Crusoe: The Macabre Later Adventures of Robinson Crusoe

by David Haden, H.P. Lovecraft, Daniel Defoe

A new novelette of Lovecraftian horror! Robinson Crusoe returns to his island to find death, madness, deadly dreams, mad priests, inter-dimensional horrors, fiendish mazes, and much more! Illustrated for the Kindle. 2010.

52 pages, Kindle Edition

First published September 24, 2010

About the author

David Haden is a Lovecraft scholar and lecturer at a British university.

Reviews

[Lori · Rating 3 out of 5]

Robinson Crusoe is my childhood favorite so OF COURSE I didn't hesitate to grab this remix that combines Defoe with another of my all-time favorite authors, H.P. Lovecraft. Alas, Haden used The Further Adventures of Robinson Crusoe instead of the original book, which means no Friday. He's never even mentioned! This is like Holmes with no Watson, Xena with no Gabrielle, or Mulder without Scully. If only the buddy trope was more established in 1719, Defoe would've known better than to kill Friday off. Probably why no one reads the sequel.

The beginning is quite strong with enough Defoe to give the encroaching Lovecraftian horror a unique flavor. Unfortunately, the rest of the story is actually a fairly generic "deranged cultists" and "isolated location with unknown monster" tale, even with the archaic prose style. Again, I really think Haden should have used the original Robinson Crusoe and not this premise of a man returning to an island where he lived peacefully for decades but is now all of a sudden this super scary place. (I mean, it doesn't even make sense.)

Fantastic cover, though. It's one of N.C. Wyeth's illustrations for the 1920 American edition of Robinson Crusoe combined with another illustration he did of a squid for the Anthology of Children's Literature. Love it.

EDIT: The Eerie Adventures of the Lycanthrope Robinson Crusoe is way better.