Customer Reviews:
Classic Lovecraft.......2007-09-29
Even though this edition of Lovecraft's tales is very good, I feel it should have included more stories and maybe essays that he wrote.
a shocking little horrific gem.......2007-09-25
As always Lovecraft delves in to the the fullest depths of sleep and enters a dark, frightening tealight glow of the night. Old houses, attics and basements are filled with morbid interest. His abhorrent vidid and candid tales of the hideous create an astonishing dread in his readers. I know -for I am one.
He creates 3-dimensional worlds through his words of crawling, monstrous climaxes of intense dreamlike state horror. His writings are swirling and surreal chaos.
The quality of the pages and the beautiful binding of this book makes this book worth every penny... either that, or he has me hellbound and lost deep in a slumber to stop me from feeling too bad about spending what I did. Either way -I'm in his roaring twilight abyss and happy to be there.
A solid collection of Science Fiction/Horror classics.......2007-09-20
H. P. Lovecraft is recognized as one of the greatest horror writers of the bygone age. This neatly bound book not only contains his best short stories, but is also an aesthetic item in itself. The smooth, crisply printed sleeve, combined with its thick, sturdy cover give the impression that this book BELONGS amongst the classics of literature. Note that this book is a medium sized codex, with medium sized print (for those of you who might have to worry about shelf space or have trouble reading).
Be warned, though, this volume does NOT contain ALL of his short stories.
That is perhaps the only reason I cannot give this book five stars in recommendation.
Very attractive collection of stories........2007-08-28
I've only recently started reading H.P. Lovecraft with the purchase of two books from Amazon. And while I've only sampled a few of his stories so far, this particular book is very nice to have on my shelf regardless of how big a fan I become.
Under the black, dust cover it is a very plain, classical looking book that suits the atmosphere of Lovecraft's writings very well.
The only thing that would make it seem like even more of a tome would be if it were about four times larger.
But if you can picture yourself in a housecoat, sitting in a musty old wing back chair, smoking a cigar or a pipe and sipping a goblet of wine or brandy, while letting yourself get lost in a fine book, this is the one for you.
It's just that classy.
Horsewhipped.......2007-08-08
A great selection except for 'Herbert West Reanimator' for which Peter Straub should be horsewhipped for including. It is Lovecraft's worst.
For anyone new to HPL or a fan should consult S T Joshi's 'Subtler Magick' Wildside Press which separates the greater from lesser in Lovie's works. It's too bad Joshi wasn't selected to to make the list. Oh well, Lovecraft will be around longer than any of us so no harm done !
Amazon.com
Lovecraft is "the American writer of the twentieth century most frequently compared with Poe, in the quality of his art ... [and] its thematic preoccupations (the obsessive depiction of psychic disintegration in the face of cosmic horror)," writes Joyce Carol Oates in the New York Review of Books. Del Rey has reprinted Lovecraft's stories in three handsome paperbacks. This first volume collects 16 classic tales, including "The Rats in the Walls," "The Call of Cthulhu," "The Dunwich Horror," and "The Colour Out of Space." Introduction by Robert Bloch. Wraparound cover art by Michael Whelan.
Book Description
This is the collection that true fans of horror fiction have been waiting for: sixteen of H.P. Lovecraft's most horrifying visions, including Lovecraft's masterpiece, THE SHADOW OUT OF TIME--the shocking revelation of the mysterious forces that hold all mankind in their fearsome grip.
"I think it is beyond doubt that H.P. Lovecraft has yet to be surpassed as the Twentieth Century's greatest practitioner of the classic horror tale."
Stephen King
Customer Reviews:
Revolutionary of Horror.......2007-09-25
So how do I describe H. P. Lovecraft? Picture Michelangelo sculpting a cow patty. The artistry is there, but everything else is wanting.
I am a big fan of anthologies. You get the wheat without having to swallow a lot of chaff.
To his credit, HPL is a master of suspense, chilling horror, and psychological misdirection. He is clearly a revolutionary in horror fiction, having the advantage over Edgar Allen Poe with the advent of Science Fiction. However, he is also a victim of his own clichés, plot ruts, and ho-hum nihilism.
(So am I reviewing HPL, or this collection? A little of both.)
My experience with HPL began with reading "The Doom That Came to Sarnath (A Del Rey Book)." When I finished, I said, "This one story is better than all The Silmarillion. I wish Tolkien could write like him."
HPL beats Tolkien on style and execution, hands down. Yet Tolkien outstrips HPL in every other aspect: plot, theme characterization, setting, and conflict. However, HPL is SO strong in style and conflict, especially psychodrama, that it is almost an even balance.
I spoke of HPL's ruts. Some stories end with a jerk, as the narrator passes out. This is a psychological deus ex machnia. But more about God in the machinery of the story later . .
His conflicts are about Man versus His Own Sanity, and Man versus Irresistible Cosmic Beings and Forces. Instead of rising up and "take arms against a sea of troubles, and by opposing end them," or by bowing down, the anti-heroes in these stories take a pointless mid-ground position. They snap into a gibbering lunacy.
HPL said it best himself when he criticized "naïvely insipid idealism" and denounced the attempts of "didactic literature to `uplift' the reader toward a suitable degree of smirking optimism." (Supernatural Horror in Literature). Why he derives a sadistic pleasure by feeding his appetite for destruction is beyond me.
Søren Kierkegaard once complained about having a melancholy arrow in his heart. He knew if he pulled it out, he would die, so he left it in and kept his gift of irony (Papers and Journals: A Selection (Penguin Classics), 268). HPL does the opposite. He also had an arrow of melancholy, ye he yanked it out, loaded his crossbow, and began shooting everyone in sight.
So much of the man, now for the collection . . .
Being a selection, this book is a best of the best. Here is my best of the best of the best.
First of all, I suggest reading the book in order, since the arraignment does have a logic behind it. "The Shadow Over Innsmouth" must come after "The Thing On The Doorstep," and the last story is a knot to all the threads of the short stories. They are knotted up, but the knot is loose, without the Disney Saccharine Ending.
But if you are in a hurry, you may wish to begin with "The Call of Cthulhu." This is the keystone myth for HPL's whole legendarium. The story will seem familiar, since it was vulgarized in both "Ghostbusters Double Feature Gift Set (Ghostbusters/ Ghostbusters 2 and Commerative Book)" films.
"The Silver Key" reminded me of George MacDonald's "The Golden Key and Other Stories (Fantasy Stories of George MacDonald)" or a darker version of "The Chronicles of Narnia." "The Music of Erich Zhan" is a quirky tale with a core of friendship lurking behind it. "The Dunwich Horror" and "The Colour Out of Space" are good, solid SF/Horror stories. If you are a fan of the Twilight Zone, the you'll love the feel of these stories. The anthology ends on a prospective note with "The Shadow Out Of Time." This is a cross between "Last and First Men and Star Maker : Two Science Fiction Novels" and "The Time Ships."
The best story out of the lot is "The Thing On the Doorstep." This story has HPL only truly heroic character--Edward Derby.
SPOILERS:
Derby is so stout of heart and has such a sharp sense of justice and duty that while being trapped in his dead wife's decaying body--three months old and liquefying--he claws his way out of the shallow grave, marches over to Daniel Upton's doorstep, and issues the Call to Adventure to kill the evil Ephraim. Therefore Derby is quintessentially Christic Albeit a moldy, fetid, and crude Christic figure, but one nonetheless. It parallels Christ's Resurrection and issuing the Great Commission to the Apostles on the Olivet.
Additionally you have Cosmic Justice being satisfied. Upton is able to avenge his best friend's death (Gilgamesh here) and stop the demon body-snatcher from further menace.
This story would make an hour long and very dark Twilight Zone story. Yet it would be worth it because the key element of justice--righting a wrongful death, death of a villain, and Derby's Herculean effort to deliver the critical massage to Upton. If only HPL could have written more stories like this. Not with happy endings--Derby does not get his body back--but with just endings like Oedipus, Jack Bauer, Beowulf: A New Verse Translation (Bilingual Edition), or Ender's Game (Ender, Book 1).
2/3 great, 1/3 mediocre........2007-09-24
This is not really 'the best of Lovecraft' collection. It doesn't include "At the Mountains of Madness" and "The Case of Charles Dexter Ward".
Of the 16 stories in this collection only 9 are really great. Three others "The Rats in the Walls", "The Outsider" and "The Silver Key" are good. The rest don't belong in this collection at all. Especially generic, forgettable crap like "The Picture in the House", "Pickman's Model" and "In the Vault". I don't understand what the publisher was thinking. They should have included "Cool Air", "Dagon", and "The Lurking Fear" instead.
Still at least 9 of the stories in this book are essential for any fan of Lovecraft's work. These include "The Call of the Cthulhu", "The Dunwich Horror", "The Whisperer in Darkness", "The Colour out of Space", "The Haunter of the Dark", "The Thing on the Doorstep", "The Shadow Over Innsmouth", "The Dreams in the Witch House", and "The Shadow Out of Time". For this reason it's still worth buying, I just wish someone would publish the 'best of Lovecraft' collection that's truly only the very best.
