The Call of Cthulu and Other Stories

by H.P. Lovecraft

Narrated by: Gareth David-Lloyd , Ian Fairbairn

http://www.audible.com/pd/Fiction/The...

Genres: Horror, Fiction, Classics, Fantasy, Short Stories, Science Fiction, Mystery

Unknown Binding

About the author

Howard 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

Reviews

[Lex (Dreams_in_a_rose_creek_wood) · Rating 2 out of 5]

2.5 Stars

Using this as my call of cthulu review as I couldn't find the story by itself, I personally didn't find this one all that interesting and felt that it didn't really bring much to the table (and it does have some very questionable racist remarks scattered throughout) , but I also find it hard to really rate classics like these and it may have been just that I wasn't in the mood for it at the time.

I did enjoy the touching of geometry and unsettling angles, along with the sort've feverish dream aspect of it but it felt more like a story started and drafted in its first, lacking the themes and development of more curated stories;

I personally find Dreams In The Witch House expands upon and develops upon the hints of this one in a much more intriguing and well-crafted way in my opinion (we'll see how that stands as I am only 1/3 through that one on audiobook.)

Anyways didn't hate this, didn't love it, to sum it up I think this makes for a more thrilling movie adaptation and as I was listening to the audiobook it felt very reminiscent of Scooby Doo (which I love, but I don't think those translate as well to paper either)

[Shane Ver Meer · Rating 3 out of 5]

I'm only docking stars because even with my love of cosmic horror, this is just sort of a toe-dip. I like this narrative style, of the academic gathering accounts and chasing diaries, but there just isn't a lot here. An important work, still. 3 out of 5 acute angles that appeared obtuse!

[Saurabh Kadam · Rating 5 out of 5]

If you are horror fan then it is must read book.

[Noah · Rating 4 out of 5]

Highly overrated just like super mario 64 but unlike super mario 64 it hasnt aged badly. Also its cthulu can you really go wrong with it. Cant really go wrong with mario 64 either tho

[Sam Woodgate]

The only anthology brave enough to ask the question: 'what if shapes and angles were scary?'

[Dominic Watson · Rating 3 out of 5]

3.5 ⭐️

What Ive come to realise after now having read almost all of Lovecrafts work, is that, although he is a master at his style, it is extremely formulaic, and most of his stories can be substituted for one of his others, and you’d never really know the difference. There are of course a few exceptions, and dont get me wrong, all of his stories are extremely entertaining & super dark, but they just get predictable once you notice the pattern. His whole genre is ‘horror of the unknown’ and I think the stories that stand out the best to me are the ones that actually are less ambiguous and have physical forms in terms of antagonists, its a shame they are so few. Although not all of them are from this particular book, my top 3 Lovecraft stories are #1 The Lurking fear, #2 Dreams in the Witchhouse & #3 The Shadow over Innsmouth. Obviously I cant take any credit away from his writing style too, I think thats probably what helps his case the most with the monotony and unchanging of his style… at least it reads & sounds epic

[Kuba Jeziorski · Rating 4 out of 5]

Fabuła meh meh, ale ładnie napisane :)

[Cameron · Rating 4 out of 5]

As a horror addict, there is a lot to like here. "The Colour Out of Space" was my personal favorite short story, but a few other standouts such as "The Rats in the Walls" (Lovecraft's racism shows its ugly head here in one character), and "The Shadow Over Innsmouth" intrigued me among others. The drawback to a collection of stories like this is that there is a potential for duds. A few of the stories were overly long to me and didn't really scratch the horror itch at all. If you are interested in horror literature in any capacity though, this is an easy recommendation for you to try a few of the stories out and see what they do for you.

[Emerson Toronto · Rating 4 out of 5]

Call of Cthulhu was pretty good! Descriptions had me on the edge of my seat - exciting bit of cosmic horror

But also stars off for racism to literally everyone that was PoC or Eastern European. I know it’s of its time but also like, don’t like being referred to as a mongrel 👌🏽

[Suzie · Rating 3 out of 5]

It's hard to rate this because it is for sure racist, but The Dunwich Horror is genuinely compelling.

[jacob van sickle · Rating 4 out of 5]

My first, but not my last, Lovecraft. By the way, he was born, raised, and did most of his writing in Providence, RI.

