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La maldición que cayó sobre Sarnath
H. P. Lovecraft was one of the greatest horror writers of all time. His seminal work appeared in the pages of legendary Weird Tales and has influenced countless writer of the macabre. This is one of those stories.
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First published June 1, 1920
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About the author
H.P. Lovecraft
6,108 books19.3k followersHoward 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 series of loosely interconnected fictions featuring a pantheon of human-nullifying entities, as well as the Necronomicon, a fictional grimoire of magical rites and forbidden lore. His works were deeply pessimistic and cynical, challenging the values of the Enlightenment, Romanticism and Christianity. Lovecraft's protagonists usually achieve the mirror-opposite of traditional gnosis and mysticism by momentarily glimpsing the horror of ultimate reality.
Although Lovecraft's readership was limited during his life, his reputation has grown over the decades. He is now commonly regarded as one of the most influential horror writers of the 20th Century, exerting widespread and indirect influence, and frequently compared to Edgar Allan Poe.
See also Howard Phillips Lovecraft.
— Wikipedia
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 series of loosely interconnected fictions featuring a pantheon of human-nullifying entities, as well as the Necronomicon, a fictional grimoire of magical rites and forbidden lore. His works were deeply pessimistic and cynical, challenging the values of the Enlightenment, Romanticism and Christianity. Lovecraft's protagonists usually achieve the mirror-opposite of traditional gnosis and mysticism by momentarily glimpsing the horror of ultimate reality.
Although Lovecraft's readership was limited during his life, his reputation has grown over the decades. He is now commonly regarded as one of the most influential horror writers of the 20th Century, exerting widespread and indirect influence, and frequently compared to Edgar Allan Poe.
See also Howard Phillips Lovecraft.
— Wikipedia
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Displaying 1 - 30 of 141 reviews
February 9, 2017
3.5 Stars
Are you ready to embark upon a journey across Lovecraft's lands of fabled dreamworld?
Here is a map!
Anyone who has read enough Lovecraftian horrors would know that most of his stories could be classified under two prominent and interconnected themes /shared universe :
The Cthulhu Mythos, which revolves around the horrors of Great Old Ones &
Dream Cycle, where the central theme is an alternative dimension that can be entered via dreams.
Most of short stories in this collection comes under "Dream Cycle".
Many from our world have entered to this ultimate dimension with the help of drugs or by pure chance. Witness the misadventures of these misguided travelers in stories like "Hypnos", "The white ship" and "Ex Oblivione"
Some beings of dreamland have gotten themselves trapped in our world. You can read their woes in "Polaris" and in the excellent poem "Nathicana"
Beautiful, isn't it?
Then there are the dark legends and fables from the land of dreams itself. Experience them in stories like "Doom that came to Saranath", "the Cats of Ulthar" and "The Quest of Iranon"
There are also some odd ducks in this collection.
●"The Festival", one of the early and excellent story from "Cthulhu Mythos".
●"Beyond the Wall of Sleep" and "From Beyond" revolves around cosmic terrors.
●"In the wall of Eryx" is an unusual Sci-fi involving space exploration!
This indeed is a peculiar collection of stories which varies from excellent to average. The "Excellent" makes this worth checking out!
-------------------------------
Afterthought
I found an exceptional graphic adaptation of three stories from this collection in this artist's website! Hats off to the artist!
"Wise men have interpreted dreams, and the gods have laughed."
Are you ready to embark upon a journey across Lovecraft's lands of fabled dreamworld?
Here is a map!
Anyone who has read enough Lovecraftian horrors would know that most of his stories could be classified under two prominent and interconnected themes /shared universe :
The Cthulhu Mythos, which revolves around the horrors of Great Old Ones &
Dream Cycle, where the central theme is an alternative dimension that can be entered via dreams.
Most of short stories in this collection comes under "Dream Cycle".
