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Title: The Best of H. P. Lovecraft: Bloodcurdling Tales of Horror and the Macabre |
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Review of The Best of H. P. Lovecraft: Bloodcurdling Tales of Horror and the Macabre
- 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
Product Description
- 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.
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Comments for The Best of H. P. Lovecraft: Bloodcurdling Tales of Horror and the Macabre
- Posted on 2008-04-05
Best of Lovecraft
The title says it all. The best of his stories and if you're a fan of Lovecraft, this must be a part of your collection.
Score: 5
- Posted on 2008-03-05
Revisiting Lovecraft
This is a great Lovecraft compilation. I love the florid late Victorian prose, but more than anything this man seems so far ahead of his time for someone writing in the 1920-30 era. His visionary dreams are evocative of the psychedelic visions and writings of the bohemians of the 1950s and later. His stories, through the rejection of the ghost story, instead were firmly grounded in speculative science and science that was cutting edge at the time - the theories of Einstein, early ideas about parallel universes and higher dimensions, the spiritual higher dimensional topology of P.D. Ouspensky.
The most amazing ideas in this collection are, I believe, in the short story "The Silver Key." That story, with its confessional tone, seems to prevision post-modernism and a weariness with the rational scientific worldview that seems to have overtaken much of the rest of popular culture only decades later.
There is so much in Lovecraft's work that is echoed by the work of modern ayahuasceros and other psychedelic visionaries - his worlds seem very similar to those reported by students of DMT and psychedelic mushrooms. Perhaps if he had been born a few decades later, he would have found more wonder and awe in his internal experiences, and less of a sense of horror at his glimpses into the arcane realms.
Score: 5 - Posted on 2008-02-22
I was hoping for something actually....scary
I have been a fan of horror movies and video games for quite some time, but reading was not typically my thing, however, I decided to check out a horror story or two and Lovecraft was recommended. This was my first and last Lovecraft purchase and I will explain why.
I have read 11 of the 16 stories and at the end of most of them I was fairly irritated that I had spent the time reading such a story. Some of the plot lines are ridiculously laughable: an invisible monster, an unseen force that is afraid of the light, fish people, a "rat-like being" named Brown Jenkin (weird name for a lame creature), and many many more. I was never scared while reading these stories and whenever I thought something horrifying would happen there was only sheer disappointment.
"The Shadow Over Innsmouth" was my favorite of the stories, however, it fell flat on its face in the last pages. There were some creepy happenings like when the hotel door was being tried with a key and the like, but the climax, the immortal terror of the deep that was so incredibly horrifying was....FISH PEOPLE. You read it right, how can anyone be afraid of fish people? It's absurd. Finally, just when you think things would get interesting, the main character faints in the middle of the night, thereby cutting the story short as if Lovecraft simply got too tired of writing it. This brings me to my next point.
Lovecraft is creative, yet uncreative at the same time. To be sure some of his descriptions are very intricate, but there are times when it is SO detailed that I cannot comprehend what he is trying to describe ("dreams in the witch house" for example, the starfish headed things, I couldn't put it together). On the other hand, sometimes he leaves out so much detail that the subject cannot possibly be found scary, a strong example of this is "Pickman's Model". The creatures said to make the main character scream are only described as being hunched over, canine like, and having half-hoven feet. A lot of the descriptions he uses constantly are that creatures of settings are made up of geometry not of this world, or they would not possibly be comprehended, or some other adjective that makes it utterly impossible to recreate the story in your head. This is irritating because how can you be scarred of something that you can't even picture like a gas (Colour from outer space), and invisible monster (Dunwich Horror), or so many of the others. The plots also have lapses in logical thought, for example, in the "Dream in the Witch House" the main character kicks Brown Jenkin down a cliff, yet in the next page the creature is right behind him, and on the NEXT page it is down at the bottom of the cliff again, it doesn't add up. Most of Lovecraft's stories spend most of the time building up to a climax, however, said climax is only a sentence or two long and you are left feeling cheated. A strong example of this is in "Call of Cthulu" where the sailors discover the tomb of the elder god and awaken it. Cthulu is obviously an important Lovecraft "character" so you would expect it would be a large part of this story, but you would be wrong. Cthulu kills around 4 sailors in one sentence with flabby claws and it is unexplained how it does so. I waited the entire story to read about how it ate them or ripped them apart or something, but when it really counted Lovecraft was devoid of description. Finally the creature chases the remaining two sailors on their ship and, get this, gets sealed back in the tomb because they run into its head with the boat. The one story where Cthulu actually appears and it is only for half a page, how ridiculous.
Please heed this warning and look past the majority of 5 star rating, Lovecraftian fanatics.
Score: 2
- Posted on 2008-02-16
Good Collection of Lovecraft's Work
This is where you should start if you are looking for a budget-minded introduction to the world of HP Lovecraft. As his fans well know, Lovecraft straddled the line between horror and science-fiction. If this collection seems surprisingly unrevolutionary to you, that's because virtually all of Lovecraft's once-groundbreaking conceits have been incorporated into the mainstream of fantastic literature. This volume collects over a dozen of Lovecraft's better works, all of which contain the sense of dread and decay that influenced so many other writers.
Everyone's entitled to their favorites. For me, "The Thing on the Doorstep," "The Rats in the Walls," and "The Dunwich Horror" are among the most effective pieces of horror ever written. They must be read to be believed, and have vivid unforgettable characters and frights. Fans of the "X-Files" or any other conspiracy-oriented horror will love "The Whisperer in the Darkness," another fine tale. I'm less enthusiastic about those stories that feature extended dialogues, as Lovecraft seems to have had almost no feel for capturing the feel of the spoken word, particularly when dealing with characters using colloquial speech. I also don't understand the purpose of Robert Bloch's often pointless "defense" of Lovecraft in the introductory essay. Lovecraft's best work should speak for itself, and Bloch's attempts to put Lovecraft in perspective are not needed in an introductory volume. If anything, a neophyte might find the essay very distracting.
If you are a fan of superior horror that doesn't shy from scientific speculation, you're going to enjoy much of this book. I can't vouch for all of Lovecraft's short stories, but the ones in this volume are among his best and most accessible.
Score: 4
- Posted on 2008-01-26
Not a Loveable Read
HP is proof that great plot ideas and great titles do not make a good read. Sorry to say but this was for the most part tediously told and long-winded. Perhaps it takes an acquired taste, or is so antiquated that it can never appeal to the modern reader. However, Poe still enthralls, so I don't agree with the comparison.
Score: 2