The description of Wilbur Whateley was awesome and creepy, the story was interesting and I’m always up for a creepy cult in the woods. The descriptions for this were actually creepy asf and the overall plot was fascinating and well-written.
- Cons - Too long and slightly waffley in areas.
7. The Whisperer in Darkness - 5/5
- Plot - A man befriends another man living in the distant hills of Vermont, who claims that creatures named the Outsiders live in the mountains behind his house, and may mean him harm.
- Pros - Interesting story, likeable characters (weirdly enough), threatening creatures, good atmosphere, nice twist ending.
- Cons - I genuinely can’t think of any, this fucking slapped.
8. The Dreams in the Witch-House - 3/5
- Plot - a man moves into a house haunted by a witch and his life is basically ruined.
- Pros - It was in third person, thank god.
- Cons - Boring and not scary. I don’t care.
9. The Shadow Over Innsmouth - 5/5
- Plot - a man visits a town infested with fish people who want to kill him, only to find out he is one of them.
- Pros - really well written, interesting and engaging plot that wasn’t too descriptive heavy, a character likeable enough to root for, a fun and horrifying ending, and some good spooky scenes.
- Cons - this one actually doesn’t have any either!
10. At The Mountains of Madness - 4/5
- Plot - an expedition to the Antarctic goes very wrong when an ancient city is uncovered housing some very not so happy ‘Old One’s’.
- Pros - I love horror stories set in the Antarctic/Arctic so that was fun and it had a really unique premise.
- Cons - It wasn’t scary and could’ve been like 40 pages shorter - it dragged on way too much and a lot of it was just unnecessary waffle.
11. The Haunter of the Dark - 1.5/5
- Plot - a continuation of ‘The Picture in the House’ except somehow this is worse?
- Pros - There are literally none.
- Cons - This was so unnecessary? I did not need to know what happened to Blake after the first story, such a waste of time.
12. The Thing on the Doorstep - 4.5/5
- Plot - a man watches as his friend descends into madness after marrying a former inhabitant of Innsmouth.
- Pros - spooky, really well-written and paced, no unnecessary descriptions and long areas of waffle. Concise and enjoyable, I wish all his stories were like this!
- Cons - I would’ve liked the ending to be slightly longer actually, a bit too sudden of an ending for my liking - not enough suspense.
January 17, 2020
During my university years and beyond, the one author that friends kept insisting I should read was Lovecraft. Having never got around to his work before, I decided the 2020 Reading Challenge was the perfect opportunity to do so, and I chose this collection of twelve short stories as my first foray into his literary canon.
Now, I don't know if this is due to Lovecraft's particular style, or the fault of the editors who put these particular stories together, but I found this collection very formulaic - even, dare I say it, repetitive. The plots generally involve a New England male getting involved in, or learning about, some creepy hi-jinks, dismissing said hi-jinks as superstitious nonsense, relentlessly pursuing the weirdness, and dark mysterious forces consequently biting him in the buttocks. The novelty wears off after the first couple of stories, and you can guess what's coming from the get-go. That factor made it a tough, slow read in places.
Now, before the Lovecraft fans see the rating, break my door down, carry me off and sacrifice me to the Elder Ones, I will gladly concede that some of the stories in here are completely worthy of a 5-star rating on their own. My absolute favourite, which I relished reading, was "The Shadow Over Innsmouth" - a truly intriguing mystery and exciting adventure story, with an ending that made me exclaim "Oh, you poor doomed sod!" out loud, much to the confusion of the workplace canteen. If you want to dip your toe into Lovecraft's universe and can get that tale as a sole volume, then for the love of Yog-Sothoth, do so.
"The Dunwich Horror" comes a very close second, due to the clever portrayal and story arc of Wilbur Whateley, which struck me as slightly more original. (Also, bonus points for librarian hero!). I also enjoyed "The Dreams in the Witch-House", "The Thing on the Doorstep" and "The Picture in the House" (the latter chiefly due to a book being involved). "At the Mountains of Madness" was well-written too, and I can see why some people praise it so highly, but it was a tad too descriptive and drawn-out for my taste, although I'll admit the finale was excellent. (Fun board game, too!) As for the others, they were OK, but none of them really grabbed me.
Overall, this may not be the best collection to act as an introduction to Lovecraft's work, but all the same, I'm glad I read it - thanks to the couple of masterpieces it includes.
Now, I don't know if this is due to Lovecraft's particular style, or the fault of the editors who put these particular stories together, but I found this collection very formulaic - even, dare I say it, repetitive. The plots generally involve a New England male getting involved in, or learning about, some creepy hi-jinks, dismissing said hi-jinks as superstitious nonsense, relentlessly pursuing the weirdness, and dark mysterious forces consequently biting him in the buttocks. The novelty wears off after the first couple of stories, and you can guess what's coming from the get-go. That factor made it a tough, slow read in places.
Now, before the Lovecraft fans see the rating, break my door down, carry me off and sacrifice me to the Elder Ones, I will gladly concede that some of the stories in here are completely worthy of a 5-star rating on their own. My absolute favourite, which I relished reading, was "The Shadow Over Innsmouth" - a truly intriguing mystery and exciting adventure story, with an ending that made me exclaim "Oh, you poor doomed sod!" out loud, much to the confusion of the workplace canteen. If you want to dip your toe into Lovecraft's universe and can get that tale as a sole volume, then for the love of Yog-Sothoth, do so.
"The Dunwich Horror" comes a very close second, due to the clever portrayal and story arc of Wilbur Whateley, which struck me as slightly more original. (Also, bonus points for librarian hero!). I also enjoyed "The Dreams in the Witch-House", "The Thing on the Doorstep" and "The Picture in the House" (the latter chiefly due to a book being involved). "At the Mountains of Madness" was well-written too, and I can see why some people praise it so highly, but it was a tad too descriptive and drawn-out for my taste, although I'll admit the finale was excellent. (Fun board game, too!) As for the others, they were OK, but none of them really grabbed me.
Overall, this may not be the best collection to act as an introduction to Lovecraft's work, but all the same, I'm glad I read it - thanks to the couple of masterpieces it includes.
April 1, 2021
I get the feeling that Lovecraft was paid by the word for these.
December 15, 2020
This is my first foray into the work of H.P Lovecraft featuring a collection of his Cthulhu mythos tales. These are the first stories that I have read falling under the cosmic horror label. Whilst there was a lot I liked about this collection there was a lot I didn't like as well.
Lovecrafts writing and stories can be repetitive following easy to notice patterns in regards to structure and style; the stories protagonists tend to be male and involve them investigating unknown and forbidden knowledge that lead to revelations that ultimately breach their sanity.
As Horror stories I can't say that any of these stories scared me, the tone is decidedly bleak. There is an overhanging pall of gloom over all of these stories. The world is presented as large and full of hidden mysteries that lurk in places most don't suspect. Learning of these mysteries bewitches characters taking them on journeys that in most cases lead them to oblivion or worse.
I love Lovecrafts greater mythos, the idea that mankind are recent arrivals on the earth and other beings have existed before us that are far older defying human comprehension whilst shaping the world in ways that have ultimately lead to the present era.
My favourite stories from this collection in order are as follows:
+1. The Dunwich Horror (best of the collection, the life of Wilbur Whateley is indelibly painted in my mind)
+2. The Dreams in the Witch-house
+3. The Nameless city
+4. The Whisperer in Darkness(Introduction of the Mi-goh)
+5. At the Mountains of madness (badly written but I fell for the extensive lore surrounding the Elder things & Shoggoths. I think lovecraft concocted an unconvincing frame story to reveal more information about the Elder things)
Lovecraft excels at creating a deep mythos and lore. However this excellence isn't necessarily reflected in the stories themselves. Some of the stories are rushed and dare I say it boring. Some stories like the rats in the walls start very strong but collapse by the 3rd act into convenient narrated explanations that destroy the sense of mystery built up in the first act. These reveals often underwhelm and I wonder if the stories needed a better execution by a more accomplished writer. Lovecraft is more of an ideas man than a proficient writer. At their worst these stories fall flat and can be very impersonal. At their best Lovecraft succeeds in building a world where hidden knowledge leading to ancient truths lies in the shadows that few dare to look.
Be aware; Lovecraft was a vehement racist - yes that cat in the first story is really called "Nigger man"!! The other story in this collection: "The Shadow over Innsmouth" presents Lovecrafts xenophobic anxieties in regards to miscegenation. The joke of Lovecrafts racist ideas is that they are simply incorrect; there are no "pure" races, race is a social construct, human beings descend from Africa and thus black Africans hold the majority of humanities genetic diversity as well as retaining the original phenotype of mankind.
