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At the Mountains of Madness

by H.P. Lovecraft, S.T. Joshi (Editor), China Miéville (Goodreads Author) (Introduction)

4.05 of 5 stars 4.05 · rating details · 5,743 ratings · 386 reviews

Introduction by China Miéville

Long acknowledged as a master of nightmarish visions, H. P. Lovecraft established the genuineness and dignity of his own pioneering fiction in 1931 with his quintessential work of supernatural horror, At the Mountains of Madness. The deliberately told and increasingly chilling recollection of an Antarctic expedition’s uncanny discoveries–and t...more

Paperback, definitive, 224 pages

Published June 14th 2005 by Modern Library (first published 1936)

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Apr 19, 2011 Stephen rated it 5 of 5 stars

Shelves: easton-press, 6-star-books, all-time-favorites, cthulhu-worship, horror-classic, novellas, lost-my-world, science-fiction, horror, love-those-words, pulpy, weird-and-new-weird, 1930-1953

6.0 stars. As I was experiencing Lovecraft’s supremely awesome, nightmarish masterpiece, At the Mountains of Madness (ATMOM), it really struck me for the first time that he was a tremendously literate writer. I have been a fan of Lovecraft for a long time and have always been gaga for his bizarre imaginative stories. However, what jumped out at me on this reading of ATMOM was how impressively Lovecraft enhances the sense of dread that hangs over his stories through the colorful, melodramatic la...more

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Jul 07, 2007 Silvia Chenault rated it 5 of 5 stars Recommends it for: chill seekers

Shelves: classics, fiction, horror

This is my first taste of Lovecraft and I am hooked. This story takes place in the Antarctic and the story is told by a unnamed geologist who is part of an expedition team. They split into two teams, one stays at the base camp (the narrator being part of that team), and the other team flies through the harsh weather to higher ground.

The later team finds an undiscovered range of mountains that send awe and fear through the men. Their plane fails and they make an emergency landing among these mon...more

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May 26, 2009 Erin rated it 2 of 5 stars

Shelves: 2009

This review has been hidden because it contains spoilers. To view it, click here.

10 likes · like · see review

Jul 20, 2008 Jamil rated it 3 of 5 stars

Shelves: adventure, fantasy, monsters, mythology, secret-histories, science-fiction, summer-reading, syllabus, lovecraft, antarctica, china-miéville, horror

from the China Miéville introduction:

"Lovecraft's is not a fiction of carefully structured plot so much as of ineluctable unfolding: it is a literature of the inevitability of weird.
"'My reason for writing stories,' Lovecraft says, 'is to give myself the satisfaction of wonder, beauty, and adventurous expectancy...' Story is not the point: the point is wonder, which for Lovecraft goes hand in hand with horror, because, he claims, 'fear is our deepest and strongest emotion.'
"He believes this be...more

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Oct 08, 2012 Linda rated it 3 of 5 stars

Shelves: classic, history-archeology, horror, science-fiction

An expedition is sent to the Antarctic region to bore for samples deep in the ice with a newly developed equipment. When there, they split up and one of the teams makes a tremendous scientific discovery, before radio contact is suddenly broken. The main character, William Dyer, is worried and fly over to the other camp, with his comrade Danforth to investigate what happened, and the sight which greets them is total madness.

Spoilers!

Dyer wasn't especially well developed and I didn't get the feeli...more An expedition is sent to the Antarctic region to bore for samples deep in the ice with a newly developed equipment. When there, they split up and one of the teams makes a tremendous scientific discovery, before radio contact is suddenly broken. The main character, William Dyer, is worried and fly over to the other camp, with his comrade Danforth to investigate what happened, and the sight which greets them is total madness.

Spoilers!

Dyer wasn't especially well developed and I didn't get the feeling of knowing him that well, since this is his "report" to prevent another expedition coming to the dangerous wasteland. That's unfortunate because I think character development is the most important thing in a story. This didn't exactly help me understand him when he found the camp shattered and his fellow comrades destroyed beyond recognition. He was horrified, but not really devastated enough to flee the place. No one in their right mind would continue the research for answers, when knowing that a strange force is ripping people apart. That felt unbelievable. At least, that's what I think. If someone would do that, at least they would have brought weapons (which I think they didn't, if I remember correctly).

