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Necronomicon

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Escasas narraciones de terror han alcanzado una fama tan universal como "Necronomicon" libro de la ley de los muertos y recopilacion de conjuros y rituales antiguos que, de acuerdo al mito, llevan a la locura o inclusive la muerte a quien trata de llevaros a la practica. Pero el "Necronomicon" no existe como tal sino que pertenece, como su titulo, su presunto autor y su origen, a la meticulosa fantasia del escritor estadounidense H. P. Lovecraft.
La seduccion que ejercen los seres imaginarios se revela en este volumen, que incluye un abrebe autobiografia del autor y tresnotables historias fantasticas: "La sombra sobre Innsmouth", "El horror de Dunwich" y la breve "El". H. P. Lovecraft (1890-1937) nacio y murio en Providence, Rhode Island.

239 pages, Hardcover

Published January 1, 2021

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1220 people want to read

About the author

H.P. Lovecraft

6,039 books19.2k followers
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

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Displaying 1 - 30 of 173 reviews
Profile Image for cinnamon girl ୨୧.
164 reviews39 followers
February 10, 2024
Najpre, želim da pohvalim izdavačku kuću Orfelin na divnoj knjizi, predivnim ilustracijama, kvalitetu papira i same knjige kao i za izgled korica. Ovo je knjiga koji bi svaki ljubitelj horora trebalo da ima u svojoj kolekciji, iako jeste malo skuplja od ostalih ali isto tako ovde se pokazuje kako cena jeste kvalitet. Naime, čitalac se (pričam o Orfelinovom izdanju knjige) najpre suočava sa kratkom biografijom autora, odnosno Lavkrafta, zatim se prelazi na Istoriju Nekronomikona, veoma retke ali poznate mračne knjige koja igra ključnu ulogu u većini odabranih priča, nakon toga sledi 25 divno prevedenih horor priča autora Lavkrafta, i tek na kraju susrećemo se sa napomenama i čudnim pojmovima koje je upravo Lavkraft pominjao kroz priče, koje potpomažu čitaocu duboko shvatanje priče.

Želim napomenuti takođe da je u ovu knjigu utkana svaka moguća pažnja, od samog početka odnosno korica knjige, do realističnih i mračnih ilustracija svake priče, preko veoma informativnih beležaka koje Vam upotpunjuju pročitanu priču i na osnovu kojih možete naći filmove i stripove zasnovane na istim.

