The Call Of Cthulhu & Other Stories

Written by Howard Phillips Lovecraft

Narrated by Gareth David Lloyd and Ian Fairburn

The Call Of Cthulhu & Other Stories HP Lovecraft is a modern master of horror. The Call Of Cthulhu is a masterpiece. Written in 1926 the story is presented as a manuscript "found among the papers of the late Francis Wayland Thurston, of Boston". In the story, Thurston recounts his discovery of notes left behind by his granduncle, George Gammell Angell, a prominent Professor of Semitic languages at Brown University in Providence, Rhode Island, who died suddenly in "the winter of 1926–27". It’s a chilling tale and richly deserves its accolades.

• Language: English
• Publisher: The Copyright Group
• Release date: Jan 1, 2014
• ISBN: 9781780004068

Howard Phillips Lovecraft

H. P. Lovecraft (1890-1937) was an American author of science fiction and horror stories. Born in Providence, Rhode Island to a wealthy family, he suffered the loss of his father at a young age. Raised with his mother’s family, he was doted upon throughout his youth and found a paternal figure in his grandfather Whipple, who encouraged his literary interests. He began writing stories and poems inspired by the classics and by Whipple’s spirited retellings of Gothic tales of terror. In 1902, he began publishing a periodical on astronomy, a source of intellectual fascination for the young Lovecraft. Over the next several years, he would suffer from a series of illnesses that made it nearly impossible to attend school. Exacerbated by the decline of his family’s financial stability, this decade would prove formative to Lovecraft’s worldview and writing style, both of which depict humanity as cosmologically insignificant. Supported by his mother Susie in his attempts to study organic chemistry, Lovecraft eventually devoted himself to writing poems and stories for such pulp and weird-fiction magazines as Argosy, where he gained a cult following of readers. Early stories of note include “The Alchemist” (1916), “The Tomb” (1917), and “Beyond the Wall of Sleep” (1919). “The Call of Cthulu,” originally published in pulp magazine Weird Tales in 1928, is considered by many scholars and fellow writers to be his finest, most complex work of fiction. Inspired by the works of Edgar Allan Poe, Arthur Machen, Algernon Blackwood, and Lord Dunsany, Lovecraft became one of the century’s leading horror writers whose influence remains essential to the genre.

Reviews for The Call Of Cthulhu & Other Stories

[ca8bookwyrm · Rating: 3 out of 5 stars]

I enjoyed this book, as a classic. As an inspiration for tons of D&D/RPG 'horror,' however, I just don't get it.

[qaphsiel-1 · Rating: 3 out of 5 stars]

It's hard to decide how to rate this. By modern writing standards, HPL is not particularly good: lots of adjectives and adverbs, weak narrative, too 'pulpy.' On the other hand, he is, of course, a product of his times (pulpy). He always was deliberately trying to show how hard it was to describe the indescribable: his books are about the encounter of normal people with things utterly weird and alien. And he is a universally acknowledged flagbearer of this genre, which ought to count for something.

Pinning down this genre is not so easy either. It's not really horror, though it is frequently horrific. At the time, it was referred to as strange or weird stories. Weird fiction has been undergoing a revival in recent decades as seen in the popularity of works by Jeff Vandermeer, China Mieville, Storm Constantine and others. Mieville in particular is known for his florid prose.

If you like this sort of descriptiveness (I do) or at least aren't turned off by it, and/or want to read some pulp classics, you should take in a few of HPL's stories, and this collection is a great place to do that.

[ghost_boy-691444 · Rating: 5 out of 5 stars]

I'm not a huge fan of horror genre at all, but once an a while I do get into it. H. P. Lovecraft happens to be someone I enjoy. Never read anything of his before this and love him. Love how he incorporated so much of New England culture into his story. Cthulhu is also a very interesting charter. Possibly one of the most power beings in literature. If you're looking for a fun read, then dig into some Lovecraft.