Another thing I couldn't appreciate was the constant mentioning of the fictive, but apparently rather significant, book Necronomicon. The referring felt repetitive, especially since it is a made-up book, as I understand it. The author of this Necronomicon is supposed to have immense and unlimited knowledge or suspicion of the pre-historic era and organisms then occupying the earth, something that is hard to accept. If no one on the planet had ever found any kind of evidence whatsoever worth raising a suggestion of the kind, which Lovecraft implies, the possibility of the knowledge of the author (of the Necronomicon) isn't convincing enough, in my opinion. But perhaps Necronomicon is of major importance, telling Lovecraft's readers things I'm not able to conceive because I haven't read his other books.

Apart from these flaws, the narrative was interesting and the prospect of finding our predecessors tremendously fascinating. However, this is much more than a simple horror story. It implicates something else; a bigger picture, implying something that can be applied to human beings and the conditions of research - something often found in Michael Crichton's novels - the fact that we might well be responsible for our own destruction. When creating and developing certain forces, we seldom reflect upon morals and repercussions, and the consequence could be fatal. In this novel, Lovecraft imagined that severe elimination of the first and superior race on earth.

The conception that the roles changed happened to the team as well; when thinking they had the right to dissect creatures and view them as specimens not worth respecting, their destiny was immensely horrible, but also ironic.

I can't decide whether the theme that no one can or should control nature is religious or the very opposite. A science fiction story is normally not associated with religion, but what could be interpreted as the powerful force, feared even by The Old Ones? The very power, of which a single glimpse turned Danforth mad, was it the big creator? I'm not certain what could be read into this.

The narrative, exciting and brilliant as it might be, was sometimes tedious, so, though the idea of a pre-cambrian settlement was mesmerizing, it didn't match my expectations. The countless descriptions of the Old Ones, their intelligence, prosperous life and oncoming destruction, were interesting for a while, but grew tiring. The way tension was built-up was terrific, though.

What's so interesting about this book is that it's open for interpretations and discussion, and the more I think about the underlying theme I discerned, the more I like it.
(less)

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May 04, 2009 Ben Babcock rated it 3 of 5 stars

Shelves: fantasy, 2009-read, essays, non-fiction, own, not-my-cup-of-tea

I will be brief, since I don't read much horror and am generally ignorant of Lovecraft's work, so I won't try to make a general statement based on this one story.

At the Mountains of Madness itself was OK, not great. Lovecraft is far more concerned with describing the extinct society of the Old Ones and their struggles with surviving Earth than injecting genuine dread into the story. It left little impression on me.

I liked the introduction by China Miéville better than the actual story. Likewise,...more

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Sep 23, 2011 Kibisis rated it 4 of 5 stars · review of another edition

Una ricerca continua. Col pretesto di una spedizione in Antartico Lovecraft ci accompagna negli angoli più angusti e inesplorati della coscienza umana. Si scende in luoghi oscuri... "Avevano scoperto una caverna. All'inizio della perforazione, l'arenaria aveva ceduto il posto a una venatura di calcare comancico, pieno di minuti cefalopodi fossili, coralli, echinoidi e spirifere, più qualche sporadica traccia di di spugna silicea e di ossa di vertebrati marini, quest'ultime probabilmente di teleo...more

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Nov 12, 2008 Jamie rated it 3 of 5 stars

never before has such an exciting story been told in such a dull way.

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Sep 25, 2012 Stanley rated it 4 of 5 stars

I bought a collection of H.P. Lovecraft stories through Amazon a little while back and this was the first one on the list. I've been told that this novella is one of his longer tales. I started reading this during lunch and breaks at work and so far it has been a nice differentiation in madness from the day to day.