Mogu reći da sam veoma zadovoljna većinom priča, te bih volela da ih ocenim posebno sledećim ocenama:
Niarlototep 3 ⭐
Dagon 4⭐
Hram 3⭐
Otpadnik 4⭐
Čudna visoka kuća u izmaglici 5⭐
Izjava Randolfa Kartera 5⭐
Srebrni ključ 5⭐
Činjenice vezane za pokojnog Artura Džermina i njegovu porodicu 5⭐
Festival 5⭐
Gonič 4⭐
Herbert Vest, Reanimator 4⭐
S one strane 5⭐
Pikamnov model 5⭐
Muzika Eriha Zana 5⭐
Ispod piramida 2⭐
Ukleta kuća 5⭐
Pacovi u zidovima 5⭐
Snovi u veštičijoj kući 5⭐
Zov Ktulua 5⭐
Danički užas 3⭐
Senka nad Insmutom 5⭐
Stvar na pragu 5⭐
Boja iznad ovog svemira 5⭐
U zidinama Eriksa 4⭐
Stanovnik tame 4⭐
Neke sam ocenila sa slabijom ocenom, odnosno Danički užas i Ispod Piramida, naime Piramide jeste da je dobra priča, lepo zamišljena ali jednostavno ima puno istorijskih informacija da mi je došlo da preskočim čitavu priču ali ipak je završih do kraja. Dok Danički užas je na sva zvona nahvaljen, jeste dobra složena priča sa dobrim likovima ali jednostavno meni u trenutku nije prijala, stoga planiram da je u budućnosti ponovo pročitam i možda joj povećam ocenu.
Favoriti ove knjige su mi definitivno Festival, Muzika Eriha Zana, Senka nad Insmutom, Stvar na pragu i Boja iznad ovog svemira. Mogu reći da čitajući ove favorite nisam ni trepnula, takođe su veoma zarazne za čitanje tako da jedva čekate da saznate na koji način će se završiti ovo svemirsko ludilo.
Profile Image for Martin Iguaran.
Author 4 books353 followers
May 7, 2023
Este volumen contiene algunos de los mejores relatos de Lovecraft. Como el título indica, todos mencionan o incluyen en alguna forma el Necronomicón, un libro ficticio de magia negra y conocimientos prohibidos. Naturalmente, Lovecraft no inventó el concepto de los libros malditos. Ha existido desde hace siglos. Hay varios ejemplos de la vida real: entre ellos, el Codex Gigas, también conocido como Códice Gigas o la "biblia del diablo". Se trata de un manuscrito medieval que pesa 75 kilos y que contiene un dibujo enorme de Satanás, y según la leyenda, fue escrito por el Diablo en persona a cambio del alma de un monje.
La mejor prueba de que el concepto del Necronomicón ha trascendido y constituye junto a los Mitos de Cthulhu, el legado literario de Lovecraft, es que muchas personas a lo largo de los años, de hecho han creído que se trataba de un libro real. A tal punto llegó esa creencia, que el mismo Lovecraft tuvo que salir a desmentirlo.
Esta edición contiene "El horror de Dunwich", "El ser en el umbral", "El sabueso", "Historia del Necronomicón" y algunos relatos más.
Profile Image for Manuel Alfredo Collado.
Author 1 book22 followers
April 19, 2021
Relato breve que simula ser un texto real sobre la procedencia y situación actual del Necronomicón, desde su origen a manos del árabe loco Abdul Alhazred hacia el 700 d.C. hasta las copias actuales que se conocen, pasando por todas las ediciones y traducciones que se han sucedido a lo largo de los siglos entre acontecimientos perturbadores y censuras del manuscrito.

Resulta muy interesante conocer el trasfondo del libro maldito que tanto aparece en la literatura de Lovecraft y en otras obras (tanto dentro como fuera del universo lovecraftiano).
Profile Image for Melybee.
187 reviews326 followers
October 15, 2022
Estoy dudando de si leí lo mismo que las personas que le han dado 5 estrellas. Tenía muchas expectativas de leer algo que me cambiara la vida y no fue así.

Tengo entendido que es un libro que el autor menciona en sus otros relatos, sin embargo me esperaba encontrar con un poco más de historia y no únicamente conjuros.

Creo que no era para mí.
Profile Image for Liquid.
85 reviews26 followers
January 7, 2021
Pokušaću da svedem review na kratke crte a opširniju priču ću ostaviti za budući bookish instagram (ako se ikada nakanim da ga pokrenem)
Ako ste ljubitelji priča o okultnom i naučne fantastike, Lovecraft je definitivno pisac za vas i ova knjiga je prepuna niti okultnog i sci-fi elemenata koji se prepliću. Teško je zamisliti monolite, građevine i stvorenja koje opisuje jer im dodeljuje karakteristike nepojmljive ljudskom oku i shvatanju; zvuci koji se kod njega najčešće spominju nemaju veze sa režanjem, kricima, ništa što se sreće u klasičnim horor pričama - uglavnom sam ih zamišljala kao vibracije čuvenog CP1919 pulsara (radio talasi vizuelizovani i zauvek ovekovečeni kao cover art Unknown Pleasures albuma); neobjašnjive boje i mirisi, sve ovo ide u prilog Lovecraftovoj originalnosti i njegovim pričama daje bonus poene za misterioznost koja vas samo više i više uvlači u knjigu. Nije iznenađujuće što je njegovo stvaralaštvo, sa akcentom na pričama iz Nekronomikona, poslužilo kao inspiracija muzičarima, mladim ilustratorima, uticalo na razvoj brojnih fenomenalnih video igara itd.
Moji favoriti iz zbirke su: Hram, Otpadnik, Muzika Eriha Zana, S one strane, Zov Ktulua, Stvar na pragu, Boja izvan ovog svemira i U zidinama Eriksa.
Profile Image for Iván.
124 reviews34 followers
April 11, 2022
Tercera oportunidad que le doy a Lovecraft y es la primera que no me decepciona. Buena colección de relatos impregnados de horror y misterios insondables.