I definitely want to read more from Lovecraft and the greater Cthulhu mythos even if that is with trepidation.
Lovecrafts writing and stories can be repetitive following easy to notice patterns in regards to structure and style; the stories protagonists tend to be male and involve them investigating unknown and forbidden knowledge that lead to revelations that ultimately breach their sanity.
As Horror stories I can't say that any of these stories scared me, the tone is decidedly bleak. There is an overhanging pall of gloom over all of these stories. The world is presented as large and full of hidden mysteries that lurk in places most don't suspect. Learning of these mysteries bewitches characters taking them on journeys that in most cases lead them to oblivion or worse.
I love Lovecrafts greater mythos, the idea that mankind are recent arrivals on the earth and other beings have existed before us that are far older defying human comprehension whilst shaping the world in ways that have ultimately lead to the present era.
My favourite stories from this collection in order are as follows:
+1. The Dunwich Horror (best of the collection, the life of Wilbur Whateley is indelibly painted in my mind)
+2. The Dreams in the Witch-house
+3. The Nameless city
+4. The Whisperer in Darkness(Introduction of the Mi-goh)
+5. At the Mountains of madness (badly written but I fell for the extensive lore surrounding the Elder things & Shoggoths. I think lovecraft concocted an unconvincing frame story to reveal more information about the Elder things)
Lovecraft excels at creating a deep mythos and lore. However this excellence isn't necessarily reflected in the stories themselves. Some of the stories are rushed and dare I say it boring. Some stories like the rats in the walls start very strong but collapse by the 3rd act into convenient narrated explanations that destroy the sense of mystery built up in the first act. These reveals often underwhelm and I wonder if the stories needed a better execution by a more accomplished writer. Lovecraft is more of an ideas man than a proficient writer. At their worst these stories fall flat and can be very impersonal. At their best Lovecraft succeeds in building a world where hidden knowledge leading to ancient truths lies in the shadows that few dare to look.
Be aware; Lovecraft was a vehement racist - yes that cat in the first story is really called "Nigger man"!! The other story in this collection: "The Shadow over Innsmouth" presents Lovecrafts xenophobic anxieties in regards to miscegenation. The joke of Lovecrafts racist ideas is that they are simply incorrect; there are no "pure" races, race is a social construct, human beings descend from Africa and thus black Africans hold the majority of humanities genetic diversity as well as retaining the original phenotype of mankind.
I definitely want to read more from Lovecraft and the greater Cthulhu mythos even if that is with trepidation.
April 10, 2018
Marked as DNF because sadly, my dad threw it to one of the boxes when we move houses without my agreement. I'm still reading it. It must be somewhere in one of those boxes.
UPDATE April 2018: Still not able to finish this. It’s not the book though, it’s me...I’m not in the mood for cosmic horror stories. I’ll come back later.
UPDATE April 2018: Still not able to finish this. It’s not the book though, it’s me...I’m not in the mood for cosmic horror stories. I’ll come back later.
February 8, 2012
A decent, if uneven, introduction to Lovecraft's Cthulhu Mythos. The picks of the lot are The Call of Cthulhu, The Dunwich Horror, The Rats in the Walls, and the dazzling but overlong At the Mountains of Madness. Of the others, The Shadow Over Innsmouth isn't too bad, but The Whisperer in the Darkness is an exercise in lameness, featuring giant fungoid winged crabs from outer space terrorizing peaceful Vermont, while The Dreams in the Witch-house tries hard to shock but comes across as an unfocused series of weird images. The remaining short stories are just filler. Brevity and variety are not Lovecraft's strong suits, so the material may come across as dragging and repetitive to some, though I don't mind so much.
Three stars, may have earned another if it had had some of the better known stories like The Color Out Of Space and Nyarlathotep.
Three stars, may have earned another if it had had some of the better known stories like The Color Out Of Space and Nyarlathotep.
October 14, 2023
Rating a collection of 10 stories is so hard to do. I really, really liked some of them, but I agree with some of the other reviews that say it’s hard reading this large of a collection of the Cthulhu mythos together because it does get repetitive quite early on. Whisperer in the Darkness was among my favorites, The Call of Cthulhu was also really gripping and it’s no wonder it’s one of the most famous of Lovecraft’s work. As for the shorter ones, for some reason The Nameless City stays with me.
I do recommend it, because despite… everything… Lovecraft is a talented writer and undoubtedly a paragon of the weird fiction genre. He definitely earned that title.
I do recommend it, because despite… everything… Lovecraft is a talented writer and undoubtedly a paragon of the weird fiction genre. He definitely earned that title.
December 17, 2023
As an avid horror fan I was quite looking forward to reading some of Lovecrafts work due to his influence on the genre. However, I was not aware he was a racist privileged dick head.
I have another of his books which I will probably shove to back of my bookcase (along with this one) to gather dust. Which is exactly where they belong along with his antiquated white suprematist beliefs. Dead and buried
I have another of his books which I will probably shove to back of my bookcase (along with this one) to gather dust. Which is exactly where they belong along with his antiquated white suprematist beliefs. Dead and buried
February 9, 2020
HP Lovecraft is celebrated as one of the essential progenitors of modern horror. His specific style of horror deals in the tension between man's utter helplessness against the infinite, unfathomable, and malignant cosmos. The Lovecraftian mythos that he created and expanded through a number of short stories and novellas is a world full of potential for expansion and literary exploration.
And yet, reading his actual works and stories reveals him to be a writer of limited range and ability. (Also, he was racist to the point of hyperbole - but that's another story).
Lovecraft, at his best, was a literary pioneer in thinking about the ways in which the infinitude of time and the cosmos could be plumbed as a source of deep existential horror. He knew well of man's innate fear of the unknown, the other, and the strange. He took those motifs and manifested them in his writings as malignant cosmic entities, strange sea-peoples, vegetal aliens inhabiting the Arctic plains. These creations were made vast and ancient, impossibly different from common human experience, to drive home the thesis of man's utter insignificance in the face of the unknown.
Insanity - the breakdown - or absence - of mind - played a large part in establishing the viscerality of the horror. Lovecraft's characters often lose their sanity when they behold the various horrors of the cosmic menagerie. Lovecraft often uses the adjective "insane" to describe the actions, gestures and designs of his eldritch creations. Descending into insanity is perhaps the most intense emotional and mental response to encountering something with which the mind is incapable of coming to terms. It conveniently signposts the utter alienness of Lovecraft's horrors, the impossibility of understanding or even apprehending the insane unknown without becoming a part of that insanity.
It is no accident that Azathoth, the primal deity of the Lovecraft mythos and the implied creator of the universe, is described in The Haunter in the Dark as "a blind idiot god", "encircled by his flopping horde of mindless and amorphous dancers, and lulled by the thin monotonous piping of a demonic flute held in nameless paw". Here, Lovecraft implies that mindless, idiotic chaos is inherent in Creation. The Universe is malign in its very nature, and man's attempts to apprehend it only leads to gibbering insanity.
By the way, the reference to Azathoth being lulled by a flute could be a deliberate reference to the Pythagorean notion that the cosmos was ordered by principles of music (Pythagoras apparently hated the flute).
Lovecraft was also adept at making horrors out of the notion of the other. Tales like The Shadow Over Innsmouth and The Dunwich Horror feature strange, shambling subhumans with malign intent as antagonists. To the protagonists of these stories (white men of standing), these others were inherently repulsive in a way that defied description. They were dark, queer, described as being regressed from some more advanced state of being. They spoke in barbarous tongues. The ab-human nature of these creatures was synonymous with their inherently inimical intentions.
Such motifs, unfortunately, are very similar to the kinds of narratives often employed to demonize peoples of other races, and Lovecraft's use of it here to generate a feeling of horror is well in keeping with his well-known racist tendencies. (And man, he was racist as all hell - see this link) It might even be described as writing from a place of intimate familiarity - Lovecraft projecting his own racist disgust into his characters, but directed at fictional fish-races and the like. Which brings me to an uncomfortable point - to enjoy a story like A Shadow over Innsmouth is to surrender yourself into that frame of mind, and accept the notion, however fleetingly, that those who are different are degraded, inhuman, and malign by nature. The scariest thing is the story is so powerful precisely because of how easy it is to slip into that mode.