[ubiquitousuk-784690 · Rating: 4 out of 5 stars]

Personal favourites include: The Statement of Randolph Carter (4/5); The Picture in the House (5/5); The Outsider (4/5); Herbert West - Reanimator (4/5); Cool Air (4/5); and The Colour Out of Space (5/5). Honorable mentions for The Hound; Shadow Over Innsmouth; and The Haunter of the Dark. Call of Cthulhu itself was one of the weaker stories in this volume.

[robertday_1 · Rating: 3 out of 5 stars]

The name of H.P. Lovecraft was well-known to me; but until now, I had never read any of his work. I had read plenty of pastiches; indeed, so many that when I started this collection I found many of the early stories rather over the top, with language as overwrought as some of his protagonists and the horror itself amounting to very little. Perhaps things were different in the 1920s. True, there were a couple of stories that I found effective; and one which sent genuine shivers down my spine despite it seeming a bit too trite and obvious.The stories are in roughly chronological order of composition; so it was that from 'The Call of Cthulhu' itself (1926) that I found the quality of the writing improving, as Lovecraft dropped many of the ingredients of his adjective soup, though he hangs on to a few favourites - 'blasphemous' for one, though how that can refer to a flute is a bit beyond me. But in terms of sheer horror, I found 'The Call of Cthulhu' itself rather an anti-climax. I mean, the account of the encounter with the Great Old One is delivered at third hand!! It's hard to inject genuine terror into the writing when it's an account that your great uncle left, recounting a conversation he had with someone else...Had Lovecraft lived longer (he died at the age of 47), it is possible that he might eventually have written a Cthulhu story that directly challenged the Great Old One and achieved some answers to the mysteries he hints at throughout the Mythos stories. But he did not, and Cthulhu remains a character behind the scenes.For me, the most effective stories in this collection here the last four; "The Colour out of Space", "The Whisperer in Darkness", "The Shadow over Innsmouth" and "The Haunter of the Dark". (This last one was written for his friend Robert Bloch, in return for Bloch writing Lovecraft into one of his own stories.) But these are not perfect: "The Shadow over Innsmouth", for example, has a street map as a plot device, and Lovecraft insists in taking us all over it, and telling us precisely where his protagonist is at all times. On the other hand, the same story is one of the few in this collection that has an actual twist. Most of the stories end with the death or descent into madness of either the narrator or the protagonist, but "Shadow" has a different take on the fate of the narrator, one which, for once, he sees coming and willingly embraces.Another problem is the extent of Lovecraft's racism. This is front and centre in some of the early stories; but even in later ones, there are undercurrents of xenophobia and chauvinism. Malign influences are put down to "foreigners", ethic stereotypes are regularly promoted, and there is a streak of white supremacy so unconscious that it takes a moment to realise that where Lovecraft writes of "native" myth and legend in his New England setting, he is referring to first generation settlers rather than any indigenous American myth.Of course, this brings up the eternal argument over whether it is possible to separate the artist and their work. It is an argument which pre-dates Lovecraft and is being waged over works far more recent than these. Lovecraft remains important because of the 'Cthulhu mythos' that he built up, though on the evidence of the stories in this collection, that importance is more to be seen in the works of those who came after him and who used portions of the mythos, possibly without understanding quite where they come from. The worlds of comic book heroes have some responsibility here; even as recently as the tv version of the Batman origin myth, 'Gotham', which has an Arkham Asylum...This collection has an introduction and copious explanatory notes by Lovecraft scholar S.T. Joshi; I found the introduction of interest as it gave an insight into the amateur journalism community Lovecraft was active in. Many of his collaborators and peers became well-known names in the world of fantastic fiction; the Amateur Press Associations that Joshi describes later became adopted by the science fiction fan community. As a part of science fiction's own origin myth, Lovecraft is important, even if his work seems definitely out of our time.(Many of Joshi's notes, however, either state the obvious or are written for a very uninformed audience. And given that Lovecraft often referred back to his English roots in his stories, Joshi's own referencing seems to stop at the American shore.)Perhaps the best thing I can say about this book concerns the quality of my edition, a 'Penguin Classics Deluxe Edition'. A few weeks ago, I commented that a paperback I had read was "the nastiest book I have handled in a long time"; well, this on the other hand is possibly the nicest fiction paperback I've read in many a year. The jacket has a sensual matt finish; the paper stock is high-quality (though the deckle-cut page edges sometimes made turning over a little tricky), and the jacket design by Paul Buckley, with illustrations by Travis Louie, captures both the period of the tales' setting and some of their weirdness.