"Es al caer la noche, sobre todo, cuando la luna es menguante y deforme, cuando veo al ser."

Magia poderosa y horripilante, seres deformes y terribles, trastornos mentales que hacen creer a sus desdichadas víctimas cosas que no han sucedido... Muchos de sus personajes están, por lo que he deducido, basados en sí mismo, pues son introvertidos, retraídos, amantes de la noche y que viven básicamente en su imaginación.

"En las ilusiones que creaba mi cabeza al dormir encontré un poco de la belleza que había buscado durante la vida, caminando por viejos jardines paradisíacos y bosques mágicos."

Cementerios, mausoleos, casas enormes y tenebrosas, calles con historias que quitan el sueño, todo esto y más lo utiliza Lovecraft para provocar en el lector las más terribles pesadillas, unido a una imaginación desbordante me parece una muy buena colección de relatos de terror.
Profile Image for Žarko Milenković.
Author 2 books8 followers
April 11, 2015
Najveća milost koja nam je data, po mom mišljenju je nesposobnost ljudskog uma da poveže sav svoj sadržaj. Živimo na tihom ostrvu neznanja u središtu crnog mora večnosti i nismo sazdani za duga putovanja. Nauka, sa svakom disciplinom koja vuče na svoju stranu, malo nam je štete nanela do sada; ali jednoga dana, zbrajanje rasparčanog znanja otkriće nam tako užasan uvid u stvarnost i našu zastrašujuću poziciju u njoj, da ćemo ili poludeti od tog otkrovenja ili pobeći od smrtonosnog svetla u mir i sigurnost novog mračnog doba.
Zov Ktulua-Lovecraft
Profile Image for Bojan Mihajilovic.
117 reviews29 followers
November 14, 2019
Neverovatno kvalitetno izdanje Nekronomikona (Vulkan/Orfelin). Tvrde korice, papir, ilustracije kakve odavno nisam video. lovecraft Steta sto Lovecraft nije u stanju da vidi koju popularnost su dozivele njegove petparacke horor price i mitovi.

Najbolje price:
- Reanimator
- Danicki uzas
- Zov Ktulua
- U zidinama Eriksa (ova je sf)
- Senka nad Insmutom...

cthulu
Profile Image for Maslela.
382 reviews6 followers
July 28, 2021
Birthday Book 5/13; 2020, "religion" theme.

The Whisperer in the Darkness is pretty good. Maybe the prospect of writing and writing to potentially someone possessed and the not knowing who is actually communicating is appealing.

The Horror at Red Hook would be attacked by the woke people.

The Dunwich Horror is the best one! The ending is wow.

Behind Her Eyes must have been inspired by The Thing on the Doorstep!

I quite enjoyed Lovecraft's writing style. It was fascinating to get into but towards the end I thought I've had enough and was looking forward to finish. I guess I had had enough of things coming out of walls, and the underground. I'm happy to have experienced his work!
Profile Image for Tecilli Tapia.
279 reviews22 followers
July 1, 2023
Pues este libro, es decir la edición de Gandhi es una verdadera pesadilla, no lo compren en está edición, huele fatal a tinta y te da dolor de cabeza intentar leerlo.

Respecto a los relatos, son 4, de los cuales 1 es súper pequeño y es más parte de la introducción. Los relatos restantes no son espectaculares, La sombra sobre Innsmouth es mi favorito, El horror de Dunwich es muy normalito, y Él, bastante olvidable, el más flojo y aburrido.