So far I am really enjoying it and plan to continue to read other stories in the collections afterwards. I may even have to start reading this outside of work soon. I find myself const...more

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Jul 03, 2011 Andrew Hill rated it 4 of 5 stars

What a great story. A scientist discovers an ancient and unnameable evil buried in the Antarctic. It is a setup familiar to anyone who has read Campbell's "Who Goes There?" (or seen the two very good movies based on that story), but Lovecraft's approach is both more subtle and more broad. The drama of the story does not come from confronting or overcoming a specific threat. Instead, it is built up through discovery--almost pure exposition, in much the same way that Arthur C. Clarke uses discover...more What a great story. A scientist discovers an ancient and unnameable evil buried in the Antarctic. It is a setup familiar to anyone who has read Campbell's "Who Goes There?" (or seen the two very good movies based on that story), but Lovecraft's approach is both more subtle and more broad. The drama of the story does not come from confronting or overcoming a specific threat. Instead, it is built up through discovery--almost pure exposition, in much the same way that Arthur C. Clarke uses discovery to drive the story of his science fiction classic, "Rendezvous with Rama".

Lovecraft really substantiates his literary reputation in this novella of atmospheric horror. He is a master of creating a pervasive sense of dread, and he rarely resorts to the graphic descriptions that are indicative of modern horror fiction.

Violence always lurks around some dark corner, but most of it occurs away from the narrative, and the reader only faces the disturbing results. Lovecraft understands that the threat of violence, or the implication of horror, is much scarier than its actual presence. Lovecraft leverages our own imaginations to suggest things much nastier than anything a writer could dream up. In merely suggesting something infinitely horrific, a "terrible, indescribable thing", the author makes the reader call forth his own monsters, which are truly frightening. Thus, in "At the Mountains of Madness". Lovecraft avoids the trap of disappointing the reader with a monster that does not live up to its billing. (One example of this horror-writer trap that springs to mind is Dean Koontz's "Phantoms", which is a great book up until the monster is revealed. Then it gets ridiculous.)

One of the recurrent themes of his work is man's true position in the cosmos. We--humanity--are not much better than gnats, and the madness that afflicts many of his characters often results from this realization. They stare into the abyss, and, to quote Nietzsche, the abyss stares back. His characters see "the old ones", they see more of the nature and extent of life, and they grasp their fundamental insignificance. Of course a reader can enjoy Lovecraft without accepting this somewhat dismal view of mankind. "At the Mountains of Madness" displays this philosophy to great effect, albeit with some periodic narrative hiccups--the scenes in the empty rooms of the ancient city could have been shorter.

Highly recommended for any reader with an imagination.(less)

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Dec 27, 2011 Velma rated it 3 of 5 stars · review of another edition Recommends it for: anyone looking for a first Lovecraft

Shelves: boxall-1001-books, ebooks, 2011-reads, horror

This makes a good introductory "chapter" on Lovecraft's Cthulu mythos work, I think. Some of the elements that worked for me: the geologist-as-narrator, which appealed to my somewhat trained geo-nerd self*; the cutting edge (for it's time) science of the story; Lovecraft's ability to create tension & build to a climax (particularly in the first third of the story); and the sheer joy of nascent science fiction.

What didn't work so well are the excruciatingly looooooong passages of telling-not-...more

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Jul 05, 2008 jess rated it 3 of 5 stars

Shelves: 2008, fiction

This review has been hidden because it contains spoilers. To view it, click here. terrifying journey into the unknown! this book is scary! it's horrifying! it's full of indescribable fear and terror!

Lovecraft!!! apparently (i didn't know him, so this is hearsay) he was a big ol' racist, anti-semitic fool, who came to socialism late in life because he just hated everyone so much it made sense to him. this book speaks to his class anxiety in a MAJOR WAY! the sloggoths are the lowest class, the slaves of this ancient culture, and the big twist is that their revolt and subsequen...more

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Mar 15, 2008 Melinda Chadwick rated it 4 of 5 stars

"...I could not help feeling that they were evil things-- mountains of madness whose farther slopes looked out over some accursed ultimate abyss. That seething , half-luminous cloud-background held ineffable suggestions of a vague, ethereal beyondness far more than terrestrially spatial; and gave appalling reminders of the utter remoteness, separateness, desolation, and aeon-long death of this untrodden and unfathomed austral world."

