Amazing stuff from the Master of Horror
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Forget Stephen King, Lovecraft IS the true master of horror.
Ok, some stories may be just oniric ramblings like Celephais or Festival, but never has anyone scared me so much over so few pages and for every lemon of a story there are four peaches, and that is good trade off.
Even though Lovecraft draws on monsters and phantastical creatures to conduct his stories, it is more often than not the consequences and the implications of their existence rather than the creatures themselves that create the sense of fear when reading the stories.
And again, in contrast with Stephen King, a 400 page novel cannot be scary nearly by definition. But condense it all on 12 and simply do not read them before switching off the light, after all, beware of the Whisperer in the Darkness...
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Great varied collection
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This collection contains some quite different stories, from Arthur Jermyn (of opening paragraph fame: Life is a hideous thing), The Picture in the House (takes place in a modest and quiet New England farm house, but the mere sight of such dwellings always fills the author with extraordinary horror), Herbert West (eventually torn to pieces by legions newly out of the tomb lead by a certain resurrected Thing waxen head in hand orchestrating the ceremonious clawing asunder of the mad scientist responsible for animating their corpses) to the excellent and really uncanny "Whisperer in Darkness" and the unbelievable "The Shadow over Innsmouth". Well worth it.
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Horror Fiction at it's finest
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Howard Phillips Lovecraft (1890-1937) is a name synonomous with most horror fiction fans; and one can easily see why once one reading the first few sentences of his beautiful prose.
Most of the stories contained in this teriffic compilation are of 'short' veriety - with some noticeably lengthier. They deal with all sorts of strange beasts and ideas; from creepy old men in the backwoods of New England, Zombies, unseen ghouls and massive god-like monsters.
Of course, these stories would hold up without the assistance of explanatary notes which occuply the end of this particular volume; however, editor ST Joshi's notes complement these stories brillinatly, providing an interesting backstory on some of the more curious passages, and offer exhaustive information on the inspiration for the fiction.
Joshi's introduction is also excellent, offering a short biography of Lovecraft's brief and tragic life.
Even though Lovecraft's fiction has been collected in various other volumes for dacades, this (along with 'Thing on the Doorstep' and 'Dreams in the Witch House') is the difinative version of the stories collected in this volume, and it will offer hours of reading pleasure.
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Rather dull
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Don't get me wrong, I think Lovecraft a talented writer able to create atmosphere and set the scene. For me though, the main problem is the stories themselves, they are just not terribly interesting, convincing or entertaining. I guess if you are a fan of MR James and the like you'll probably enjoy this. For myself, it all left me rather cold and with no great desire to read any more of his work.
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Excellent collection assembled by ST Joshi
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This volume contains the stories: Dagon, Randolph Carter, Arthur Jermyn, Celephais, Nyarlathotep, Picture in the House, Outsider, Herbert West, Hound, Rats in the Walls, Festival, He, Cool Air, Call of Cthulhu, Colour out of Space, Whisperer in Darkness, Shadow Over Innsmouth, Haunter of the Dark, as well as a fourteen page Introduction by Joshi (the foremost scholar on Lovecraft), a suggestion for further reading, a note on the text, and an extra sixty pages of explanatory notes. This is an excellent collection of Lovecraft stories with a lot of interesting notation and material on his background, his childhood, his inspirations for each story, and various other pieces of fascinating information. It is also, in my opinion, the strongest of the three current Penguin collections of his work, containing as it does the superb Colour out of Space, Shadow over Innsmouth, and Call of Cthulhu (my favourite). Each story is annotated with numbered reference points which can be a bit distracting at first but doesn't really get in the way of your enjoyment of the stories, and provides fascinating insight into the use of certain words, the origins of characters' names, towns and events that influenced the plot, etc. In addition, each of these stories are the definitive editions compiled by Joshi himself, making this currently one of the best Lovecraft collections in the UK. Highly recommended.
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