Ultimately, Lovecraft's lasting legacy persists because of their imaginative power. He named our fears, gave them form - even if it was of the incorporeal variety. He created a pantheon of gibbering, insane gods - Azathoth, Nyarlathotep, Shub-Niggurath, lightly painting them with evocative brush-strokes to hint at their aspects, but nothing more, leaving the rest to the reader's imagination. He did the same with books and accounts of fantasy lands and ancient races - the Necronomicon of the mad Arab Abdul Alhazred, mentioned shudderingly by the protagonists of nearly every story in the compendium. He littered his narratives with evocative locales like the nightmare plains of Leng, or Ib, or of the beings that resided on distant Yuggoth. These features added up to a compelling mythopoeia of the unknown and the strange, spanning deep time and the furthest reaches of the cosmos. It is a febrile imaginative landscape for readers, and other authors, to spin their own narratives of cosmic terror.
That said, when it came to the craft of the stories, Lovecraft doesn't pass muster on a multitude of levels. First, of course, is that his prose is florid, over-descriptive, and convoluted, especially when describing the horrors that he creates. It feels as if Lovecraft were pouring out his fears and hatreds in an uncontrollable torrent. As you read more of his stories, you notice, however, that he uses the same descriptors and adjectives in his prose - such as the word "insane" - to describe different manifestations of the same class of horror, story after story.
Most of his stories are variations on the same theme - a WASP, or a group of WASPs, ventures into the unknown and meets cosmic horrors beyond imagination. The difference is in the fluff - the nature and lineage of said horrors, and the ways in which they affect the world. After a while, this pattern starts to get predictable, especially after the nth variation of florid, strangely lyrical half-mad exposition on just how horrible the horror is.
Lovecraft's dialogue is probably his worst trait, however. He barely used reported speech - most of his stories were first- or third-person recountings of events, rather than ongoing narratives. But when Lovecraft deigns to have a character speak in his stories, it comes out as a rush of verbal diarrhea, long blocks of monologue. Dialogue in a Lovecraftian story serves two purposes: to provide accounts of the horrors, and the vocalizations of characters as they are rendered mad by the horrors.
To Lovecraft, the craft of storytelling were probably superfluous. He was not so much interested in human characters in and of themselves as he was of using them as expository instruments to give shape to the terrors spawned by his febrile imagination. Lovecraft was a screamer from the darkness, the prophet of cosmic indifference. His innate sense of fear and horror, which was probably a fount for his racism, also fueled his stories, and with them, he developed a new vocabulary for humanity's deepest fears. Now, modern writers derive inspiration from Lovecraft's mythos, and spin stories about cosmic terrors arguably better and with more effect than Lovecraft could (see Charles Stross' Laundry Files for an example). For all his failings, we should give Lovecraft the credit he is due.
Some of the stories I liked better were:
The Whisperer in Darkness: Featuring starfish aliens from Yuggoth, this is one of Lovecraft's more original efforts, with a strong science fiction ethos. The aliens themselves are also not portrayed as completely evil, but their alienness gives them horrific unfathomability.
The Dreams in the Witch-House: A frenetic, muddled but oddly horrific short story, featuring Nyarlathotep, the "mad faceless god" that "howls blindly in the darkness to the piping of two amorphous idiot flute-players", as well as the weird hateful Brown Jenkin, a weird human-faced rat familiar of the witch Keziah Mason.
The Shadow over Innsmouth: A classic tale of horror-of-the-other. Disturbing but riveting reading.
At the Mountains of Madness: Lovecraft takes a more scientific and lucid approach to the subjects of this story, the vegetal Elder Things that settled on Earth billions of years ago. There is a lot of expository info-dumping on the history and habits of the Elder Things, but it makes for interesting fluff reading. Shoggoths, the terrifying plant-slaves of the Elder Things, make an appearance here, too. Most impressive is the visual image of a vast, continent sized, billion-year-old city on the frozen high plains of Antarctica, surrounded by mountains that rise higher than Everest.
The Thing on the Doorstep: A surprisingly maligned story, probably because it is the least-Lovecraftian of the lot, featuring less cosmic horror (save for oblique references to the mythos) and more human evil. But this story is probably one of the more well-written ones for that reason, as Lovecraft focuses somewhat more on characterisation, dialogue and narrative pacing, and adroitly gives the story an unexpected and shocking moment at the end. (Actually, this is probably my favorite of the lot).
One final note: One thing I was surprised about is how little Lovecraft's most famous creation, Cthulhu, featured in the stories, save for the one (somewhat mediocre) story, The Call of Cthulhu. What made Cthulhu stand out amongst all the other horrors that Lovecraft created? My theory is that Cthulhu holds special terror for us because it is the union of cosmic horror and human evil (i.e. the cultist that worship and try to free it) and resides here on Earth, slumbering, subconsciously affecting human history and religion, giving its horror a sense of intimacy and apocalyptic tension.
I give this collection: 3.5 out of 5 Shining Polyhedrons
And yet, reading his actual works and stories reveals him to be a writer of limited range and ability. (Also, he was racist to the point of hyperbole - but that's another story).
Lovecraft, at his best, was a literary pioneer in thinking about the ways in which the infinitude of time and the cosmos could be plumbed as a source of deep existential horror. He knew well of man's innate fear of the unknown, the other, and the strange. He took those motifs and manifested them in his writings as malignant cosmic entities, strange sea-peoples, vegetal aliens inhabiting the Arctic plains. These creations were made vast and ancient, impossibly different from common human experience, to drive home the thesis of man's utter insignificance in the face of the unknown.
Insanity - the breakdown - or absence - of mind - played a large part in establishing the viscerality of the horror. Lovecraft's characters often lose their sanity when they behold the various horrors of the cosmic menagerie. Lovecraft often uses the adjective "insane" to describe the actions, gestures and designs of his eldritch creations. Descending into insanity is perhaps the most intense emotional and mental response to encountering something with which the mind is incapable of coming to terms. It conveniently signposts the utter alienness of Lovecraft's horrors, the impossibility of understanding or even apprehending the insane unknown without becoming a part of that insanity.
It is no accident that Azathoth, the primal deity of the Lovecraft mythos and the implied creator of the universe, is described in The Haunter in the Dark as "a blind idiot god", "encircled by his flopping horde of mindless and amorphous dancers, and lulled by the thin monotonous piping of a demonic flute held in nameless paw". Here, Lovecraft implies that mindless, idiotic chaos is inherent in Creation. The Universe is malign in its very nature, and man's attempts to apprehend it only leads to gibbering insanity.
By the way, the reference to Azathoth being lulled by a flute could be a deliberate reference to the Pythagorean notion that the cosmos was ordered by principles of music (Pythagoras apparently hated the flute).
Lovecraft was also adept at making horrors out of the notion of the other. Tales like The Shadow Over Innsmouth and The Dunwich Horror feature strange, shambling subhumans with malign intent as antagonists. To the protagonists of these stories (white men of standing), these others were inherently repulsive in a way that defied description. They were dark, queer, described as being regressed from some more advanced state of being. They spoke in barbarous tongues. The ab-human nature of these creatures was synonymous with their inherently inimical intentions.
Such motifs, unfortunately, are very similar to the kinds of narratives often employed to demonize peoples of other races, and Lovecraft's use of it here to generate a feeling of horror is well in keeping with his well-known racist tendencies. (And man, he was racist as all hell - see this link) It might even be described as writing from a place of intimate familiarity - Lovecraft projecting his own racist disgust into his characters, but directed at fictional fish-races and the like. Which brings me to an uncomfortable point - to enjoy a story like A Shadow over Innsmouth is to surrender yourself into that frame of mind, and accept the notion, however fleetingly, that those who are different are degraded, inhuman, and malign by nature. The scariest thing is the story is so powerful precisely because of how easy it is to slip into that mode.
Ultimately, Lovecraft's lasting legacy persists because of their imaginative power. He named our fears, gave them form - even if it was of the incorporeal variety. He created a pantheon of gibbering, insane gods - Azathoth, Nyarlathotep, Shub-Niggurath, lightly painting them with evocative brush-strokes to hint at their aspects, but nothing more, leaving the rest to the reader's imagination. He did the same with books and accounts of fantasy lands and ancient races - the Necronomicon of the mad Arab Abdul Alhazred, mentioned shudderingly by the protagonists of nearly every story in the compendium. He littered his narratives with evocative locales like the nightmare plains of Leng, or Ib, or of the beings that resided on distant Yuggoth. These features added up to a compelling mythopoeia of the unknown and the strange, spanning deep time and the furthest reaches of the cosmos. It is a febrile imaginative landscape for readers, and other authors, to spin their own narratives of cosmic terror.