Shub niggurath never tasted so good..........2007-09-13
What can I say about Lovecraft that hasn't been said before? He's the first and real master of Gothic horror. Forget Stephen King, forget Clive Barker, forget 'em all cept for maybe Edgar Allen Poe himself. Lovecraft gets better as the years go by--his archaic language only adds to the layers of creepiness.
A Chilling Read.......2007-08-07
H.P Lovecraft scares me worse than any Stephan King novel. His combinations of graphic descriptions, eerie settings, odd circumstances, and unique characters come together to scare the reader on a whole new level.
SLOW DOWN!!!.......2007-07-09
There's not much to say about Lovecraft and his work, and of its quality. What I feel to urge those starting the book is to take it slow, not trying to read it all at once. I personally felt the experience growing quite boring after the first five or six stories in a row. The rich and retro style of Lovecraft's is rather enjoyable if not abused...then it just gets dull and almost annoying. So I advise this anthology, but I'd advise to read it in more takes.
Amazon.com
"One is drawn into Lovecraft by the very air of plausibility and characteristic understatement of the prose, the question being When will the weirdness strike?" writes Joyce Carol Oates in The New York Review of Books. Del Rey has reprinted Lovecraft's stories in three large-format paperbacks. This second volume, 25 tales in all, collects the classic "Case of Charles Dexter Ward," the phantasmagoric novel "The Dream-Quest of Unknown Kadath," several fantasies inspired by Lord Dunsany and other stories. Introduction by Neil Gaiman (author of the Sandman comics).
Book Description
"[Lovecraft's] dream fantasy works are as terrifying and haunting as his tales of horror and the macabre. A master craftsman, Lovecraft brings compelling visions of nightmarish fear, invisible worlds and the demons of the unconscious. If one author truly represents the very best in American literary horror, it is H. P. Lovecraft."
--John Carpenter, Director of At the Mouth of Madness, Halloween,
and Christine
This volume collects, for the first time, the entire Dream Cycle created by H. P. Lovecraft, the master of twentieth-century horror, including some of his most fantastic tales:
THE DOOM THAT CAME TO SARNATH--Hate, genocide, and a deadly curse consume the land of Mnar.
THE STATEMENT OF RANDOLPH CARTER--"You fool, Warren is DEAD!"
THE NAMELESS CITY--Death lies beneath the shifting sands, in a story linking the Dream Cycle with the legendary Cthulhu Mythos.
THE CATS OF ULTHAR--In Ulthar, no man may kill a cat...and woe unto any who tries.
THE DREAM QUEST OF UNKNOWN KADATH--The epic nightmare adventure with tendrils stretching throughout the entire Dream Cycle.
AND TWENTY MORE TALES OF SURREAL TERROR
Download Description
This volume collects, for the first time, the entire Dream Cycle created by H. P. Lovecraft, the master of twentieth-century horror, including some of his most fantastic tales:
-
The Doom That Came to Sarnath—Hate, genocide, and a deadly curse consume the land of Mnar
-
The Statement of Randolph Carter—"You fool, Warren is DEAD!"
-
The Nameless City—Death lies beneath the shifting sands, in a story linking the Dream Cycle with the legendary Cthulhu Mythos
-
The Cats of Ulthar—In Ulthar, no man may kill a cat... and woe unto any who tries
-
The Dream Quest of Unknown Kadath—The epic nightmare adventure with tendrils stretching throughout the entire Dream Cycle
and twenty more tales of surreal terror.
With an introduction by Neil Gaiman.
"Like no other writers dead or alive, Lovecraft can infuse a reader with pure mind-numbing terror. His philosophy is simple: Man is lucky to be ignorant, because if he knew the truth it would either destroy him or drive him mad. Once you read Lovecraft, you will never be the same again."
STUART GORDON, DIRECTOR, RE-ANIMATOR, FROM BEYOND
"Reading Lovecraft is more than experiencing the creations of a bizarre and fitful mind through the medium of exquisite prose. It's far more chilling than that.... What you read is what he lived and that's the scariest thing of all"
WALTER KOENIG, ACTOR STAR TREK
Customer Reviews:
Not Free SF Reader.......2007-09-02
A collection of Lovecraft's stories chosen with the dream as a theme of them. A natural for an introduction to such a bunch of stories is therefore Neil Gaiman, the Dream King. He tells why he has been influenced by Lovecraft, and of others, and mentions a few Mythos stories he has done, as well as the fact it is likely to happen again.
So, if you are a Randolph Carter fan, this is a pretty good one.
Dreams of Terror and Death : Azathoth - H. P. Lovecraft
Dreams of Terror and Death : The Descendant - H. P. Lovecraft
Dreams of Terror and Death : The Thing in the Moonlight - H. P. Lovecraft
Dreams of Terror and Death : Polaris - H. P. Lovecraft
Dreams of Terror and Death : Beyond the Wall of Sleep - H. P. Lovecraft
Dreams of Terror and Death : The Doom That Came to Sarnath - H. P. Lovecraft
Dreams of Terror and Death : The Statement of Randolph Carter - H. P. Lovecraft
Dreams of Terror and Death : The Cats of Ulthar - H. P. Lovecraft
Dreams of Terror and Death : Celephais - H. P. Lovecraft
Dreams of Terror and Death : From Beyond - H. P. Lovecraft
Dreams of Terror and Death : Nyarlathotep - H. P. Lovecraft
Dreams of Terror and Death : The Nameless City - H. P. Lovecraft
Dreams of Terror and Death : The Other Gods - H. P. Lovecraft
Dreams of Terror and Death : Ex Oblivione - H. P. Lovecraft
Dreams of Terror and Death : The Quest of Iranon - H. P. Lovecraft
Dreams of Terror and Death : The Hound - H. P. Lovecraft
Dreams of Terror and Death : Hypnos - H. P. Lovecraft
Dreams of Terror and Death : What the Moon Brings - H. P. Lovecraft
Dreams of Terror and Death : Pickman's Model - H. P. Lovecraft
Dreams of Terror and Death : The Dream Quest of Unknown Kadath - H. P. Lovecraft
Dreams of Terror and Death : The Silver Key - H. P. Lovecraft
Dreams of Terror and Death : The Strange High House in the Mist - H. P. Lovecraft
Dreams of Terror and Death : The Case of Charles Dexter Ward - H. P. Lovecraft
Dreams of Terror and Death : The Dreams in the Witch-House - H. P. Lovecraft
Dreams of Terror and Death : Through the Gates of the Silver Key - H. P. Lovecraft
Star naming.
3 out of 5
Necronomicon purchase leaves death as something that is not too scary afterwards.
3.5 out of 5
Night car wolves.
3.5 out of 5
Starry wanderings.
3.5 out of 5
White trash dream space journey death discovery.
4 out of 5
Monster mash, idol's revenge on old city destroyers.
4 out of 5
Investigating legions of monsters equals fair chance someone dies.
4 out of 5
Kitty killers meet their self-imposed feline fate.
3.5 out of 5
Childhood visions visitation.
3.5 out of 5
If you look for space monsters, they just might get you.
4 out of 5
Egyptian Old One visit.
4 out of 5
A traveller finds a city under the sand, and exploring, a doorway into it. He explores for a time, but strange noises start coming close:
"I fell babbling over and over that unexplainable couplet of the mad
Arab Alhazred, who dreamed of the nameless city:
That is not dead which can eternal lie,
And with strange aeons even death may die."
He eventually makes it out.
4 out of 5
Belay well if climbing before checking these guys out.
3.5 out of 5
Sleep search.
3.5 out of 5
City finding.
3 out of 5
Winged dog amulet cult symbol.
3 out of 5
Sleep a bit draining.
3 out of 5
Lunar light, beach bad thing.
3 out of 5
Creepy paintings have too real subjects.
4 out of 5
Your average tourist generally knows where he is going and doesn't seek out Great Old Ones and consider encountering the Crawling Chaos Nyarlathotep. Randy is an adventurer that is not even close to easily scared.
5 out of 5
After opening the iron box and finding what was in it, no one can find Randolph Carter anymore.
4 out of 5
Old man's Elder Ones undersea tales.
4 out of 5
Lengthy investigations of Yog-Sothoth are bad for your mental health.
3.5 out of 5
Talented broke mathematics students should choose other places to study than in a house in Arkham with space-time continuum conduits, witches, and vampire rats.
4.5 out of 5
Randolph, in disguise tells of space, time, Necronomicons and Ancient Ones. One hell of a trip.
4.5 out of 5
4.5 out of 5
Weird fiction.......2007-08-12
In Neil Gaiman's Introduction to the collection Dreams of Terror and Death - The Dream Cycle of H.P. Lovecraft, Fantasy and Horror are described as two cities divided by a river and Lovecraft is the road between the two. I go a little further and state that it is really a sparsely populated town called Weird, of which Lovecraft is founder and mayor (other, younger residents include Clive Barker). You won't find the genre of weird fiction in any book store, but it exists nonetheless, part horror, part fantasy and part something unique in itself.