Many from our world have entered to this ultimate dimension with the help of drugs or by pure chance. Witness the misadventures of these misguided travelers in stories like "Hypnos", "The white ship" and "Ex Oblivione"
Some beings of dreamland have gotten themselves trapped in our world. You can read their woes in "Polaris" and in the excellent poem "Nathicana"
My damnable, reddening vision
That built a new world for my seeing;
A new world of redness and darkness,
A horrible coma call’d living.
---------- Nathicana (1927)
Beautiful, isn't it?
Then there are the dark legends and fables from the land of dreams itself. Experience them in stories like "Doom that came to Saranath", "the Cats of Ulthar" and "The Quest of Iranon"
There are also some odd ducks in this collection.
●"The Festival", one of the early and excellent story from "Cthulhu Mythos".
●"Beyond the Wall of Sleep" and "From Beyond" revolves around cosmic terrors.
●"In the wall of Eryx" is an unusual Sci-fi involving space exploration!
This indeed is a peculiar collection of stories which varies from excellent to average. The "Excellent" makes this worth checking out!
-------------------------------
Afterthought
I found an exceptional graphic adaptation of three stories from this collection in this artist's website! Hats off to the artist!
Read
December 16, 2025The Doom That Came to Sarnath compiles the stories from H. P. Lovecraft's "Dunsany phase." As such, they're rather distinct from the rest of Lovecraft's oeuvre, being mostly situated in dreamy fantasy worlds or forgotten epochs of history, rather than contemporary settings into which cosmic horrors intrude, as in his better known stories such as "The Call of Cthulu." The standout tale herein is "The Cats of Ulthar," which any lover of cats or poetic justice should appreciate. Other noteworthy stories include "The Nameless City," "The Crawling Chaos," "The Walls of Eryx" (a rare excursion for HPL into science fiction), and "Under the Pyramids," which was ghost written for none other than Harry Houdini.
This was my first Lovecraft collection, purchased from the B. Dalton's Books at the Southshore Mall in Bayshore, New York, in the mid 1980's. If not quite my favorite, it's still the one I look back on with the most nostalgia.
This was my first Lovecraft collection, purchased from the B. Dalton's Books at the Southshore Mall in Bayshore, New York, in the mid 1980's. If not quite my favorite, it's still the one I look back on with the most nostalgia.
October 9, 2024
The Doom That Came to Sarnath is the companion volume to The Dream-Quest of Unknown Kadath. Together these volumes collect Lovecraft’s Dream Cycle tales. These are older stories, prose poems, many actually inspired by Lovecraft’s dreams, and several bearing the stamp of Lord Dunsany’s influence. Some of Lovecraft’s significant, recurring characters first appear in these stories, including Nyarlathotep and Abdul Alhazred, the Mad Arab.
Filling out the Dream Cycle tales are some Lovecraft curiosities including a SciFi story set on the planet Venus and a tale Lovecraft ghostwrote for Harry Houdini.
The Other Gods: In his pride, Barzai the Wise scaled the mountain Hatheg-Kla to gaze upon the long absent gods of earth, believing himself their equal. He did not count on finding the Other Gods.
”The Other Gods! The Other Gods! The gods of the outer hells that guard the evil gods of Earth! Look away! Go back! Do not see! Do not see! The vengeance of the infinite abysses!”
4 ⭐️
The Tree: An atmospheric period piece of Ancient Greece, short and slight. An unnatural olive tree, growing from the tomb of a dead sculptor, becomes the doom of another sculptor, his old friend.
”Amidst such stupendous ruin only chaos dwelt.”
2 1/2 ⭐️
The Doom That Came To Sarnath: A story obviously influenced by Lord Dunsany. An interesting, personal observation about this tale — Lovecraft writes that Doom was proclaimed on Sarnath after it destroyed Ib and made off with their idol of Bakrag, and indeed, it seems that doom was terrifyingly performed on the thousandth anniversary of Ib’s destruction. But in between Sarnath prospered and ruled for a thousand years, which certainly seems to take the edge off of Bakrag’s long delayed revenge.