[bookconcierge · Rating: 2 out of 5 stars]

Of course, I’ve heard of H P Lovecraft for years, but I’d never bothered to read anything by him. Just not my genre of choice. But I happened to have this in the house, courtesy of Penguin Random House (the publisher gifted me a set of their new “orange” Penguin Classics a few years ago), and it carries the “science fiction” tag so it fit a challenge.First, these stories are mostly NOT science fiction, although one, dealing with aliens removing the brains of humans but keeping the bodies and brains both alive separately probably would qualify. Mostly this collection is one of horror stories originally published in magazines. Second, as horror stories, I didn’t find them all that horrifying. Although, I can imagine that an audience in the early part of the 20th century would find them disturbing. The fact that Lovecraft writes all these stories in the first person serves to remove much of the suspense. Clearly the person survives any ordeal because he is telling the story. Reading them one after another in this collection made them seem formulaic and dull.Lovecraft relied on the reader’s imagination in that he virtually never describes the “horror I witnessed,” instead relying on stating that said horror was just “too terrible for words.” There’s frequent use of the typical, dark, deserted location – either a room at the top of a tall tower, or a pit underground – into which the hero ascends (or descends), without any good light or backup, and despite the feeling of dread. In many of these cases, the hero awakens some time later with no memory of how he escaped. Finally, although I recognize that this is a sign of the times in which they were written, Lovecraft relies on some disturbingly racist / prejudicial stereotypes. On the plus side, one of his friends/colleagues was the inspiration for the hero of the final story in this collection: The Haunter Of the Dark. That person was Robert Bloch, who wrote Psycho. Lovecraft gave his character, Robert Blake, an address that was once Bloch’s home in Milwaukee. Sadly, one can no longer visit that edifice. It’s at a location that was cleared of houses in the ‘60s to make way for a freeway extension. But it was fun to see that address pop up in the book.

[charrlygirl · Rating: 4 out of 5 stars]

This was an audio re-read of The Call of Cthulhu for me. This audio came through the AudioBlast newsletter and I requested it right away.

I enjoyed listening to this performance. It had a full dramatization going on with sounds effects, screams and whatnot in the background. However, at times the main narrator went a little flat for me.

Overall, I enjoyed this performance and would recommend it to fans of cosmic horror and Lovecraft.

*Thanks to Audioblast for the opportunity to listen to this story in exchange for an honest review. This is it.*

[jaredorlando-1 · Rating: 4 out of 5 stars]

Somehow I have lived 30 years without reading a word of Lovecraft. That changed this year when I picked up the beautiful Penguin Orange copy of Call of Cthulhu and Other Weird Stories. Most stories were so brilliant and creepy that the feeling stayed with me for hours after. Some were just okay, but just okay Lovecraft is better than most. His quintessential stories are here in this collection and recommended by a first reader like me.

[lndlindsey · Rating: 4 out of 5 stars]

The fact that I can spell Cthulhu without having to look it up says something about how much I like Lovecraft. His style is... out of style, but he created a masterful mythos. These are the stories I read by candle or gaslight on stormy nights with a cup of tea and bag of popcorn. His monsters aren't threateningly real, so I can happily set aside rationality and just enjoy the fantasy.

