The shadow over Innsmouth: And other stories of horror Horror Book Review

These are the kind of stories that stick with you for years- even decades. I know that they did with me. These six tales are classic Lovecraft. Inspired by his dreams they will come to possess yours. Weird as they are, there is also something uncannily familiar to them.


1) The Colour Out of Space: A meteor brings to the hills west of Arkham a bit of the Other beyond our local laws of time and space.


2) The Outsider: One of Lovecraft’s most “Poe-like” tales of a man who wakes without memory in a crumbling castle in a sun-less forest.


3) Imprisoned with the Pharaohs: Actually ghost-written for Houdini, it presents one of the most cosmically horrifying tales of what underlies ancient Egypt.


4) The Transition of Juan Romero: The believable tale of what a down on his luck British officer found at the deepest level of a western gold mine.


5) In the Walls of Eryx: Set on Venus, it is the closest that the author came to traditional hard science fiction.


6) The Festival: A Yule-tale dealing with what lies beneath ancient Kingsport.


7) The Shadow over Innsmouth: A novella length tale of the strange history on Innsmouth- and its relationship with the Deep Ones.


There is a brief biographical foreword to the book that seems to have been written for school children. It mentions that Lovecraft lived in poverty and would sacrifice meals to afford postage and writing supplies. What it does not tell you that malnutrition was a major factor in his early death. This genius, this great man of letters and true son of New England, starved because he was only being paid a penny a word- and he could find no other employment.  That is truly a cosmic tragedy and horror…