[Kassandra Godinez]

Half the time I was like?? But two things stand true, H.P. Lovecraft was racist, and he was on crack.

[Rory · Rating 4 out of 5]

Do NOT look up H. P. Lovecrafts' cat's name

[lena kay · Rating 3 out of 5]

Interesting but hella racist

[Alfredo Salume · Rating 2 out of 5]

All the stories have a common pattern. Terror about aliens, things out of this world, and so on. Many are not always described or it is not specified what the author is talking about, it is just about a "certain terror" never revealed. I believe these books inspired many terror films like monster lake and so on, because there are many fantastical beings that are fish like, and monsters of all kind. Many characters find out they descend from these beings and that is where the terror lies. It is always about strange creatures, curses that go down many generations causing their descendants to fall on despair and meeting their terrible fates, because they end up turning into what they dread most (the monster and so on). All the stories are short, so there is lack of information about a lot of things that are never answered. The language sometimes is deformed due to the topic, when characters talk in other languages that are out of this world, those parts are hard to follow and understand, because it also adds a lot of material from other sources. It mentions a lot of Gods and books about mystic areas that if you are not familiar with, it is complicated to understand (I wish I knew more about that famous Necronomicon, and those Gods and Places all the stories talk about) So this book is about terrors, science fiction terrors, the unknown, out there in space, other dimensions, other things from other galaxies that existed before mankind. Things impossible to comprehend or fathom. A lot of psychological terror and madness befalls to the characters. Crossbreeding, strange experiments are common in these stories. Some too short, others are kind of repetitive. Read them if you are into the occult and all that stuff.

[Abdullah Alkhaldi · Rating 2 out of 5]

كتاب ممل جداً واللغه المستخدمه صعبه وغير مخيف ابداً

[Richard Thompson · Rating 2 out of 5]

This was my first foray into the world of Lovecraft and his evil demon god, Cthulu. Lovecraft was definitely a pulp writer. The quality of the prose is B- at best. Lovecraft likes to use words like "loathsome," "repellant" and "hideous," which set the tone, but which add nothing to the actual description of the scene. He also loves to write about reeks and stenches, without any real color beyond evoking a generally bad smell. There is lots of slime and ancient evil of the most conventional sort. And there is some very unpleasant racism, as bad as anything in Haggard, Rohmer or Burroughs. Lovecraft tries to create an atmosphere of horror by playing on white fears and equating "half castes" and "mulattoes" with practices of pure evil. The best of the stories is "The Dunwich Horror," where the principal bad guys are inbred New Englanders, and the evil dark people play only a peripheral role.

But despite all of the flaws, Lovecraft did manage to make my spine tingle a bit, and I enjoyed how he weaves the mythology of Cthulu into the stories in ways that vary a bit from story to story. The Cthulu cult is a vast mystery that threatens the continued extistence of humanity in unspecified ways and that reveals itself in bits and pieces that always remain tantalizingly incomplete. I am tempted to read more Lovecraft just to piece together a bit more of the mythology.

[Thomas Purtscher · Rating 2 out of 5]

Read Call of Cthulhu, Cool Air, Dagon, and Nyarlathotep (Didn't really have the desire to read much else, and I basically only read this for Call of Cthulhu in the first place).

I can see why Call of Cthulhu inspired a big mythos - it's lore is cryptic and spooky, and is just generally kind of neat. Lovecraft's style is also quite good - but like some other reviewers, I found the excessive vagueness didn't work all that well. Call of Cthulhu on its own would probably earn three stars - it's scary and interesting, but doesn't really build up to much and is annoyingly vague. I also found Lovecraft's attempts at describing non-Euclidian geometry to be frustrating and nonsensical. Definitely good overall though, and I see why people like it (although I am confused as to why it's praised to this extent).

The other three short stories I read were a real letdown: Cool Air started out somewhat spooky but had lost all of it by the end, and Nyarlathotep was just vague to the extreme. Dagon goes a step even beyond that though - it starts off with this interesting black wasteland that suddenly crescendos with a "vague, Polyphemus-like" monster before ending just as suddenly. This is so vague I was genuinely unable to feel fear from it, and the pacing was abysmal. I'm giving this two stars overall.