[writertomg · Rating: 5 out of 5 stars]

Dagon: Excellent, but way too short. The Sci-Fi Channel movie "Dagon" was NOT based on this story.
The Statement of Randolph Carter: Also excellent. HP can create more terror in 7 pages than most people in 700 pages.
Facts Concerning the Late Arthur Jermyn and His Family: Very good. I expected the ending to incorporate the Dagon/Cthulhu mythos (it didn't) but I was still pleasantly surprised.
Celephais: Okay. His "dream"-type stories aren't the best. I'm wondering if the galley in the story is the same from "The White Ship".
Nyarlathotep: Sucked. Uh, did anything even happen in this story?
The Picture in the House:Awesome story. Like all of his best, it builds and builds until you're totally freaked out at the end.
The Outsider: Thought I had read this before and I was correct. Very good, even if predictable at the end.
Herbert West - Reanimator: Awesome, even if reading the series together tends to get repetitive.
The Hound: Hm. I put in another HP review that I didn't care for The Hound. But upon re-reading it, I do find it quite enjoyable. Not his best, but not one of his clunkers either.
The Rats in the Walls: Excellent! Very creepy, even though you can figure out what's coming. Tough to read in this day and age cause of the cat's name.
The Festival: Had read this before, but reread it and it was still awesome. You feel as unsettled as the narrator as things progress.
He:
Cool Air: One of my favorite Lovecraft stories. Creepy and terrifying set up with an awesome/gross payoff.
The Call of Cthulhu: What can I say? THE ultimate Lovecraft story of all time. With the most awesomest, bad-assed creature ever. Everyone must read this once.
The Colour out of Space: A tad longish. Could have used some editing. But overall, VERY creepy and the ending payoff hits perfectly.
The Whisperer in Darkness: At 60 pages, probably the longest Lovecraft story that I have made it through, although it DID slow in pace and get boring in the middle there. He could have cut down on the correspondence section between the 2 main characters a bit. But good overall, and part (kind of) of the Cthulhu mythos. I would recommend reading it, and not skipping over it.
The Shadow Over Innsmouth: Spoke too quickly about Whisperer there. Innsmouth is also 60 pages and this is the second time that I've read this terribly awesome story. Ranks up there with Cthulhu as a must-read for Lovecraft fans. Fantastic!
The Haunter of the Dark: Very creepy! Fits perfectly with the tone of the other works. And a nice way to end an EXCELLENT collection of Lovecraft stories.

Best Lovecraft collection that I've read so far.

[steven.skytower · Rating: 5 out of 5 stars]

A collection of short suspense horror stories, could have done without the reference notes though interesting, not necessary.

[elviomedeiros_1 · Rating: 5 out of 5 stars]

After ploughing through the hard-to-read, truncated, cyber-punk craziness of Neuromancer, I went to the more "simple" and "traditional" The Call of Cthulhu. Ahhh, Lovecraft, isn´t it great to read such well written and immersive fantasy?! Will stay on this book for quite some time enjoying each of the short stories...

[thedivineoomba · Rating: 4 out of 5 stars]

I finally got around to reading Lovecraft. And, now I get the obsession nerds have with him. The "Shadow at Innsmouth" really quite a scary story - between the town itself, and the ending.A few of the stories were predictable, such as - but it might be that this was first in of a type - and other authors copied him. For example "The Picture in the House".A few stories are science fiction, although a science fiction written in before an understanding of what is in space. Over all - I found the language to be a bit difficult, but after a few stories, the language gets easier to read.

[caanderson-1 · Rating: 5 out of 5 stars]

Fast, fast pace. He doesn't let you breathe. Excellent story.

[iansales_1 · Rating: 3 out of 5 stars]

I’m pretty sure I’ve read Lovecraft in the past – in fact, I have a quite vivid memory of the cover art of a Lovecraft collection which, I think, I borrowed from Coventry City Library back in the early 1990s. It’s hard to be sure, given there’s so many different ways to pick up knowledge of his oeuvre and the Cthulhu mythos – I used to play the Call of Cthulhu RPG when I was at school, for example. Having said that, none of the stories in The Call of Cthulhu and Other Weird Stories seemed especially familiar. I’d always thought Lovecraft’s prose of poor quality, and despite a recent discussion on that subject, I suspect I may be revising my opinion. The early stuff is pretty bad – Q: when is a door not a door? A: when it’s a “panelled portal”; and Lovecraft had a bad habit of saying something is indescribable… and then going on to describe it. But by the late 1920s, his writing had improved hugely, and in stories like ‘The Call of Cthulhu’ (1928) and ‘The Shadow of Innsmouth’ (1931), he’d toned down his love of adjectives to great effect; and while he might still recycle his favourite words a few times too often, the less-is-more approach was certainly better at evoking eldritch horror. I have to admit, I enjoyed this collection a lot more than I’d expected. Happily, I bought all three of the Penguin Modern Classic Lovecraft books, so I have The Dreams in the Witch House and Other Weird Stories and The Thing on the Doorstep and Other Weird Stories, all in nice matching paperback editions.