”Thus of the very ancient city of Ib was nothing spared save the sea-green stone idol chiseled in the likeness of Bokrug, the water lizard. This the young warriors took back with them to Sarnath as a symbol of conquest over the Old Gods and beings of Ib. But on the night after it was set up in the temple a terrible thing must have happened. For weird lights were seen over the lake, and in the morning the people found the idol gone, and the high priest, Taran-Ish, lying dead as from some fear unspeakable. And before he died, Taran-Ish had scrolled upon the alter of chrysolite with coarse, shaky strokes the sign of Doom.”
”And a thousand years of riches and delight passed over Sarnath, the wonder of the world, and pride of all mankind.”
2 1/2 ⭐️
The Tomb: Jervas Dudley, the original goth kid, develops an unhealthy obsession with the Hyde family tomb and nearby abandoned, burned mansion — an obsession leading to madness or worse.
”I had sworn to the hundred gods of the grove that at any cost I would someday force an entrance to the black, chilly depths that seemed calling out to me.”
”Henceforward, I haunted the tomb each night, seeing, hearing, and doing things I must never reveal.”
4 ⭐️
Polaris: In this short, early work (1918) the narrator can’t distinguish his dreams from reality, as he dreams of a city under siege and his failure to protect it.
”But still the pole star leers down from the same place in the black vault, winking hideously like an insane, watching eye, which strives to convey some strange message, yet recalls nothing, save that it once had a message to convey.”
2 1/2 ⭐️
Beyond the Walls of Sleep: A fascinating story idea, but the execution of that idea failed to capture me. An unnamed intern in a mental hospital secretly experiments with a criminally insane patient, a mad, hillbilly murderer, to prove that his dreams exists in a wholly separate realm where he is a being of light.
”From my experience I cannot doubt but that man, when lost to terrestrial consciousness, is indeed sojourning in another and incorporeal life, a far different nature from the life we know, and of which only the slightest and most indistinct memories linger after waking.”
3 ⭐️
Memory: Asked the genie to the daemon, beside the River Than, “who raised the stones of this ruin?”
Said the daemon (called Memory) to the genie, “Only because it rhymes with the river do I remember — it was man.”
A short short, really just a quick word landscape.
”Rank is the herbage on each slope where evil vines and creeping plants crawl amidst the stones of ruined palaces, twining tightly about broken columns and strange monoliths, and heaving up marble pavements laid by forgotten hands.”
2 1/2 ⭐️
What the Moon Brings: A prose poem fragment, taken from a dream. Disturbingly creepy.
”I hate the moon, I am afraid of it. For when it shines on certain scenes familiar and loved it sometimes makes them unfamiliar and hideous.”
”The waters had ebbed very low showing much of the vast reef whose rim I had seen before. And when I saw that the reef was but the black, basalt crown of a shocking icon whose monstrous forehead now shown in the dim moonlight, and whose vile hooves must paw the hellish ooze miles below, I shrieked and shrieked, lest the hidden face rise above the waters, and lest the hidden eyes look at me after the slinking away of that learning and treacherous yellow moon.”
4 ⭐️
Nyarlathotep: In this prose poem Nyarlathotep, the Crawling Chaos, is a kind of avatar of the alien Other Gods, a harbinger of doom that is fast approaching mankind and all their works. He holds the masses fascinated with his dark power as he travels from city to city, despite, or perhaps because of the terror and confusion which his unholy presence spreads.
”He…gave exhibitions of power which sent his spectators away speechless, yet which swelled his fame to exceeding magnitude. Men advised one another to see Nyarlathotep, and shuddered, and where Nyarlathotep went, rest vanished.”
5 ⭐️
Ex Oblivione: A prose poem perhaps inspired by Lovecraft’s reading of Arthur Schopenhauer, expressing a longing for oblivion as superior to existence.
”As the gate swung wider and the sorcery of the drug and dream pushed me through I knew that all sights and glories were at an end. For in that new realm was neither land nor sea, but only the white void of unpeopled and inlimitable space. So happier than I had ever dared hoped to be, I dissolved again into that native infinity of crystal oblivion from which the demon life had called me for one brief and desolate hour.”
3 ⭐️
The Cats of Ulthar: The dark and mysterious tale of how it came that Ulthar passed its law that no one may kill a cat.
