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Necronomicon: The Best Weird Tales of H.P. Lovecraft
Listening length: 21 h
Originally written for the pulp magazines of the 1920s and '30s, H. P. Lovecraft's astonishing tales blend elements of horror, science fiction, and cosmic terror that are as powerful today as they were when first published.
Contents:
• Dagon
• Herbert West: Re-Animator
• The Lurking Fear
• The Rats in the Walls
• The Whisperer in Darkness
• Cool Air
• In the Vault
• The Call of Cthluhu
• The Colour Out of Space
• The Horror at Red Hook
• The Music of Erich Zann
• The Shadow Out of Time
• The Dunwich Horror
• The Haunter of the Dark
• The Outsider
• The Shunned House
• The Unnamable
• The Thing on the Doorstep
• Under the Pyramids
Originally written for the pulp magazines of the 1920s and '30s, H. P. Lovecraft's astonishing tales blend elements of horror, science fiction, and cosmic terror that are as powerful today as they were when first published.
Contents:
• Dagon
• Herbert West: Re-Animator
• The Lurking Fear
• The Rats in the Walls
• The Whisperer in Darkness
• Cool Air
• In the Vault
• The Call of Cthluhu
• The Colour Out of Space
• The Horror at Red Hook
• The Music of Erich Zann
• The Shadow Out of Time
• The Dunwich Horror
• The Haunter of the Dark
• The Outsider
• The Shunned House
• The Unnamable
• The Thing on the Doorstep
• Under the Pyramids
21 pages, Audio CD
Published August 5, 2014
126 people are currently reading
625 people want to read
About the author
H.P. Lovecraft
6,039 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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Displaying 1 - 30 of 162 reviews
December 9, 2014
Lovecraft has to be broken down into his constituent parts in order to be comprehensible.
1. Man
2. Mythographer
3. Writer
The man, by far, is easily the most reprehensible and unforgivable. This may take a little explanation for those unfamiliar with the man and the writer. Firstly, HPL believed in a crude Social Darwinism/Eugenics married to a virulent racism/xenophobia and a despicable classism. When reading Necronomicon or any of his works all of these elements become impossible to ignore and are, virtually, shouted from the pages/screens. It is popular to dismiss these beliefs as being a part of the society he was raised in. Of course, he was raised in a racist, classist, xenophobic time, as well as a time when Social Darwinism, and especially eugenics, were very popular...amongst intellectuals. Still, other writers came out of such belief systems and their work was not penetrated by hate in the manner that HPL's work is. There is something almost infantile about this, which raises the specter of a facile Freudian reading of the man's character. The latter would not be very useful because it is culturally limited and scientifically invalid. It is enough to say that hate drives much of HPL's work and it makes this of limited value.
The writer is another level that needs to be looked at because it suggests the same infantile and superficial understanding of the world as well. Firstly, there is very limited character development; the attitude of HPL to women is at best ambivalent; exposition is shaky, and HPL had a tin ear for dialogue. The prose is almost exclusively purple--even for his creaky, gothic constructions. No writer or reader will find anything at this level to learn from HPL. The only element of HPL's writing worth the reader's attention is that he may be the first Horror/Science-Fantasy writer to leave the big-bad alive and well and man's position relative to this as tenuous.
The last element of HPL that should be looked at is his myth. Here is the one place where HPL shines. His creation of an ante-diluvian world of races not human on earth and others that came from off of earth is fascinating and worthy of study. Given the amount of fiction and 'fan-fiction' which his 'Cthulian' mythos has generated HPL remains a significant presence in the world of genre fiction--and, yes, there is a difference between genre and literature. For this reason, and this reason alone, HPL remains a writer worth revisiting.
However, the reader needs to be prepared for the moral vacuity and hate which they will encounter in the work of HPL. Not to mention, the horrific writing, which is often responsible for some of the worst published writing I have ever come across.
Rating: 3 out of 5 stars
Not recommended for morally sensitive readers...or aesthetically inclined ones either.
1. Man
2. Mythographer
3. Writer
The man, by far, is easily the most reprehensible and unforgivable. This may take a little explanation for those unfamiliar with the man and the writer. Firstly, HPL believed in a crude Social Darwinism/Eugenics married to a virulent racism/xenophobia and a despicable classism. When reading Necronomicon or any of his works all of these elements become impossible to ignore and are, virtually, shouted from the pages/screens. It is popular to dismiss these beliefs as being a part of the society he was raised in. Of course, he was raised in a racist, classist, xenophobic time, as well as a time when Social Darwinism, and especially eugenics, were very popular...amongst intellectuals. Still, other writers came out of such belief systems and their work was not penetrated by hate in the manner that HPL's work is. There is something almost infantile about this, which raises the specter of a facile Freudian reading of the man's character. The latter would not be very useful because it is culturally limited and scientifically invalid. It is enough to say that hate drives much of HPL's work and it makes this of limited value.
The writer is another level that needs to be looked at because it suggests the same infantile and superficial understanding of the world as well. Firstly, there is very limited character development; the attitude of HPL to women is at best ambivalent; exposition is shaky, and HPL had a tin ear for dialogue. The prose is almost exclusively purple--even for his creaky, gothic constructions. No writer or reader will find anything at this level to learn from HPL. The only element of HPL's writing worth the reader's attention is that he may be the first Horror/Science-Fantasy writer to leave the big-bad alive and well and man's position relative to this as tenuous.
The last element of HPL that should be looked at is his myth. Here is the one place where HPL shines. His creation of an ante-diluvian world of races not human on earth and others that came from off of earth is fascinating and worthy of study. Given the amount of fiction and 'fan-fiction' which his 'Cthulian' mythos has generated HPL remains a significant presence in the world of genre fiction--and, yes, there is a difference between genre and literature. For this reason, and this reason alone, HPL remains a writer worth revisiting.
However, the reader needs to be prepared for the moral vacuity and hate which they will encounter in the work of HPL. Not to mention, the horrific writing, which is often responsible for some of the worst published writing I have ever come across.
Rating: 3 out of 5 stars
Not recommended for morally sensitive readers...or aesthetically inclined ones either.
August 28, 2015
The five star rating for this book is not because I think every story (or even most of them) were 5 stars, or because Lovecraft was a great writer (though I do think he was a better writer than he's often given credit for). It's because these stories are essential reading. Like him or hate him, Lovecraft casts a long, dark shadow over all of American fantasy and horror, and in fact, the stories are mostly pretty good, in a very dated way. Yes, Lovecraft wrote purple. Yes, his characterization is usually pretty thin. And yes, he was a horrible racist and it shows in his writing. But no one who touched this genre after him has been untouched by it, and if you have ever been awed or frightened or scared by a tale of eldritch horrors, unfathomable beings from beyond time and space, bubbling squamous obscenities so horrible that the very sight of them will erode your sanity, or vast, alien, cosmic gods inimical to humans and regarding us the way we regard germs... well, that's all Lovecraftian influence.
You also have Lovecraft to thank for a raft of awesome boardgames and RPGs, from the classic Call of Cthulhu to Eldritch Horror and Cthulhu Wars.
While Lovecraft's stories are typically labeled fantasy (hence his likeness being the trophy for the World Fantasy Award), he was really a science fiction writer, or perhaps science fantasy. His Elder Gods and the inhuman things that served them were not "gods" in the sense of being truly divine, but rather vast cosmic powers who exist on a scale beyond human comprehension. The "magic" sometimes found in his stories, even spells read from books like the Necronomicon, are likewise means of bending reality in ways Man Was Not Meant to Know, but ultimately his creatures are aliens, not demons, and his supernatural horror stems from science perverted beyond recognition, not from arcane witchcraft. Whenever something in the way of a more "traditional" monster appears in a Lovecraft story, like a mere ghost or vampire or werewolf, it's probably something much, much worse.
This collection contains most of Lovecraft's better known stories, focusing largely on his Cthulhu mythos cycle, so there is lots of squamous horror here. All the familiar names are here: Cthulhu, Hastur, Shub-Niggurath, Nyarlathotep, Yog-Sothoth, Dagon, etc. Monsters of all shapes and sizes, and degenerate inbred New England townsfolk who usually have nasty things in their barns, wells, attics, and woods.
If you want a Lovecraft primer, this is a good start. I'd read all these stories before, but many of them I had not read for years, so I enjoyed going through the classics again even if they don't bring me quite the same feeling of existential horror they did when I was a teenager.
Here is the complete list of stories in this audiobook:
Dagon
Herbert West, Reanimator
The Lurking Fear
The Rats in the Walls
The Whisperer in the Darkness
Cool Air
In the Vault
The Call of Cthulhu
The Color Out of Space
The Horror at Red Hook
The Music of Eric Zahn
The Shadow Out of Time
The Dunwich Horror
The Haunter of the Dark
The Outsider
The Shunned House
The Unnameable
The Thing on the Doorstep
Under the Pyramids
It's a fine collection of creepy and fantasy stories, and great inspiration before playing a game of Arkham Horror or Call of Cthulhu.
You also have Lovecraft to thank for a raft of awesome boardgames and RPGs, from the classic Call of Cthulhu to Eldritch Horror and Cthulhu Wars.
While Lovecraft's stories are typically labeled fantasy (hence his likeness being the trophy for the World Fantasy Award), he was really a science fiction writer, or perhaps science fantasy. His Elder Gods and the inhuman things that served them were not "gods" in the sense of being truly divine, but rather vast cosmic powers who exist on a scale beyond human comprehension. The "magic" sometimes found in his stories, even spells read from books like the Necronomicon, are likewise means of bending reality in ways Man Was Not Meant to Know, but ultimately his creatures are aliens, not demons, and his supernatural horror stems from science perverted beyond recognition, not from arcane witchcraft. Whenever something in the way of a more "traditional" monster appears in a Lovecraft story, like a mere ghost or vampire or werewolf, it's probably something much, much worse.