That said, when it came to the craft of the stories, Lovecraft doesn't pass muster on a multitude of levels. First, of course, is that his prose is florid, over-descriptive, and convoluted, especially when describing the horrors that he creates. It feels as if Lovecraft were pouring out his fears and hatreds in an uncontrollable torrent. As you read more of his stories, you notice, however, that he uses the same descriptors and adjectives in his prose - such as the word "insane" - to describe different manifestations of the same class of horror, story after story.
Most of his stories are variations on the same theme - a WASP, or a group of WASPs, ventures into the unknown and meets cosmic horrors beyond imagination. The difference is in the fluff - the nature and lineage of said horrors, and the ways in which they affect the world. After a while, this pattern starts to get predictable, especially after the nth variation of florid, strangely lyrical half-mad exposition on just how horrible the horror is.
Lovecraft's dialogue is probably his worst trait, however. He barely used reported speech - most of his stories were first- or third-person recountings of events, rather than ongoing narratives. But when Lovecraft deigns to have a character speak in his stories, it comes out as a rush of verbal diarrhea, long blocks of monologue. Dialogue in a Lovecraftian story serves two purposes: to provide accounts of the horrors, and the vocalizations of characters as they are rendered mad by the horrors.
To Lovecraft, the craft of storytelling were probably superfluous. He was not so much interested in human characters in and of themselves as he was of using them as expository instruments to give shape to the terrors spawned by his febrile imagination. Lovecraft was a screamer from the darkness, the prophet of cosmic indifference. His innate sense of fear and horror, which was probably a fount for his racism, also fueled his stories, and with them, he developed a new vocabulary for humanity's deepest fears. Now, modern writers derive inspiration from Lovecraft's mythos, and spin stories about cosmic terrors arguably better and with more effect than Lovecraft could (see Charles Stross' Laundry Files for an example). For all his failings, we should give Lovecraft the credit he is due.
Some of the stories I liked better were:
The Whisperer in Darkness: Featuring starfish aliens from Yuggoth, this is one of Lovecraft's more original efforts, with a strong science fiction ethos. The aliens themselves are also not portrayed as completely evil, but their alienness gives them horrific unfathomability.
The Dreams in the Witch-House: A frenetic, muddled but oddly horrific short story, featuring Nyarlathotep, the "mad faceless god" that "howls blindly in the darkness to the piping of two amorphous idiot flute-players", as well as the weird hateful Brown Jenkin, a weird human-faced rat familiar of the witch Keziah Mason.
The Shadow over Innsmouth: A classic tale of horror-of-the-other. Disturbing but riveting reading.
At the Mountains of Madness: Lovecraft takes a more scientific and lucid approach to the subjects of this story, the vegetal Elder Things that settled on Earth billions of years ago. There is a lot of expository info-dumping on the history and habits of the Elder Things, but it makes for interesting fluff reading. Shoggoths, the terrifying plant-slaves of the Elder Things, make an appearance here, too. Most impressive is the visual image of a vast, continent sized, billion-year-old city on the frozen high plains of Antarctica, surrounded by mountains that rise higher than Everest.
The Thing on the Doorstep: A surprisingly maligned story, probably because it is the least-Lovecraftian of the lot, featuring less cosmic horror (save for oblique references to the mythos) and more human evil. But this story is probably one of the more well-written ones for that reason, as Lovecraft focuses somewhat more on characterisation, dialogue and narrative pacing, and adroitly gives the story an unexpected and shocking moment at the end. (Actually, this is probably my favorite of the lot).
One final note: One thing I was surprised about is how little Lovecraft's most famous creation, Cthulhu, featured in the stories, save for the one (somewhat mediocre) story, The Call of Cthulhu. What made Cthulhu stand out amongst all the other horrors that Lovecraft created? My theory is that Cthulhu holds special terror for us because it is the union of cosmic horror and human evil (i.e. the cultist that worship and try to free it) and resides here on Earth, slumbering, subconsciously affecting human history and religion, giving its horror a sense of intimacy and apocalyptic tension.
I give this collection: 3.5 out of 5 Shining Polyhedrons
January 13, 2025
Didn’t finish this one. Stopped at 46% and that was by far enough for me.
February 21, 2025
When the story was good it was excellent. But if he started over describing some of these stories were harder to finish than anything I’ve ever read.
The whole experience of reading these weird tales was so up and down I can’t rightly recommend it as a whole collection.
It’s honestly a miracle I didn’t dnf this book
The whole experience of reading these weird tales was so up and down I can’t rightly recommend it as a whole collection.
It’s honestly a miracle I didn’t dnf this book
March 27, 2019
The Rats in the walls :
As my first experience of Lovecraft’s writing, I initially found the language era complex to read. However you kind of get used to it after a couple of pages. The story was very slow moving with a gradual build up but the last few pages were great!! At a certain point it kept on getting continually more ominous which I liked [Symbol]
Overall rating out of 5 – 3
The Picture in the House: This was a short story that created a great spooky atmosphere. Again, the build up was very well done! The story ended on an odd note leaving the reader to their imagination, which I thought was pretty clever. These stories keep on getting weirder…
Overall rating out of 5- 2
The Nameless city:
My favourite one so far, I am noticing a pattern too, everyone dies and\or goes mad… the main guy felt really powerless and inferior to these beings and it eventually drove him mad. It’s nice how the endings are so abrupt and leave the story a bit open to interpretation by the reader. I have also found my new favourite word- cacodaemoniacal!
Overall rating out of 5- 3.5
The Festival:
The storyline to this was rather vague to be honest but the scenery and vibe were great. The narrating character was very mysterious and not much information was given to us. Not one of my fav stories but inventive none the less!
Overall rating out of 5- 1
Call of Cthulhu:
This was the story I actually wanted to read and I really enjoyed it! It had features of a mystery story as well as philosophical and religious views mixed in! The plot was great with gradual build up and realisation and the descriptions were vivid. I like the idea that his shocking discovery was just the fact that we are not alone . He is the only person who knows of what he found about the cult and Cthulhu etc. The main person in this story is by far the most intelligent of all of lovecrafts characters for he knew and realised the implications and consequences of his actions but decided to go forth into the unknown anyway. I can’t wait to see what other stories there are to discover !
Overall rating out of 5- 5! [Symbol]
The Dunwich Horror:
Another one of Lovecraft’s well known works, Dunwich horror was probably one of the darker tales. Lots of death and lots of mystery. A great combo! The tone was very sorrowful and actually quite creepy. I still enjoyed it none the less and there was a substantial amount of writing as well. The plot was well thought out with your usual twists, scares and turning points, all effectively used to create a great , enjoyable story.
Overall rating out of 5-4.5!
The whisperer in Darkness:
Ooh things ramped up in this… I think my Favourite so far! I loved the whole story especially as it got even more sinister as the story went on. The whole concept was great and the mystery and suspense of the plot, SO good. The final page was so haunting I just… I really don’t know what to say here !
Overall rating out of 5-6
The Dreams in the Witch-House:
This was a rather interesting one, some of the mathematical concepts were hard to fully understand however the story still worked! It was essentially an unusual ghost story except, the ghost was alive. The plot was very strange and ended in the particularly gruesome death of the main character as he was eaten clean through…
Overall rating out of 5-4
The Shadow Over Innsmouth:
I loved the way this story was set out. The mystery was set up and lore introduced and then there was that realisation moment which I actually found rather ironic! My only problem with this excellent story was the defeatist ending where the speaker kind of just gave up trying to reject his change and gave in too easily in my opinion.
Overall rating out of 5- 4.5
At the Mountains of Madness:
This story was a bit to dragged out in my opinion and I lost interest half way through. The concept and ideas were good and it even linked to other stories! I loved the descriptive language , the setting was described vividly and the imagery was great. It just wasn’t eventful enough for me.
Overall rating out of 5-2
The Haunter of the dark:
Another story with great imagery, however not much content. The story was set up and it progressed however it just didn’t build up enough suspense .
Overall rating out of 5-2
The Thing on the Doorstep:
This was another good one, I liked the gradual increase of realisation, for which Lovecraft is amazing at. For the final story in the book it had the right balance of weird and also kind of sad. I enjoyed this better than the last couple !
Overall Rating out of 5: 3.5
As my first experience of Lovecraft’s writing, I initially found the language era complex to read. However you kind of get used to it after a couple of pages. The story was very slow moving with a gradual build up but the last few pages were great!! At a certain point it kept on getting continually more ominous which I liked [Symbol]
Overall rating out of 5 – 3
The Picture in the House: This was a short story that created a great spooky atmosphere. Again, the build up was very well done! The story ended on an odd note leaving the reader to their imagination, which I thought was pretty clever. These stories keep on getting weirder…
Overall rating out of 5- 2
The Nameless city:
My favourite one so far, I am noticing a pattern too, everyone dies and\or goes mad… the main guy felt really powerless and inferior to these beings and it eventually drove him mad. It’s nice how the endings are so abrupt and leave the story a bit open to interpretation by the reader. I have also found my new favourite word- cacodaemoniacal!