”For the cat is cryptic, and close to strange things which men cannot see. He is the soul of antique Egypt, and the bearer of tale from forgotten cities. He is the kin of the jungles lords, and heir to the secrets of hoary and sinister Africa. The Sphinx is his cousin, and he speaks her language, but he is more ancient than the Sphinx, and remembers that which she has forgotten.”
4 ⭐️
Hypnos: A sculptor, dedicated to “art, philosophy, and madness,” explores, together with his mysterious friend, indescribable worlds and unutterable knowledge through strange drugs and dreams travel, with grandiose ideas of total domination. They penetrate too deeply into these realms to their peril, and come to shun sleep and dream as something deadly. But sleep will come, and with it dissolution.
4 ⭐️
Nathicana: Lovecraft, referring to this prose poem in a letter to a friend, saying it was “a parody on those stylistic excesses which really have no basic meaning.”
”But vortex on vortex of madness beclouded my laboring vision, my damnable, reddening vision that built a new world for my seeing, a new world of redness and darkness, a horrible coma called living.”
2 ⭐️
From Beyond: An ominous mad scientist story. When the protagonist’s friend makes a machine that eliminates the barriers between worlds, the consequences are catastrophic.
”Remember, we’re dealing with a hideous world in which we are practically helpless. Keep still!”
”Indescribable shapes, both alive and otherwise, were mixed in disgusting disarray, and close to every known thing were whole worlds of alien, unknown entities.”
”You see them! You see them! You see the things that float and flop about you and through you every moment of your life!”
”My pets are not pretty, for they come out of places where aesthetic standards are very different.”
3 ⭐️
The Festival: An atmospheric tale of an ancient unclean and unholy festival secretly observed in underground vaults in quaint New England.
”It was the Yuletide that men call Christmas, though they know in their hearts it is older than Bethlehem and Babylon, older than Memphis and mankind.”
3 1/2 ⭐️
The Nameless City: In this early tale (1921) the nameless narrator discovers an ancient buried city in the Arabian Peninsula, a city older than mankind, built by a reptile race. This is considered the first of Lovecraft’s mythos stories, and contains the first mention of Abdul Alhazred, the Mad Arab.
”Afar I saw it, protruding uncannily above the sands as parts of a corpse may protrude from an ill-made grave. Fear spoke from the age-worn stones of this hoary survivor of the deluge, this great grandmother of the eldest pyramid, and a viewless aura repelled me and bade me retreat from antique and sinister secrets that no man should see, and no man else had dared to see.”
”There is no legend so old as to give it a name, or to recall that it was ever alive, but it is told of in whispers around campfires and muttered about by granddams in the tents of sheiks so that all the tribes shun it without wholly knowing why.”
”That is not dead which can eternal lie,
And with strange eons even Death may die.”
3 1/2 ⭐️
The Quest of Iranon: Iranon sings and dances in the dire city of Teloth (which values only toil and scoffs at song), singing of his lost city of Aira, a beautiful place where he had been Prince. Driven out of harsh Teloth, he quests in vain for Aira, remaining ever young as his companions age and die. Then one day his wandering brings him to startling knowledge of himself and his lost city.
”That night something of youth and beauty died in the elder world.”
4 ⭐️
The Crawling Chaos: A collaboration with Winifred V. Jackson (Lovecraft wrote the story but the idea originated in her dream) this tale describes an opium induced dream/nightmare that swings wildly between ethereal bliss and apocalyptic destruction.
4 ⭐️
The Walls of Eryx: (written with Kenneth J. Sterling) A SciFi story of Earth prospectors who mine the planet Venus for crystals that produce electrical power. A native race of lizard men revere the crystals and hinder the mining effort.
2 1/2 ⭐️
Imprisoned with the Pharaohs: This was a commissioned story, ghostwritten for Harry Houdini. A stage magician’s travels to Africa and is kidnapped by an Arab tour guide after a midnight fist fight on top of a pyramid, is bound and imprisoned, and effects a unique escape from an unholy nightmare.