This collection contains most of Lovecraft's better known stories, focusing largely on his Cthulhu mythos cycle, so there is lots of squamous horror here. All the familiar names are here: Cthulhu, Hastur, Shub-Niggurath, Nyarlathotep, Yog-Sothoth, Dagon, etc. Monsters of all shapes and sizes, and degenerate inbred New England townsfolk who usually have nasty things in their barns, wells, attics, and woods.
If you want a Lovecraft primer, this is a good start. I'd read all these stories before, but many of them I had not read for years, so I enjoyed going through the classics again even if they don't bring me quite the same feeling of existential horror they did when I was a teenager.
Here is the complete list of stories in this audiobook:
Dagon
Herbert West, Reanimator
The Lurking Fear
The Rats in the Walls
The Whisperer in the Darkness
Cool Air
In the Vault
The Call of Cthulhu
The Color Out of Space
The Horror at Red Hook
The Music of Eric Zahn
The Shadow Out of Time
The Dunwich Horror
The Haunter of the Dark
The Outsider
The Shunned House
The Unnameable
The Thing on the Doorstep
Under the Pyramids
It's a fine collection of creepy and fantasy stories, and great inspiration before playing a game of Arkham Horror or Call of Cthulhu.
April 25, 2015
This is the best audio edition I've come across for Lovecraft. The quality is excellent but I'm dropping a star because there are no chapter titles. How can you have a short story collection without chapter titles?
September 21, 2014
I could not give this book five stars in good conscious, and I will explain why. It's no secret that Lovecraft was a deeply racist individual. Because children also browse Goodreads, I want parents to know that this compilation contains overt racist slurs and connotations. Of course, one can argue that this is just a product of the author's imagination. I respectfully disagree. Although, Lovecraft was a brilliant writer, the writer's overt hatred of other races sometimes poured out into his writing. He was simply a product of the era he lived in.
If you're like me and this doesn't really detract from the genius of Lovecraft's writing, then I strongly recommend this compilation.
If you're like me and this doesn't really detract from the genius of Lovecraft's writing, then I strongly recommend this compilation.
October 28, 2014
There are sacraments of evil as well as of good about us, and we live and move to my belief in an unknown world, a place where there are caves and shadows and dwellers in twilight. It is possible that man may sometimes return on the track of evolution, and it is my belief that an awful lore is not yet dead.
—Arthur Machen (quoted as an introduction to “The Horror at Red Hook”)
Everyone must read a little Lovecraft and Blackstone Audio’s recently published edition of Necronomicon: The Best Weird Tales of H.P. Lovecraft is, in my opinion, the perfect way to do that. Like re-animated corpses, Lovecraft’s most popular stories from the 1920s and 1930s pulp magazines are brought back to life by some of the best readers in the business: Paul Michael Garcia, Bronson Pinchot, Stephen R. Thorne, Keith Szarabajka, Adam ... Read More: http://www.fantasyliterature.com/revi...
—Arthur Machen (quoted as an introduction to “The Horror at Red Hook”)
Everyone must read a little Lovecraft and Blackstone Audio’s recently published edition of Necronomicon: The Best Weird Tales of H.P. Lovecraft is, in my opinion, the perfect way to do that. Like re-animated corpses, Lovecraft’s most popular stories from the 1920s and 1930s pulp magazines are brought back to life by some of the best readers in the business: Paul Michael Garcia, Bronson Pinchot, Stephen R. Thorne, Keith Szarabajka, Adam ... Read More: http://www.fantasyliterature.com/revi...
March 5, 2018
Well that wasn’t worth the hype. Didn’t really enjoy the casual racism or misogyny. The white guy investigates a haunted looking building story was done to death.
January 30, 2020
Man I love this guy.
Man I wish he wasn't such a rampant xenophobic, anti semitic, racist, douchebag.
Man does he have a weirdly shaped head or what?
Also does Cthulu remind anyone else of the Flying Spaghetti Monster?
This is a fantastic collection of amazing narrators kicking ass on some truly classic tales of giant cosmic sea monsters and abominations from beyond the stars that are simply to terrible for our poor, puny little brains to even begin to comprehend. It never ceases to amaze me how H.P. can achieve truly mind boggling levels of cheese soaked melodrama one second only to blow my mind with the depth of his understanding of the human psyche the next. I don't if that's skill or a really crazy person managing to be rational for five minutes.
I imagine H.P was absolutely insufferable to be around and the tiny amount of research I've done into the man himself reveals a dude with a staggering amount of personal/mental issues and appalling views on everyone who wasn't male and white but darned if he doesn't spin a great story.
I get lost in this man's world's which I think is what is supposed to happen. I start falling and I don't know where I'll end up but I can't do anything to stop it and I'm frightened but ecstatic at the same time. It feels amazing and horrifying and I get those little frissons of fear running up my spine and sometimes I laugh out loud because it's all so totally ridiculous and then I'm gasping because I've suddenly seen where a hundred other authors got their ideas from. He's like the ultimate origin story author. It takes no time at all to see why so many people keep rewriting his stories or using them as the jumping off point for even more macabre, mind blowing monsters and worlds.
This is 100% worth listening to. My personal favorite is "The Whisperer in the Dark" a truly edge of your seat thriller that gave me, of all things, an entirely new perspective on Stephen King's "IT." I'm also a total sucker for any of his "ancient city" stories where some hapless adventurer realizes giant lizard men once ruled the world (and might still be around).
This is a perfect recording to sip from as you're driving home from work or lying in bed at night. Just a touch of drama filled darkness to send you off to sleep at night. Or keep you awake till dawn. Whichever.
Man I wish he wasn't such a rampant xenophobic, anti semitic, racist, douchebag.
Man does he have a weirdly shaped head or what?
Also does Cthulu remind anyone else of the Flying Spaghetti Monster?
This is a fantastic collection of amazing narrators kicking ass on some truly classic tales of giant cosmic sea monsters and abominations from beyond the stars that are simply to terrible for our poor, puny little brains to even begin to comprehend. It never ceases to amaze me how H.P. can achieve truly mind boggling levels of cheese soaked melodrama one second only to blow my mind with the depth of his understanding of the human psyche the next. I don't if that's skill or a really crazy person managing to be rational for five minutes.
I imagine H.P was absolutely insufferable to be around and the tiny amount of research I've done into the man himself reveals a dude with a staggering amount of personal/mental issues and appalling views on everyone who wasn't male and white but darned if he doesn't spin a great story.
I get lost in this man's world's which I think is what is supposed to happen. I start falling and I don't know where I'll end up but I can't do anything to stop it and I'm frightened but ecstatic at the same time. It feels amazing and horrifying and I get those little frissons of fear running up my spine and sometimes I laugh out loud because it's all so totally ridiculous and then I'm gasping because I've suddenly seen where a hundred other authors got their ideas from. He's like the ultimate origin story author. It takes no time at all to see why so many people keep rewriting his stories or using them as the jumping off point for even more macabre, mind blowing monsters and worlds.
This is 100% worth listening to. My personal favorite is "The Whisperer in the Dark" a truly edge of your seat thriller that gave me, of all things, an entirely new perspective on Stephen King's "IT." I'm also a total sucker for any of his "ancient city" stories where some hapless adventurer realizes giant lizard men once ruled the world (and might still be around).
This is a perfect recording to sip from as you're driving home from work or lying in bed at night. Just a touch of drama filled darkness to send you off to sleep at night. Or keep you awake till dawn. Whichever.
October 9, 2019
No specific spoilers, but general descriptions of style and content ahead. Read at your own risk.
Reasons I didn't like Necronomicon that had nothing to do with the book itself:
Not a big fan of classic literature, I have to work very hard to enjoy it, if I even can. The entire pace of Necro was dull to me. I remained bored 89% of the time.
The audiobook readers did their best, and sometimes they sounded good, but I found their voices calm, soothing, and mildly dull.
I like heavy dialogue and characterization and I feel like this book starved me of both. That may be a HPL style choice and may be the problem with classics, not sure.
Reasons I didn't like Necronomicon that had everything to do with the book itself:
Lovecraft constantly describes things as: Indescribable, unnameable, unmentionable, unspeakable, unutterable. If this were infrequent, I could get over it, but it was every. single. story. I realize he's long gone and unavailable for criticism from the year 2016, but you're a writer HPL. Do your job. If you can't describe it, for the love all things, let some other writer do it.
Racism. Yes, I realize it was like the 1930s. No, that did not make it any less annoying to read. I stomached it because I wanted to hear the stories, and I'm not in favor or censorship or the plug-your-ears-and-it-will-go-away method of reading old stuff. Racism was more rampant in that time. Still a huge distraction trying to read this in 2016.
Repetitive short horror story algorithm: My husband and I share an audible account and sometimes I wasn't sure if my audiobook had backtracked, because the next story would sound so much like the last story. It was a HUGE annoyance, easily my number one complaint, and made me want to stop reading. I realize lots of authors do this, but I guess the difference is, some pull it off. He didn't. There was not enough definition or uniqueness between stories to just shrug off the repetitiveness. This was such a problem, that I would often times end up tuning out part of the story, and when I came back in, I still knew where I was because the set-ups were so damn close. Never once came out of zoning out and thought, "Oh man, better rewind." [ Let the record also show that I don't normally zone out of any book. ]
Positives: My favorite stories (And despite the redundancy and problems, I would give them 5 stars) were Whisperer in Darkness and The Thing On The Doorstep. WiD just flat out scared the shit out of me. I have a big alien fear, but it was just so believable and so interesting and uncomfortable. The second story was just creepy rad. I liked the body-switching.