This book would make a great movie, in my opinion, if done corr...more

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Dec 03, 2007 Raja99 rated it 4 of 5 stars

Shelves: hardcover-l

I only read the title story at this time; my rating is for it.

I read this for the first time a few months back, for the HardSF Yahoogroup. I found it a bit painful to reread now; the flaws seemed magnified.

This "definitive edition" adds quite a bit of text, which unfortunately makes it seem like "more description, less action".

Style issues aside, this is a very important and influential book with some terrific ideas. It seems to me that John W. Campbell lifted the setting for "Who Goes There", m...more

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May 06, 2013 Tobin Elliott rated it 1 of 5 stars

Shelves: audiobook

This review isn't necessarily for the edition with the Mieville intro. This is for an audiobook version I found online (god knows I'll never do that again...you'll know why by the end of the review). I've only had passing acquaintance with Lovecraft, so I've decided to go through as much of his stuff as I can. Now, while this story draws on or name checks a ton of Lovecraft's previous monsters and tropes, and from everything I can see, is hailed as a classic of the genre. Only...virtually nothin...more

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Jan 19, 2013 Carolina rated it 5 of 5 stars

HP Lovecraft has inspired many modern Horror writers and filmmakers. In fact many of the works of the late twentieth century, both in writing and on the screen that terrified us as children (come on admit it, you watched scary movies you weren't supposed to watch when you were a kid while your parents were sleeping) and still do today, have been inspired by this author.
His stories can be disturbing, crazy, and just when you know what's going to happen he surprises you with something greater.
Such...more

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Dec 23, 2012 LG (A Library Girl's Familiar Diversions) rated it 4 of 5 stars

Shelves: 4-star, read-2012, format-ebook, acquired-free

I recently started watching Nyarko-san: Another Crawling Chaos on Crunchyroll. The series casts Lovecraft's Nyarlathotep as a cute silver-haired girl named Nyarko-san. After struggling to understand some of the jokes, I decided it was time to start reading the works that inspired the series.

It was late in the evening, and, even if it hadn't been, the library I work at only carries maybe two of Lovecraft's works. I didn't want to have to wait for something via ILL, so I was thrilled to discover t...more

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Dec 07, 2012 Stephen rated it 4 of 5 stars

Shelves: fiction, horror

Classic horror is a thing that I feel is lost on most audiences today. Too many times we equate horror with the latest PG-13 schlock full of mindless T&A and an 'in-your-face-grandma' soundtrack featuring the flavor of the weak in nu-metal. Torture porn and crappy remakes have become the bread and butter in which we attempt to scare ourselves.

But, my friends, true horror is not lost. It's merely lurking beneath the surface, ready to rise like Dread Cthulhu and wreak havoc on the lesser crea...more

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Sep 24, 2012 Kerry rated it 2 of 5 stars

Shelves: 2004, 5, sf

I first really encountered the whole concept of Lovecraft's Mythos (something I remain unclear on, so please excuse any mistakes) while reading a BBC Eight Doctor Doctor Who novel, which I guess is kind of backwards. From there I was interested in finding about a bit more about it, but it all seemed to be very confusing and I didn't know where to begin or how much I really wanted to do so. When this was one of [BeyondReality]'s October selections, it seemed providential. It took me while to get...more I first really encountered the whole concept of Lovecraft's Mythos (something I remain unclear on, so please excuse any mistakes) while reading a BBC Eight Doctor Doctor Who novel, which I guess is kind of backwards. From there I was interested in finding about a bit more about it, but it all seemed to be very confusing and I didn't know where to begin or how much I really wanted to do so. When this was one of [BeyondReality]'s October selections, it seemed providential. It took me while to get hold of the book, eventually finding a copy online.