Dreams of Terror and Death collects a series of short stories and novellas by Lovecraft that are loosely joined together as his Dream Cycle. In most of these stories, there is a second reality beyond our own, one that can usually only be reached when a person sleeps and enters into another state of consciousness. Not everyone can do this, only a gifted (or is it cursed?) few. Those who enter this Dream World often want to stay there, but it isn't easy, and the price is often great.
By many standards of judging fiction, Lovecraft comes short. He isn't much for plot. Most of the stories seem to share the same basic framework: a man driven by obsession seeks knowledge (or a place) that is not meant for mortals to know (or see), and when he attains his goal, it is not what he expects. Similarly, there isn't much in the way of characterization; the few characters have little in way of personality beyond their obsessions. The variety of characters are minimal, with only adult males having any significant role; women and children rarely appear, and when they do, they contribute almost nothing to the story.
Outweighing these seeming deficiencies, however, are Lovecraft's powers of description, which fashion worlds that are bizarre and utterly alien, populated by strange creatures and distant, even stranger gods. The novella The Dream Quest of Unknown Kadath is really the centerpiece of this cycle, with protagonist Randolph Carter (who also appears in other stories) searching for a lost, forbidden city in the Dream World.
For a modern reader, Lovecraft's style of writing can be a bit of a chore, at least at first. With a huge emphasis on description and much less in the way of action or dialogue, Lovecraft tends more towards an older, maybe 19th Century form of narrative. This makes the reading slow, but it is ultimately rewarding, not only for itself but for its historical value; Lovecraft is hugely influential on modern horror writers. So if you're a fan of horror or fantasy, this hybrid is a must-read.
First Time Lovecraft Reader is Hooked.......2007-06-14
So I was roaming around the bookstore one day, and lazily thinking of names of stories and authors that I had heard good things about, and at one point it fell on Lovecraft. I was looking for a "complete works" edition and found that there is no such book. So which collection to try? This is the one that had "a perfect introduction to his work" plastered right across it so it's the one I bought.
I found these stories, for the most part, not to be horrifying, but interesting all the same. Then I catch on that hey, these short stories are all connected. That added to my interest, as I would flip back and find a name I remembered hearing before that at the time seemed to matter not a whole lot.
The longer stories are what make me want to find more Lovecraft. "The Dream Quest of Unknown Kadath", "The Dreams in the Witch House" (spooky), and "Through the gates of the Silver key." (Which felt like one of those old Twilight Zone Shows). The other stories were passable, but more importantly, contain background data that the later better stories stand on.
So yes, this is a good intro to Mr Lovecraft. If you are reading for the first time, take your time to wade though the "so-so" stuff to the "good" stuff.
Also, when I was done I noted that the cover picture had nothing to do with the inside of the book. It was just some random (?) Horror art that was pasted on. It was slightly annoying. People would walk by and say "my gosh what *are* you reading?"
"Well, you see it's this story about people that are mean to cats and..."
"Whatevers..."
Even Death May Die.......2007-05-05
While not the best Lovecraft collection, this one is well worth reading if only to get a serious case of the creeps. ("The Case of Charles Dexter Ward" will do it by itself.)
Centered around dreams, the stories in this collection can be hard to get through at times, but there is usually a tremendous pay off. If this is your first experience with Lovecraft, however, there are better places to begin, as this collection contains some early writings that just aren't up to snuff with is later material.
Lovecraft fans will have already read most of these stories, and newcomers may be put off by them, but for those who have experienced one or two tales before, this is a great way to become more familiar with the writer and his worlds.
Extraordinary images, delicious writing.......2007-03-02
These days i find myself sadly jaded. I pick up books, read partway through, and lose interest... either because the plot is too predictable (been there, read that, know what's going to happen) or because the writing is mediocre. I find that good writing is increasingly important to me as I get older.
So, a couple of years back when I picked up this collection in a bookstore and started to read, my happy little synapses started firing as they hadn't in quite a while. Lovecraft writes more hauntingly than most anyone; I mean this in the sense of conveying extraordinary images and a sense of fabulous unworldliness, in language that is so deliciously balanced, complex and graceful that it makes one slow down and read every word.
At times dark and macabre, at others lyrical and filled with magic, the stories here really do have the quality of dreams. One encounters lost or fabulous worlds, and intimations of age-old terror. I was instantly transported into Lovecraft's world, and return there periodically to lose myself in his magic, and to recall that once upon a time, people could use the English language to enchant.
Here is the opening to "Azathoth", the first brief story (which is unfinished). If you like this language and the rich concepts it conveys, I promise that you'll love the rest of the book:
"When age fell upon the world, and wonder went out of the minds of men; when grey cities reared to smoky skies tall towers grim and ugly, in whose shadow none might dream of the sun or of Spring's flowering meads; when learning stripped the Earth of her mantle of beauty and poets sang no more of twisted phantoms seen with bleared and inward looking eyes; when these things had come to pass, and childish hopes had gone forever, there was a man who traveled out of life on a quest into spaces whither the world's dreams had fled."
Sigh. Now THAT'S writing...
Customer Reviews:
The ultimate HP Lovecraft volume.......2007-09-27
This is the ultimate book by Howard Phillips Lovecraft (1890-1937), being part 1 in a 4-volume series completing the editing and publishing of his entire known prose work, not including his poems. All you really need to know about this book is the names of a few of the tales included, we're talking the best of the best of horror, sci-fi & weird tales here, in my opinion; "The Colour out of Space", "The Music of Erich Zann", "The Call of Cthulhu", "The Dunwich Horror", "The Whisperer in the Darkness", "The Shadow over Innsmouth" and "The Shadow out of Time" among others. These tales represent some of my decidedly favourite literature, and I've been returning to these tales again and again for more than 10 years now. It is kind of hard to summarize the book, since it is mostly shorter stories, but Lovecraft takes you on a journey from the deepest bottom of the ocean to the highest mountainpeak, from distant planets and solarsystems to remote, dark valleys and towns, from the darkest parts of the inner earth to the fringes of the human mind, among other places.
Lovecraft is really experiencing a renaissance these days, and it is well deserved. Never really acknowledged in his living days, he is finally taking his place among the ranks of the great US authors. The tales are not dated at all, but paint a very vivid picture of Lovecraft's own period of time. Though you often "see" the ending coming before you finish a tale of his, you still get pulled into the tale, unable to close it before finding out the terrible and magnificent end you have in store for you. As I said, these tales are really the prime of his writing, although his two longer tales are to be found in one of the other 4 volumes, also sold here on Amazon, which I'll review in due time.
Film-versions of some of his tales have started popping up from time to time, recently some of them of quite well-made quality, which makes me recommend readers to read the tales, and then watch the films, a lovely experience. Joshi has done a great job editing the tales into what I assume will be the standard edition of the texts, as close to Lovecraft's original intent as possible. The introduction to the book by the liberal Jewish author Robert Bloch I found to be a worthless introduction that twists Lovecraft's mode of thought into something quite different from what he would have enjoyed. Yes, Lovecraft was a staunch racialist and conservative, but so what? Who can say he was wrong today, with the direction the West is taking, well on its way to its own death, as he foresaw.
To summarize; one of my decidedly favourite books, in a sturdy hardcover with glossy quality dustjacket written well before the madness of "political correctness". Give Lovecraft a spot on your shelf, you won't regret it. Highly recommended!
Buy this book ! .......2006-06-03
If you are a real lovecraftian fanatic buy this book ! It 's hard cover not cheap paper back
About this edition . . . ........2006-05-03
I will not try to write a complete review, since I see that there are already 17 reviews available here, several of fine quality.
This edition is of great interest because it issues from Arkham House. Arkham House publishing was founded by August Derleth, a protege of H.P. Lovecraft who himself wrote a rather large volume of pastiche material using the Cthulhu mythos of Lovecraft. One motive of Derleth's in founding Arkham House publishing was to find a medium to reissue all the writings of Lovecraft, since many were confined to the pulps like Weird Tales that had first printed them.
I recently purchased this book. The quality of the book is excellent. The print is clear and easy to read. The bookbinding quality is just excellent. This may explain why the book is not particularly cheap.
As for the contents, readers may be glad to know that this book contains much of the very finest writing Lovecraft produced. The short novels were written following Lovecraft's return from his years living in New York, and follow the breakup of his marriage. This "period" of about a decade marked the finest of Lovecraft's writings. In my opinion -- arguably -- "At the Mountains of Madness" and "The Case of Charles Dexter Ward" are the best works in the Lovecraft canon. A few other words might come up to them, but nothing's better.
Those who find Lovecraft interesting should also check out the writings of August Derleth that incorporate Lovecraft's "Cthulhu mythos." There is also a board game entitled "Arkham Horror" which attempts to recreate the scary Lovecraft universe on your card table. Whacky as this sounds, the game is fun to play.
So have at it! Scare yourselves silly! I love this sort of material myself.
Preponderant Lovecraft has no comparison in the horror genre.......2006-04-10
This book is without question an astounding piece of horror literature. With such classics as The Dunwich Horror, The Call of the Cthulhu and other shuddersome stories, H.P. Lovecraft creates a world in which the supernatural ingress the real world and makes its hideous presence felt.