”Then the dream faces took on human resemblances, and I saw my guide in the robes of a king with the sneer of the sphinx on his features…It was of these, of Khafre and his consort and his strange armies of the hybrid dead that I dreamed.”
2 ⭐️
Filling out the Dream Cycle tales are some Lovecraft curiosities including a SciFi story set on the planet Venus and a tale Lovecraft ghostwrote for Harry Houdini.
The Other Gods: In his pride, Barzai the Wise scaled the mountain Hatheg-Kla to gaze upon the long absent gods of earth, believing himself their equal. He did not count on finding the Other Gods.
”The Other Gods! The Other Gods! The gods of the outer hells that guard the evil gods of Earth! Look away! Go back! Do not see! Do not see! The vengeance of the infinite abysses!”
4 ⭐️
The Tree: An atmospheric period piece of Ancient Greece, short and slight. An unnatural olive tree, growing from the tomb of a dead sculptor, becomes the doom of another sculptor, his old friend.
”Amidst such stupendous ruin only chaos dwelt.”
2 1/2 ⭐️
The Doom That Came To Sarnath: A story obviously influenced by Lord Dunsany. An interesting, personal observation about this tale — Lovecraft writes that Doom was proclaimed on Sarnath after it destroyed Ib and made off with their idol of Bakrag, and indeed, it seems that doom was terrifyingly performed on the thousandth anniversary of Ib’s destruction. But in between Sarnath prospered and ruled for a thousand years, which certainly seems to take the edge off of Bakrag’s long delayed revenge.
”Thus of the very ancient city of Ib was nothing spared save the sea-green stone idol chiseled in the likeness of Bokrug, the water lizard. This the young warriors took back with them to Sarnath as a symbol of conquest over the Old Gods and beings of Ib. But on the night after it was set up in the temple a terrible thing must have happened. For weird lights were seen over the lake, and in the morning the people found the idol gone, and the high priest, Taran-Ish, lying dead as from some fear unspeakable. And before he died, Taran-Ish had scrolled upon the alter of chrysolite with coarse, shaky strokes the sign of Doom.”
”And a thousand years of riches and delight passed over Sarnath, the wonder of the world, and pride of all mankind.”
2 1/2 ⭐️
The Tomb: Jervas Dudley, the original goth kid, develops an unhealthy obsession with the Hyde family tomb and nearby abandoned, burned mansion — an obsession leading to madness or worse.
”I had sworn to the hundred gods of the grove that at any cost I would someday force an entrance to the black, chilly depths that seemed calling out to me.”
”Henceforward, I haunted the tomb each night, seeing, hearing, and doing things I must never reveal.”
4 ⭐️
Polaris: In this short, early work (1918) the narrator can’t distinguish his dreams from reality, as he dreams of a city under siege and his failure to protect it.
”But still the pole star leers down from the same place in the black vault, winking hideously like an insane, watching eye, which strives to convey some strange message, yet recalls nothing, save that it once had a message to convey.”
2 1/2 ⭐️
Beyond the Walls of Sleep: A fascinating story idea, but the execution of that idea failed to capture me. An unnamed intern in a mental hospital secretly experiments with a criminally insane patient, a mad, hillbilly murderer, to prove that his dreams exists in a wholly separate realm where he is a being of light.
”From my experience I cannot doubt but that man, when lost to terrestrial consciousness, is indeed sojourning in another and incorporeal life, a far different nature from the life we know, and of which only the slightest and most indistinct memories linger after waking.”
3 ⭐️
Memory: Asked the genie to the daemon, beside the River Than, “who raised the stones of this ruin?”
Said the daemon (called Memory) to the genie, “Only because it rhymes with the river do I remember — it was man.”
A short short, really just a quick word landscape.
”Rank is the herbage on each slope where evil vines and creeping plants crawl amidst the stones of ruined palaces, twining tightly about broken columns and strange monoliths, and heaving up marble pavements laid by forgotten hands.”
2 1/2 ⭐️
What the Moon Brings: A prose poem fragment, taken from a dream. Disturbingly creepy.