[xuebi-1 · Rating: 4 out of 5 stars]

A selection of weird tales from the master of weird fiction. The epononymous work, Colour out of Space, The Whisperer in Darkness, and the Haunter of the Dark are the standouts.

[wilum-1 · Rating: 5 out of 5 stars]

S. T. told me, in one of our live YouTube videos, that he considers this book, his first of three volumes for Penguin Classics, to be his single best, most important selection of Lovecraft's tales. I've reviewed the book below, but I want here to emphasize that I return to this single edition again and again, to reread the excellent Introduction or to study the Notes at the end of the book, which not only explain obscure words and such, but give wee details concerning Lovecraft's writing of these wonderful tales. I especially love the cover that Penguin gave this book.

[geniemagik · Rating: 5 out of 5 stars]

Not everyone likes reading this as much as I do. Many like minded people have told me they enjoy Anne Rice or Poe more. These weird little tales by HP Lovecraft are by far my favorites. Darker than other horror stories, the good and evil in these stories are well defined. No blurred lines.

[page.fault · Rating: 4 out of 5 stars]

Lovecraft has had a tremendous influence on the modern fantasy, especially urban and comic fantasy. Terry Pratchett, Charles Stross, Jim Butcher, and several other major authors utilize Lovecraftian critters from the dungeon dimensions and the deepest depths as primary antagonists in their mythologies. I don't know if it's because I read the stories when I was too young, or if perhaps I encountered spoofs of his creatures before I read the real thing, but somehow, half-and-half fish/octopus men just aren't a terror trigger for me. Even in his more psychological works, I tend to find Lovecraft's writing a bit overblown, so much so that it tends to invoke laughter rather than horror. Granted, only a few of the antagonists of his stories are amphibious, but they almost always invoke an external influence. My classic horror stories of choice are the more internal/psychological ones-- The Yellow Wallpaper, The Turn of the Screw, etc.

For all that, I have a great appreciation for Lovecraft's ideas and influence. I believe Lovecraft is one of the first authors to consider abstruse topological mathematics as a dangerous art that could cause collisions with extra-dimensional horrors ("Dreams in the Witch-House"). He tends to invoke a theme that knowledge is dangerous ("Call of Cthulhu", "The Festival", "The Silver Key", etc). Lovecraft also has a tendency to write stories about ordinary people put into extraordinary situations, and while the people are changed by the horrors they encounter, they basically always lose against their inexorable opponents. This sense of depression, the belief that fate is written in stone, tends to add a very unique flavour to his stories. As someone who finds fish-faced fiends funny rather than frightening, I also have him to thank for the ability to read quite a few horror stories without any subsequent terrors or nightmares.

Overall, even if you don't find Dagon and the Deep Ones particularly dreadful or disquieting, Lovecraft is well worth reading for anyone interested in modern fantasy, horror, and fantastical comedy, if only to pick up on the Cthulhu jokes.

[brendan.h · Rating: 2 out of 5 stars]

I guess I was expecting something different, or maybe something more, from this. The prose is a bit purple, horror a little staid, and the stories telegraph their endings so clearly that it's hard to remain in suspense. That being said, it's impressive how many horror movie genre conventions and tropes are on display here. Lovecraft truly was a pioneer and deserves to be remembered for that alone. Lovecraft's own personality comes through in ways that can be both interesting (his obsession w/ New England's social and architectural history) and unpleasant (the racism). Oh yeah, this edition is crammed with way, way, way too many footnotes.