No other author can adequately replicate H.P. Lovecraft except during the times when they're trying (often with great disappointment) to be like Lovecraft. They, at best, plummet in their endeavors as a feeble simulacrum of the real master of horror. If you like horror and have never read Lovecraft, you either don't like horror as much as you think you do, or you have been missing out on a formidable force who has influenced just about every horror writer alive today.
Not your average horror novel.......2005-01-22
H.P. Lovecraft's "The Dunwich Horror" is an exquisite, and compelling horror story that remains to be one of Lovecrafts finest pieces of literature. The novel is well written with the descriptive flair, and style that only Lovecraft can express. It's not your average horror novel, and a must read for any fan of the horror genre.
Average customer rating:
- These stories are not for the Lovecraft uninitiated...
- The Lovecraft Experience
- Master Collection!!!
- The greatest writer of all time!
- a very good book
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Dagon and Other Macabre Tales
H. P. Lovecraft ,
T. E. Klein , and
S. T. Joshi
Manufacturer: Arkham House Publishers
ProductGroup: Book
Binding: Hardcover
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Similar Items:
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At the Mountains of Madness and Other Novels
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The Horror in the Museum
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The Ancient Track: The Complete Poetical Works of H. P. Lovecraft
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H.P. Lovecraft: A Life
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Tales of the Cthulhu Mythos
ASIN: 0870540394 |
Customer Reviews:
These stories are not for the Lovecraft uninitiated..........2000-12-21
This collection of work ranks as my second favorite, falling just short of "At the Mountains of Madness" also published by Arkham house. It contains most of his earlier works, and does a better job providing the reader with a glimpse of the forces which shaped his work through the years than any other collection could hope to. If you are new to Lovecraft, these works would probably not be appreciated as much as others. They are much more enjoyable when one has a better understanding of what Lovecraft is all about. I would suggest starting with the collection "The Dunwich Horror and Others" also by Arkham house. It contains most of Lovecraft's most popular work, including "The Call of Cthulhu" and "The Colour out of Space". For any fan or collecter of Lovecraft, however, this book is an absolute must have.
The Lovecraft Experience.......2000-09-27
In my humble opinion, there are two ways to read Lovecraft. The first, and best, is to get your hands on an original "Wierd Tales" or other pulp. There is something about the musty smell that adds to the tale. For true conisours, read them under the covers with a flashlight, late in the evening hours.
Realizing that original pulps may be prohibitively expensive, the Arkham House Editions are the next option. These hardback treasures are as much a part of Lovecraft's legacy as the stories themselves. Lovecraft would be all but forgotten if it were not for the small circle of friends who founded Arkham House, with the sole mission of keeping his writings in print. Arkham House is the definitive Lovecraft volume.
The stories in "Dagon and Other MacAbre Tales" are classics, including "Herbert West Re-Animator," "The Doom That Came to Sarnath," "The Strange High House in the Mist," "The Cats of Ulthar ," "Dagon," "Facts Concerning the Late Arthur Jermyn and His Family ," "The Lurking Fear ," "The Transition of Juan Romero ," and his acclaimed essay "Supernatural Horror in Literature [revised] ."
Master Collection!!!.......1999-05-12
This book contains such greats as Herbert West - Re-animator, and The Strange Case of Arthur Jemyem and his Family. The Arkham House editions are the definitive Lovecraft Library. A definite must have.
The greatest writer of all time!.......1998-01-07
I highly recommend everything Lovecraft wrote. Few people are ever blessed with the talent for writing about the macabre and the fantastic. Lovecraft was the greatest. He explored the deepest secrets beneath and went to realms unfathomable. There will only be one H.P. Lovecraft and he should be acknowledged world-wide for his accomplishments. This book is one of three hardcovers that contain most, if not all, of his work. Turn out the lights and spark a flame while reading this one. Explore the unknown and dare places feared by man...
a very good book.......1997-04-21
I loved this book. It actually made me afraid. Not of guns or violence, but of things that could really happen. This book toyed with my mind so much so that I couldn't read it at night. If you are into strange and wonderful writings then you should read this as an introduction to all of H.P. Lovecrafts other works. I am still afraid of boats and of other "un-namable things"
Book Description
A complete short novel, AT THE MOUNTAINS OF MADNESS is a tale of terror unilke any other. The Barren, windswept interior of the Antarctic plateau was lifeless--or so the expedition from Miskatonic University thought. Then they found the strange fossils of unheard-of creatures...and the carved stones tens of millions of years old...and, finally, the mind-blasting terror of the City of the Old Ones. Three additional strange tales, written as only H.P. Lovecraft can write, are also included in this macabre collection of the strange and the weird.
Customer Reviews:
The stories are great, but...................2007-08-31
I'm a big fan of HPL and try to get everything out by him. But i must say that there are many better one-volume introduction to HPL out there right now. Try The Call of Cthulhu (Penguin Modern Classics) The Call of Cthulhu (Penguin Modern Classics) This is imho the best introduction to HPL.
The stories get 5 stars, this volume gets 2.
One of the all-time classic novellas of eldritch horror.......2007-08-19
What can you say about one of the all-time classic horror novellas by one of the founding fathers of the Eldritch horror genre ?
"At The Mountains of Madness" (henceforth ATMoM), was penned in 1931, and relates the disturbing tale of the ill-fated geological expedition, sent by Miskatonic University, to that most distant, inaccesible, and mysterious of all wastelands ... the frozen depths of Antartica.
Unspeakable horrors and mysteries await them, as well as bizarre discoveries that threaten to turn the entire scientific community on it's head - nightmarish fossils, mindboggling geologic formations, and the remains of an alien civilization that predates humanity by many millions of years, and which were hitherto only hinted at in the most crazed ramblings of exceedingly rare and closely guarded tomes of accursed lore.
ATMoM is a highly recommended, and (in it's day, highly original) tale. It's a fast read, and it's datedness adds to, rather than detracts from, the creepy ambience of the overall story. Better still, the patent on HPL's works have now lapsed, and his entire body of work is now legally in the public domain, and can be read on-line for FREE.
It gets a solid 5 stars from me.
p.s. An interesting footnote from real life: my Uncle served in the US Navy during WWII. After the war, one of the places he was stationed for a while was in Antarctica, back in the 1950's. He's seen, and camped at, some of the places that are portrayed in ATMoM ... including Mt. Erebus, McMurdo Sound, and others. That added an interesting spin for me, when I read it.
[ADDENDUM] For those of you who are already HLP fans, this book lays out the history and origins of "The Old Ones", the Shoggoth servitor race, The Plateau of Leng, and it also makes passing references to the nighmarish mountain-cities of kadath, which are further expounded on in another of HPL's classic novellas, "The Dream Quest of Unknown Kadath".
Dark stories and purple prose.......2007-05-09
This book proves Lovecraft's mastery of the supernatural horror story, not that the point needed proving. These four stories, from novella-length to 6 pages, show Lovecraft's eerie skill at its best: the slow build of creeping terror, all the way to mind-shattering crescendo. Somehow, and this is his true genius, he carries the reader through the building terror, without ever clearly defining its subject. By the time each of lovecraft's stories is told, you probably don't even want light shined into that darkness, for fear that the shape of his demons will be worse than the formless fear.
The first story spans geologic time, when explorers discover beings from the earth's earlier ages. Despite a gory mishap, the surviving scientists insist on tracking the ancients through the inhuman goemetries of a city hidden in the last unexplored wasteland on earth. Then , when the searchers nearly catch up to the deadly creatures in the caverns below the city's ruins, they are turned back by something far darker. If that story builds too slowly for a modern action-junkie, then I recommend the last in this book. In about 6 pages, a man too exhausted with terror to care about his own execution recounts a tale with a startling punchline.
Outside of the B-movie plots and storytelling, the fun of reading Lovecraft lies in the rolling cadences of his language. One could almost use his books as a thesaurus of the eldritch and evil. If there could possibly be a vocabulary of the unspeakable, it would be Lovecraft's. Even if this genre doesn't suit you, it may still be worthwhile to experience the dark blossom of his florid writing.
-- wiredweird
Witchcraft, the Old Ones, Haunted Houses, and the Undead.......2007-03-01
H. P. Lovecraft is the father of modern horror. His stories are infused with more style and substance that many modern horror novels of 300+ pages - and most of his stories are short, in the tens of pages. Lovecraft is the master of the eerie and foreboding. A constant sense of dread, uncertainty, and fear of an unknown, unnameable, and indescribable ancient, primordial evil fills the pages of his books. He utilizes a carefully constructed mythology of his own creation, using such myths as the Cthulhu, the Necronomicon, and stories of the Elders and Old Ones. His stories have a surreal and dreamlike (or nightmarish!) quality to them.
"At the Mountains of Madness" contains four stories - one of some length, over one 100 pages, and three much smaller works.
The story of the same name as the book is a story of an arctic expedition that discovers the remains of a yet unknown, intelligent extraterrestrial civilization that predates human life on earth. The survivors of this expedition have to face unknown evils lurking below the arctic surface. This is a good story set in a great location. I am a fan of the movie "The Thing" (based on Cambell's "Who Goes There?"), and I love the foreboding setting of the arctic environment. The story is good, but there are better ones.