”I hate the moon, I am afraid of it. For when it shines on certain scenes familiar and loved it sometimes makes them unfamiliar and hideous.”
”The waters had ebbed very low showing much of the vast reef whose rim I had seen before. And when I saw that the reef was but the black, basalt crown of a shocking icon whose monstrous forehead now shown in the dim moonlight, and whose vile hooves must paw the hellish ooze miles below, I shrieked and shrieked, lest the hidden face rise above the waters, and lest the hidden eyes look at me after the slinking away of that learning and treacherous yellow moon.”
4 ⭐️
Nyarlathotep: In this prose poem Nyarlathotep, the Crawling Chaos, is a kind of avatar of the alien Other Gods, a harbinger of doom that is fast approaching mankind and all their works. He holds the masses fascinated with his dark power as he travels from city to city, despite, or perhaps because of the terror and confusion which his unholy presence spreads.
”He…gave exhibitions of power which sent his spectators away speechless, yet which swelled his fame to exceeding magnitude. Men advised one another to see Nyarlathotep, and shuddered, and where Nyarlathotep went, rest vanished.”
5 ⭐️
Ex Oblivione: A prose poem perhaps inspired by Lovecraft’s reading of Arthur Schopenhauer, expressing a longing for oblivion as superior to existence.
”As the gate swung wider and the sorcery of the drug and dream pushed me through I knew that all sights and glories were at an end. For in that new realm was neither land nor sea, but only the white void of unpeopled and inlimitable space. So happier than I had ever dared hoped to be, I dissolved again into that native infinity of crystal oblivion from which the demon life had called me for one brief and desolate hour.”
3 ⭐️
The Cats of Ulthar: The dark and mysterious tale of how it came that Ulthar passed its law that no one may kill a cat.
”For the cat is cryptic, and close to strange things which men cannot see. He is the soul of antique Egypt, and the bearer of tale from forgotten cities. He is the kin of the jungles lords, and heir to the secrets of hoary and sinister Africa. The Sphinx is his cousin, and he speaks her language, but he is more ancient than the Sphinx, and remembers that which she has forgotten.”
4 ⭐️
Hypnos: A sculptor, dedicated to “art, philosophy, and madness,” explores, together with his mysterious friend, indescribable worlds and unutterable knowledge through strange drugs and dreams travel, with grandiose ideas of total domination. They penetrate too deeply into these realms to their peril, and come to shun sleep and dream as something deadly. But sleep will come, and with it dissolution.
4 ⭐️
Nathicana: Lovecraft, referring to this prose poem in a letter to a friend, saying it was “a parody on those stylistic excesses which really have no basic meaning.”
”But vortex on vortex of madness beclouded my laboring vision, my damnable, reddening vision that built a new world for my seeing, a new world of redness and darkness, a horrible coma called living.”
2 ⭐️
From Beyond: An ominous mad scientist story. When the protagonist’s friend makes a machine that eliminates the barriers between worlds, the consequences are catastrophic.
”Remember, we’re dealing with a hideous world in which we are practically helpless. Keep still!”
”Indescribable shapes, both alive and otherwise, were mixed in disgusting disarray, and close to every known thing were whole worlds of alien, unknown entities.”
”You see them! You see them! You see the things that float and flop about you and through you every moment of your life!”
”My pets are not pretty, for they come out of places where aesthetic standards are very different.”
3 ⭐️
The Festival: An atmospheric tale of an ancient unclean and unholy festival secretly observed in underground vaults in quaint New England.
”It was the Yuletide that men call Christmas, though they know in their hearts it is older than Bethlehem and Babylon, older than Memphis and mankind.”
3 1/2 ⭐️
The Nameless City: In this early tale (1921) the nameless narrator discovers an ancient buried city in the Arabian Peninsula, a city older than mankind, built by a reptile race. This is considered the first of Lovecraft’s mythos stories, and contains the first mention of Abdul Alhazred, the Mad Arab.