En general, 3.5, pero sumando la experiencia completa con el libro, tiene por calificación un 3.
Profile Image for Coco.V.
50k reviews131 followers
Want to read
March 3, 2020
🎁 FREE on Amazon today (3/3/2020)! 🎁
Profile Image for Pedro Cascales Del Cerro.
12 reviews
April 2, 2023
Menudas historias un tanto perturbadoras. Mi primer contacto con este género y me ha gustado bastante la verdad. Además sencillito de leer al ser historias cortas. Muy chulo.
Profile Image for Billy Jepma.
493 reviews10 followers
Read
March 1, 2021
I've loved "Lovecraftian" horror for a while, but until now have never waded into Lovecraft's original work, and I felt like it was time I do so. And it went about as well as I expected! Lovecraft is a horrible racist who paints POC as the villains almost as often as he does otherworldly creatures. His stories center around "otherness," and when it's framed around the unseen and untold horrors humanity skirts up against––often as a result of their own hubris––it's riveting, terrifying stuff. There's a gruesome underbelly to Lovecraft's characters and settings that are timelessly enticing, luring you in with dark secrets and shadowy horrors. It's not difficult to see why Lovecraft's work created a genre almost entirely its own.

But at least half of the 19 short stories in this collection are steeped in racist ideals, which unintentionally cast the protagonists as even fouler figures. I'm all for morally fucked up protagonists, but the level of racism was as bad as I expected and sometimes even worse. It made listening to these stories difficult, to say the least.

On top of that, Lovecraft's writing is often repetitive in theme, style, and language, and few of his stories come off as being well-written. The plots may be well-conceived, and Lovecraft's horrible imagination lived up to the legacy it's left behind, but the writing wavers. It's never downright "bad" and sometimes strikes gold, but more often than not, it's just unremarkable.

Honestly, the best part about these stories is that none of the "heroes" aren't heroes at all. Every narrator sounds nearly identical––they're all arrogant, privileged men (mostly academics with some semblance of fame or renown) with varying degrees of a god-complex that inevitably results in their exposure to terrors out of this world. It's gratifying to find that Lovecraft projects a lot of himself into these men, unintentionally outing himself as just as vile and self-obsessed as the victims of his stories are.

The production value and voice-work of this collection are superb, though. Having these stories read to me surely enhanced my experience with them, as it made me like I was seated around a campfire, partaking in some late-night spooky stories. I don't regret undertaking this 20+ hour audiobook, but I don't think I'd recommend it, either. There are good parts to Lovecraft's fiction, at least in the stories included here, but so many modern and contemporary writers have translated Lovecraft's ideas in far better and more effective ways than he ever did.
Profile Image for Matias Cerizola.
570 reviews33 followers
May 21, 2023
Relatos Completos IV 1927.- H. P. Lovecraft

"«Le recuerdo de nuevo que no debe llamar a nadie a quien no pueda después dominar, es decir, que pueda volverse contra usted, de manera que no le sirvan sus más poderosos instrumentos. Antes llame a los Menores, no sea que los Mayores no quieran responder, y se impongan sobre usted»."

Cuarto volumen de la colección publicada por la editorial Terramar que abarca la narrativa completa de Lovecraft. Con un título que no admite muchas dudas sobre el contenido, el libro incluye las cuatro obras escritas o finalizadas en 1927, y una revisión/colaboración a saber:

*El Caso De Charles Dexter Ward
*El Color Que Cayó Del Cielo
*Gente Muy Antigua
*La Última Prueba (con Adolphe De Castro)
*Historia Del Necronomicon

Dos relatos fundamentales y puntos altos en la narrativa lovecraftiana, El Caso y El Color; dos pequeñas historias de poquitas páginas, pero interesantes en su estructura, Gente y Necronomicon; y una colaboración no tan conocida, que no me pareció la gran cosa, pero que tiene algunas menciones a los Mitos De Cthulhu, así que vale la pena su lectura para los completistas de esa mitología. Sin desmerecer ni un poco el resto del gran material incluido en el libro, El Color Que Cayó Del Cielo es uno de mis relatos de Lovecraft favoritos de toda la vida (fue el primer cuento que recuerdo haber leído del autor de Providence), con sus tintes de Weird Fiction, su genial desarrollo y muy buen final.