"The Shunned House" is a story of an old shunned house with a hidden evil in the basement and a secret past. The story is of one man's efforts to unravel the mystery and put to rest the evil presence that dwells there. This is another good story, and creepier than some of the other stories in this book.
"The Dreams of the Witch-house" is a story clearly inspired by Goethe's "Faust" - even mentions witches, a character like Mephistopheles, and Walpurgis Nacht. It's a story about unbridled knowledge and witchcraft - much like "Faust." It tells of an odd room with unusual mathematical and geometric properties that enable the user to travel to other dimensions involving witchcraft. Btw, there is an episode of Showtime's Masters of Horror series based based on this story.
"The Statement of Randolph Carter" is the shortest story in the book, but one of the scariest. True to Lovecraft's style, the evil entity is never really revealed. Your own mind has to imagine the true nature of the horror. The story is about the investigation into a sepulcher by two men in an effort to discover undead beings still living there.
Overall this is a great Lovecraft book, not to be missed by those that love horror and especially Lovecraft fans.
1 out of 4 stories and still worth the purchase price.......2007-01-05
I really liked first story - The Mountains Of Madness. Yes it went on a bit but I really dug the archeological angle to the story and the fear of the survivor of that expedition. I bet that in an age of no sattelites etc, this story on the potential dangers that may lie in uncharted Antartica must have been quite chilling.
There were three other stories in here that were forgetable:
The Shunned House
The Dreams In The Witch House
The statement of Randolph Carter.
Customer Reviews:
An essential element of the Lovecraft corpus.......2004-10-11
I thought that I had a complete collection of Lovecraft's stories. However, references to "K'n-yan", "red-litten Yoth", and "Yig, Father of Snakes" would crop up and I didn't know to what it referred. By using my handy-dandy Encyclopedia Cthulhiana (whose primary function is to look in what story a particular nameless entity crops up) I discovered that I should be reading "The Horror in the Museum" and "The Mound." Wonderful, but where should I look for these tales? Enter THE HORROR IN THE MUSEUM AND OTHER REVISIONS.
This book contains 10 stories to which Lovecraft added his stamp (some of which he practically ghost-wrote). As in "The Challenge From Beyond", it is often not difficult to see the transition to Lovecraft's ... particular ... style of narration.
For the purposes of completeness of Lovecraft's corpus, I would recommend reading "The Horror in the Museum" and "The Mound". As far as I know, these stories are unavailable elsewhere. "Winged Death" and "The Curse of Yig" are in addition effective at evincing chills. The rest are so-so, and may strike your fancy, and for others will fall quite flat.
These revisions include a few of great interest to HPL fans.......2003-04-13
One of the means by which Lovecraft supported himself was in revising stories written by younger, would-be writers. These revisions are problematic because it is virtually impossible to say how much of Lovecraft himself is to be found in them. I believe that, with a few exceptions, the master of the macabre did not lend much of his influence in the retelling of these inferior tales, but a certain few of them do possess sufficient traces of Lovecraft to make them of interest to those followers in his footsteps. Oddly enough, the two stories that actually list Lovecraft as co-author, The Crawling Chaos and The Green Meadow, are the worst of the bunch. Both of these Elizabeth Berkeley stories are flights of fancy which forego any real plot in favor of lofty, dream-enshrouded flights of fancy which cannot even begin to compare to the Dunsanian, dream-cycle myths that Lovecraft perfected on his own. William Lumley's The Diary of Alonzo Typer is a rather formulaic tale of ancient evil and the discovery of a stranger's ancestral lineage upon his return to the home of a dead forebear. It gives lip service to such Lovecraftian gods as Shub-Niggurath but falls short of dramatically gripping the reader. Wilfred Blanch Talman's Two Black Bottles is another unoriginal attempt to horrify the reader by invoking a soul-reclaiming restless spirit from the confines of a dark, defiled church's cemetery; this story succeeds rather well but possesses no real pizzazz. Adolphe de Castro contributes The Electric Executioner, a rather enjoyable story that cannot but ultimately disappoint in regards to its highly improbably ending.
The revised work of two authors, Hazel Heald and Zealia Bishop, do merit a closer look. Not only are their tales enjoyable and reasonably well-crafted, they do bear certain imprints of the master revisionist's singular hand. Heald's Winged Death has nothing at all to do with the Cthulhu Mythos, instead offering the chronicles of a scientist's mad, wretched, and ultimately self-destructive plot to ingeniously kill a colleague whom he accuses of discrediting his work. Heald's other tale, The Horror in the Museum, does attain a nice level of creepiness and a touch of cosmic horror. The museum in question is a wax museum, and the strange owner suggests that his distinctly horrible wax figures are more than mere wax. The protagonist, whose friendly interest in the singular artist turns to concern and fear at his increasingly mad utterings, agrees to spend a night alone in the dark museum, surrounded by horrible waxen figures and only two doors away from a creature the artist makes incredible claims about, eventually stating that it is a beast he has called down from Yuggoth itself, a beast through which the return of the Old Ones to Earth can be secured. There is plenty of Cthulhian chanting and references to be found in this story, although it does not follow the letter of the original Mythos. Zealia Bishop's tales also convey Mythos elements, yet her stories take the reader to Mexico and underneath the plains of Oklahoma, transplanting the abodes of ancient otherworldly creatures beneath the ground and reinterpreting the Mythos references in a Mexican-Spanish tradition. The Curse of Yig invokes a snake-devil of Indian legendry who exacts a most bitter revenge on those who would harm his children among the snake population, one much more malign and vengeful than death itself. The Oklahoma setting of The Curse of Yig is greatly expounded upon in the most significant tale of this collection, Bishop's The Mound. An ancient mound is guarded by Indian spirits, and all white settlers who have dared explore the area have either returned no more or returned as raving madmen. A scientist of the twentieth century cannot be expected to put stock in such tales, though, so our protagonist vows to explore the mound and finally uncover its secrets. In a major discovery, he comes across a centuries-old account of a sixteenth century Spanish explorer who claims to have journeyed into an alien world underneath the mound, one where some well-known Lovecraftian otherworldy gods are spoken of, remembered, and worshipped. It is rather fascinating to see a sort of conflated Mythos cosmology transplanted deep beneath the earth and to read of references to ancient gods such as Tulu that correlate with the Great Cthulhu. Among the revisions in this collection, The Mound most clearly bears the influence of Lovecraft himself, and while one should by no means place it in the canon of his horrific literature, it does hold a power sure to hypnotize the seekers of Lovecraftian knowledge with its implications and parallel take on the Mythos itself.
The Contents of This Book.......2000-12-17
Because there are so many different Lovecraft collections out there, it may be useful to prospective buyers to know what's actually in this volume:
[By S. T. Joshi:] A Note on the Texts; [By August Derleth:] Lovecraft's "Revisions"; [Hereupon stories effectively ghostwritten by H. P. Lovecraft:] The Green Meadow; The Crawling Chaos; The Last Test; The Electric Executioner; The Curse of Yig; The Mound; Medusa's Coil; The Man of Stone; The Horror in the Museum; Winged Death; Out of the Aeons; The Horror in the Burying-Ground; The Diary of Alonzo Typer; [Hereupon stories moderately revised by Lovecraft:] The Horror at Martin's Beach; Ashes; The Ghost-Eater; The Loved Dead; Deaf, Dumb, and Blind; Two Black Bottles; The Trap; The Tree on the Hill; The Disinterment; "Till A' the Seas"; The Night Ocean
Contrary to the claim on the dustjacket that this "collection includes all known revisions and collaborations undertaken by Lovecraft", it actually misses several: "Under the Pyramids" (a.k.a. "Imprisoned with the Pharaohs"), ghosted for Harry Houdini; "Through the Gates of the Silver Key", a collaboration with E. Hoffmann Price; several revisions for and collaborations with R. H. Barlow; and participation in "The Challenge from Beyond", a pulp magazine's round robin. Still, this volume is just about indispensable for anyone seeking to build a textually sound collection of the complete fiction of Lovecraft.
It's all Lovecraft, but not that great........1999-07-01
Oke, this book gets five stars for collectors. If you are into Lovecraft, by it. That's why I give it 5. But for the overall quality of the stories is average. I believe this is because Lovecraft wrote them for hardneeded money. Revisions in this case mean: an idea by writer, Lovecraft doing the whole work. He said himself in a letter, that he would not like his name associated with this stuff. Still, stories like The Mound and The Museum are still good. The rest is oke, but not 'Lovecraftian'.
Nobody Does It Better, But..........1998-06-12
I'm not sure how much input Lovecraft had in these stories as Carrol & Graf give absolutely no information regarding where the revisions are. Two writers (represented by 5 stories) Hazel Heald and Zealia Bishop really do show some talent, but they are at their best when they are not doing Lovecraftian-style writing. I guess I got spoiled by "The Annotated Lovecraft", edited by S.T. Joshi. There is no lack of info. in that book, (merely a lack of stories).