The monsters, cults, otherworldliness, and thinness of reality is the real bread-and-butter of a Lovecraft tale. It's a normal person who ends up standing face to face with Gods and Monsters, with their comfortable and safe fabric of reality slipping out of their fingers like sand, replaced only with blatant offence. There's a message to his writing, and I think that message is, 'Your comfortable and polite reality can and will be interrupted by things bigger than you.' While I had almost no fun reading Lovecraft, I can see hugely where Stephen King was influenced by his work--(It's mainly the slow build of clues leading to a huge manifestation of terror. IT was a great nod to Lovecraft, with the entire town of Derry having such a rich and dreadful History with the creature before the protags even face it)--that was rewarding. Lovecraft also connects his worlds, both human and hellish (another thing King/Hill borrowed). Towns, colleges, families, and literature often come back in reference from story to story, and it gave the feeling that every fate was bound. I loved how characters could teeter on the edge of madness for a while, before they went one way or another. I loved how he made the nightmare real by giving it evidence before letting us see the thing in all its hideous glory.
I feel like Lovecraft fanfiction could be the bomb, or postmodern adaptations. If not steeped in adverbs and unnecessarily verbose language, Lovecraft may not have been such a bitter cup of tea. I feel like its also fair to note that i went into this book completely free of influence (except knowing HPL influenced King). I never read HPL in school, he was never recommended to me, and I was never briefed on what to expect.
If you have issues already with classic lit, read at your own risk. If you love classics and horror, and feel like you can deal with the redundancy, these worlds are simply terrifying, and they will make your skin crawl.
Reasons I didn't like Necronomicon that had nothing to do with the book itself:
Not a big fan of classic literature, I have to work very hard to enjoy it, if I even can. The entire pace of Necro was dull to me. I remained bored 89% of the time.
The audiobook readers did their best, and sometimes they sounded good, but I found their voices calm, soothing, and mildly dull.
I like heavy dialogue and characterization and I feel like this book starved me of both. That may be a HPL style choice and may be the problem with classics, not sure.
Reasons I didn't like Necronomicon that had everything to do with the book itself:
Lovecraft constantly describes things as: Indescribable, unnameable, unmentionable, unspeakable, unutterable. If this were infrequent, I could get over it, but it was every. single. story. I realize he's long gone and unavailable for criticism from the year 2016, but you're a writer HPL. Do your job. If you can't describe it, for the love all things, let some other writer do it.
Racism. Yes, I realize it was like the 1930s. No, that did not make it any less annoying to read. I stomached it because I wanted to hear the stories, and I'm not in favor or censorship or the plug-your-ears-and-it-will-go-away method of reading old stuff. Racism was more rampant in that time. Still a huge distraction trying to read this in 2016.
Repetitive short horror story algorithm: My husband and I share an audible account and sometimes I wasn't sure if my audiobook had backtracked, because the next story would sound so much like the last story. It was a HUGE annoyance, easily my number one complaint, and made me want to stop reading. I realize lots of authors do this, but I guess the difference is, some pull it off. He didn't. There was not enough definition or uniqueness between stories to just shrug off the repetitiveness. This was such a problem, that I would often times end up tuning out part of the story, and when I came back in, I still knew where I was because the set-ups were so damn close. Never once came out of zoning out and thought, "Oh man, better rewind." [ Let the record also show that I don't normally zone out of any book. ]
Positives: My favorite stories (And despite the redundancy and problems, I would give them 5 stars) were Whisperer in Darkness and The Thing On The Doorstep. WiD just flat out scared the shit out of me. I have a big alien fear, but it was just so believable and so interesting and uncomfortable. The second story was just creepy rad. I liked the body-switching.
The monsters, cults, otherworldliness, and thinness of reality is the real bread-and-butter of a Lovecraft tale. It's a normal person who ends up standing face to face with Gods and Monsters, with their comfortable and safe fabric of reality slipping out of their fingers like sand, replaced only with blatant offence. There's a message to his writing, and I think that message is, 'Your comfortable and polite reality can and will be interrupted by things bigger than you.' While I had almost no fun reading Lovecraft, I can see hugely where Stephen King was influenced by his work--(It's mainly the slow build of clues leading to a huge manifestation of terror. IT was a great nod to Lovecraft, with the entire town of Derry having such a rich and dreadful History with the creature before the protags even face it)--that was rewarding. Lovecraft also connects his worlds, both human and hellish (another thing King/Hill borrowed). Towns, colleges, families, and literature often come back in reference from story to story, and it gave the feeling that every fate was bound. I loved how characters could teeter on the edge of madness for a while, before they went one way or another. I loved how he made the nightmare real by giving it evidence before letting us see the thing in all its hideous glory.
I feel like Lovecraft fanfiction could be the bomb, or postmodern adaptations. If not steeped in adverbs and unnecessarily verbose language, Lovecraft may not have been such a bitter cup of tea. I feel like its also fair to note that i went into this book completely free of influence (except knowing HPL influenced King). I never read HPL in school, he was never recommended to me, and I was never briefed on what to expect.
If you have issues already with classic lit, read at your own risk. If you love classics and horror, and feel like you can deal with the redundancy, these worlds are simply terrifying, and they will make your skin crawl.
December 23, 2016
This is my kind of horror!
Lovecraft was a giant genius of this field!
He had a lot of groundbreaking ideeas.
The audio version was also astounding well made.
Lovecraft was a giant genius of this field!
He had a lot of groundbreaking ideeas.
The audio version was also astounding well made.
January 18, 2019
I wanted to read this because I am a Steampunk fan: octipi, Lovecraft, and Cthulhu...
Audiobook with two narrators.
This is a short story collection. Like most, there are some I liked better than others. The peculiarity is, I want the shorter stories to be longer and the longer stories, shorter.
Overall, I'm glad I got through it.
Audiobook with two narrators.
This is a short story collection. Like most, there are some I liked better than others. The peculiarity is, I want the shorter stories to be longer and the longer stories, shorter.
Overall, I'm glad I got through it.
Want to read
January 30, 2020Finally, Hoopla has something I want to check out (aside from comics, GNs).
March 21, 2019
Only just started reading it but I like it so far. "Stygian depths" "Gibbous moon" :)
I was playing Kenshi while I started listening to this, and I just so happened to be building a base on Fishman Island! XD
I was playing Kenshi while I started listening to this, and I just so happened to be building a base on Fishman Island! XD
June 6, 2018
I loved listening to this audio book so much. I have never experienced a collection of stories that came from such a fascinating imagination. Although I did find a few of the stories to be weak the rest blew me away and will stay in my memories for decades to come.
Dagon A+
I had the best time imagining this story as it was read to me. The descriptions of the mysterious island in this story and what was seen and smelled by the narrator felt real and mesmerizing. A great way to start the book!
Herbert West Reanimater A
I do love a story about entropy. The story is about the rise and fall of one doctor’s grotesque obsession with creating a formula to reanimate life in animals, people, and limbs. As told by his loyal assistant.
The Lurking Fear B
I understand what Lovecraft fears after hearing this story. Lovecraft is afraid of both diversity and homogeneity. Sure you do get more of the xenophobia here when the vagrants are occupying the town and the locals hate them for it. But you also see another group which arrived sooner only kept to themselves and inbreeding ensued because they were also hated and isolated. Everything that happened to these people both the vagrants and the townspeople happened due to hate.
Rats in the walls B+
The narrator in this story has a cat with an offensive name, just want to warn you about that first. Secondly the atmosphere is great. I liked how the house is described and the narrator’s fall into insanity is believable.
The Whisperer in Darkness A+
Wilmarth is a professor that reads about extraterrestrial sightings in Vermont and agrees with skeptics that it’s all probably fact. He then starts receiving letter from a man named Akeley . Akeley starts writing to Wilmarth and sends letters with information about aliens, their home planet, and a record of them chanting. After a few letters Akeley encourages Wilmarth to visit because the aliens want him to visit. He also needs to bring all their letters, samples, and other alien evidence that had been mailed to him. I won’t give away what happens when Wilmarth visits, but it was creepy and it did not end like I expected.
Cool Air C
It was predictable to me, lucky it was short.
In the Vault A
As a native Georgian, this reminded me strongly of the scandal at Tri-State Crematory. This is a great “eye for an eye” story with a great twist ending
Call of Cthulhu A
I read this last year and listened to it again in this collection. I can honestly say that my fondness for this story has grown even more. I loved listening to it over reading it, the narrator did a fantastic job.
The Color out of Space A+
All hell breaks loose when a meteor hits near a farm outside a New England town named Arkham . The meteor spreads a cancerous influence that poisons everything and everyone around it. I LOVED this story so much. Lovecraft made me afraid of color. COLOR.
The Horror at Red Hook B
The story centers around occult obsessed immigrant populations in New York City. A detective named Malone meets a recluse named Suydam. There’s a wedding, human sacrifices, and a terrifying basement. Xenophobia Warning
The Music of Enrich Zann C
I loved the suspense in the story, but the ending was a letdown. I wanted to look out that window. I wanted to read that letter….Damn shame…
The Shadow Out of Time A+
The story of professor Nathaniel Peaslee that has his body switched with a species of alien called Yith. The Yith takes over his conscious for scholarly pursuits and likewise the professor is in the Yithian’s body studying them. He eventually gets his body back and looks for proof of body switching with the Yith in Australia. The story is the perfect balance between science fiction, cosmic horror, and psychology. I love this story so much. It’s so wonderfully described and easily one of my favorite Lovecraft stories.
The Dunwich Horror A
An intriguing story of an inbred family in Dunwich, Massachusetts with an obsession with an otherworldly entity called Yog-Sothoth.
The Haunter of the Dark C
A young reporter is warned not to venture into an abandoned church. Does anyway and accidentally releases something. The story is not as bad as Cool Air but it wasn’t any fun either.
The Outsider B+
I enjoyed the unique perspective and ending of this short story
The Shunned House C-
Basic haunted house story with an unexciting ending
The Unnamable C-
It should be called the unmemorable
The Thing on the Doorstep A
The first two sentences alone made up for the last two short stories I suffered through to get to this. I loved learning about the life and death of Edward Darby. The story has almost all of the H.P Lovecraft trademarks. Which are 1)Necronomicon 2)Mysteriously old ancient family 3)Miskatonic University 4)Body switching 5)Cults I thoroughly enjoyed it.