[Aaron Beall · Rating 4 out of 5]

Superb. The version I read had The Call of Cthulhu, The Hound, The Dunwich Horror, and Dagon. They all had a very similar feel, atmosphere, and style; the insignificant existence of fragile humanity faced with unknown, immense powers beyond comprehension, vaguely malevolent intentions for those unfortunate to be at the wrong place at the wrong time, the mere exposure to which can drive one mad. So basically John Calvin's god.

“The most merciful thing in the world, I think, is the inability of the human mind to correlate all its contents. We live on a placid island of ignorance in the midst of black seas of infinity, and it was not meant that we should voyage far. The sciences, each straining in its own direction, have hitherto harmed us little, but some day, the piecing together of disassociated knowledge will open up such terrifying vistas of reality, and of our frightful position therein, that we shall either go mad from the revelation, or flee from the light into the peace and safety of a new dark age.”

[Rebecca Von Martens · Rating 2 out of 5]

Okay, so I'm reading an edition of colledt H P Lovecraft short stories, which is not yet on Goodreads. So I just jumped in on a random Lovecraft collection, so I could review and add this to my reading goals of 2024.

So, H P Lovecraft is a horror classic, but like many classics it is less interesting/good than it is groundbreaking. What is groundbreaking is how Lovecraft created a horror genre in which man is an ant getting stomped by giants. The stories however, quickly bored me. If you're not a horror freak but wants to read some classics for education - check out Poe. His stories has truly stood the test of time. Lovecraft? Not so much.

Lovecrafts problem is that he's not just a regular racist, he is an exceptional proud kkk eugenics white supremacist. This does not only make for a jarring reading experience, it makes for a boring one. I frustratedly thought to myself multiple times over that Lovecraft had to find another monster than humans evolving "backwards". It is not scary, just cringey racist bs.

[Janine · Rating 4 out of 5]

I think it’s safe to say I am a fan of Lovecraftian horror. I was excited to get a taste of what “Lovecraftian horror” was and wasn’t disappointed. There were some stories better than others in this collection but that’s to be expected. Lovecraft does an amazing job at painting an atmosphere and writing in a way that piques intrigue. The dating of the writing style was a little difficult for me to understand what was happening by sometimes but it didn’t take away from the experience.

The Color Out of Space ⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️.5
The Call of Cthulu ⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️.5
The Picture in the House ⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️.5
The Statement of Randolph Carter ⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️
The Whisperer in the Darkness ⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️
The Outsider ⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️
The Haunter of the Dark ⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️
Cool Air ⭐️⭐️⭐️.5
The Rats in the Walls ⭐️⭐️⭐️.5
Herbert West- Reanimated ⭐️⭐️⭐️.5
The Shadows Over Innsmouth ⭐️⭐️⭐️
The Festival ⭐️⭐️⭐️
The Hound ⭐️⭐️⭐️
Nyarlathotep ⭐️⭐️⭐️
Late Arthur Jermyn ⭐️⭐️⭐️
Dagon ⭐️⭐️
Celephaïs ⭐️⭐️⭐️
He ⭐️⭐️

[Alasdair · Rating 3 out of 5]

There's lots good in Lovecraft's brand of creepy horror and he makes excellent use of the clash that arises from fundamentally European traditions grafted into the strangeness of an America that still felt alien and strange, even in New England. The recency of white settlement against the old landscape intensifies his sense of forces older than man. But he can also be verbose and self-indulgent. The Dunwich Horror works really well, but The Mountains of Madness just gets interminable. And his supremacist sensibilities are painfully obvious. Also, why are the illustrations in these books so awful? The shoddy drawings feel more like a nightmare in Moominland than anything truly terrifying, and the Elder Ones end up looking like they belong in an episode of The Clangers.

[Luke Latchman · Rating 3 out of 5]

Too much build up for disappointing payoff. Could be the audiobook’s fault or my lack of attention. The ideas are fantastic but there both wasn’t enough story to find it interesting and also too much story and not enough getting to the point. I wanted to know more about the cultists - the origins of the beasts - the WHAT and WHY! I feel like these were similar to LOVE DEATH AND ROBOTS on Netflix but with an extra 10 mins of story and not enough exciting ideas or exploration. Giving it 3 stars for the fresh (at the time?) ideas and exploration of some great fantasy creatures used today in games and stories. Generally it’s ‘alright’ stick it on in the background whilst you’re doing something else.