Y aquellos que suelen andar por alguna de las bibliotecas de la UBA, estén atentos, porque según el amigo Howard Phillips, hay una copia de cierto libro escrito por un árabe loco en una de sus estanterías, quizá lleno de polvo en el fondo y sin leer desde hace 100 años, o a lo mejor ya se lo llevó algún estudiante de derecho que luego fué político, eso explicaría muchas cosas…

🤘🤘🤘🤘🤘
Profile Image for Juan Garza.
22 reviews
April 25, 2025
Mi primera exposición a Lovecraft. Creo que la colección que leí era de mala calidad: mala traducción, mala edición. Ya tuve oportunidad de adquirir una de mayor calibre para releer los cuentos que estaban en este compilado "La sombra sobre Innsmouth", "El horror de Dunwich" y "Él".

Haré el comentario en relación a mi propósito de lectura este año, que es simplemente superar el número de libros que leí en 2024. Me doy cuenta que, a pesar de que leo actualmente otros dos libros al simultáneo, son los que acabo más rápido los que realmente disfruto. Hay unos que me toman más tiempo adoptar, otros que de plano dejo y que me obligo a retomar o que dejo en la DNF.

Lovecraft me sorprendió. Debo admitir que hago el acercamiento a su obra gracias a un ensayo de Mark Fisher titulado "The Weird and the Eerie" en donde se ilustra el verdadero diferenciador del "weird fiction" y la genialidad sutil de su progenitor por encima de las prácticas más ortodoxas del género del terror. Me es claro que es difícil sorprenderse con estos cuentos, pueden resultar algo predecibles. Tampoco uno siente miedo necesariamente, pero lo que si: una turbación de los sentidos, algo que no debería existir en el contexto en el que existe, en el contexto en que Lovecraft coloca a sus criaturas híbridas sci-fi, paganas, resulta perturbador y fascinante. Creo que un tema clave en estos cuentos es la curiosidad y el morbo, actitudes comunes en sus personajes a diferentes niveles y que conlleva a diferentes consecuencias.

Dice Fisher que los cuentos de Lovecraft se parecen entre sí. Todavía no sabría decirlo, pero la fórmula lovecraftiana es palpable. Personalmente no tengo problema con ello porque creo que es una buena fórmula y creo que vale la pena explorar su obra solo por eso y porque también soy morboso como sus personajes.
Profile Image for C'att Alisson.
87 reviews4 followers
August 18, 2024
«EL SER EN EL UMBRAL» fue mi favorito por lejos, y fue un acierto dejarlo entre los últimos relatos.

Nada qué decir. He devorado libros de Lovecraft desde la primera vez que quise leer historias, y formó parte de mi personalidad.

De los mejores relatos cortos para empezar. Tiene de todo: investigaciones acerca de un libro con conocimientos oscuros y perdidos en el tiempo, descubrimiento de ciudades ocultas y arcaicas, el misticismo de los sueños, figuras siniestras de longevidad cuestionable…

Recomiendo tomarse su tiempo y leerse un relato de vez en cuando. Día a día. Es un buen acompañamiento.

⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️

Profile Image for Andrés Astudillo.
403 reviews6 followers
December 10, 2017
This is my first H.P. Lovecraft reading experience. Loved it. The whole style reminded me of the videogame "Eternal Darkness: Sanity's requiem". Just amazing. People, normal people getting dragged out of the contemporary atmosphere to be laid upon a diabolic place; no one knows where it is actually happening. It may happen in real life, in a real place or inside their own heads. This one, Lovecraft, is gonna be one of my favorite authors.
Profile Image for Alicia.
72 reviews1 follower
March 17, 2018
I'm packing it in with Mr Lovecraft. Can't take it anymore - the excruciating detail of blow by blow what the narrator most boringly does, while saying there are horrors by which he was horrified but of which he cannot bring himself to speak... I am worn down waiting for the true suspense to start. Glad I gave it a peek and finished a novella and a few stories but I am moving on to more enticing reads!
Profile Image for Andromeda Robins.
50 reviews
March 4, 2024
I think most of the shorts in this collection are simply bad. Some of the standouts though were The Tomb, The Music of Eric Zhan, and (of course) The Dunwich Horror.