Quotes
“Repeat with proper awesomeness”
“Infatuation thrives on opposition "
Under the Pyramids A+
For the final story in this collection we travel with Houdini to Cairo, Egypt 1910. It is an awesome story full of action, suspense, and horror. I don’t want to say more, I’m still fangirling over the H.P Lovecraft Houdini crossover.
Dagon A+
I had the best time imagining this story as it was read to me. The descriptions of the mysterious island in this story and what was seen and smelled by the narrator felt real and mesmerizing. A great way to start the book!
Herbert West Reanimater A
I do love a story about entropy. The story is about the rise and fall of one doctor’s grotesque obsession with creating a formula to reanimate life in animals, people, and limbs. As told by his loyal assistant.
The Lurking Fear B
I understand what Lovecraft fears after hearing this story. Lovecraft is afraid of both diversity and homogeneity. Sure you do get more of the xenophobia here when the vagrants are occupying the town and the locals hate them for it. But you also see another group which arrived sooner only kept to themselves and inbreeding ensued because they were also hated and isolated. Everything that happened to these people both the vagrants and the townspeople happened due to hate.
Rats in the walls B+
The narrator in this story has a cat with an offensive name, just want to warn you about that first. Secondly the atmosphere is great. I liked how the house is described and the narrator’s fall into insanity is believable.
The Whisperer in Darkness A+
Wilmarth is a professor that reads about extraterrestrial sightings in Vermont and agrees with skeptics that it’s all probably fact. He then starts receiving letter from a man named Akeley . Akeley starts writing to Wilmarth and sends letters with information about aliens, their home planet, and a record of them chanting. After a few letters Akeley encourages Wilmarth to visit because the aliens want him to visit. He also needs to bring all their letters, samples, and other alien evidence that had been mailed to him. I won’t give away what happens when Wilmarth visits, but it was creepy and it did not end like I expected.
Cool Air C
It was predictable to me, lucky it was short.
In the Vault A
As a native Georgian, this reminded me strongly of the scandal at Tri-State Crematory. This is a great “eye for an eye” story with a great twist ending
Call of Cthulhu A
I read this last year and listened to it again in this collection. I can honestly say that my fondness for this story has grown even more. I loved listening to it over reading it, the narrator did a fantastic job.
The Color out of Space A+
All hell breaks loose when a meteor hits near a farm outside a New England town named Arkham . The meteor spreads a cancerous influence that poisons everything and everyone around it. I LOVED this story so much. Lovecraft made me afraid of color. COLOR.
The Horror at Red Hook B
The story centers around occult obsessed immigrant populations in New York City. A detective named Malone meets a recluse named Suydam. There’s a wedding, human sacrifices, and a terrifying basement. Xenophobia Warning
The Music of Enrich Zann C
I loved the suspense in the story, but the ending was a letdown. I wanted to look out that window. I wanted to read that letter….Damn shame…
The Shadow Out of Time A+
The story of professor Nathaniel Peaslee that has his body switched with a species of alien called Yith. The Yith takes over his conscious for scholarly pursuits and likewise the professor is in the Yithian’s body studying them. He eventually gets his body back and looks for proof of body switching with the Yith in Australia. The story is the perfect balance between science fiction, cosmic horror, and psychology. I love this story so much. It’s so wonderfully described and easily one of my favorite Lovecraft stories.
The Dunwich Horror A
An intriguing story of an inbred family in Dunwich, Massachusetts with an obsession with an otherworldly entity called Yog-Sothoth.
The Haunter of the Dark C
A young reporter is warned not to venture into an abandoned church. Does anyway and accidentally releases something. The story is not as bad as Cool Air but it wasn’t any fun either.
The Outsider B+
I enjoyed the unique perspective and ending of this short story
The Shunned House C-
Basic haunted house story with an unexciting ending
The Unnamable C-
It should be called the unmemorable
The Thing on the Doorstep A
The first two sentences alone made up for the last two short stories I suffered through to get to this. I loved learning about the life and death of Edward Darby. The story has almost all of the H.P Lovecraft trademarks. Which are 1)Necronomicon 2)Mysteriously old ancient family 3)Miskatonic University 4)Body switching 5)Cults I thoroughly enjoyed it.
Quotes
“Repeat with proper awesomeness”
“Infatuation thrives on opposition "
Under the Pyramids A+
For the final story in this collection we travel with Houdini to Cairo, Egypt 1910. It is an awesome story full of action, suspense, and horror. I don’t want to say more, I’m still fangirling over the H.P Lovecraft Houdini crossover.
February 9, 2016
Oh boy. I really thought I was going to love this book, but it just didn't work for me at all. Being a total Stephen King addict, I've had cause over the past few years to look up certain Lovecraft stories on Uncle Steve's recommendation, and have always been intrigued. I expected the bizarre tales of creeping horrors to be right up my street, and decided to buy the audio version, having fond memories of dark winter walks accompanied by King's tales.
Perhaps part of the blame is my own, and I'll allow that I might have enjoyed these stories more had I been reading rather than listening to them. The assorted narrators were all varying degrees of capable and engaging, but my listening time is now much more oriented around household chores than long absorbing walks. As such, these tales often sunk into background noise, and significant segments would pass without my having any real recollection of the events relayed. It's not that I was purposefully ignoring it (except a little, towards the end, willing it to finish and unwilling to abandon it as a bad job having already sunk so many hours into it). More, the tales are almost uniformly solid first-person narration, interspersed with infrequent dialogue, rambling descriptions, frequent fainting fits, and largely interchangeable monsters.
The audio features no pause between stories - one will end and the next begin within the space of a breath, without even a second to digest and turn over the tale just told. As a result of this, from time to time I found myself turning to Wikipedia to check summaries of what I'd just heard, which should have been a sure sign I was doomed in persevering.
There were a few stand-outs that I did enjoy, with "The Whisperer in Darkness" being the best of the bunch. "The Dunwich Horror" made for an enjoyable listen, and I found many of the shorter stories, such as "Dagon", "In the Vault", "The Outsider", "Cool Air", "The Haunter of the Dark" and "The Thing on the Doorstep" decent ways to pass the time. The only one I flat-out could not finish for fear of being bored to death was "The Shadow Out of Time".
Clearly, these stories have stood the test of time and are widely enjoyed, but for me, it's a firm pass on Lovecraft.
[Review originally published on my blog at Line After Line]
Perhaps part of the blame is my own, and I'll allow that I might have enjoyed these stories more had I been reading rather than listening to them. The assorted narrators were all varying degrees of capable and engaging, but my listening time is now much more oriented around household chores than long absorbing walks. As such, these tales often sunk into background noise, and significant segments would pass without my having any real recollection of the events relayed. It's not that I was purposefully ignoring it (except a little, towards the end, willing it to finish and unwilling to abandon it as a bad job having already sunk so many hours into it). More, the tales are almost uniformly solid first-person narration, interspersed with infrequent dialogue, rambling descriptions, frequent fainting fits, and largely interchangeable monsters.
The audio features no pause between stories - one will end and the next begin within the space of a breath, without even a second to digest and turn over the tale just told. As a result of this, from time to time I found myself turning to Wikipedia to check summaries of what I'd just heard, which should have been a sure sign I was doomed in persevering.
There were a few stand-outs that I did enjoy, with "The Whisperer in Darkness" being the best of the bunch. "The Dunwich Horror" made for an enjoyable listen, and I found many of the shorter stories, such as "Dagon", "In the Vault", "The Outsider", "Cool Air", "The Haunter of the Dark" and "The Thing on the Doorstep" decent ways to pass the time. The only one I flat-out could not finish for fear of being bored to death was "The Shadow Out of Time".
Clearly, these stories have stood the test of time and are widely enjoyed, but for me, it's a firm pass on Lovecraft.
[Review originally published on my blog at Line After Line]
November 6, 2014
So, one big caveat about my rating: my copy of the audiobook decided to skip persistently for the last third of the book. That's 7 hours. I was going a little nutty by the end. However, it was enjoyable enough that I wanted to finish despite the awfulness of the Hoopla version. So I sat and paused and unpaused it for 7 hours.
That said, I'm not that into Cthulu. Nyarlethotep was way more interesting, and my favorite stories had little or nothing to do with the Elder Ones at all. They read like ghost stories, and were wonderfully creepy. The Elder Ones? Meh.
Actually, the story that went into the alien body snatchers the most made them sound really cool. They can travel through time via telepathy, and while they inhabit your body, you inhabit theirs. And they do this to people throughout history--all at once. So it would have been totally possible to have a conversation with Gandhi while you both possessed alien bodies. Cool, right? Apparently not. The "other" was just too much for this narrator and he went nuts.
I'll eventually look into the other audio book that has the rest of Lovecraft's works, but I need a break from his style for a while.
That said, I'm not that into Cthulu. Nyarlethotep was way more interesting, and my favorite stories had little or nothing to do with the Elder Ones at all. They read like ghost stories, and were wonderfully creepy. The Elder Ones? Meh.
Actually, the story that went into the alien body snatchers the most made them sound really cool. They can travel through time via telepathy, and while they inhabit your body, you inhabit theirs. And they do this to people throughout history--all at once. So it would have been totally possible to have a conversation with Gandhi while you both possessed alien bodies. Cool, right? Apparently not. The "other" was just too much for this narrator and he went nuts.
I'll eventually look into the other audio book that has the rest of Lovecraft's works, but I need a break from his style for a while.
December 18, 2015
While I deeply appreciate the contributions Lovecraft made to the genre and enjoy the style of his writing very much, so much of the horror in these stories stems from a fear of the other that I had a great deal of trouble losing myself in them. By fear of the other I do not refer only to the eldritch gods and babbling hooded figures. Lovecraft seemed equally afraid of anyone with darker skin, non-English language, or belonging to a lower class, especially those with communities some distance from urban centers.