Book Description
"The oldest and strongest emotion of mankind is fear, and the oldest and strongest kind of fear is fear of the unknown."
--H. P. LOVECRAFT, "Supernatural Horror in Literature"
Howard Phillips Lovecraft forever changed the face of horror, fantasy, and science fiction with a remarkable series of stories as influential as the works of Poe, Tolkien, and Edgar Rice Burroughs. His chilling mythology established a gateway between the known universe and an ancient dimension of otherworldly terror, whose unspeakable denizens and monstrous landscapes--dread Cthulhu, Yog-Sothoth, the Plateau of Leng, the Mountains of Madness--have earned him a permanent place in the history of the macabre.
In Tales of the Cthulhu Mythos, a pantheon of horror and fantasy's finest authors pay tribute to the master of the macabre with a collection of original stories set in the fearsome Lovecraft tradition:
¸ The Call of Cthulhu by H. P. Lovecraft: The slumbering monster-gods return to the world of mortals.
¸ Notebook Found in a Deserted House by Robert Bloch: A lone farmboy chronicles his last stand against a hungering backwoods evil.
¸ Cold Print by Ramsey Campbell: An avid reader of forbidden books finds a treasure trove of deadly volumes--available for a bloodcurdling price.
¸ The Freshman by Philip José Farmer: A student of the black arts receives an education in horror at notorious Miskatonic University.
PLUS EIGHTEEN MORE SPINE-TINGLING TALES!
Customer Reviews:
J.K. Potter's Illustrations Are Rich (Eldritch).......2007-03-07
Well done thou good and faithful servants. Especially you J.K. Potter! Much has been said about the stories and deservedly so, but Potter's "photos" of Lovecraftian creatures are also well worth mentioning.
Finding Horror in the Little Things.......2006-12-20
I'm currently writing a novel that draws on the Cthulhu mythos as background material, so it made sense for me to read where others have gone before. James Turner, the editor, has done his job, too: each short story smoothly flows from one to the next; creating a narrative you can actually follow that makes it a pleasure to read the collection. Anyone who has read The Hastur Cycle knows that a good organizer is a rare thing amongst short story compilations, particularly H.P. Lovecraft's, where the ego of the editor often takes precedence over the purpose of the compilation.
H.P. Lovecraft stories hew to a particular formula. Each story begins with a quote, usually fictional, from a deceased protagonist hinting at something awful. Then the story begins in first person; perhaps as a dialogue between the author and the reader, sometimes in an imagined conversation and at other times in narrative format, be it a diary, collection of notes, newspaper clippings, etc. There are many adjectives applied to nouns that aren't normally used in everyday speech; rocks and walls and houses become blasphemous and corrupt. This is only appropriate, since ninety percent of the protagonists are failed horror authors, scoffing at the mundanity of vampires and werewolves. The author explains how he came upon the reality-shredding horrors, often scoffs at his naiveté, and then ultimately reveals a terrible truth at the end of the story. Sometimes the author himself reveals this mind blasting madness, at other times a short footnote indicates what happened to the author (if he died/disappeared as a result of the conclusion). And almost always, there is a statement in the conclusion, highlighted in italics, that reveals the OOGA-BOOGA moment. Some examples:
"...what nameless shapes may even now lurk in the dark places of the world?"
"...the revolting and bestial stone miniature of a hellish monstrosity walking on the winds above the earth!"
"What they really are is fingerprints!"
You get the idea.
Ironically, there's little evidence that Lovecraft himself wrote this way. In fact, the italicized declaration is nowhere in evidence in his own two contributions ("The Call of Cthulhu" and "The Haunter of the Dark"). Which is interesting, because one of the sanity-wrenching insights from this compilation is this: Lovecraft birthed his own style of horror by collaborating. Appending his name to the mythos is missing the point of the whole series.
The first story, The Call of Cthulhu, lays out Lovecraft's style and beliefs (including references to Theosophy). The encounter with Cthluhu is a bit anticlimactic (poor thing gets a boat rammed into his forehead), but certainly there's enough dread and action to make the story interesting. The Return of the Sorcerer, by Clark Ashton Smith, is by far the best of the lot. Smith conveys dread and terror on a very small stage (a house). This short story was also clearly the inspiration for Sam Raimi's Evil Dead, including a headless corpse with a saw and hands that move of their own volition. Ubbo-Sathla, on the other hand, is more of a historical piece that's not very interesting. The Black Stone, by Robert E. Howard (he of Conan fame) makes an admirable attempt at imitating Lovecraft but ultimately falls back on rote scare tactics: cultists sacrificing newborns.
The Hounds of Tindalos, by Frank Belknap Long, is a foray into time travel through drugs. Or a drug trip where someone thinks they're time traveling. Whatever the case, it introduces said Hounds and the concepts of extradimensional spaces. His take on the concept is interesting. Long also contributes The Space-Eaters, about weird tentacled beings that draw out people's brains through their skulls. While the story is fascinating, he seems to have completely missed the point of Lovecraft's uncaring, alien universe: The protagonists make the sign of the cross to ward off the alien monsters. Alien beings neither care nor even perceive human religions, and to prominently place Christianity as being "right" about the nature of the alien threat really saps the spirit of Lovecraft's isolation and madness.
The Dweller in Darkness and Beyond the Threshold, by August Derleth, are suitably creepy and a little wordy, burdened by Derleth's constant struggle to make the Cthulhu Mythos make sense. As usual, Derleth believes that every elemental being has a counterpart, and that by summoning one you defeat the other. All of which is a little too trite and neat for the unknowable horrors of a universe that conforms to no human logic.
Then we have the Robert Blake collection. Blake fawns incessantly over Lovecraft; if there's an overarching flaw amongst these short stories, it's his imitators' insistence that "Lovecraft was right." And not in a subtle way either. Such declarations are usually exclaimed with hysterical laughter, beating the reader over the head again and again that Lovecraft's work was real. To be fair, these authors were largely writing for each other, so what seems overbearing now undoubtedly appeared to be chummy to the authors. Thus, Robert Blake becomes a fictional character named Robert Bloch in the Shambler from the Stars. H.P. Lovecraft's The Haunter of the Dark invents and then kills Blake off; it's also one of the most frightening stories in the series. Imagine being obsessed with a terrible, dark place...and then find yourself sleepwalking there, awaking in the very place that haunts your dreams? Excellent stuff.
Unfortunately, Bloch has to go and mess the creepy narrative up with The Shadow from the Steeple. As a follow up to Lovecraft's story, Bloch unintentionally creates a science fiction spoof. Here, we have a villain who is deeply suntanned...because he invented the atomic bomb! A prophesy speaks of how the "dark One" of which "wild beasts followed him and licked his hands." Far be it for Bloch to use any sort of symbolism; instead, two panthers are released from zoos for the sole purpose of licking the antagonist's hands, just in case we're not sure who he is. This is bad science fiction drek on par with Plan Nine from Outer Space, but because it was a tribute to Lovecraft it's included in this section. Bloch redeems himself with Notebook Found in a Deserted House. Perhaps the inspiration for the original Blair Witch Project, this story is told from the point of view of a child, isolated in the woods with only a few adults. As one by one the adults go missing, a palpable dread comes over our poor narrator, who has nowhere to turn to. Of all the "this is my diary" type stories, this is the most disturbing and effective.
The Salem Horror by Henry Kuttner isn't particularly noteworthy, other than to mix witches with alien horrors, diminishing the horrific qualities of both. And again, the protagonist is another writer looking for the next great horror story. Don't any of these authors use their imaginations and come up with some other profession? The Terror from the Depths, by Fritz Leiber, drags and drags and drags. It's also guilty of the "and then he was dead!" appendix. Not great. Rising With Surtsey, by Brian Lumley, is actually interesting, involving the body swap of a horrible alien wizard and a human. It borders on parody at times (see the alien wizard in human form struggle to use these strange things called...HANDS!) but it's still evocative. Cold Print, by Ramsey Campbell, is barely a coherent story, involving Y'golonac, who feasts on the perverted. But our protagonist isn't practically strong-armed into the bad guy's hands (literally), which makes the story less scary.
The Return of the Lloigor, by Colin Wilson, is dreadfully slow. It involves ancient dragon-like beings that control the dark places of the Earth. It also suffers from the postscript syndrome. "For he was a good and sincere man, and is mourned by innumerable friends." My Boat, by Joanna Russ (the only female contribution to this volume), is wish-fulfillment fantasy, completely out of the context of an uncaring alien world, transforming the mythos into some sort of fairyland. Sticks, by Karl Edward Wagner, is supposedly the original inspiration for the Blair Witch Project (although I prefer Notebook Found in a Deserted House). The strange sticks, creepy house, and weird noises in the forest are all here, but it's written in a disjointed style that muddles the story.
A word about the postscript endings: The reason the ending to the Blair Witch Project worked so well is because the audience, even if for only a moment, believed the story was true. This is the only way to effectively pull off this kind of post-narrative horror. It's entirely possible that readers were more willing to suspend their disbelief when these stories were originally printed, but the very nature of the text printed in a collection of short stories ruins the mood. That's what made The Ring so neat; only at the end of the movie was the audience challenged with the possibility that if the film was actually a recording of true events, thereby implicating the audience in the horror by merely viewing it.