[sphawkins · Rating: 3 out of 5 stars]

Review: The Call of Cthulu and other Weird StoriesBy H.P. Lovecraft360 pagesShort Story CollectionStory Diversity: standard; most of the stories are medium length, there are one or two long ones; protagonists are virtually the same; character diversity suffersVocabulary: standard; Lovecraft favors several words (like ‘hideous’) which he uses quite often; other than that, vocab is fineTwists: some of his twists are great, none are terribly subtle, however, he recycles some twists.Strengths: imaginative supernatural creatures and settings; characters, although recycled, come across as believable and genuine; Lovecraft utilizes interesting ideas—horror, from his perspective, doesn’t mean blood. His generators of horror are original and include rituals, disease, and even otherworldly colors. Weaknesses: recycled twists and characters; some stories are a bit melodramatic and are far too long to justify their content; his stories generate little tensionBottom line: I was not impressed by H.P. Lovecraft’s work. Lots of people reference his work and say he was one of the greatest horror writers of the 20th century, but I can’t see why. A lot of his work was inspired by others’ writing, and his writing (his sentence fluidity and dialogue) is not remarkable either. The Necronomicon and Cthulu are amongst his most famous creations, and yes, they’re original and frightening to think of, but these creations are not employed to the greatest effect.

[alcracka · Rating: 5 out of 5 stars]

Cindy, you're my favorite!

Lovecraft can be silly, racist, and extremely purple, but he has this terrifically unique imagination: his stories feel like nothing else. And they're very enticing. There's a certain feel to his stories - a pallid green glow - a whole collection of words like "eldritch" - that feel forcefully Lovecraftian. He's a true individual. I dig him.

Full (if growing) list of things to make sure not to miss:
PARODIES?
Herbert West - Reanimator (Ha, this was a ton of fun)
The Hound (also great)

RACISM!
Horror at Red Hook (Whee!)
He (Loved this one. Watch out for those Chinamen, I guess.)

CTHULHU
Dunwich Horror
At the Mountains of Madness (Fun stuff, I wrote a review elsewhere)
Shadow out of Time (Kinda too long)
Call of Cthulhu

THE REST OF IT
The Case of Charles Dexter Ward
The Dreams In The Witch House
Colour out of Space (Great...sortof like a parable about radioactivity?)
Whisperer in the Dark
Shadow over Innsmouth

While this Penguin edition is lovely, I'm supplementing it with a cheapo Collected Works on my Kindle, for the stories I want to read that aren't in this collection.

[a_reader_of_fictions · Rating: 3 out of 5 stars]

The short stories of Lovecraft, at least the ones in this anthology, all seem to take place in the same universe. The stories have a lot in common with another. For one thing, they all focus on some sort of mythical monster/god/evil creation of a mad scientist / reader of the Necronomicon. Also, if one were narrating them, it would be really difficult to resist the urge to end the telling of each with DUN-DUN-DUN.

At first, I really was not feeling this at all. Lovecraft's writing is very flowery and ornate, which I felt did not lend itself particularly well to tales of horror. All of the extra information and verbiage lessened any sense of urgency that the stories were trying to convey. As I became more familiar with his narrative style and realized the connections underlying each story, I found myself coming to enjoy the stories.

These tales are often hugely unsurprising in their final twists. The plot lines herein will be familiar to most people who have ever watched a horror film or read a horror story. At first, this irritated me, but this too turned to some amount of fascination when I considered that they were probably fairly original plot lines then. He may have originated some of these ideas, which is pretty cool.

While this will not be for everyone, I definitely think that anyone who really liked Mary Shelley's Frankenstein will adore this, as it was clearly a huge influence upon him. Plus, the cover on this edition is completely gorgeous, even if I doubt Cthulhu would actually look like that.