I was surprised by how poorly written I found most of these to be when Lovecraft as a genre has managed to exhibit such staying power in the world.

My advice, don’t bother and read adaptations of the Lovecraft mythos instead. They contain more compelling stories told in better prose.
Profile Image for Lola Pearce.
84 reviews4 followers
February 18, 2025
I was largely struck by how openly racist Lovecraft was.
Though the stories themselves were quite entertaining, they did remind me of penny dreadfuls, Poe, A. Conan Doyle and others.
I’m a big horror fan, but I wasn’t impressed with this work, and feel his cult following is misguided.
2 stars from me.
Profile Image for Javier Cali.
24 reviews
December 5, 2022
El Necronomicón es un libro ficticio sobre conjuros y rituales antiguos dentro del universo de Lovecraft.

Esta edición de pasta dura y hojas negras es en realidad un compilado de historias del mismo autor. Mi favorita fue “La sombra sobre Innsmouth”.
Profile Image for Miloš.
Author 2 books29 followers
August 4, 2012
Well, I thought that this book will be very, very good, but instead...
I was disappointed.
Profile Image for William  Catalán.
82 reviews10 followers
July 22, 2020
Un punto de vista interesante sobre lo que podría ser el necronomicon, tomando bases historias hasta mágicas.
Profile Image for Alberto  Zavala .
33 reviews
September 17, 2021
Una colección de relatos bastante acertada.

1. Algunas notas sobre alguien insignificante

2. La Historia del Necronomicon.

3. La sombra sobre Innsmouth.

4. El horror de Dunwich.

5. Él
Profile Image for Rusty.
127 reviews3 followers
May 14, 2024
"loathsomeness waits and dreams in the deep"

An anthology of short stories by horror master and racist prick, H. P. Lovecraft. It's missing a few big hitters such as Innsmouth and Mountains of Madness, but there's more than enough here to please fans of cosmic horror. I've written a short review for each story, perhaps to drive myself mad, which I'm sure Lovecraft would appreciate.

Dagon - The Gibbous Moon and more architectural murals showing fishlike horrors. I wasn't really sure what was going on in this one, but water is pretty scary.
5/10

Herbert West: Reanimatior - Two medical students do their best Dr Frankenstein impersonations. With added grave robbing and eventually, murder. The reanimated are more violent and less human than Shelley's Monster. Herbert West becomes the monster in a way.
"The body must have looked even worse in life". In reference to a 'negro' boxer, who is also described as 'gorilla like'. Wow...
7.5/10

The Lurking Fear - Dark things uncovered beneath a ruined mansion. Cursed family dug too deeply. The narration is deep, bassy and very robotic. The worst so far, displaying very little emotion. The story reminds me of the video game Darkest Dungeon.
6/10

The Rats in the Walls - Would be better if not for the name chosen for the protagonist's cat, which is oft repeated. It's a racial slur. A bad one. The forbidden one that rhymes with digger and here is affixed to man. The cat is black. It might not surprise you that Lovecraft, a notorious racist, would name a cat n*****man. Incidentally Lovecraft called his real cat the same thing. The man was a racist bastard, even for his time, what more can I say, although the fact that they kept the name in the story is probably to the publisher's credit. Why sugar coat racist shit, or pretend it never happened?