The Freshman, by Philip Jose Farmer, is the culmination of too much navel-gazing from the Lovecraft crowd. Now we have everyone at Miskatonic University involved in some sort of bizarre conspiracy, with a misplaced protagonist transplanted into a story for much younger folks. It didn't feel scary, just awkward. Jerusalem's Lot, by our very own Stephen King, is written in letter format. This quickly gets tiresome, interrupting the flow of the narrative. King closely hews to the Lovecraftian format, including the italicized scare and the postscript about the author. He's certainly written much better.
Finally, we have Richard A. Lupoff's Discovery of the Ghooric Zone. Taking The Freshman's fawning over Lovecraft to a new level, this disjointed story follows Lovecraft's universe well into the future. Unfortunately, it doesn't dwell enough on the characters or the premise, instead throwing in tidbits like the rise of the Deep Ones and other crazy stuff. While it might make for a really interesting setting for a role-playing game, it's not a cohesive short story.
Overall, it becomes very clear that Lovecraft wrote better horror than many of his imitators. The best of this collection find horror in the little things: a house, a child's terror, and the dark steeple of a church. In paying homage to Lovecraft, there was a fine line between paying tribute to his work and unintentionally parodying it. The authors that understood the difference wrote the most interesting stories.
Good for a chuckle or a scare.......2006-08-30
Lovecraft is of course the master of his own storytelling framework, but some of the other authors have an interesting take on his work. Others are a bit derivative and didn't hold my attention. I love the genre though.
Best book ever..........2006-05-12
tofcm was a awsome book. I enjoyed all of the authers different stories that were still under one over all subject. at times this book bored me in to a sleeping stuper but lucky most of the it scared me back into awakenes. At times in could not put down the book. then when that story was over and a new one came i got loney for the old story. over all some of the authers can wright and some of them can't.
A Competent Collection.......2005-04-04
It's hard to fault a "best of" collection - each story is, after all, there because it is the best in some way, or represents a vital contribution. There is no point to my going through the listing and mentioning which stories are my favorites; they are all excellent (or at least important). Collecting the out-of-print books that contain these stories individually would cost hundreds, even when searching for the most recent reprint, so this is quite a valuable addition to your library (although you may wish later to read more by the anthologized authors). The authors below are representative of the pool of literature that Lovecraft drew from for his own stories, his contemporaries who collaborated with him, his post-humous successors, and people like Stephen King who were motivated to begin a career from reading HPL's work.
"The Return of the Sorceror" and "Ubbo-Sathla" by Clark Ashton Smith
"The Hounds of Tindalos" and "The Space-Eaters" by Frank Belknap Long
"The Black Stone" by Robert Howard
"The Call of Cthulhu" and "The Haunter of the Dark" by Lovecraft
"The Dweller in Darkness" and "Beyond the Threshold" by August Derleth
"The Shambler from the Stars", "The Shadow from the Steeple", and "Notebook found in a Deserted House" by Robert Bloch
"The Salem Horror" by Henry Kuttner
"The Terror from the Depths" by Fritz Leiber
"Rising with Surtsey" by Brian Lumley
"Cold Print" by Ramsey Campbell
"The Return of the Lloigor" by Colin Wilson
The last 5 are farther removed from Lovecraft; probably the best is Stephen Kings' "Jerusalem's Lot"
More interesting than my opinion on the stories included is those left out; nothing is said of those authors wholly predating Lovecraft but who significantly influenced him. There is no Lord Dunsany, no Arthur Machen, and most signifcantly no Robert Chambers (and his King in Yellow, which seems to have been the archetype for Lovecraft's Necronomicon). I mention this merely for completeness' sake; this is a superb collection.
Amazon.com
The basic facts of H.P. Lovecraft's life have long been known, but before this book the only account of his life worth having was L. Sprague de Camp's 1975 biography, which was lively but sketchy, giving a fragmented view of Lovecraft's life and work. S.T. Joshi has delivered the goods. This is not only the finest and most definitive biography of Lovecraft, it is likely to remain so for many decades into the future. While at nearly 700 pages, it's not necessarily a book every Lovecraft fan will sit down and read cover to cover, it's almost as compulsively readable as it is compulsively detailed. Joshi is sympathetic toward his subject but doesn't pull any punches: he includes Lovecraft's less flattering qualities, such as his "contemptible" racism and his "shabby" treatment of his wife. Best of all, perhaps, for fans of Lovecraft's fiction, are the accounts of how the stories came to be written, concise plot summaries, and well-chosen historical-critical remarks.
As Necrofile: The Review of Horror Fiction writes, "H.P. Lovecraft: A Life represents the crowning achievement of Joshi's distinguished career. It offers a concise and eminently readable summary of everything he has learned about Lovecraft, in one fat volume.... Joshi has accomplished no mean feat: writing a biography almost as fascinating as his subject's best fiction." --Fiona Webster
Customer Reviews:
A great, but biased work on Lovecraft's life.......2006-12-09
Wow, this must have been quite a few hours of work for Joshi! The fonts are below even standard book-fonts, AND I hear it's an abridged version but still the book is almost 700 pages. But don't get me wrong, in many ways I wish it was longer. The book is a fine introduction to Lovecraft's life, and to most Lovecraft-readers, probably quite enough in itself. It chronicles on an annual basis, highlighting and describing any interesting incidents or activities revolving around Lovecraft and his circle of friends and family that happened over the years. There's not much to say about this, its very good and solid biographical work by a fine devotee of Lovecraft; S.T Joshi. Its not often reading a biography makes me sad, but reading the final chapter on Lovecraft himself "The end of one's life" made a certain Norwegian man quite sad. Apart from some points I'm about to take up, I have no doubt that this is a biography that Lovecraft himself would have approved of. It could have been more detailed in its description of how the various fiction came to be, and more analysis of this area, but it IS after all a biography, so that was of course Joshi's prerogative.
Now to the bad; as a little background to the author of the book, he is in fact an immigrant; an Indian living with a miscegenating Euro-American female. This explains why he constantly abuses Lovecraft for his conservative and racialist views. He conjures up non-sense frequently when talking about this subject; somehow concluding that theories about race and miscegenation etc were definitively debunked by the "scientific work" of Franz Boas. This is of course complete nonsense, like Kevin MacDonald has shown in his excellent work "The Culture of Critique". Franz Boas had specific racial reasons himself for carrying out his campaign against the use of "race" in academia, and the reasons for this were far from what the Western standard of science represents.
So even though I highly recommend the book, I wish Joshi could have been so intellectually honest that he admitted in the book that his status as a non-European immigrant himself has biased him, and made him write the book with an extreme liberal and secular slant. So if you manage to ignore this part of Joshi's book; you'll have on your hands an excellent and well-written account of Howard Phillips Lovecraft and a good introduction to his writing.
painstakingly informative.......2006-10-07
Clocking in at 654 pages, this sprawling biography will teach you everything you ever wanted to know about the horror scribe -- along with some things you'll wish you hadn't discovered, like how Lovecraft was a more zealous racist than was the norm in his day. Joshi is long-winded, for sure, like the grandfather who, when you ask him how the light switch turns the lamp on, proceeds to tell you the history of electricity, starting with two sticks being rubbed together. You'll be hard-pressed to remember all the details afterward, but the story of Lovecraft's life is smartly woven, divulging the world as viewed through the writer's eyes and those around him. Like a criminologist apt at identifying with a killer, Joshi truly seems to understand his subject down to the crumbs on his coat.
Lovecraft Lives Again.......2006-03-21
I agree with all the other reviews here... if you have realy gotten into HPL, then you will enjoy reading this--it's hard to imagine that anyone else will produce anything more comprehensive. Buy it now before it goes out of print again and used copies cost several hundred dollars. If your interest in HPL is a bit less obsessive but you'd still like to read his bio, there is a shorter version of this book called "A Dreamer and Visionary."
One of the few things that bothered me in the book was when Joshi gets hung up with certain adjectives--for example, in earlier sections of the book he uses the word "delightful" several times a page when describing examples of Lovecraft's writing, which began to get on my nerves.
I was disappointed there was no section of photographs--Lovecraft's inscrutable lantern-jawed visage is an integral part of his mystique.
I re-read "Lovecraft Remembered" after reading this, and found it much more enjoyable the second time around--"A Life" gives you all the context you need to understand how the various people who wrote commentaries used in "Remembered" fit into Lovecraft's life. In fact, for the real obsessives out there, get a copy of "Lovecraft Remembered", the various volumes of his collected letters, and you have the raw materials to make up your own bio!
Hard to Imagine a Better Biography of HPL.......2004-12-17
Joshi's work is not only thorough and scholarly, creating a well-rounded and moving impression of Lovecraft and his own interests (as opposed to the interests of his biographers), it is also thoroughly entertaining and compulsively readable. More importantly, it is now back in print for the price of $30. Buy it, read it, and join me in hoping that one day S.T. Joshi will find a publisher for the complete and unabridged version. Yes, even this massive volume is abridged.