[billiecat_1 · Rating: 2 out of 5 stars]

I read Lovecraft as a teen in the late Seventies and early Eighties, and even then I noticed his racism. So although it was worse than I recalled when I picked this book up at a sale for old times sake, I wasn't surprised. The reader of Lovecraft may feel compensated for his racism by the depth of imagination, but, given the frequency and virulence of the racism, this second read of some of his "greatest works" has convinced me the compensation is not quite enough. Still, what really turned me off was the failure of this edition's editor to address it forthrightly. Why use a footnote when the offensive name of the pet cat in the story "The Rats in the Walls" is dropped like a turd in the middle of a (frankly not very good) short story, just to say Lovecraft burdened his own cat with the same name, and not even discuss the N-word in the room? Why doesn't the introduction or the notes address the obvious racist undertones in "The Call of Cthullhu" with its constant reference to "degenerate half castes," or the treatment of Hispanics in "Cool Air" or the straight up racism and fear of miscegenation in "Arthur Jermyn"? And this editor is not some Lovecraftian tourist, S.T. Joshi has written a biography of the man which he modestly refers to as "definitive" in the notes. If that definitive biography is as studious in ignoring the blatant racism of its subject as the notes and introduction in this volume is, I would have to say there is great room for more definition here. In the end, the notes were rendered useless to me by this failure - if Joshi tiptoes around racism as plain as the nose on Lovecraft's face, I had to assume (and in fact felt) that his additions to the work was merest persiflage. In the end, I was able to get a nostalgic kick from retracing my teen self's steps, although my more mature reader self has to wonder why I was so into this stuff, and how I even then could excuse the nasty racism. But that may just the failure of callow youth. What Joshi's excuse is, I have no clue, and his notes and introduction shed no light.

[a1abwriter · Rating: 2 out of 5 stars]

I think I'm going to have to give up on this book. I really dislike saying such things but I am very underwhelmed by The Call of Cthulhu and other weird stories by H.P. Lovecraft. It could be due to desensitization or the amount of hype and praise that various friends gave H.P. Lovecraft. I am a proud child of the 70’s and 80’s so some of the first media I was ever exposed to was the slasher horror flick. Jason, Michael Myers (Halloween 3 sucked so much I begged my mother to let me watch it and was so mad because it was nothing like 1 or 2, and was really poorly written and made no sense) Freddy Kurger, Chucky, Damien, and Regan Burstyn were all the odd protagonist of my day. Some of my favorite television in my childhood was the twilight zone, the outer limits, tales from the darkside, tales from the crypt, monsters, and one of the ones that really love was Friday the 13th the series.When I allotted time to be properly horrified by the man countless critics called, the father and master of American horror I was very disappointed. His writing style is beautiful he is one of the few writers that transform the written word into experience. There is a point that you do not notice where you stop reading and you are merely following the events of the unfolding epic. The unfortunate part is the epic that unfolds is the archetype of anticlimactic. I wanted to like these stories, and they were good, but from what I had heard, I expected a great deal more.Dagon: seemed to be nothing more than a spooky dream that had not reached full nightmare status at worse, an initial outline for The Call of Cthulhu at bestThe Statement of Randolph Carter: Was an attempt at suspense but the constant reminder of the horrors that we can not see, and would drive a weaker man insane only made the second hand recount of the terrors more interesting and I was hoping at one point he would jump down the well and just help his friend. To me as the reader I thought that was the logical next step but it wasn’t and the ending, Ill be honest, was campy.Facts Concerning the Late Arthur Jermyn and His Family: This was just silly and a tad bit racists. He protagonist sets himself on fire because he finds out that he is probably the last descendent of a race of white gorillas that happen to breed with people.Celphais: Is really a story about a guy that had a good acid dream and spends the rest of his life trying to get back to it and dies when he does.Nyarlathotep: I believe this was probably what inspired the first two mummy movies. If you have seen them then you have the jist of this short here.And the greatThe Call of Cthulhu: This was such a disappointment. Cthulhu is an ageless squid, octopus dragon god with wings that has been dormant but conscience for ages beyond count or measure. It gives artists and poets nightmares and causes its worshipers to go frantic with frenzy. Anyone that speaks of Cthulhu to anyone that does not know of Cthulhu, dies. One day a sailor stumbles upon Dagon’s island… I mean Cthulhu’s island and sees Dagon’s monolith… I mean Cthulhu’s monolith and the rest of ancient city that housed the old one. “and what an age-old cult had failed to do by design, a band of innocent sailors had done by accident. After vigintillions of years great Cthulhu was loose again, and ravening for delight." I mean that line alone just one of the things that angers me. I mean if you have been around trillions of years before the first organisms on earth began to form and shaped the very thoughts of early man in ape form, you could not get one of your worshipers to come jail break you? And how weak are you that a boat can ram you and cause your head to explode. COME ONI read a few other stories but I wont review them because I don’t like to continue in negative. If you like Horror and are a great fan of Poe, stay away from H.P. Lovecraft, save for style and technique alone. The contents of these stories, however beautifully written, are for me a classic case of the dangers of hype.