Overall rating out of 5- 3.5
The Festival:
The storyline to this was rather vague to be honest but the scenery and vibe were great. The narrating character was very mysterious and not much information was given to us. Not one of my fav stories but inventive none the less!
Overall rating out of 5- 1
Call of Cthulhu:
This was the story I actually wanted to read and I really enjoyed it! It had features of a mystery story as well as philosophical and religious views mixed in! The plot was great with gradual build up and realisation and the descriptions were vivid. I like the idea that his shocking discovery was just the fact that we are not alone . He is the only person who knows of what he found about the cult and Cthulhu etc. The main person in this story is by far the most intelligent of all of lovecrafts characters for he knew and realised the implications and consequences of his actions but decided to go forth into the unknown anyway. I can’t wait to see what other stories there are to discover !
Overall rating out of 5- 5! [Symbol]
The Dunwich Horror:
Another one of Lovecraft’s well known works, Dunwich horror was probably one of the darker tales. Lots of death and lots of mystery. A great combo! The tone was very sorrowful and actually quite creepy. I still enjoyed it none the less and there was a substantial amount of writing as well. The plot was well thought out with your usual twists, scares and turning points, all effectively used to create a great , enjoyable story.
Overall rating out of 5-4.5!
The whisperer in Darkness:
Ooh things ramped up in this… I think my Favourite so far! I loved the whole story especially as it got even more sinister as the story went on. The whole concept was great and the mystery and suspense of the plot, SO good. The final page was so haunting I just… I really don’t know what to say here !
Overall rating out of 5-6
The Dreams in the Witch-House:
This was a rather interesting one, some of the mathematical concepts were hard to fully understand however the story still worked! It was essentially an unusual ghost story except, the ghost was alive. The plot was very strange and ended in the particularly gruesome death of the main character as he was eaten clean through…
Overall rating out of 5-4
The Shadow Over Innsmouth:
I loved the way this story was set out. The mystery was set up and lore introduced and then there was that realisation moment which I actually found rather ironic! My only problem with this excellent story was the defeatist ending where the speaker kind of just gave up trying to reject his change and gave in too easily in my opinion.
Overall rating out of 5- 4.5
At the Mountains of Madness:
This story was a bit to dragged out in my opinion and I lost interest half way through. The concept and ideas were good and it even linked to other stories! I loved the descriptive language , the setting was described vividly and the imagery was great. It just wasn’t eventful enough for me.
Overall rating out of 5-2
The Haunter of the dark:
Another story with great imagery, however not much content. The story was set up and it progressed however it just didn’t build up enough suspense .
Overall rating out of 5-2
The Thing on the Doorstep:
This was another good one, I liked the gradual increase of realisation, for which Lovecraft is amazing at. For the final story in the book it had the right balance of weird and also kind of sad. I enjoyed this better than the last couple !
Overall Rating out of 5: 3.5
July 20, 2014
Lovecraft. The mere mention of his name is enough to send shivers down the spine of his readers. This may be because they get a kick from his unsettling descriptions of slithering monsters, the breadth of his imagination, the depth of his knowledge and the mythos he builds across many of his stories. On the other hand the name Lovecraft may strike terror into the heart of the reader because they dread the prospect of picking through the man’s prose, overlooking his questionable views and surmounting several of his stories’ shortcomings.
There doesn’t appear to be much middle ground in this regard. You either get Lovecraft or you don’t.
Sadly, I don’t.
It’s not for the want of trying. I’ve given Lovecraft several goes over the years, each time hoping to find a story that will unlock his genius and throw open the doors to his universe. Most of the time I have come away disappointed.
It’s baffling. Lovecraft has entertained armies of readers and inspired legions of writers throughout his life and in the seventy-odd years following his death. You can’t throw a dread tentacled ornament at a genre fiction convention without hitting at least four hundred and thirty of his acolytes. Clearly the man did something right.
Well, yes, he did. When you get to the heart of his stories you will often find something that’s pretty cool and ahead of its time, whether it’s a satisfyingly icky monster, a wonderfully abstract location, a gruesome scene of carnage or a refreshing dismissal of religion within the context of all existence. To my bloodthirsty, cynical, nihilistic little mind this is all good stuff.
But reaching those shiny nuggets of story gold requires from the reader a degree of forgiveness, a lot of patience and a ton of weapons-grade explosives to blast through his prose, and far more than I’m willing to grant. There’s a good reason why a significant number of Lovecraft fanzines and anthologies beg their writers to not copy Lovecraft’s style in their submissions. While the works of Lovecraft’s contemporaries can still dazzle and delight to this day, Wodehouse being a particularly good example, Lovecraft, by comparison, has aged badly.
The reasons for this are manifold. There’s the casual racism peppered throughout some of his stories (though this is certainly not something exclusive to Lovecraft). There’s how most of the stories are sausage-fests. There’s how a significant number of stories follow the same trajectory: grim foreshadowing; info-dumping field report; actual story; denouement. There’s how the same protagonist essentially appears in each story: Lovecraft himself. There’s the exhausting dialogue, especially when it’s done in character. There’s the bludgeoning overuse of certain adjectives: everything is “horrible”, “hideous”, “terrible”, “dread”. There’s the occasional unintentionally hilarious clanger: for example, claiming a monster to be indescribable before going on to describe it in fairly vivid detail. There’s the jarring use of deus ex machina, sometimes literally. The list goes on.
I hesitate to call it bad writing, as doing so rubbishes Lovecraft’s considerable fanbase, but I cannot in all consciousness claim much of it to be good. At best his work is a very rough diamond that more skilled writers have honed into better fiction.
What saves The Call of Cthulhu and Other Weird Stories from being my first one-star review are a handful of half-decent tales: The Whisperer in Darkness, At The Mountains of Madness (or at least the first half of it before it turned into an info-dumping field report) and, despite few of Lovecraft’s acolytes liking it, The Thing on the Doorstep. If one was to take the volume as a whole, I could also praise the thought that went into the story selection and their running order.
But that is all.
2/5
There doesn’t appear to be much middle ground in this regard. You either get Lovecraft or you don’t.
Sadly, I don’t.
It’s not for the want of trying. I’ve given Lovecraft several goes over the years, each time hoping to find a story that will unlock his genius and throw open the doors to his universe. Most of the time I have come away disappointed.
It’s baffling. Lovecraft has entertained armies of readers and inspired legions of writers throughout his life and in the seventy-odd years following his death. You can’t throw a dread tentacled ornament at a genre fiction convention without hitting at least four hundred and thirty of his acolytes. Clearly the man did something right.
Well, yes, he did. When you get to the heart of his stories you will often find something that’s pretty cool and ahead of its time, whether it’s a satisfyingly icky monster, a wonderfully abstract location, a gruesome scene of carnage or a refreshing dismissal of religion within the context of all existence. To my bloodthirsty, cynical, nihilistic little mind this is all good stuff.
But reaching those shiny nuggets of story gold requires from the reader a degree of forgiveness, a lot of patience and a ton of weapons-grade explosives to blast through his prose, and far more than I’m willing to grant. There’s a good reason why a significant number of Lovecraft fanzines and anthologies beg their writers to not copy Lovecraft’s style in their submissions. While the works of Lovecraft’s contemporaries can still dazzle and delight to this day, Wodehouse being a particularly good example, Lovecraft, by comparison, has aged badly.
The reasons for this are manifold. There’s the casual racism peppered throughout some of his stories (though this is certainly not something exclusive to Lovecraft). There’s how most of the stories are sausage-fests. There’s how a significant number of stories follow the same trajectory: grim foreshadowing; info-dumping field report; actual story; denouement. There’s how the same protagonist essentially appears in each story: Lovecraft himself. There’s the exhausting dialogue, especially when it’s done in character. There’s the bludgeoning overuse of certain adjectives: everything is “horrible”, “hideous”, “terrible”, “dread”. There’s the occasional unintentionally hilarious clanger: for example, claiming a monster to be indescribable before going on to describe it in fairly vivid detail. There’s the jarring use of deus ex machina, sometimes literally. The list goes on.
