Lovecraft Tales
by Howard Phillips Lovecraft
|
|
Sign in to Goodreads to see your friends' reviews of Lovecraft Tales.
discuss this book
friend reviews (0)
To see what your friends thought of this book, please sign up.
lists with this book
other reviews (showing 1-20 of 359)
Read in October, 2005
While I have not read the vast majority of horror fiction available, I would still be willing to stake a claim that no other writer has written in the genre more effectively in the last hundred years than Howard Phillips Lovecraft.
He is almost definitely the most influential. Any modern horror author worth his salt would almost certainly cite Lovecraft as an enormous influence; his last name alone has entered the Lexicon as a descriptive; the adjective "Lovecraftian" calls to mind i...more
He is almost definitely the most influential. Any modern horror author worth his salt would almost certainly cite Lovecraft as an enormous influence; his last name alone has entered the Lexicon as a descriptive; the adjective "Lovecraftian" calls to mind i...more
Like this review?
yes
add a comment
Read in June, 2008
I hadn't read Lovecraft since high school, when I read his works and played the role-playing game. He was extremely cool at the time, with hard rock bands writing songs about his works and almost a cottage industry of sorts emerging around his made-up book, the Necronomican, with a few publishers offering what they claimed was the read deal. Rumors were that it wasn't a made-up book at all, but a real book of pure evil that he had in his possession -- a rumor which I am sure would have delighted...more
Like this review?
yes
add a comment
Read in December, 2007
I wouldn't recommend this to those who aren't already horror or sci-fi fans. Many stories are pretty good but the writing is awfully florid and overwrought. Lovecraft is quite the racist, and it shows very well in the earlier stories. I give you the narrator's cat in one: Nigger-man. Often the supernatural and horrific are closely tied to foreigners, and you could almost read some stories as the hallucinations of a xenophobe. But, some stories are alright, especially later ones, like "The C...more
Like this review?
yes
add a comment
Read in March, 2006
Lovecraft! Burdened by poor word choice, clumsy with narrative, and hampered by psycho-sexual and racial issues by the bucketful, an asexual aristocrat from Providence wrote some of the most genuinely disturbing stories in American literature. It's not everyone's cup of tea, but even if one doesn't enjoy his eldritch horrors from beyond the wall of sleep, they can at least appreciate how his stories represent a certain kind of paranoia: one that could have only been penned by an exceedingly we...more
Like this review?
yes
add a comment
Read in April, 2008
recommends it for:
People who like Poe, but want a little more raunch.
Amazing collection of Lovecraft's work. Except, I have to admit, the last two selections. It had nothing to do with the actual last two selections. I think I was just Lovecrafted out, and grew tired of it after 800 pages. It's more of a collection that you pick up every once in a while, get your short Lovecraft fix, then put back on the shelf for another day.
I definitely recommend for fans of horror and sci-fi. But if you don't like horror, it can be overwhelming, I'm sure.
Warning: Lov...more
I definitely recommend for fans of horror and sci-fi. But if you don't like horror, it can be overwhelming, I'm sure.
Warning: Lov...more
Like this review?
yes
add a comment
Read in December, 2006
recommends it for:
people who feel Poe is too upbeat
Think Poe, but with a sci-fi twist on the morbid and horrifying tales of grim human nature. There are ways Lovecraft sells out a bit as a writer - for example, many of his characters are overcome by madness or selective memory loss when it comes time to reveal the great mystery of any given story - but much of that may be attributed to the style of the times. Altogther (and I read selectively from this incredibly comprehensive collection), the stories are worth reading, but you should feel free ...more
Like this review?
yes
add a comment
Read in May, 2008
HP Lovecraft has, by far, one of the most twisted imaginations. He's a helluva story teller. This particular book came with reference notations in the back which kept me from being totally lost at times regarding what he was talking about. Maybe a little overly descriptive for my own tastes in regards to architecture and minute details, but he is worth the read. Re-Animator was a great story as well as At The Mountains of Madness.