I started this book in March and didn't finish it until December. I just couldn't get into it.
That said, he is at his best with some of the first person body horror I have ever read, and of course the creeping loss of mental faculties that everyone secretly fears.
I do recommend this book to anyone who enjoys classic horror, but mitigate your expectations.
I started this book in March and didn't finish it until December. I just couldn't get into it.
That said, he is at his best with some of the first person body horror I have ever read, and of course the creeping loss of mental faculties that everyone secretly fears.
I do recommend this book to anyone who enjoys classic horror, but mitigate your expectations.
December 8, 2019
Lovecraft is the poster child for the case of separating the art from the artist, some say and yet when you look at the art closely it becomes difficult to ignore the influence of what the artist was. Don't get me wrong, the imagination and the way he conveys the otherworldy horrors are pretty amazing to read but his characters, names, personas are all the product of his rather deranged, bigoted mind which makes it nauseating as a whole.
I have read the collection several times over my life, but this would probably be the last time I go back to the netherworlds of Cthulhu, Dagon and their puppeteer Lovecraft.
My Rating: 1.5-2/5
I have read the collection several times over my life, but this would probably be the last time I go back to the netherworlds of Cthulhu, Dagon and their puppeteer Lovecraft.
My Rating: 1.5-2/5
October 10, 2019
As with any anthology, some of these stories are better than others. Luckily, I'm a big fan of many of Lovecraft's favourite tropes (the occult, the raising of demonic beings, ancient gods, aliens) so most of the stories were right up my alley.
I wouldn't say the stories were scary as such (though as a horror junkie, I'm pretty desensitised) but some of them kept me guessing, and even the ones that were predictable were still executed well.
It's a huge shame, reading other reviews, that Lovecraft seems to have been a spectacularly shitty person.
I wouldn't say the stories were scary as such (though as a horror junkie, I'm pretty desensitised) but some of them kept me guessing, and even the ones that were predictable were still executed well.
It's a huge shame, reading other reviews, that Lovecraft seems to have been a spectacularly shitty person.
October 16, 2014
Two. Why? Lumbering writing and rampant racism. While racism was more commonly accepted in Lovecraft's day, the writer went out of his way to profess his hatred of a variety of people that causes me to balk. He does have many fascinating and horrible ideas, and when he hits his stride he's decent, somewhere in the three range, but all to often it's the odd word to heighten the strangeness and clumsy pseudo-intellectual claptrap - as well as that racism - that kills the work.
October 22, 2016
Dagon
3 stars
Delightfully atmospheric short story. The narrator's horror at what he witnessed and his attempts to forget it or block it out serve to enhance the wonderfully vivid descriptions.
Herbert West: Reanimator 4 stars
Deliciously creepy and spectacularly disgusting. We follow the devolution of Herbert West, the quintessential mad scientist as told by his "closest friend" and "only confidential assistant." They begin trying to restore life to the dead, and Herbert West reaches some grotesquely vividly described heights of madness in his quest.
Some Favorite Quotes:
Then came the steady rattling at the back door.
The scene I cannot describe—I should faint if I tried it, for there is madness in a room full of classified charnel things, with blood and lesser human debris almost ankle-deep on the slimy floor, and with hideous reptilian abnormalities sprouting, bubbling, and baking over a winking bluish-green spectre of dim flame in a far corner of black shadows.
in that ghoulish corner of crawling black shadows.
The Lurking Fear 3 stars
I'm most fascinated by what this short story indicates about how Lovecraft sees humans. I've read a lot about him being racist, but this story seemed much more evolutionarily judgmental than racist. The implications that those we associate with can have as much impact as genetics on whether we evolve or devolve as a person (and that entire communities can devolve together) are just absolutely fascinating.
Favorite Quote:
What language can describe the spectacle of a man lost in infinitely abysmal earth; pawing, twisting, wheezing; scrambling madly through sunken convolutions of immemorial blackness without an idea of time, safety, direction, or definite object?
The Rats in the Walls 4 stars
The thing I'm coming to appreciate more and more about Lovecraft the more of his stories I read is that I keep being surprised.
It's delightful to be expecting one thing and to have the story suddenly do something completely unexpected and therefore even more horrifying.
Some Favorite Quotes:
for on every side of the chamber the walls were alive with nauseous sound—the verminous slithering of ravenous, gigantic rats
Ultimate horror often paralyses memory in a merciful way.
The Whisperer in Darkness 4 stars
Fantastically vivid, wonderfully atmospheric. This was a thoroughly entertaining mix of folklore and early science fiction.
Personal note, having not much to do with this story:
Some Favorite Quotes:
It drowsed like the older New England cities which one remembers from boyhood, and something in the collocation of roofs and steeples and chimneys and brick walls formed contours touching deep viol-strings of ancestral emotion. I could tell that I was at the gateway of a region half-bewitched through the piling-up of unbroken time-accumulations; a region where old, strange things have had a chance to grow and linger because they have never been stirred up.
Gradually the country around us grew wilder and more deserted. Archaic covered bridges lingered fearsomely out of the past in pockets of the hills, and the half-abandoned railway track paralleling the river seemed to exhale a nebulously visible air of desolation.
Besides, there was a strangely calming element of cosmic beauty in the hypnotic landscape through which we climbed and plunged fantastically. Time had lost itself in the labyrinths behind, and around us stretched only the flowering waves of faery and the recaptured loveliness of vanished centuries—the hoary groves, the untainted pastures edged with gay autumnal blossoms, and at vast intervals the small brown farmsteads nestling amidst huge trees beneath vertical precipices of fragrant brier and meadow-grass. Even the sunlight assumed a supernal glamour, as if some special atmosphere or exhalation mantled the whole region.
Cool Air 2 stars
Shorter and more predictable than the last few. Still wonderfully vividly described.
Some Favorite Quotes:
at least a bearable place to hibernate till one might really live again
There are things about which it is better not to speculate
In the Vault 3 stars
The vividness of the setting was my favorite thing about this one.
The big twist at the end still managed to surprise me, as I'd been expecting something more paranormal, but this time it didn't impress me.
The Call of Cthulu 4 stars
Another thing I'm coming to appreciate more and more about Lovecraft is his unexpected way of putting words together. His descriptions are always vivid, and it's always delightful when an author has to make up words in order to get across just exactly what he's seeing in his head.
Some Favorite Quotes:
That glimpse, like all dread glimpses of truth, flashed out from an accidental piecing together of separated things
a voice that was not a voice; a chaotic sensation which only fancy could transmute into sound,
Only poetry or madness could do justice to the noises heard by Legrasse’s men as they ploughed on through the black morass toward the red glare and the muffled tom-toms.
but I shall never sleep calmly again when I think of the horrors that lurk ceaselessly behind life in time and in space, and of those unhallowed blasphemies from elder stars which dream beneath the sea,
The aperture was black with a darkness almost material. That tenebrousness was indeed a positive quality; for it obscured such parts of the inner walls as ought to have been revealed, and actually burst forth like smoke from its aeon-long imprisonment, visibly darkening the sun as it slunk away into the shrunken and gibbous sky on flapping membraneous wings.
The Color Out of Space 4 stars
A spectacular example of the incredible vividness with which Lovecraft is able to describe the eerie settings and creatures of his imagination.
Some Favorite Quotes:
It is not because of anything that can be seen or heard or handled, but because of something that is imagined. The place is not good for the imagination, and does not bring restful dreams at night.
When night approached, Ammi managed to get away; for not even friendship could make him stay in that spot when the faint glow of the vegetation began and the trees may or may not have swayed without wind.
The Horror at Red Hook 3 stars
Lovecraft's signature vivid descriptions abound here. But I'll likely remember this one as the most racist of his stories I've yet come across.
Favorite Quote:
praying that time may gradually transfer his terrible experience from the realm of present reality to that of picturesque and semi-mythical remoteness.
The Music of Erich Zahn 3 stars
More spectacularly vivid descriptions. My favorite here were of what should have been the view from that garret room on the hill.
Favorite Quote:
Evidently Erich Zann’s world of beauty lay in some far cosmos of the imagination.
The Shadow Out of Time 5 stars
Without question my new favorite of Lovecraft's works! This was wonderfully satisfying both to the sci-fi nerd part of me and to the myth/folklore fan part of me. Add some fascinating psychology and the horror inherent just in the thought of waking up one day to find that something else has been using your body and living your life for the past five years. A spectacularly fun reading experience!
Some Favorite Quotes:
Assuming that I was sane and awake, my experience on that night was such as has befallen no man before. It was, moreover, a frightful confirmation of all I had sought to dismiss as myth and dream. Mercifully there is no proof
Indeed, I seemed anomalously avid to absorb the speech, customs, and perspectives of the age around me; as if I were a studious traveller from a far, foreign land.
The curious knowledge and strange conduct of my body’s late tenant troubled me more and more as I learned further details from persons, papers, and magazines. Queernesses that had baffled others seemed to harmonise terribly with some background of black knowledge which festered in the chasms of my subconscious. I began to search feverishly for every scrap of information bearing on the studies and travels of that other one during the dark years.
Indeed, there was no such thing as time in its humanly accepted sense.
Something was fumbling and rattling at the latch of my recollection,
and even fear remained as a wraith-like, inactive gargoyle leering impotently at me.
I was wholly and horribly oriented.
It was all the ultimate apex of nightmare, made worse by the blasphemous tug of pseudo-memory.
The sense of reality was hideous
incalculable leagues of viscous, sentient darkness
The Dunwich Horror 4 stars
A wonderful example of Lovecraft at his best. Vivid descriptions of spectacularly beautiful scenery hiding spectacularly imaginative... things.
Some Favorite Quotes:
But then, the homes and sheds of Dunwich folk have never been remarkable for olfactory immaculateness.
It was one thing to chase the nameless entity, but quite another to find it.