I hesitate to call it bad writing, as doing so rubbishes Lovecraft’s considerable fanbase, but I cannot in all consciousness claim much of it to be good. At best his work is a very rough diamond that more skilled writers have honed into better fiction.
What saves The Call of Cthulhu and Other Weird Stories from being my first one-star review are a handful of half-decent tales: The Whisperer in Darkness, At The Mountains of Madness (or at least the first half of it before it turned into an info-dumping field report) and, despite few of Lovecraft’s acolytes liking it, The Thing on the Doorstep. If one was to take the volume as a whole, I could also praise the thought that went into the story selection and their running order.
But that is all.
2/5
June 7, 2016
As someone who is new to the horror genre, H.P. Lovecraft was recommended to me as a good starting place. I’d heard of Lovecraft before and the word Cthulhu but I honestly had no idea what I was getting into. The volume I read is a compilation of a number of his short stories that served as the perfect introduction to the genre and as a way to encourage me to read more short stories.
First of all I have to say that I absolutely adored reading this book. It’s rare for me to get so into a book that I can happily read over 200 pages in a single sitting because I get distracted very easily and don’t really find it comfortable to sit in the same position for extended periods of time. But reading this book was a completely new experience and I loved every second of every single story. I found it fascinating how Lovecraft crafted his stories so that it felt like they were all in the same universe, happening simultaneously.
Even though I’m not usually a big fan of horror, I did really enjoy the scarier aspects of these stories. I think this is mostly because Lovecraft’s use of first person narration made it really seem like I was reading someone’s actual account of their experiences which allowed me to distance myself from the story. Throughout the process of reading I couldn’t help but imagine how amazing a tv show version of the Weird Tales would be, if done properly.
That’s the thing about Lovecraft’s storytelling, it transcends boundaries of genre and form. His characters have such a clear sense of self that it’s almost impossible not to care about them and find their adventures compelling and immersing. The otherworldly and yet incredibly familiar world of the East Coast of America and Antarctica that Lovecraft paints creates the perfect backdrop for his hauntingly eerie stories that complement the plots perfectly. The stories themselves all have a very fast pace and use original and interesting twists that allow the reader to feel as though they’re watching a well told sci-fi/horror film while still maintaining a sheen of novelty that only Lovecraft could maintain.
I don’t think I’ve ever enjoyed reading short stories this much and I can guarantee I will be returning to this volume again. Lovecraft is definitely an author I would highly recommend to anyone who enjoys an intriguing tale well told.
First of all I have to say that I absolutely adored reading this book. It’s rare for me to get so into a book that I can happily read over 200 pages in a single sitting because I get distracted very easily and don’t really find it comfortable to sit in the same position for extended periods of time. But reading this book was a completely new experience and I loved every second of every single story. I found it fascinating how Lovecraft crafted his stories so that it felt like they were all in the same universe, happening simultaneously.
Even though I’m not usually a big fan of horror, I did really enjoy the scarier aspects of these stories. I think this is mostly because Lovecraft’s use of first person narration made it really seem like I was reading someone’s actual account of their experiences which allowed me to distance myself from the story. Throughout the process of reading I couldn’t help but imagine how amazing a tv show version of the Weird Tales would be, if done properly.
That’s the thing about Lovecraft’s storytelling, it transcends boundaries of genre and form. His characters have such a clear sense of self that it’s almost impossible not to care about them and find their adventures compelling and immersing. The otherworldly and yet incredibly familiar world of the East Coast of America and Antarctica that Lovecraft paints creates the perfect backdrop for his hauntingly eerie stories that complement the plots perfectly. The stories themselves all have a very fast pace and use original and interesting twists that allow the reader to feel as though they’re watching a well told sci-fi/horror film while still maintaining a sheen of novelty that only Lovecraft could maintain.
I don’t think I’ve ever enjoyed reading short stories this much and I can guarantee I will be returning to this volume again. Lovecraft is definitely an author I would highly recommend to anyone who enjoys an intriguing tale well told.
September 9, 2022
I was very excited about reading Lovecraft. Mainly because I keep seeing references to popular stories like Cthulhu. And Lovecraft is known for bizarrely imagination which is well deserved. The stories are really based on interesting bizarre imagination
But I don't like how unnecessarily long some of these stories are and they seemed very unengaging. Most of the stories felt like waffling on for too long without anything happening and that made it very difficult for me to stay engaged. Most of the stories felt uneventful because of how long they went on with very little happening.
The style of the stories is similar and they all share some similar patterns. In every other story, Lovecraft says something like I will spare the details of the unspeakable horror and just gets away without describing what exactly was so horrifying about it. This happens way too many times in these stories
Some of the endings felt very anti climactic. Same for Cthulhu. I enjoyed reading call of Cthulhu. But he made Cthulhu into an all powerful being and he even escaped his lair at one point in the story. But then nothing really happened. Although the author builds the expectations too much and then it all suddenly goes back to normal. That too is a pattern in several stories where the build up is slow and gradual and then nothing happens
It would have been fine for me if the stories weren't so long. But I really started hating this after some time because of how long they went on with hardly anything happening
Still, at least it was nice to read about some of the popular Lovecraft horrors.
But I don't like how unnecessarily long some of these stories are and they seemed very unengaging. Most of the stories felt like waffling on for too long without anything happening and that made it very difficult for me to stay engaged. Most of the stories felt uneventful because of how long they went on with very little happening.
The style of the stories is similar and they all share some similar patterns. In every other story, Lovecraft says something like I will spare the details of the unspeakable horror and just gets away without describing what exactly was so horrifying about it. This happens way too many times in these stories
Some of the endings felt very anti climactic. Same for Cthulhu. I enjoyed reading call of Cthulhu. But he made Cthulhu into an all powerful being and he even escaped his lair at one point in the story. But then nothing really happened. Although the author builds the expectations too much and then it all suddenly goes back to normal. That too is a pattern in several stories where the build up is slow and gradual and then nothing happens
It would have been fine for me if the stories weren't so long. But I really started hating this after some time because of how long they went on with hardly anything happening
Still, at least it was nice to read about some of the popular Lovecraft horrors.
May 21, 2012
After finally getting around to reading some Lovecraft, after many years of hearing sidelong whispers of the horror of the Old Ones, I can't help but be a bit disappointed by The Call of Cthulu. Basically it seemed too much that he was writing stuff that amounted to "X saw a horrible thing involving some people dancing around a fire and he felt pure terror in the pit of his stomach." but without much of a description of said horrible thing. So I, as the reader, get a brief description of some certainly unpleasant-sounding sight but am supposed to just take as read that this thing is in fact so unwholesome and bizarre that it drives people to insanity, suicide and/or spontaneous death...
Perhaps some of my reaction should be more an indictment of my desensitization to violence, but I can't help but feel that it falls back too much on the crutch of "this is so otherworldly that it can't be described." This can work in small doses when you then describe clearly what the reaction of other people is to this indescribable thing, and Lovecraft does a bit of that, but not enough.
Perhaps some of my reaction should be more an indictment of my desensitization to violence, but I can't help but feel that it falls back too much on the crutch of "this is so otherworldly that it can't be described." This can work in small doses when you then describe clearly what the reaction of other people is to this indescribable thing, and Lovecraft does a bit of that, but not enough.
March 26, 2023
As this was my first foray into the writings of Lovecraft I had no idea what to expect other than existential horror and odd alien gods turning people insane. I was pleasantly surprised by the writing style and the story telling, which In some cases does get repetitive but still doesn’t hinder the atmosphere creation and the endings of some of the stories.
The top stories have to be, the Dunwich Horror which kept me interested throughout with its incredible story telling, the Thing on the Doorstep, the Mountains of Madness with its tense climax , and the Shadow over Innsmouth which is a great story from start to finish with the slow realisation of what is occurring in the town.
Overall, I recommend this selection of stories for anyone wanting to delve into Lovecraft or this genre of horror which crosses the line between sci-fi and supernatural thriller.
The top stories have to be, the Dunwich Horror which kept me interested throughout with its incredible story telling, the Thing on the Doorstep, the Mountains of Madness with its tense climax , and the Shadow over Innsmouth which is a great story from start to finish with the slow realisation of what is occurring in the town.
Overall, I recommend this selection of stories for anyone wanting to delve into Lovecraft or this genre of horror which crosses the line between sci-fi and supernatural thriller.
April 16, 2023
The Call of Cthulu and Other Weird Tales by H.P. Lovecraft (3.5/5 stars)
Book 19/60 of 2023
I’ve finally finished this collection!!! Wooooo!!! It’s been so long since I bought it!