This book is now back in print - yippee!.......2004-10-16
Despite it's "out of print" listing above, this book is again available in a new paperback edition from us, the original publisher, Necronomicon Press ... please urge Amazon.com to begin offering it again ...
Book Description
Howard Phillips Lovecraft's unique contribution to American literature was a melding of traditional supernaturalism (derived chiefly from Edgar Allan Poe) with the genre of science fiction that emerged in the early 1920s. This new Penguin Twentieth-Century Classics edition brings together a dozen of the master's tales-from his early short stories "Under the Pyramids" (originally ghostwritten for Harry Houdini) and "The Music of Erich Zann" (which Lovecraft ranked second among his own favorites) through his more fully developed works, "The Dunwich Horror," The Case of Charles Dexter Ward, and At the Mountains of Madness.
The Thing on the Doorstep and Other Weird Stories presents the definitive corrected texts of these works, along with Lovecraft critic and biographer S. T. Joshi's illuminating introduction and notes to each story.
Customer Reviews:
Not Free SF Reader.......2007-08-13
A studious version, if you like. There are a large number of notes for each story for you to delve into - some 70 odd pages worth, and a list of texts given for more of a look at Lovecraft.
Thing on the Doorstep : The Tomb - H. P. Lovecraft
Thing on the Doorstep : Beyond the Wall of Sleep - H. P. Lovecraft
Thing on the Doorstep : The White Ship - H. P. Lovecraft
Thing on the Doorstep : The Temple - H. P. Lovecraft
Thing on the Doorstep : The Quest of Iranon - H. P. Lovecraft
Thing on the Doorstep : The Music of Erich Zann - H. P. Lovecraft
Thing on the Doorstep : Under the Pyramids ["Imprisoned with the Pharaohs", as Harry Houdini]
Thing on the Doorstep : Pickman's Model - H. P. Lovecraft
Thing on the Doorstep : The Case of Charles Dexter Ward - H. P. Lovecraft
Thing on the Doorstep : The Dunwich Horror - H. P. Lovecraft
Thing on the Doorstep : At the Mountains of Madness - H. P. Lovecraft
Thing on the Doorstep : The Thing on the Doorstep - H. P. Lovecraft
A further exploration of Lovecraft.......2005-05-12
"The Thing on the Doorstep and Other Weird Stories" represents the second of three (to date) collections of H. P. Lovecraft's work edited and annotated by J. T. Joshi and published by Penguin. Like the preceding volume ("The Call of Cthulhu and Other Weird Stories") the stories unfold in the chronological order of their writing, allowing the reader to both observe Lovecraft's development as a writer, and the interlinking of his developing mythos. The only substantial differences between this volume and the former are that this one contains more stories within the Cthulhu Mythos, and it also contains Lovecraft's two longest (and to my mind best) works.
The book begins with an introduction from Joshi that readers of the first volume will probably find disappointing as it offers no meaningful difference to that books introduction. It seems odd that someone who has chronicled Lovecraft's life as intently as Joshi has couldn't find a different avenue of consideration, and it is unfortunate that the same facts are repeated, regardless of how important they may be to understanding Lovecraft's writing.
Fortunately, that is the only black mark against Joshi's work as he has provided exhaustive foot-noting of each story. Sometimes whimsical and sometimes critical, these observations open up an entirely new and deeper view of the stories in "The Thing on the Doorstep and Other Weird Stories". In particular, residents of New England in general and Rhode Island in particular will appreciate the impression that regional history and geography had on Lovecraft's writing.
As for the stories themselves, they are somewhat better generally than the first volume, which may simply be a reflection of my preference for the Cthulhu stories, or may alternately reflect that they are indeed better written (as I would argue). The stand out contributions can be found in the final four entries, "The Case of Charles Dexter Ward", "The Dunwich Horror", "At the Mountains of Madness" and "The Thing on the Doorstep", all of which are noteworthy for both individual and common reasons.
"The Case of Charles Dexter Ward", like all four stories, continues the evolution of Lovecraft's occult mythos, but it is most noteworthy (aside from being the longest piece he ever wrote) for the way that it inverts the traditional Yankee ghost/horror story. Lovecraft removes, or rather reassigns, the supernatural and places it instead within the realm of a vast, seemingly unfathomable but quite literally real hidden world. Likewise, "The Dunwich Horror" plays upon these same elements, but at the same time explores the deep mystery of New England's rural regions, and the dichotomy of the bustling coast and the relatively rural interior.
"At the Mountains of Madness" is my favorite Lovecraft story, and is significant in that it represent the most concrete conveyance of facts regarding the various "Old Ones" who ruled the earth untold millennia ago. It also helped create the adventure/techno-thriller genre which is so prevalent today and which so frequently draws occult imagery and themes (the novels of Douglas Preston and Lincoln Child being the best representation of this admittedly mixed bag). Finally, "The Thing on the Doorstep" is interesting in that it offers a sequel of sorts to the well regarded "The Shadow Over Innsmouth".
"The Thing on the Doorstep and Other Weird Stories" comprises another nice collection of stories by Lovecraft. However, what really makes this edition stand out among other options are the fascinating contributions of Joshi which not only flesh out individual stories, but help place them within the larger context of Lovecraft's body of work, life experience and personal philosophies. As such, this is a book which can be enjoyed equally buy long time fans and new readers alike.
Jake Mohlman
Penguin's Second Lovecraft Book.......2004-10-13
If you enjoyed the first book of Lovecraft's work published by Penguin (The Call of Cthulhu) then you will undoubtedly appreciate this one. As before, it is a nice mix of the three areas of Lovecraft's work: the dream cycle, the Cthulhu and the Great Old Ones cycle, and the macabre tales cycle.
In this book you will find what I consider to be one of the best Lovecraft's story: At The Mountains of Madness. It's a novella (about a hundred pages)that's just one of the best short story he has ever written. Along with this there's also this other novella: The Case of Charles Dexter Ward. The latter is equally interesting (although the beginning is slighlty deterring, it quickly changes).
On the whole, I'd recommend this book for anyone interested in Lovecraft; however, if you have never read anything by him I recommend you start with Penguin's first book of his work. Not that it's very important but if you asked me that's what I'd advise you.
Another good collection from Penguin Books.......2003-07-14
It tells you something about the critical reappraisal of American horror writer H P Lovecraft that Penguin Classics is releasing short story collections by this writer.
The current collection, like the first Call of Cthulhu, gives us a sampling of Lovecraft's writing arranged chronologically. This volume is dominated by two of his best novella: The Case of Charles Dexter Ward, one of Lovecraft's most unsettling works, and the great tale of Antarctic horror At the Mountains of Madness. These are must reads for horror fans and among Lovecraft's best efforts.
There are also three classic short stories here: the enigmatic Music of Eric Zann, the ghoulish Pickman's Model and the late Cthulhu Mythos tale The Thing on the Doorstep, which takes some of the concepts of possession from Charles Dexter Ward and goes in another direction with them. These tales also rank high in Lovecraft's output.
The remaining stories are more of a mixed bag, especially the early tales, but we do get a nice representative tale from the writer's "Dunsany" fantasy period with The White Ship. However, the format allows one to see Lovectaft mature as a writer and even the weaker tales have their moments and point toward his later efforts.
Great work by editor Joshi, who is doing a great service for Lovecraft fans with his definitive texts. His notes are especially welcome for At The Mountains of Madness, which manages to cover an amazing amount of scientific, historical, and mythological ground in its simple format.
Lovecraft may not be the most subtle writer, but at his best he takes us on a slow gradual journey that begins simple enough and leads us to true cosmic horror. Just look at a movie like Alien and you'll see Lovecraft's influence has been remarkable.
Patronizing.......2002-06-06
It's a testimonial to how effective leftist indoctrination is in popular culture that this political hack S.T. Joshi who has authored such history books as From Thomas Jefferson to David Duke should apparently be the dominate current editor of H.P. Lovecraft's writings.
Many of the books which Joshi has edited actually carries warnings of the quaint antique datedness of the contents to be read with the condescending superiority that an assumed left/liberal urban professorate can bestow on reactionary trifles.
This dichotomy between an academic's doctrinaire loyalties and marketing results in Joshi's schizophrenic editing. A finicky apologetic mess.
Joshi is symptomatic of the congealing imagination as the ivy league disgorges it's post-modern generation into publishing. Lovecraft and company deserve better.
Books:
- History: Fiction or Science? Chronology 2 (Chronology)
- History: Fiction or Science? (Chronology, No. 1)
- History: Fiction or Science? (Chronology, No. 1)
- History: Fiction or Science? (Chronology, No. 1)
- Human Anatomy for Artists: The Elements of Form
- I Feel Bad About My Neck: And Other Thoughts on Being a Woman
- Ill Wind (Weather Warden, Book 1)
- In Sheep's Clothing: Understanding and Dealing with Manipulative People
- In the Pink: Dorothy Draper--America's Most Fabulous Decorator
- Inside the Asylum: Why the UN and Old Europe are Worse Than You Think
Books Index
Books Home
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