The story itself is fairly basic. A geologist, one of a small number of survivors of an ill-fated expedition to Antartica in 1930, finally reveals the true horrors discovered there in order to dissuade a new expedition from following in his footsteps.

So what did I think of it?

Well, in all honesty the writing is pretty mediocre. It's lurid and rambling and the vague hints that are supposed to build suspense, I found annoying. For all that though, I keep reading. I kept thinking of giving up, but there was something compelling about the story that kept me going. I found the beginning very slow, but it smoothed out and picked up in the second half before petering out into a somewhat unsatisfying ending.

I have to say that I didn't find this in the least scary; the writing was too clinical for that as it didn't stir any emotions. Also, especially in the first half, there was lots and lots of description, especially through Lake's reports. I am not at all a visual person, so it was just words to me and I wasn't building up any picture of these creastures. That may have diminished the impact. Where I did feel my emotions was being tugged was as the narrator makes his conclusions about what must have happened to the Old Ones who believed they were returning home and his guesses at their feelings about that.

All in all, this is very much a "tell, don't show" story, and as a modern reader, I tend to prefer the opposite. I often feel when things are hinted at and events described obliquely that I've missed a lot, but in this case I did feel I'd got most of the details I was supposed to by the end. Although I'm still not clear about what kind of creature was chasing Danforth and the narrator as their fled back up the tunnels from the abyss. If anyone can enlighten me, I'd be grateful.

If you want a taste of Lovecraft to see what all the fuss is about - as I did - I do think this is a good story to try. It turned out not to be my thing, but it might be yours.

[Copied across from Library Thing; 25 September 2012](less)

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Sep 03, 2012 Forrest rated it 4 of 5 stars

This is as close as one will get to an epic adventure quest by H.P. Lovecraft. If you're an old role-playing game geek like me, this will appeal to the dungeoneer in you. Plenty of delving and mystery in this one!

If you're a fan of the movie Prometheus, you'd do well to hark back to the origin of many of the movie's tropes. They are similar, at least on the surface: An impossibly old alien race creates life on earth for the purpose of enslaving it, yadda, yadda. If you hated the movie Prometheus...more This is as close as one will get to an epic adventure quest by H.P. Lovecraft. If you're an old role-playing game geek like me, this will appeal to the dungeoneer in you. Plenty of delving and mystery in this one!

If you're a fan of the movie Prometheus, you'd do well to hark back to the origin of many of the movie's tropes. They are similar, at least on the surface: An impossibly old alien race creates life on earth for the purpose of enslaving it, yadda, yadda. If you hated the movie Prometheus, you'd do well to hark back to the origin of many of the movie's tropes . . . need I go on?

The story begins with that rarefied sense of heroic antarctic exploration that permeated the accounts of Scott, Amundsen, and Shackleton's expeditions. At that time, such an expedition was fraught with danger, due to drifting ice, unforeseen logistical shortcomings, and, of course, the weather. Since the Antarctic was relatively unknown when Lovecraft wrote the story, it's easy to see why he would set his story in what appeared in that day to be an utterly alien place, though it was right here at home on planet earth.

Or was it "home," really? Whose home? And for how long?

Now, I'm a big Lovecraft fan. But there was one thing, stylistically, that drove me absolutely nuts about this story. It's a minor thing, but it prevents me from giving an unbridled five-star rating to the story. Frankly, I really disliked the use of shortwave reports between the narrator, William Dyer, and Lake's remote base. The choppiness of the language seemed correct and historically accurate to me, since shortwave radio had been in use for only a decade or so before Lovecraft wrote the story. The characters would, like Lovecraft, have been habituated to using short, choppy phrases because of the telegraph system that preceded the explosion of shortwave radio in the 1920s. But what didn't seem correct, and what threw me out of the rhythm of the story, was the use of flowery words and complex phraseology in the messages themselves. They aren't as blatantly ugly on paper as they are when read aloud. Try it sometime. It feels overwrought and contrived. Not to mention that these info-dumps could have been spread out and integrated into the story itself a little better.

