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.
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Let's Talk a Bit About Lovecraft
I suppose it was about fifty years ago that I "met" H.P. Lovecraft and fell in love. YES, he's annoyingly verbose, but the man had an imagination so outre that his subjects would've loved to have him as their biographer. I was working a bookkeeping job in Birmingham, Alabama, and had a full hour off for lunch every weekday. There was a shopping center near my work, so I would ramble, and on one of those rambles found books by H.P. Lovecraft. My eyes being significantly better then, yes, I could read a paperback, and did read every one of his that I could find. Readers who really wish Lovecraft would quit beating around the bush, and just get to the point, might be happier reading the works of August Derleth. To me, his works are more frightening than Lovecraft's, but deal with the same Elder Gods and Great Old Ones. The attached photo is the PRIZE of my face jug collection, and was sold as a "kiln accident." The very talented Michael Ball told me that these pieces had fused in the old-style kiln he used, and that normally when removed, they would crack apart. These didn't. Both of us were seriously worried, but Mike had packed the item very carefully, and it arrived in perfect condition. To me, the little guy is obviously The Devil. Big deal. Lots of face jugs are devils. BUT the big guy, and I'm still not sure what Mike intended him to be, is just totally obviously Cthulhu. Sorry for getting off the subject there, but I really love that jug! So . . . this novella of Lovecraft's has its moments, but the word "decadent" has to appear a gazillion times. Enough already! I will always love Lovecraft and the pantheon he created, but find Derleth easier reading. Enjoy!!!
Top reviews from other countries
Bruno de Oliveira Moreira
very good, despise having poor characters
Reviewed in Brazil on October 16, 2014J. T. Atkinson
perhaps the 5 stars is a little generous as this is not Lovecraft's best and is fatally flawed in its strange meandering structu
Reviewed in the United Kingdom on August 17, 2014