Lovecraft is definitely slow going, and some of these stories really didn’t do it for me. My favourites were ‘The Dunwich Horror’, ‘The Whisper in the Darkness’ and ‘At the Mountains of Madness’. I love love love weird fiction and I feel like it’s only necessary that I read the big daddy of weird. I recognise Lovecraft’s shortcomings - he was incredibly racist and conservative and that plays a huge part in the creation of these stories. But his work in the genre is undeniably important, and I’m so happy that people use the weird no longer to express conservative fears but to embrace the abhuman. Lovecraft you are a very strange dude I really wish you weren’t a fervent racist imagine
Book 19/60 of 2023
I’ve finally finished this collection!!! Wooooo!!! It’s been so long since I bought it!
Lovecraft is definitely slow going, and some of these stories really didn’t do it for me. My favourites were ‘The Dunwich Horror’, ‘The Whisper in the Darkness’ and ‘At the Mountains of Madness’. I love love love weird fiction and I feel like it’s only necessary that I read the big daddy of weird. I recognise Lovecraft’s shortcomings - he was incredibly racist and conservative and that plays a huge part in the creation of these stories. But his work in the genre is undeniably important, and I’m so happy that people use the weird no longer to express conservative fears but to embrace the abhuman. Lovecraft you are a very strange dude I really wish you weren’t a fervent racist imagine
July 12, 2017
How I have been in the dark for years not encountering these stories I don't know. They truly live up to all the praise and the great following (or should I say cult) of fans. Lovecraft's vivid imagination has created a great and unique universe which should be experienced by all.
Although I know his writing style is not for everyone I quite enjoyed it as it is very different from anything I've seen before. There were a few points the writing went on a bit and seemed to ramble with irrelevant information but I had few other problems with the writing apart from the pretty blatant racist tones which featured rather frequently. Therefore this is not really one for the easily offended.
I will definitely be looking through the rest of his works and would advise others to do likewise.
Although I know his writing style is not for everyone I quite enjoyed it as it is very different from anything I've seen before. There were a few points the writing went on a bit and seemed to ramble with irrelevant information but I had few other problems with the writing apart from the pretty blatant racist tones which featured rather frequently. Therefore this is not really one for the easily offended.
I will definitely be looking through the rest of his works and would advise others to do likewise.
October 29, 2018
Lovecraft's tales are chillingly brilliant. I did find myself getting occasionally bogged down by overindulgent descriptions, but in hindsight they don't take away from the tales, rather add to them, as they are required for the stories he is telling. The original cosmic horror at its finest, finished just in time to start playing the new Call of Cthulhu video game, they've got me right in the mood and I'm definitely going to be exploring more of Lovecraft's haunting prose.
September 4, 2021
Weird how despite being the most evil book ever, seemingly every university library in Massachusetts has a copy of the Necronomicon.
Once you’ve read one of these stories you’ve basically read them all. Some are fantastic whilst others are a bit boring.
Abhorrent racism throughout which made me feel very uncomfortable, must watch Lovecraft Country.
Once you’ve read one of these stories you’ve basically read them all. Some are fantastic whilst others are a bit boring.
Abhorrent racism throughout which made me feel very uncomfortable, must watch Lovecraft Country.
May 10, 2011
No other writer can inject such a thick air of nightmarish uneasiness into his stories like Lovecraft. The stories are all equally as original and creative as they are terrifying. Highly recommended for someone who needs a little OOMPH in whatever they're reading.
December 28, 2012
The 3-D cover is a bust, though...
March 26, 2016
Repetitive and sometimes boring and bad.
August 28, 2017
I enjoyed all the short stories in this book. I give this book 5 stars.
August 17, 2025
3.5 stars
As with most short story collections, this one was a mixed bag: most of the stories were compelling and not a total drag, one in particular was a total drag and a couple were really good and engaging.
Mostly I was drawn to this book from hearing people discuss the idea of "Lovecraftian horror" or "Lovecraftian elements" in various other pieces of media and it piqued my curiousity. Having read this selection of his short stories I know understand how specific of an adjective "Lovecraftian" is, as while his stories are without a doubt influential and have in essence fuelled a whole subgenre in horror media, he sticks firmly to his formula, one so specific and unbroken that it applies broadly to every story in this book.
A white american man, who is living or working or otherwise referencing New England, and who is usually middle or upperclass with some engagement in academia, usually a researcher or student, or at least in possesion of an academic background, is the main character, and usually is also our narrator. He either is adamant, or laments his previous being adamant, that eldrich horrors do not exist, and that all things can be explained away by reason, with an amount of audacity that grates the nerves when paired, as it almost always is, with an insistence that the 'locals' in the location of this eldrich horror, who attempt to warb others away these people are usually either foreign to him or are of a rural/uneducated background) are stupid or overly superstitious or in some other way lesser than he is. It ends with this main character proven wholly wrong and the nature of his discoveries causes his descent into madness and usually written or implied death.
These eldritch horrors, in both these tales and how they live on in horror media today, rely largely on a 'fear of the unknown', that something beyond human comprehension, that should not under any circumstances be comprehended by humans, exists just outside of our everyday field of view. A valid fear and an interesting perspective for horror media to pursue, shown in its maintained popularity. In Lovecraft's work however, this fear of the unknown merges uncomfortably with the author's racist, classist and xenophobic views and appears quite jarringly and quite impossible to ignore. For example in the first story 'The Rats in the Walls' (and if the texts weren't ordered chronologically based on when they were written I'm quite bewildered at the choice to put this first) the narrator's cat, unfortunately a main character and called by name every few lines, is named a racist slur. Although it is fairly well documented that the author was a racist, to have his racism be so clear in the text really disrupted my ability to enjoy the horror aspects of this, this play into the "fear of the unknown" when it so clearly played into the author's politics too.
Taking this aside, and to attempt to review the stories more on enjoyment than politics, there were some pretty good stories in here. I enjoyed 'The Dunwich Horror', though it was the story I had heard the most about before reading, so its ending was spoiled slightly, which is a shame given that a lot of these stories rely on building a suspenseful mystery. My favourite by far was 'The Whisperer in the Darkness' as it broke the formula mentioned above somewhat in having the focus be on two conferring academics, and I enjoyed the half-epistolary format, and the ending was genuinely creepy as hell. Also an honorary mention for 'The Dreams in the Witch House' which kinda dipped it toe into a sort of crime novel-esque direction at times.
For the disliked stories, the aforementioned 'Rats in the Walls' made me regret buying this book when I was only a few pages in for the reasons already mentioned. Also the longest story, 'The Mountains of Madness' felt like I myself was on a mountain of madness, where the peak was very very nearly DNFing the book in the last couple hundred pages or so. It was a total drag, it made what was in concept a fairly compelling story an utter bore by dragging it out with lengthy descriptions of specific materials and the measurements of random pillars. I can appreciate that the narrator was a scientist, and that the format/justification for his perspective being written down was that he was writing a lengthy scientific report so as to dissuade anyone returning to the 'mountains of madness' for further research, and as much as I can admire committment to the format, my reluctance to read this monotony added an extra month or so to the time spent reading this book.
Alltogether, a mixed bag. The stories themselves were varied in quality and enjoyability. And though I am glad to have read this and have upped my horror media credentials, Lovecraft's work is still undoubtly both timeless and very very very incredibly dated.
As with most short story collections, this one was a mixed bag: most of the stories were compelling and not a total drag, one in particular was a total drag and a couple were really good and engaging.
Mostly I was drawn to this book from hearing people discuss the idea of "Lovecraftian horror" or "Lovecraftian elements" in various other pieces of media and it piqued my curiousity. Having read this selection of his short stories I know understand how specific of an adjective "Lovecraftian" is, as while his stories are without a doubt influential and have in essence fuelled a whole subgenre in horror media, he sticks firmly to his formula, one so specific and unbroken that it applies broadly to every story in this book.
A white american man, who is living or working or otherwise referencing New England, and who is usually middle or upperclass with some engagement in academia, usually a researcher or student, or at least in possesion of an academic background, is the main character, and usually is also our narrator. He either is adamant, or laments his previous being adamant, that eldrich horrors do not exist, and that all things can be explained away by reason, with an amount of audacity that grates the nerves when paired, as it almost always is, with an insistence that the 'locals' in the location of this eldrich horror, who attempt to warb others away these people are usually either foreign to him or are of a rural/uneducated background) are stupid or overly superstitious or in some other way lesser than he is. It ends with this main character proven wholly wrong and the nature of his discoveries causes his descent into madness and usually written or implied death.