But this is a minor complaint. All-in-all, I loved the slow escalation of the horror in the story. It begins with a lot of hyperbole and, indeed, engages in it throughout. Still, Lovecraft manages to build the sense of dread to a fitting crescendo. In several instances, I was surprised by a plot twist that I should have seen coming. Ah, Lovecraft, you trickster! You fooled me again!

One thing I really enjoyed was the narrator's ambiguous feelings regarding the Old Ones. Though his primary emotional reaction toward these beings are fear and revulsion, there is also a moment of pity and near-empathy that I found endearing.

This is not my favorite Lovecraft story. But it's not one of his lesser works, either. If you haven't had a crack at Lovecraft, it's not a bad place to start. And if you're a Lovecraft fan, as I am, you'll recognize many of the elements, though you'll be surprised by others, such as the narrator's conflicting feelings that I've outlined above. I'm no expert on Lovecraft's evolution as a storyteller, but I have to wonder if these surprises are indicative of a certain maturation in his writing. Someone smarter than me with more resources and time will have to determine that. For my own reading enjoyment, though, At the Mountains of Madness, though flawed, still reflects the writer's genius. Ia, Ia Lovecraft!(less)

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Jul 14, 2012 Gwen rated it 3 of 5 stars

Shelves: 1000-book-challenge, horror-hors-d-oeuvres

I confess I have a tendency to think the majority of HP Lovecraft's stories as being much the same story. A character Tampers in God's Domain, getting involved in some sort of scientific or medical experiments or wanders into somewhere they shouldn't go, there is lots of atmospheric description, then Something Strange and Too Terrible to Describe comes after them. Plug in a new location, pick your flavor of Eldrich Abomination, and you're good to go.

This time, the place is Antarctica, and the pr...more I confess I have a tendency to think the majority of HP Lovecraft's stories as being much the same story. A character Tampers in God's Domain, getting involved in some sort of scientific or medical experiments or wanders into somewhere they shouldn't go, there is lots of atmospheric description, then Something Strange and Too Terrible to Describe comes after them. Plug in a new location, pick your flavor of Eldrich Abomination, and you're good to go.

This time, the place is Antarctica, and the prop monsters are the Old Ones and the Shuggoth. The human protagonists are on a geology expedition, complete with the sort of scientific narration that I would expect from a Jules Verne novel. I could easily see this story being produced as one of those Found Footage genre movies, with the scientists waving to the camera, their dogs eager to go in the background, narrating their discoveries for the film crew, then things slowly but surely start to Go Completely Wrong.

I find it amusing how the creatures, found as "fossils" by digging into the rock, later take revenge for their dissected comrade by cutting a chunk out of both a man and a dog and leaving it on the dissection table. That alone should have given an indication to the expedition characters that they were alive and highly intelligent long before they discover the tremendous city excavated out into the mountains, with the history of their kind carved throughout in relief sculpture.

It is when the two men are exploring around that labrynthian complex that the story starts to drag a bit, the author providing a long info dump about the Old Ones and the Shuggoth themselves. I imagine my hypothetical Found Footage movie probably would have glossed over the millions of years of history provided here with a minute or so of exposition, but the way it was presented here felt like too much info at once, the sort of thing that a Call of C'thulu gamemaster might find useful, but I wonder if a contemporary reader of this story felt boredom the way that I suspect the average modern reader might (this is a genuine question, by the way, I am curious just how much attention span we've lost for this sort of prolonged description in a work of fiction).

On the positive, the prose is better than what I normally expect from Lovecraft, and there are some quite elegant passages of description.