It is almost erroneous to call them sounds at all, since so much of their ghastly, infra-bass timbre spoke to dim seats of consciousness and terror far subtler than the ear;
The Haunter of the Dark 3 stars
Favorite Quote:
climbing bodily up that fabulous slope into the smoke-wreathed world of dream.
The Outsider 4 stars
Brilliant!
Anything else I could say would be a spoiler. This was just delightfully intriguing.
Favorite Quote:
Most daemoniacal of all shocks is that of the abysmally unexpected and grotesquely unbelievable.
The Shunned House 4 stars
Fascinating mix of historical fiction and paranormal elements. Again, the descriptions of the house and its surroundings were spectacularly vivid.
Some Favorite Quotes:
From even the greatest of horrors irony is seldom absent.
I am lonely without that gentle soul whose long years were filled only with honour, virtue, good taste, benevolence, and learning.
but scientific study and reflection had taught us that the known universe of three dimensions embraces the merest fraction of the whole cosmos of substance and energy.
To say that we actually believed in vampires or werewolves would be a carelessly inclusive statement. Rather must it be said that we were not prepared to deny the possibility of certain unfamiliar and unclassified modifications of vital force and attenuated matter
The Unnamable 3 stars
Favorite Quote:
such a stifled uproar of gasping and whirring that my fancy peopled the rayless gloom with Miltonic legions of the misshapen damned
The Thing on the Doorstep 5 stars
Another new favorite. This was just delightful in every way. Wonderfully vivid, exceptionally well paced, and deliciously creepy. Plus, the ending still managed to surprise me, even when it seems like the narrator gives it away in the first line.
Some Favorite Quotes:
It is true that I have sent six bullets through the head of my best friend, and yet I hope to shew by this statement that I am not his murderer.
with imagination as his one avenue of freedom.
Under the Pyramids 5 stars
Having this be told from the first person pov of an actual person made it even more enthralling. Especially because the narrator (Lovecraft writing a fictionalized account of Harry Houdini's experience in Egypt in 1910) attributes the events of this story to his fame as an escape artist.
Thoroughly entertaining!
Some Favorite Quotes:
Travelling to seek curiosities, I was often forced to stand inspection as a sort of curiosity myself!
Thank God for the mercy that shut out in oblivion those clawing Furies of consciousness which half unhinged my faculties, and tore Harpy-like at my spirit!
reached such a state of emotional exhaustion that no new horror could make much difference.
a terror peculiarly dissociated from personal fear, and taking the form of a sort of objective pity for our planet, that it should hold within its depths such horrors as must lie beyond these aegipanic cacophonies
and may all the gods of all pantheons unite to keep the like from my ears again
Delightfully atmospheric short story. The narrator's horror at what he witnessed and his attempts to forget it or block it out serve to enhance the wonderfully vivid descriptions.
Herbert West: Reanimator 4 stars
Deliciously creepy and spectacularly disgusting. We follow the devolution of Herbert West, the quintessential mad scientist as told by his "closest friend" and "only confidential assistant." They begin trying to restore life to the dead, and Herbert West reaches some grotesquely vividly described heights of madness in his quest.
Some Favorite Quotes:
Then came the steady rattling at the back door.
The scene I cannot describe—I should faint if I tried it, for there is madness in a room full of classified charnel things, with blood and lesser human debris almost ankle-deep on the slimy floor, and with hideous reptilian abnormalities sprouting, bubbling, and baking over a winking bluish-green spectre of dim flame in a far corner of black shadows.
in that ghoulish corner of crawling black shadows.
The Lurking Fear 3 stars
I'm most fascinated by what this short story indicates about how Lovecraft sees humans. I've read a lot about him being racist, but this story seemed much more evolutionarily judgmental than racist. The implications that those we associate with can have as much impact as genetics on whether we evolve or devolve as a person (and that entire communities can devolve together) are just absolutely fascinating.
Favorite Quote:
What language can describe the spectacle of a man lost in infinitely abysmal earth; pawing, twisting, wheezing; scrambling madly through sunken convolutions of immemorial blackness without an idea of time, safety, direction, or definite object?
The Rats in the Walls 4 stars
The thing I'm coming to appreciate more and more about Lovecraft the more of his stories I read is that I keep being surprised.
It's delightful to be expecting one thing and to have the story suddenly do something completely unexpected and therefore even more horrifying.
Some Favorite Quotes:
for on every side of the chamber the walls were alive with nauseous sound—the verminous slithering of ravenous, gigantic rats
Ultimate horror often paralyses memory in a merciful way.
The Whisperer in Darkness 4 stars
Fantastically vivid, wonderfully atmospheric. This was a thoroughly entertaining mix of folklore and early science fiction.
Personal note, having not much to do with this story:
Some Favorite Quotes:
It drowsed like the older New England cities which one remembers from boyhood, and something in the collocation of roofs and steeples and chimneys and brick walls formed contours touching deep viol-strings of ancestral emotion. I could tell that I was at the gateway of a region half-bewitched through the piling-up of unbroken time-accumulations; a region where old, strange things have had a chance to grow and linger because they have never been stirred up.
Gradually the country around us grew wilder and more deserted. Archaic covered bridges lingered fearsomely out of the past in pockets of the hills, and the half-abandoned railway track paralleling the river seemed to exhale a nebulously visible air of desolation.
Besides, there was a strangely calming element of cosmic beauty in the hypnotic landscape through which we climbed and plunged fantastically. Time had lost itself in the labyrinths behind, and around us stretched only the flowering waves of faery and the recaptured loveliness of vanished centuries—the hoary groves, the untainted pastures edged with gay autumnal blossoms, and at vast intervals the small brown farmsteads nestling amidst huge trees beneath vertical precipices of fragrant brier and meadow-grass. Even the sunlight assumed a supernal glamour, as if some special atmosphere or exhalation mantled the whole region.
Cool Air 2 stars
Shorter and more predictable than the last few. Still wonderfully vividly described.
Some Favorite Quotes:
at least a bearable place to hibernate till one might really live again
There are things about which it is better not to speculate
In the Vault 3 stars
The vividness of the setting was my favorite thing about this one.
The big twist at the end still managed to surprise me, as I'd been expecting something more paranormal, but this time it didn't impress me.
The Call of Cthulu 4 stars
Another thing I'm coming to appreciate more and more about Lovecraft is his unexpected way of putting words together. His descriptions are always vivid, and it's always delightful when an author has to make up words in order to get across just exactly what he's seeing in his head.
Some Favorite Quotes:
That glimpse, like all dread glimpses of truth, flashed out from an accidental piecing together of separated things
a voice that was not a voice; a chaotic sensation which only fancy could transmute into sound,
Only poetry or madness could do justice to the noises heard by Legrasse’s men as they ploughed on through the black morass toward the red glare and the muffled tom-toms.
but I shall never sleep calmly again when I think of the horrors that lurk ceaselessly behind life in time and in space, and of those unhallowed blasphemies from elder stars which dream beneath the sea,
The aperture was black with a darkness almost material. That tenebrousness was indeed a positive quality; for it obscured such parts of the inner walls as ought to have been revealed, and actually burst forth like smoke from its aeon-long imprisonment, visibly darkening the sun as it slunk away into the shrunken and gibbous sky on flapping membraneous wings.
The Color Out of Space 4 stars
A spectacular example of the incredible vividness with which Lovecraft is able to describe the eerie settings and creatures of his imagination.
Some Favorite Quotes:
It is not because of anything that can be seen or heard or handled, but because of something that is imagined. The place is not good for the imagination, and does not bring restful dreams at night.
When night approached, Ammi managed to get away; for not even friendship could make him stay in that spot when the faint glow of the vegetation began and the trees may or may not have swayed without wind.
The Horror at Red Hook 3 stars
Lovecraft's signature vivid descriptions abound here. But I'll likely remember this one as the most racist of his stories I've yet come across.
Favorite Quote:
praying that time may gradually transfer his terrible experience from the realm of present reality to that of picturesque and semi-mythical remoteness.
The Music of Erich Zahn 3 stars
More spectacularly vivid descriptions. My favorite here were of what should have been the view from that garret room on the hill.
Favorite Quote:
Evidently Erich Zann’s world of beauty lay in some far cosmos of the imagination.
The Shadow Out of Time 5 stars
Without question my new favorite of Lovecraft's works! This was wonderfully satisfying both to the sci-fi nerd part of me and to the myth/folklore fan part of me. Add some fascinating psychology and the horror inherent just in the thought of waking up one day to find that something else has been using your body and living your life for the past five years. A spectacularly fun reading experience!
Some Favorite Quotes:
Assuming that I was sane and awake, my experience on that night was such as has befallen no man before. It was, moreover, a frightful confirmation of all I had sought to dismiss as myth and dream. Mercifully there is no proof
Indeed, I seemed anomalously avid to absorb the speech, customs, and perspectives of the age around me; as if I were a studious traveller from a far, foreign land.
The curious knowledge and strange conduct of my body’s late tenant troubled me more and more as I learned further details from persons, papers, and magazines. Queernesses that had baffled others seemed to harmonise terribly with some background of black knowledge which festered in the chasms of my subconscious. I began to search feverishly for every scrap of information bearing on the studies and travels of that other one during the dark years.
Indeed, there was no such thing as time in its humanly accepted sense.
Something was fumbling and rattling at the latch of my recollection,
and even fear remained as a wraith-like, inactive gargoyle leering impotently at me.
I was wholly and horribly oriented.
It was all the ultimate apex of nightmare, made worse by the blasphemous tug of pseudo-memory.
The sense of reality was hideous
incalculable leagues of viscous, sentient darkness
The Dunwich Horror 4 stars
A wonderful example of Lovecraft at his best. Vivid descriptions of spectacularly beautiful scenery hiding spectacularly imaginative... things.
Some Favorite Quotes:
But then, the homes and sheds of Dunwich folk have never been remarkable for olfactory immaculateness.
It was one thing to chase the nameless entity, but quite another to find it.