Otherwise this is a pretty good tale, similar to the lurking fear in that it's about an old family who built a mansion over something horrible. Our racist hero is a descendant and him and some friends go exploring. There's also stuff with unseen rats and madness, and the sense of dread is more apparent than in TLF. I like this a little more than TLF as it contains more history and exploration, plus it isn't set in the US and has a clearer narrative. The is also the best narration so far, with some actual acting and emotion towards the end. Still, it left me wanting more and ended too soon, like a lot of these short stories.
7/10

The Whisperer in Darkness - One of the best but I listened to a standalone version before so won't review again.
7.5/10

Cool Air - I heard this one before in another collection. It's a decent enough short about a doctor Jeckyl type who looks unwell. It also contains actual dialogue which is a nice change. Not a whole of substance though, and it's not scary in the slightest.
6/10

The Call of Cthulhu - I can't help but think this would be better if it wasn't written in Lovecraft's usual first person past tense narrator voice. It causes disconnect with some of the horrific events, which happened to other people, our narrator just recounts them. Some characterisation and emotional investment would really make this story shine, as it includes horrible cults, dead cities and beings from the stars, namely, dread Cthulhu. The writing is sometimes great in this one and the narrative itself is decent, it just lacks that human connection, although perhaps that makes the alien horror all the more horrifying. The narrator is fond of the word 'mongrel' in this one, racism being harder to escape from than Cthulhu himself. The audiobook narration for this story is done by an English guy and he's really good, sounding way less robotic and full of dread.
8/10

The Colour out of Space - A great example of the mysterious and terrifying other, and the outright alien, as well as some good old fashioned body horror. Lovecraft paints a picture of creeping dread, as a visitor from the stars brings ruin to a farmstead. There was a decent nick cage adaption of the same name that's well worth checking out. The narration came from the basey robot again and was a little better here. There's even some voice acting in the few passages with dialogue.
7.5/10

The Horror at Redhook - Finally a story in the third person, albeit one with little dialogue. Still, it's a nice change of pace. This is a slow burn of a story in which a policeman delves into an unsavory part of town, Red Hook, which leads to an aristocrat who is meddling where he shouldn't. The horror and lore are a little too vague and our protagonist is reticence in investigating the really horrible stuff. Are all Lovecraft's protagonists wimps?
6.5/10

The Music of Erich Zann - Why does this mad, mute violin player, fiddle? Is his wildly beautiful music the cause of the cosmic horror over the town or is his playing keeping it at bay? That uncertainty and the vast unknown of the cosmos is focus of this short's horror. I also like that it's present tense first person for the most part.
7/10

The Shadow Out of Time - My favourite kind of Lovecraft story, full of lore, creeping horror and an intriguing premise; that premise being that an ancient alien race can project their minds into another beings body at any point in time. The evicted consciousness winds up in the now vacant alien body, where it is free to explore the and learn from them. Unfortunately the evicted's memories are erased before they are sent back (or forward) into their own time and place. The displaced time often returns to the people who were taken over as scattered fragments of memory during their dreams.

The protagonist of the story is one such person and seems to remember more than most. A good chunk of the story is him remembering and recounting his time with the cone shaped mental time travellers known as the Great Race of Yith. The fear comes not only from this violation of his mind and body, but also from what he finds out while he's part of the Great Race's society. It turns out that they were once at war with the old ones, a race of eldritch beings from the stars. The great race managed to defeat them, sealing them away beneath the earth in massive vaults. These dark vaults are noticed by our protagonist during his stay with the Great Race, and he notices that they are poorly guarded, and weakening. Back in his own body he hears from a colleague that something very similar has been found in the Australian outback...
8.5/10

The Dunwich Horror - Another winner, the Dunwich Horror is more traditional in its storytelling. There's a backwards out of the way village, an inbred, monstrous looking aristocratic family who largely keep to themselves, -when they aren't disappearing villagers and carrying out strange rituals- a giant invisible beast that needs slaying and a group of university educated men ready to carry out the task. There's more if a traditional narrative to TDH which I like although the broken English some of the characters speak makes it difficult to follow at times.
7.5/10

The Haunter of the Dark - I kept zoning in and out while listening to this one. Partly due to the return of the bassy monotone narrator. He's like the love child of James Earl Jones and a sat nav. The story didn't grab me all that much either, as it's time after the fact in a tension killing perspective. It's generally light on horror and wild imagery. Forgettable.
4.5/10