These eldritch horrors, in both these tales and how they live on in horror media today, rely largely on a 'fear of the unknown', that something beyond human comprehension, that should not under any circumstances be comprehended by humans, exists just outside of our everyday field of view. A valid fear and an interesting perspective for horror media to pursue, shown in its maintained popularity. In Lovecraft's work however, this fear of the unknown merges uncomfortably with the author's racist, classist and xenophobic views and appears quite jarringly and quite impossible to ignore. For example in the first story 'The Rats in the Walls' (and if the texts weren't ordered chronologically based on when they were written I'm quite bewildered at the choice to put this first) the narrator's cat, unfortunately a main character and called by name every few lines, is named a racist slur. Although it is fairly well documented that the author was a racist, to have his racism be so clear in the text really disrupted my ability to enjoy the horror aspects of this, this play into the "fear of the unknown" when it so clearly played into the author's politics too.
Taking this aside, and to attempt to review the stories more on enjoyment than politics, there were some pretty good stories in here. I enjoyed 'The Dunwich Horror', though it was the story I had heard the most about before reading, so its ending was spoiled slightly, which is a shame given that a lot of these stories rely on building a suspenseful mystery. My favourite by far was 'The Whisperer in the Darkness' as it broke the formula mentioned above somewhat in having the focus be on two conferring academics, and I enjoyed the half-epistolary format, and the ending was genuinely creepy as hell. Also an honorary mention for 'The Dreams in the Witch House' which kinda dipped it toe into a sort of crime novel-esque direction at times.
For the disliked stories, the aforementioned 'Rats in the Walls' made me regret buying this book when I was only a few pages in for the reasons already mentioned. Also the longest story, 'The Mountains of Madness' felt like I myself was on a mountain of madness, where the peak was very very nearly DNFing the book in the last couple hundred pages or so. It was a total drag, it made what was in concept a fairly compelling story an utter bore by dragging it out with lengthy descriptions of specific materials and the measurements of random pillars. I can appreciate that the narrator was a scientist, and that the format/justification for his perspective being written down was that he was writing a lengthy scientific report so as to dissuade anyone returning to the 'mountains of madness' for further research, and as much as I can admire committment to the format, my reluctance to read this monotony added an extra month or so to the time spent reading this book.
Alltogether, a mixed bag. The stories themselves were varied in quality and enjoyability. And though I am glad to have read this and have upped my horror media credentials, Lovecraft's work is still undoubtly both timeless and very very very incredibly dated.
This entire review has been hidden because of spoilers.
November 1, 2025
Well, I have not FINISHED finished this one, it is a lot of short stories which are tricky to review and and which tend not to fit in with my reading schedules that well. I was reading it for #spooky season and I might save the remaining ones for a while. But here is what I have read so far:
1) The Rats in the Walls
A 1920's story about an American, Delapore who purchases his ancestral home back in the UK with the aim of restoring it and assuming his forefather's name of De la Pore. Once there he finds that both have a horrible reputation with the surrounding folk who despise the place but will not tell him why.
The sounds of rats in the walls leads him to call upon academics and professionals to investigate the strange sounds and when they go beneath the castle they find the untold horrors that his ancestors had done, sending the investigating team insane the gruesome ways that I can't describe on the internet without being canceled. A genuine thrill of horror there.
4*
2) The Picture in the House
A traveler is touring the Miskatonic Valley of rural New England (site of many of Lovecraftian stories) when he seeks shelter from an approaching storm in an apparently abandoned house. Once inside it is full of antique books, strange items and eventually proves inhabited by an odd old man. This man shows our traveler/narration and old book that has given him a taste for food "...I couldn't raise nor buy" and leads our traveler into a sticky position and the reader into a suitably scary ending. I was not wowed, on a re-read, in the right mood, I may enjoy it more.
3*
3) The Nameless City
This is a very purple prose story, it is fun in that over the top way but the prose did make me giggle a little. A man and his camel go off into the deserts of 'Araby' in search of a fabled city. "When I drew nigh the nameless city, I knew it was accursed." Eases you into the story which includes various explorations of ruins and some fun alters and all sorts of things, tie ins with everything from Lord Dunsany to Thomas Moore. Cthulhu mythos? Possibly.
Lurid, Florid, Melodramatic - nay almost hysterical. And so much fun.
5*
4) The Festival
While I enjoyed it at the time, it has faded from my memory more than some of the other stories:
It was the Yuletide," the story begins, "that men call Christmas though they know in their hearts it is older... Our unnamed narrator is making his first visit to Kingsport, Massachusetts, another weird seaport where his ancestors used to live and to which he has been summoned for a celebration of the season in 'the old way' a warning sign if ever we saw one. The town is beautifully described, atmospheric and deserted with only our narrators footsteps in the snow and overhanging houses with mostly unlit windows.
Having been admitted to his ancestral home, he is provided some light reading in the form of a Latin translation of the Necronomicon. For this he develops dire fears for what the ceremony will be. These fears are increased as the whole town heads of into stairway under the church that takes them to saline caverns (Lovecraft really did not love the ocean did he?) before he loses his nerve and flees. Maybe I just was not in the right frame of mind, it did not grab me.
3*
9) The Shadow Over Innsmouth
This was one of my best reads for October - I read it and listened to the audiobook allowing me to bathe in the glorious writing in a couple of different media. The story follows the narrator, who is a mature student using his gap year to tour of New England as cheaply as possible.
When the train fare seems too high, he ends up taking the ramshackle bus to the decrepit seaport of Innsmouth which is so despised by the neighboring towns that they never go there. Our narrator finds out why in an eerie increasing horror as he is forced to first spend the night there and then flee the town through the marshes. Great story, magnificent with a sternum punch of an ending!
5*
1) The Rats in the Walls
A 1920's story about an American, Delapore who purchases his ancestral home back in the UK with the aim of restoring it and assuming his forefather's name of De la Pore. Once there he finds that both have a horrible reputation with the surrounding folk who despise the place but will not tell him why.
The sounds of rats in the walls leads him to call upon academics and professionals to investigate the strange sounds and when they go beneath the castle they find the untold horrors that his ancestors had done, sending the investigating team insane the gruesome ways that I can't describe on the internet without being canceled. A genuine thrill of horror there.
4*
2) The Picture in the House
A traveler is touring the Miskatonic Valley of rural New England (site of many of Lovecraftian stories) when he seeks shelter from an approaching storm in an apparently abandoned house. Once inside it is full of antique books, strange items and eventually proves inhabited by an odd old man. This man shows our traveler/narration and old book that has given him a taste for food "...I couldn't raise nor buy" and leads our traveler into a sticky position and the reader into a suitably scary ending. I was not wowed, on a re-read, in the right mood, I may enjoy it more.
3*
3) The Nameless City
This is a very purple prose story, it is fun in that over the top way but the prose did make me giggle a little. A man and his camel go off into the deserts of 'Araby' in search of a fabled city. "When I drew nigh the nameless city, I knew it was accursed." Eases you into the story which includes various explorations of ruins and some fun alters and all sorts of things, tie ins with everything from Lord Dunsany to Thomas Moore. Cthulhu mythos? Possibly.
Lurid, Florid, Melodramatic - nay almost hysterical. And so much fun.
5*
4) The Festival
While I enjoyed it at the time, it has faded from my memory more than some of the other stories:
It was the Yuletide," the story begins, "that men call Christmas though they know in their hearts it is older... Our unnamed narrator is making his first visit to Kingsport, Massachusetts, another weird seaport where his ancestors used to live and to which he has been summoned for a celebration of the season in 'the old way' a warning sign if ever we saw one. The town is beautifully described, atmospheric and deserted with only our narrators footsteps in the snow and overhanging houses with mostly unlit windows.
Having been admitted to his ancestral home, he is provided some light reading in the form of a Latin translation of the Necronomicon. For this he develops dire fears for what the ceremony will be. These fears are increased as the whole town heads of into stairway under the church that takes them to saline caverns (Lovecraft really did not love the ocean did he?) before he loses his nerve and flees. Maybe I just was not in the right frame of mind, it did not grab me.
3*
9) The Shadow Over Innsmouth
This was one of my best reads for October - I read it and listened to the audiobook allowing me to bathe in the glorious writing in a couple of different media. The story follows the narrator, who is a mature student using his gap year to tour of New England as cheaply as possible.
When the train fare seems too high, he ends up taking the ramshackle bus to the decrepit seaport of Innsmouth which is so despised by the neighboring towns that they never go there. Our narrator finds out why in an eerie increasing horror as he is forced to first spend the night there and then flee the town through the marshes. Great story, magnificent with a sternum punch of an ending!
5*
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