It is almost erroneous to call them sounds at all, since so much of their ghastly, infra-bass timbre spoke to dim seats of consciousness and terror far subtler than the ear;
The Haunter of the Dark 3 stars
Favorite Quote:
climbing bodily up that fabulous slope into the smoke-wreathed world of dream.
The Outsider 4 stars
Brilliant!
Anything else I could say would be a spoiler. This was just delightfully intriguing.
Favorite Quote:
Most daemoniacal of all shocks is that of the abysmally unexpected and grotesquely unbelievable.
The Shunned House 4 stars
Fascinating mix of historical fiction and paranormal elements. Again, the descriptions of the house and its surroundings were spectacularly vivid.
Some Favorite Quotes:
From even the greatest of horrors irony is seldom absent.
I am lonely without that gentle soul whose long years were filled only with honour, virtue, good taste, benevolence, and learning.
but scientific study and reflection had taught us that the known universe of three dimensions embraces the merest fraction of the whole cosmos of substance and energy.
To say that we actually believed in vampires or werewolves would be a carelessly inclusive statement. Rather must it be said that we were not prepared to deny the possibility of certain unfamiliar and unclassified modifications of vital force and attenuated matter
The Unnamable 3 stars
Favorite Quote:
such a stifled uproar of gasping and whirring that my fancy peopled the rayless gloom with Miltonic legions of the misshapen damned
The Thing on the Doorstep 5 stars
Another new favorite. This was just delightful in every way. Wonderfully vivid, exceptionally well paced, and deliciously creepy. Plus, the ending still managed to surprise me, even when it seems like the narrator gives it away in the first line.
Some Favorite Quotes:
It is true that I have sent six bullets through the head of my best friend, and yet I hope to shew by this statement that I am not his murderer.
with imagination as his one avenue of freedom.
Under the Pyramids 5 stars
Having this be told from the first person pov of an actual person made it even more enthralling. Especially because the narrator (Lovecraft writing a fictionalized account of Harry Houdini's experience in Egypt in 1910) attributes the events of this story to his fame as an escape artist.
Thoroughly entertaining!
Some Favorite Quotes:
Travelling to seek curiosities, I was often forced to stand inspection as a sort of curiosity myself!
Thank God for the mercy that shut out in oblivion those clawing Furies of consciousness which half unhinged my faculties, and tore Harpy-like at my spirit!
reached such a state of emotional exhaustion that no new horror could make much difference.
a terror peculiarly dissociated from personal fear, and taking the form of a sort of objective pity for our planet, that it should hold within its depths such horrors as must lie beyond these aegipanic cacophonies
and may all the gods of all pantheons unite to keep the like from my ears again
on-hold
March 2, 202515 %
March 25, 2021
I want to start by saying that I love gothic, horror, and science fiction. As such, H.P. Lovecraft has always danced at the peripheral of my reading/tv/movie tastes but until now I had never actually read anything by him. I was very excited to dive into this book and, especially, the Cthulhu mythos that permeates throughout pop culture. I vaguely knew Lovecraft himself was problematic, but I hadn't read much about him or these issues going into this.
Oh boy was this not at all what I was expecting going into Necronomicon.
I'll start with things I did like in this collection. It can't be ignored how crucial Lovecraft was in the creation of cosmic horror as a genre (I mean, we interchangeably use the terms Lovecraftian horror and cosmic horror when describing it). The lore and mythos he's created with Cthulhu and the Great Old Ones has found it's way into popular culture in a massive way. The same is true of Arkham and the goings on in this fictional New England town. He has inspired numerous authors and creators, and this lore has found its way into all types of media, from books to film and even RPG games. It has also opened up the horror genre to other mythos in the realm of cosmic horror. Even Stranger Things dips into the genre more and more each season.
I will also give Lovecraft that the horror in his stories works SOME of the time, though not always.
That being said, there was way more in this book that I did not like. I'll start with the obvious: H.P. Lovecraft's racist ideology is all over many of these stories. In fact, I had to skip over The Rats in the Walls and read a summery because in audiobook format hearing the cat's name over and over and over again became too uncomfortable and unnecessary. That's only one example of the problems in this book which I know is not a new criticism. Lovecraft's personal beliefs are on display for all to see here and they are upsetting. This is definitely not a case where separating the art rom the artist is even a remote possibility. Like I said, I knew he was problematic, I just didn't realize how much so.
I also found that Lovecraft's horror didn't work for me a chunk of the time. It was the epitome of hit or miss in terms of horror and quality of writing. It's almost impressive how much he could say while hardly using dialogue. The characters and narrators also became interchangeable to me as the book continued because there was very little to make them unique or anything other than a mouthpiece for the story Lovecraft wanted to tell at any given time. To be fair, these stylistic issues I have may just be a product of the time and format with which he was writing.
Overall, I am FAR more interested in the ways people have taken Lovecraft's mythos and genre and interpreted, added to, and changed it. While I felt the book dragged on at times, I am mainly glad I read it so that now I can move on to other interpretations and works that build on the mythos to fully be able to appreciate what they've done with the original. Things like Lovecraft Country are high on my list and I'm also interested in books like Dreams from the Witch House and Meddling Kids. I also find the promise of cosmic horror in an upcoming D&D guide way more exciting than this original collection. Let's se what people can do with the lore basics that were laid out by Lovecraft. Definitely not my favorite read or author, but I'm very excited to dive into other, more diverse, interpretations of Cthulhu mythos and cosmic horror that Lovecraft sparked.
Oh boy was this not at all what I was expecting going into Necronomicon.
I'll start with things I did like in this collection. It can't be ignored how crucial Lovecraft was in the creation of cosmic horror as a genre (I mean, we interchangeably use the terms Lovecraftian horror and cosmic horror when describing it). The lore and mythos he's created with Cthulhu and the Great Old Ones has found it's way into popular culture in a massive way. The same is true of Arkham and the goings on in this fictional New England town. He has inspired numerous authors and creators, and this lore has found its way into all types of media, from books to film and even RPG games. It has also opened up the horror genre to other mythos in the realm of cosmic horror. Even Stranger Things dips into the genre more and more each season.
I will also give Lovecraft that the horror in his stories works SOME of the time, though not always.
That being said, there was way more in this book that I did not like. I'll start with the obvious: H.P. Lovecraft's racist ideology is all over many of these stories. In fact, I had to skip over The Rats in the Walls and read a summery because in audiobook format hearing the cat's name over and over and over again became too uncomfortable and unnecessary. That's only one example of the problems in this book which I know is not a new criticism. Lovecraft's personal beliefs are on display for all to see here and they are upsetting. This is definitely not a case where separating the art rom the artist is even a remote possibility. Like I said, I knew he was problematic, I just didn't realize how much so.
I also found that Lovecraft's horror didn't work for me a chunk of the time. It was the epitome of hit or miss in terms of horror and quality of writing. It's almost impressive how much he could say while hardly using dialogue. The characters and narrators also became interchangeable to me as the book continued because there was very little to make them unique or anything other than a mouthpiece for the story Lovecraft wanted to tell at any given time. To be fair, these stylistic issues I have may just be a product of the time and format with which he was writing.
Overall, I am FAR more interested in the ways people have taken Lovecraft's mythos and genre and interpreted, added to, and changed it. While I felt the book dragged on at times, I am mainly glad I read it so that now I can move on to other interpretations and works that build on the mythos to fully be able to appreciate what they've done with the original. Things like Lovecraft Country are high on my list and I'm also interested in books like Dreams from the Witch House and Meddling Kids. I also find the promise of cosmic horror in an upcoming D&D guide way more exciting than this original collection. Let's se what people can do with the lore basics that were laid out by Lovecraft. Definitely not my favorite read or author, but I'm very excited to dive into other, more diverse, interpretations of Cthulhu mythos and cosmic horror that Lovecraft sparked.
September 4, 2022
Had this for years but didn’t manage to get through it before. This time round, I finally got there!
Lovecraft’s work is very interesting. The mans mind was something else, and he has inspired so much in the horror genre, sci-fi, movies and videogames, music even! So I’ve always wanted to finish this audiobook.
The trouble is with the audiobook itself. The narration is very difficult to get into, which makes the stories a challenge to absorb at points as the language is very much of it’s time and you have to tune your ear to it - something incredibly tricky when the narration grates or allows too much opportunity for the mind to wander.
There are some 4 or 5 different narrators on this audiobook, and only 1 that I enjoyed listening to. This meant that for most of these dark and wondrously imagined tales, I was too easily distracted and missed huge sections of the story. If I think about it, I can remember parts of the stories, but could I tell you which was which by being given the name? I think, sadly, I could not.
Of the stories themselves:
The Dunwhich Horror was fantastic.
The Colour Out Of Space, interesting but after watching the Nick Cage movie recently, not what I was expecting.
Herbert West, Reanimator was a good gritty starter to sink your teeth into.
The Shadow out of Time was a great story indeed but way too long to keep up with with these narrators.
The Call of Cthulhu, fantastic, but again maybe not entirely what I had expected?
The Thing on the Doorstep was very interesting indeed, and worth the time.
Finally, Under the Pyramids was a great listen, which didn’t seem too far fetched either in my opinion.
There were a good few other tales here, but these were by far the ones which I preferred.
I might grab a physical copy at some stage and give that a try, to see if the text holds my attention better than the narrators could.
Lovecraft’s work is very interesting. The mans mind was something else, and he has inspired so much in the horror genre, sci-fi, movies and videogames, music even! So I’ve always wanted to finish this audiobook.
The trouble is with the audiobook itself. The narration is very difficult to get into, which makes the stories a challenge to absorb at points as the language is very much of it’s time and you have to tune your ear to it - something incredibly tricky when the narration grates or allows too much opportunity for the mind to wander.