However, the ending to this story will not seem at all inspired if you've read other Lovecraft stories. If you have, you probably already know that the horrors will at last come out to play, and it's really a question of whether everyone will get away or someone will get pulled off by the unknown abomination before the end. Which is about what I'd expect from a Found Footage movie as well, now that I think of it.(less)

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May 22, 2012 Nicole Green rated it 5 of 5 stars

This book is amazing and I can't believe that it took me so long to finally read it. I have been an H.P. Lovecraft fan for years and one of his best-known, best-selling, and best-written novellas of all time had been sitting on my bookshelf collecting dust for I don't even know how long. I am sure that if I had read this book when I picked it up from the bookstore, I would have nightmares for a VERY long time afterwards. Now, I only have minor nightmares and no longer have any intention of setti...more

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Mar 15, 2012 Josh rated it 3 of 5 stars

There was so much I liked about this story. There was so much that I disliked about this story. First up: the like. H.P. Lovecraft’s tale of researchers in the antarctic is as gripping as it is imaginative. The set up for the story is like one we’ve seen dozens of times now: team goes to unexplored place, something strange happens and communication is lost with first team, second team goes and discovers some spooky stuff. I’m not sure, but At the Mountains of Madness was probably the first to em...more There was so much I liked about this story. There was so much that I disliked about this story. First up: the like. H.P. Lovecraft’s tale of researchers in the antarctic is as gripping as it is imaginative. The set up for the story is like one we’ve seen dozens of times now: team goes to unexplored place, something strange happens and communication is lost with first team, second team goes and discovers some spooky stuff. I’m not sure, but At the Mountains of Madness was probably the first to employ this trope in the icy permafrost of Antarctica. (Brief aside: as I read I couldn’t help but think how much the first Alien vs. Predator movie completely ripped off a ton of these concepts, and managed to suck arse in the process.) Lovecraft’s prose really conjures up some dreadful imagery and there are plenty of spooky moments. I love all of the mythology from the elder ones to the Shoggoths to the Necronomicon. Overall, there is a lot to like.

Now, the dislike. The story is written as a warning to any potential explorers who wish to excavate the vast and mysterious ruins left by the elder ones, which is all well and good, but the way the narrator tells the story he’s practically daring anyone with even an ounce of balls to go down there and see what’s up. I mean, if you’re an archaeologist, like Indiana Jones for instance, then do you think that a strongly worded written warning is going to stop you from going down there and discovering the shit out of some ancient alien artifacts? Hecks no you aren’t! You’re gonna get your hat and whip and get the busy! Another problem I had with the tale is that a huge chunk of it was just scientific conjecture based on images carved into walls. I don’t want to devalue the artistic qualities of the elder race, but I refuse to believe that they would record their entire freaking history on the walls in such a manner that two scientists with a lantern would be able to decipher it all down to the last detail. Not to mention that the whole thing was kind of a prick tease. The whole time the narrator keeps telling us (paraphrasing, of course): ‘there’s some scary shit there’ and ‘don’t go back to Antarctica unless you wanna crap your pants in terror’, and when we get to the part where there’s supposed to be something scary, it’s just a freaking penguin! Yes there’s a penguin, but no it’s not the final beasty, but once we do get a chance to behold Sir Beasty, it has been built up so damn much that I didn’t even poop my pants, not even a little.

“What do you mean? That spot there? No. That was there from before.”

I’m still glad I read this tale, and I definitely plan on reading more Lovecraft in the future. I guess I have to keep in mind that this is old-school horror and take it as it is. And now because I wrote the term ‘old-school’, I have to end my piece with a certain word. Word.(less)

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Oct 17, 2011 Thaddeus.lewis added it · review of another edition

An expidition to Antartica of a team of Geologists. On their team the main character is William Dryer. The team of Geologists split up to make two seperate camps for storing items and what not, on one of the teams expiditons of a camp site, they come across a mountain range that is even taller then the himalayas, finding a spot on the mountain range they make camp. Dryer and his team went and found a camp site in a diffrent area, when the word of the mountain range was found the entire second wa...more

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Oct 17, 2011 Chelsea rated it 3 of 5 stars · review of another edition

This review has been hidden because it contains spoilers. To view it, click here.

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Oct 16, 2011 Candice Trebus rated it 3 of 5 stars

Woah, I'm shocked! Some of my favorite science fiction and fantasy books don't even get two chapters of a chance with some people. But this hard-core sci-fi classic has a readership to success rate that is incredible.