[Troy Zaher · Rating 2 out of 5]

His stories are somewhat interesting and I greatly appreciate the mythos that Lovecraft is creating but my god are these hard to get through. I read a lot of classics and none are quite as dense as these considering how short they are. It feels like poetry, which I’m already not the hugest fan of. But it’s poetry that goes on far too long about nothing. There is quite a deal of racism as well though that I can usually tolerate in books, especially ones from pre-80s. But still, I think Lovecraft is just not the author for me. I hope others enjoy him more and I may continue to learn about his mythos outside of his actual writing.

[Chase · Rating 3 out of 5]

A very bizarre tale which evokes a mysterious monster that simultaneously haunts the dreams of distinct people, and the narrator's journey to lift the veil on these disturbing stories once and for all.

The monster is not your standard monster, but rather it is described in a vague, horrifying way. I think this works well because we often lose fear over that which we have seen and understand, so keeping some elements up to the reader's fearful imagination might serve the monster well and give it a more universal terror. The prospect of Cthulu haunting even the reader of the story is a fascinating and chilling one. The story is a bit dense, but I think its worth the read.

[Avery Sigler · Rating 4 out of 5]

Obviously, as a collection of short stories, there were some I enjoyed more than others. If I gave my opinions on every single story, this review would basically be a dissertation, so instead I put my ranking below. 1-4 are very good and memorable. I enjoyed 5-7 but can't remember what they were about now when I'm writing this review, almost 4 months after reading. 8-10 are also not memorable but I remember not enjoying them/being bored by them.

1. He
2. Herbert West - Reanimator
3. The Lurking Fear
4. The Rats in the Walls
5. The Hound
6. The Shunned House
7. The Nameless City
8. The Call of Cthulu
9. The Festival
10. The Horror at Red Hook

[Jonah Howell · Rating 4 out of 5]

Lovecraft has been on my list for many years, and I was not disappointed! You can see this man’s influence on not only horror but much of popular culture in general, and his ideas are amazing to trace back to their original sources. Genuinely some of the scariest scenarios I’ve ever witnessed put either to the page or screen.

I do find that many of his stories follow a common rhythm, making them quite predictable after a while, but the ideas presented within them are so rich and ambiguous that it hardly matters. Whisperer In Darkness, The Thing On The Doorstep and At The Mountains Of Madness were among my favourites.

[Antonio Romano · Rating 1 out of 5]

I'll preface this by saying I love the cosmic horror genre. The different entities and ideas are very interesting and unnerving. But the 3 stories I read in this book were just boring. I read the first and second and then realized I didn't like Lovecraft's writing thus far and decided to skip to the story I bought the book for in the first place--Call of Cthulhu.

The best way I can describe his writing is if he JUST learned about 7th grade English Lit writing techniques and decided to base his writing off of them. The amount of similes and absurd adjectives he used were just annoying to me.

[Jessie Weaver · Rating 5 out of 5]

Masterful prose and storytelling. One of the hardest opening paragraphs of all time:

“The most merciful thing in the world, I think, is the inability of the human mind to correlate all its contents. We live on a placid island of ignorance in the midst of black seas of infinity, and it was not meant that we should voyage far. The sciences, each straining in its own direction, have hitherto harmed us little; but some day the piecing together of dissociated knowledge will open up such terrifying vistas of reality, and of our frightful position therein, that we shall either go mad from the revelation or flee from the deadly light into the peace and safety of a new dark age.”

[Benjamin Richards · Rating 4 out of 5]

The world of Cthulu is only a vague concept, I know of the role playing, the Munchkin and the principle but have never read/listened to the source material; if this be the source material. Ah, I see this was originally written in 1928 - just added an extra star for that because upon listening to TCOC I imagined it was some fey, stylised modern writing, I am glad it's antiquated. Upon antiquated language, I found the work quite verbose, but oh so rich in texture. You can really see Joseph Conrad in here and 'The Kraken' but wow, such imagination.