I say go ahead and explore Lovecraft's world, but be prepared t...more
I say go ahead and explore Lovecraft's world, but be prepared t...more
Like this review?
yes
add a comment
Read in April, 2008
recommended to Tim by:
Abdul Alhazredrecommends it for: Metal Heads, tweakers, pot-heads, hop-heads, stoners, wankers, spazoids, etc.
Collecting many of his best stories in one volume; whole and unedited - stands as one of the best tomes of Lovecraft's works out there. Though it doesn't represent his complete works, it does contain a very detailed and comprehensive chronology of his life; documenting his creation of the character "The Mad Arab Abdul Alhazred", the author of the nefarious "Necronomicon" - purported to have come to him in a dream when Howard was a youngster. This is the stuff that's inspired ...more
Like this review?
yes
add a comment
Read in January, 2006
If you're looking for just one succinct Lovecraft anthology (and as someone who's read pretty much all the fiction he ever wrote, I can vouch that that's all you need), then this volume is it. It contains all of Lovecraft's most famous stories, in addition to the novellas "At the Mountains of Madness" and "The Case of Charles Dexter Ward," in which regard it supercedes the earlier Del Rey collection. Look no further for the hyper-eloquent, overwritten, occasionally-chilling s...more
Like this review?
yes
add a comment
recommends it for:
Spiritual questors
Lovecraft is the great American author of the first half of the twentieth century. He captures the existential terror of man lost and drifting on the cosmic winds of time, in a universe without purpose or meaning, better than anyone -- this grim Puritan without God reveals sartre and heidegger as tenured posuers, and HP for all his problems never acted as an apologists for Stalin or Hitler.
Like this review?
yes
add a comment
Laugh-out loud funny until you try to go to sleep. The mad protestant in the loamy gloaming pagan wilderness. An indictment and love letter to New England and its witchy tombstone supulchre bling. And a monster named Yog-Sogoth. The only author I've read where I thought, "I wonder if he's a good dancer."
Like this review?
yes
(2 people liked it)
add a comment
I'm still working on finishing this book. I definitely bought it for "The Call of Cthulhu," but there are some other very creepy stories within, including "The Rats in the Walls." Lovecraft was quite the storyteller. This is a great book to read at Halloween or for anyone who likes creepy tales.
Like this review?
yes
add a comment
Read in May, 2007
recommends it for:
the constitutionally rugged/fantastical
did you know lovecraft invented the necronomicon? SO brilliant, loved his repetition of simple phrases and themes. The stories are built off one another. My fave was probably "The Case of Charles Dexter Ward."
Like this review?
yes
add a comment
Lovecraft scares the poo out of me. I'm talking "Tony why are you still awake and why do you have a bat in your hand" scared. Compulsively readable and always thrilling. I wish I could write like him.
Like this review?
yes
add a comment
i found this more frightening as a teenager than any slasher film at the time. more horrifying from its lack, the absence of knowing than from any gore or brutality that you normally see in film.
Like this review?
yes
add a comment
i won't exaggerate and tell you that lovecraft was a great writer, but at those moments when his ability and imagination were perfectly in sync he could creep you out like none other.
Like this review?
yes
add a comment
o melhor do terror psicológico. nunca antes a imagem do horro se formou na minha cabeça tão bem construída, com neste conto "The Whisperer in Darkness".
Like this review?
yes
add a comment
Read in December, 2006
Douglas read these stories to me on some cold winter nights with both of us under the covers. I especially liked "The Thing on the Doorstep".
Like this review?
yes
add a comment
This is a chilling look at one xenophobe's ideas about a world in which Darwinism is applied to the existence as a whole
Like this review?
yes
add a comment
recommends it for:
All HPL Fans.
The American Library edition of Lovecraft's stories, edited by Peter Straub, is a must for any Lovecraftian.
Like this review?
yes
add a comment