[stonester1 · Rating: 4 out of 5 stars]

Loathesome. Cyclopean.Lovecraft likes those words and others that communicate both the repulsion and the otherworldly alienness that his human protagonists experience when encountering the otherworldly terrors of his mythos. In this case, you have an investigator who is running down a trail of clues and encounters various academics, police officials and others are having with a series of seemingly unrelated cults. But among these cults, whatever the language otherwise, phrases in an unknown language, the same one, keep recurring. Also, an image of a humanoid giant with dragon wings and the head of an octopus. All these signs point to the perception that an ancient race of entities called the Great Old Ones and their leader, Cthulhu, are hidden away in an underwater city someplace. The time is coming, soon, the Stars Will Be Right, and dreaming Cthulhu will return. His followers believe they will share the power and the glory of their god as Great Cthulhu rampages across the world.It helps to remember that the followers of Cthulhu are seemingly insane, and even physicaly degenerate.Cthulhu lies dreaming, and his dreams are touching and affecting people the world over.Creepy stuff. Don't read it at three in the morning while on guard duty.

[rameau_1 · Rating: 5 out of 5 stars]

Some stray thoughts... Lovecraft has some similarities with Borges. Old books. Stories more about idea than character. "Tlon, Uqbar, Orbis Tertius" could be a HPL story like "The Call of Cthulhu" with its main character going into the archives and finding that the world is really not what he thought....First time reading "The Shadow Over Innsmouth," which now may be my new favorite HPL. Not many people give him credit for being a fine regionalist in depicting New England towns and landscapes. The scene in which the protagonist has to escape from his hotel room was much more clearly blocked out than many Hollywood action sequences.....This Penguin Classic has some interesting notes in which I learned the surprising fact that I have actually been to the "real-life" setting of "The Colour Out of Space." It's the Quabbin Reservoir near Amherst, Mass. In the 1930s, a valley containing several towns was flooded to provide water for Boston. It is truly a strange place, with no people for miles around, dense forest, here and there a ruined foundation sticking out of the grass, and at its center, a giant white sphere containing a radio telescope.

[jsaj_3 · Rating: 4 out of 5 stars]

Love H.P. Lovecraft and this is a pretty good collection. My Lovecraft review- interesting writing, even though he has stylistic problems. Very creative and creates fascinating and deeply detailed worlds.

[albertgoldfain · Rating: 5 out of 5 stars]

Filling in the gaps in my geek cannon, the "Call of the Cthulhu" has been on my list for awhile. What I liked most about the story was the Jules Verne style and level of descriptive detail. I also liked that it was told from the perspective of a rational mind confronting (in an almost fatalistic way) a series of irrational events. The ability of the Cthulhu to horrify its victims in dream as well as in the waking hours puts it on a higher rung than other famous monsters.

[mausergem_1 · Rating: 4 out of 5 stars]

A man discovers amongst his dead uncle’s papers a narrative about a secret cult called the Cthulhu cult. In a series of letters and personal interviews the author has presented to us a picture of this cult. The cult members are savages and are the devotees of the Cthulhu and the Great Old Ones, creatures from the stars who are trapped in their underwater city waiting for release.Something which is entirely imaginative and occult but still creates a sense of fear is quite amazing.