The Outsider - Nothing is more horrifying thann ones own reflection. This short had Amnesia: The Dark Descent vibes so was pretty decent.
6/10

The shunned House - Sentient malevolent mushrooms in the basement. I think that was the plot. Oh, and they were French. And possibly possessed.
5/10

The Unamenable - The unreviewable
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The Thing on the Doorstep - Body snatching horror, insanity, black magic and walking corpses, TTotD is a really good short and builds well. Also a tie in with the fishy folk of Innsmouth, which I liked.
8/10

Under the Pyramids - A nice change of setting as we travel to Egypt and find out that those monuments to dead kings may be built upon temples to gods far older and more terrifying than the dead gods of Egypt. This time the racism and xenophobia is aimed at Arabs which I guess you could say is refreshing, but only when applied to a bigot like Lovecraft. Still this one is pretty good as it plays upon those mysteries of Egypt and our fascination with that ancient culture.
7/10

All told this is a good collection of Lovecraft stories, with a few exceptions and a couple of glaring omissions. I just wish they'd chosen better narrators for the audiobook, but at least we aren't stuck with just one. There's a good variety to the stories although there are obviously themes and similarities, and I'm not just talking about the racism. Most stories are written in the first person, past tense, in the form of recollections, and the majority of the protagonists are pretty cowardly, unable to view the alien monstrosities for more than a few moments without fainting, or going mental. Still, good stuff.

Audiobook - 7.5/10
Profile Image for Emannuel K..
211 reviews17 followers
April 15, 2019
Finalmente terminei esse livro. Em muitos momentos pensei que fosse desistir. Acho que é o maior livro que já li, o GR nem conta o número de páginas. É, basicamente, a obra completa do Lovecraft. Pelo menos toda a parte que ele escreveu sozinho. Os primeiros contos são leituras bem arrastadas. Dá desânimo de ler. Esse livro usa uma ordem mais ou menos cronológica da obra, com algumas poucas alterações. Dá para ver como ele melhorou muito com o tempo. E conforme as histórias foram ficando mas longas. As melhores passam do tamanho de conto para o de novela ou até de romances curtos. A quantidade de problemas não é pequena. Lovecraft foi, reconhecidamente, uma pessoa com uma visão de mundo problemática, e o tipo de autor que deixa isso transparecer em sua obra. É interessante ver como aquilo que ele considera uma das coisas mais assustadoras de todas é a mesma que estimula tanta gente a gostar de ficção-científica ou de ciência (especialmente astronomia) de forma mais direta: a grandeza do universo, as possibilidades de coisas absolutamente diferentes existirem onde menos imaginamos. Esse medo do desconhecido é, de certa forma, a base para uma série de parábolas do autor acerca da decadência e dos riscos que ameaçam a sua ideia de civilização. Ao mesmo tempo, é fácil de entender porque sua obra se tornou o fundamento da literatura de horror no último século. Embora escreva mal, seus recursos literários e narrativos são eficientes, eram muito originais na época (e ainda hoje me parecem possibilitar um horror interessante, do ponto de vista do leitor) e coalescem na criação de uma mitologia que interconecta uma série de histórias separadas, algo tão popular que é basicamente o trunfo dos filmes de super-heróis contemporâneos. Não tive tanto medo hoje quanto quando li alguns dos contos de Lovecraft na infância. Na verdade, a maior parte não é realmente assustador, mas talvez causasse mais reações em quem não conhecesse a parte teórica da coisa. Ainda mais do que todos esses elementos, o ponto forte de Lovecraft é juntar, nessa sua mitologia, elementos de horror, fantasia, ficção-científica, contos de fantasma vitorianos e outras tantas coisas e, ainda assim, criar uma coisa coesa, o tal do weird. A verdade é que não teria lido tudo isso se não tivesse um interesse acadêmico nesse gênero, assim como no gótico, mas acho que a leitura de uma seleção mais curta de seus contos pode ser mais interessante para todo mundo que curte esses gêneros ou quer conhecer um pouco da história de seu desenvolvimento, nem que seja para criticar de forma mais embasada.
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