What I'm trying to say is that this is a dry read to an A.D.D. nation and I'm surprised that so many have gotten all the way through the book (yes, I know it's only like 100 pages) and have rated it so high!

That being said, the story is told with no dialogue and is purely a scientif...more

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Sep 15, 2011 Brian rated it 4 of 5 stars

Shelves: horror, science-fiction, classics

I'll start by saying, this is my first reading of a title within the "dark, supernatural, elder monster horror" genre and by default my first Lovecraft reading. So, I admit: I don't have the experience or background of a seasoned H.P. fan. That might be frustrating or refreshing, depending upon where you fall on the fanboy spectrum. Without further preface...

This title was--eerie. Not scary, but definitely eerie. The rigid commitment to the memoir/flashback, first person perspective was consiste...more

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Oct 21, 2012 Amerynth rated it 3 of 5 stars

Shelves: 1001-books, antarctica, fiction, horror, read-2012, science-fiction

Let me start off by saying that horror is not generally my genre. However, I thought H.P. Lovecraft's "At the Mountains of Madness" would be up my alley due to its Antarctic setting (I am completely mad for Antarctic expedition stories.) Also, I have played and enjoyed "Arkham Horror," a board game based upon Lovecraft's writings.

That said, I was a little disappointed by the novella. It didn't really have much of a creep factor. The story is told by Dyer, the member of an expedition to Antarctic...more

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Jan 23, 2012 Jesse Dixon rated it 1 of 5 stars · review of another edition

Shelves: library-books

Tediously painful. So much detail, so little action, and almost no emotion in the book. The first sentence of chapter 6 'It would be cumbrous to give a detailed, consecutive account of our wanderings inside that cavernous, aeon-dead honeycomb of primal masonry' Unfortunately the rest of the book described the cumbrous, detailed, consecutive account of their wonderings inside the cavernous, aeon-dead honeycomb of primal masonry. I found the writing too dry and dull.

This is a summary of the whole...more

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Jun 05, 2012 Claudia Piña rated it 4 of 5 stars

Shelves: horror-terror, sci-fi, short-stories, reviewed, 4-star

Decir todo lo que esta mal de este libro es básicamente describir el estilo de Lovecraft. Ya sabemos que hay prosa púrpura, ya sabemos que no suele respetar esa bella regla del show, don't tell. Ya sabemos que leer a Lovecraft da un poquito de dolor de cabeza, en especial a personas poco pacientes.

Sin embargo, suele valer la pena. Lovecraft tiene la gracia de conocer miedos muy profundos, en especial el miedo a lo desconocido. No el miedo a subir la escalera a oscuras o a ver bajo la cama, esos...more

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The Verge Book Club: Podcast: At the Mountains of Madness by H.P. Lovecraft	1	8	Apr 04, 2013 08:14am
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About H.P. Lovecraft

Howard Phillips Lovecraft, of Providence, Rhode Island, was an American author of horror, fantasy and science fiction.

Lovecraft's major inspiration and invention was cosmic horror: life is incomprehensible to human minds and the universe is fundamentally alien. Those who genuinely reason, like his protagonists, gamble with sanity. Lovecraft has developed a cult following for his Cthulhu Mythos, a...more

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Books by H.P. Lovecraft

The Best of H.P. Lovecraft: Bloodcurdling Tales of Horror and the Macabre

The Call of Cthulhu and Other Weird Stories

At the Mountains of Madness and Other Tales of Terror

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“I could not help feeling that they were evil things-- mountains of madness whose farther slopes looked out over some accursed ultimate abyss. That seething , half-luminous cloud-background held ineffable suggestions of a vague, ethereal beyondness far more than terrestrially spatial; and gave appalling reminders of the utter remoteness, separateness, desolation, and aeon-long death of this untrodden and unfathomed austral world.” — 8 people liked it

“Would to Heaven we had never approached them at all, but had run back at top speed out of that blasphemous tunnel with the greasily smooth floors and the degenerate murals aping and mocking the things they had superseded-run back, before we had seen what we did see, and before our minds were burned with something which will never let us breathe easily again!” — 2 people liked it

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