There are some 4 or 5 different narrators on this audiobook, and only 1 that I enjoyed listening to. This meant that for most of these dark and wondrously imagined tales, I was too easily distracted and missed huge sections of the story. If I think about it, I can remember parts of the stories, but could I tell you which was which by being given the name? I think, sadly, I could not.
Of the stories themselves:
The Dunwhich Horror was fantastic.
The Colour Out Of Space, interesting but after watching the Nick Cage movie recently, not what I was expecting.
Herbert West, Reanimator was a good gritty starter to sink your teeth into.
The Shadow out of Time was a great story indeed but way too long to keep up with with these narrators.
The Call of Cthulhu, fantastic, but again maybe not entirely what I had expected?
The Thing on the Doorstep was very interesting indeed, and worth the time.
Finally, Under the Pyramids was a great listen, which didn’t seem too far fetched either in my opinion.
There were a good few other tales here, but these were by far the ones which I preferred.
I might grab a physical copy at some stage and give that a try, to see if the text holds my attention better than the narrators could.
January 21, 2019
Rating this book seems to be a math problem of sorts. For one, I think the creativness of the stories alone deserve a five. The actual writing, depending on the story, seems to fluctuate between a 4 and a 5.
However, I had to subtract a MINIMUM of two stars, and honestly I think I'm still being too kind, for the aggressive sexism and racism. I would have only removed one if I could justify it as the casual viewpoints of the day, but he goes far beyond that. Not just in descriptions of appearance, but even on the (incredibly rare) points from other's perspective shows anyone who is not white male to be not even evil, but actually unable to understand the world around them. As if they were little more than stupid beasts. The only exceptions I saw was; One Maternal Figure (she mated with the beast to create a monster and as the child grew he shunned her, no longer need her.) One Villainess (though the plot twist in that one reveals that she was under the control of her father pretty much the whole time.) And One Local Egyptian Guide. That last one actually was the least offensive of all. He still wasn't the most tactful, and they were the villians, but it seemed less like 'evil out of ignorance' and more because they actually outsmarted him. The story is a fictional account about Houdini's time in Egypt entitled 'Imprisioned with the Pharaohs'. Probably one of my favorite stories of the book and apparently well liked by Houdini himself!
So overall, while I'm glad I personally read it, I can not recommend it, or anything else by him.
However, I had to subtract a MINIMUM of two stars, and honestly I think I'm still being too kind, for the aggressive sexism and racism. I would have only removed one if I could justify it as the casual viewpoints of the day, but he goes far beyond that. Not just in descriptions of appearance, but even on the (incredibly rare) points from other's perspective shows anyone who is not white male to be not even evil, but actually unable to understand the world around them. As if they were little more than stupid beasts. The only exceptions I saw was; One Maternal Figure (she mated with the beast to create a monster and as the child grew he shunned her, no longer need her.) One Villainess (though the plot twist in that one reveals that she was under the control of her father pretty much the whole time.) And One Local Egyptian Guide. That last one actually was the least offensive of all. He still wasn't the most tactful, and they were the villians, but it seemed less like 'evil out of ignorance' and more because they actually outsmarted him. The story is a fictional account about Houdini's time in Egypt entitled 'Imprisioned with the Pharaohs'. Probably one of my favorite stories of the book and apparently well liked by Houdini himself!
So overall, while I'm glad I personally read it, I can not recommend it, or anything else by him.
January 11, 2019
This was the first book that I'd read from H.P Lovecraft and came into it thanks to Audible because free credits are awesome.
The narration was fantastic for several of the readers giving a weird, horrifying, confused readership.
Much of the stories are written as though they are letters to family, friends, or loved-ones. Other stories read more like they are diaries or memoirs.
One of the things that might be noted about Lovecraft, that isn't often noted, is that he is absolutely a product of his time and it's absolutely imperative to explain that there are several stories where some of the language used is more likely to curl the toenails more than the stories themselves.
It's definitely a series of stories that I would recommend to anyone interested in studying the History of Horror. There was a lot of fantastic, and fantastical, horrors in the stories. However, something to be noted is that Lovecraft was a little in love with is own prose and there was a lot of linguistic masturbation to be found. All of the stories are related by ostensibly, "normal" people that have been exposed to things far beyond the human comprehension... then those people spin off into writing words that would make Shakespeare or R.R Martin laugh at the pretentiousness.
The narration was fantastic for several of the readers giving a weird, horrifying, confused readership.
Much of the stories are written as though they are letters to family, friends, or loved-ones. Other stories read more like they are diaries or memoirs.
One of the things that might be noted about Lovecraft, that isn't often noted, is that he is absolutely a product of his time and it's absolutely imperative to explain that there are several stories where some of the language used is more likely to curl the toenails more than the stories themselves.
It's definitely a series of stories that I would recommend to anyone interested in studying the History of Horror. There was a lot of fantastic, and fantastical, horrors in the stories. However, something to be noted is that Lovecraft was a little in love with is own prose and there was a lot of linguistic masturbation to be found. All of the stories are related by ostensibly, "normal" people that have been exposed to things far beyond the human comprehension... then those people spin off into writing words that would make Shakespeare or R.R Martin laugh at the pretentiousness.
August 10, 2024
I’ve had Lovecraft on my reading list for a while and wanted to give his stories a good go considering the impact they’ve had on the horror genre.
I found it strange that he could be so open minded about the horrors of the world but so closed off towards the good and social progress. He clearly had a unique vision for his multiple and crippling terrors, acting as a prophet forecasting the disintegration of societal order. However, they all seem a bit too unimaginable for him to convey and he frequently uses words such as ‘eldritch’, ‘singular’ and ‘hideous’ to the point that the sentences would convey more if he removed them.
As is usual of horror of the time, the stories are recounted after the events that take place and often by a narrator with a tenuous link to the actual witness. I hate to say that I zoned out during some of the stories where characters were constantly transcending human knowledge into the range of the forbidden, but weren’t supplied with the agency to develop. Part of me thinks some of the stories would have been better if he’d been able to write happy endings, but his art followed his life.
I found it strange that he could be so open minded about the horrors of the world but so closed off towards the good and social progress. He clearly had a unique vision for his multiple and crippling terrors, acting as a prophet forecasting the disintegration of societal order. However, they all seem a bit too unimaginable for him to convey and he frequently uses words such as ‘eldritch’, ‘singular’ and ‘hideous’ to the point that the sentences would convey more if he removed them.
As is usual of horror of the time, the stories are recounted after the events that take place and often by a narrator with a tenuous link to the actual witness. I hate to say that I zoned out during some of the stories where characters were constantly transcending human knowledge into the range of the forbidden, but weren’t supplied with the agency to develop. Part of me thinks some of the stories would have been better if he’d been able to write happy endings, but his art followed his life.
November 2, 2018
When HP Lovecraft is on his game, he writes some creepy stories about how humanity pales in comparison to the dark, supernatural forces that exist in the world of his stories. At his worst his prose is stilted, repetitive, obtuse, and overtly racist.
Reading the short stories collected in Necronomicon was like reading a psychological profile of Lovecraft. You can clearly see his own fears and obsessions repeated throughout all of his stories. He is always afraid of an "other," whether it is a foreigner or a ghastly sea monster.
Some of these stories are pretty good, others are spectacularly bad. Some are good conceits bogged down by Lovecraft's purple prose. But if you love horror, it's worth reading the tales of a man that continues to influence generations of writers to this day.
Favorites include:
"The Whisperer in the Darkness"
"The Call of Cthulu"
"The Colour Out of Space"
"The Music of Eric Zahn"
Reading the short stories collected in Necronomicon was like reading a psychological profile of Lovecraft. You can clearly see his own fears and obsessions repeated throughout all of his stories. He is always afraid of an "other," whether it is a foreigner or a ghastly sea monster.
Some of these stories are pretty good, others are spectacularly bad. Some are good conceits bogged down by Lovecraft's purple prose. But if you love horror, it's worth reading the tales of a man that continues to influence generations of writers to this day.
Favorites include:
"The Whisperer in the Darkness"
"The Call of Cthulu"
"The Colour Out of Space"
"The Music of Eric Zahn"
February 21, 2019
Lovecraft's short stories set a clear ambience of dread, confusion and "cosmic horror". They have some original ideas that have greatly influenced derivative creators, but they are weak in a few ways.
The protagonists are all the same person: an intellectual white male. This makes things less interesting and the casual racism and derogatory tone towards females is pretty hard to ignore. He has a strong leaning towards avoiding describing things by regularly describing them as "indescribable" or "unmentionable". It's really quite boring for him to repeatedly talk about things that he can't talk about. I understand that the intent is to maintain a sense of mystery, but it feels like a weak mechanism to achieve this. He's very dependent on the character's inability to cognitively and emotionally handle the situations they're cast into, and after repetition this becomes a little tedious.
I still love some of the ideas and the allusions to "cosmic horrors" is pretty cool though.
The protagonists are all the same person: an intellectual white male. This makes things less interesting and the casual racism and derogatory tone towards females is pretty hard to ignore. He has a strong leaning towards avoiding describing things by regularly describing them as "indescribable" or "unmentionable". It's really quite boring for him to repeatedly talk about things that he can't talk about. I understand that the intent is to maintain a sense of mystery, but it feels like a weak mechanism to achieve this. He's very dependent on the character's inability to cognitively and emotionally handle the situations they're cast into, and after repetition this becomes a little tedious.
I still love some of the ideas and the allusions to "cosmic horrors" is pretty cool though.
January 31, 2015
This is a book that stands separate to everything else that's ever been written. There is nothing quite like it, both in the words penned, and the superhuman strength required to carry it home from the shops. True, I couldn't make sense of everyone of the stories, but the common thread of creativity and genius running through each one is palpable. I had my favourites, of course. I even did a couple of essays on some of them (and got decent grades, way back when) but that's by the by. Lovecraft is one of the father's of the genre, and deservedly so, fully meriting his place alongside Edgar Allan Poe and Horace Walpole. Fish in your wallet, and buy. Simple.
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