”Afar I saw it, protruding uncannily above the sands as parts of a corpse may protrude from an ill-made grave. Fear spoke from the age-worn stones of this hoary survivor of the deluge, this great grandmother of the eldest pyramid, and a viewless aura repelled me and bade me retreat from antique and sinister secrets that no man should see, and no man else had dared to see.”
”There is no legend so old as to give it a name, or to recall that it was ever alive, but it is told of in whispers around campfires and muttered about by granddams in the tents of sheiks so that all the tribes shun it without wholly knowing why.”
”That is not dead which can eternal lie,
And with strange eons even Death may die.”
3 1/2 ⭐️
The Quest of Iranon: Iranon sings and dances in the dire city of Teloth (which values only toil and scoffs at song), singing of his lost city of Aira, a beautiful place where he had been Prince. Driven out of harsh Teloth, he quests in vain for Aira, remaining ever young as his companions age and die. Then one day his wandering brings him to startling knowledge of himself and his lost city.
”That night something of youth and beauty died in the elder world.”
4 ⭐️
The Crawling Chaos: A collaboration with Winifred V. Jackson (Lovecraft wrote the story but the idea originated in her dream) this tale describes an opium induced dream/nightmare that swings wildly between ethereal bliss and apocalyptic destruction.
4 ⭐️
The Walls of Eryx: (written with Kenneth J. Sterling) A SciFi story of Earth prospectors who mine the planet Venus for crystals that produce electrical power. A native race of lizard men revere the crystals and hinder the mining effort.
2 1/2 ⭐️
Imprisoned with the Pharaohs: This was a commissioned story, ghostwritten for Harry Houdini. A stage magician’s travels to Africa and is kidnapped by an Arab tour guide after a midnight fist fight on top of a pyramid, is bound and imprisoned, and effects a unique escape from an unholy nightmare.
”Then the dream faces took on human resemblances, and I saw my guide in the robes of a king with the sneer of the sphinx on his features…It was of these, of Khafre and his consort and his strange armies of the hybrid dead that I dreamed.”
2 ⭐️
October 22, 2021
10'000 years ago, a race of shepherd people colonized the majestic city of Sarnath deep within the land of Mnar which allowed them to ascend to great wealth and power. Overcome with greed, they invaded other cities and habitations to claim their land and resources. One such land is the bizarre city of Ib, inhabited by a race of misty green-skinned beings that worship the idol of a great water lizard called Bakrug. After slaughtering thousands of innocents in a brutal battle, the soldiers of Sarnath steal Ib's prized idol, only for it to vanish under unknown circumstances once it's in their possession and causes a paranormal series of events which leads to the eventual deaths and downfall of their civilization. Thus is the punishment for unjust war, terrorism, defilement and barbaric cruelty.
This feels very different from the other dream quest stories and very different from anything else Lovecraft ever wrote. It actually feels like a subtle attempt at sword & sorcery rather than the usual cosmic horror or even gothic fiction. Lots of bloody battles, majestic fantasy realms and vengeful spirits waging war. Feels like it could be an early Robert E. Howard, Clark Ashton Smith or Lord Dunsany story. It reads like a horrific fairy tale depicting the tragic irony of war, vengeance and greed. Usually the stories within the dream cycle are very short and sweet, but this one I feel could have really benefited from being longer. It has the fundamentals of a dark and gritty sword & sorcery tale but it doesn't hit as hard as it could because it's briefly described by a secondhand narrator rather than allowing us to see the events taking place from the perspective of actual characters.
This collection also includes many of Lovecraft's more obscure, dreamlike stories that he wrote early in his career such as Beyond the Walls of Sleep, The Nameless City and Polaris. The dream cycle stories are my least favorite by Lovecraft, but there's something eerily relaxing about them. They quite literally feel like brief glimpses into alternate planes of mind-bending realities that can only be witnessed in vivid dreams. Though they're heavily lacking in narrative, plot and characters, they can be nice to read for the dazzling prose and eldritch imagery alone.
***
If you're looking for some dark ambient music for reading horror, dark fantasy and other books like this one, then be sure to check out my YouTube Channel called Nightmarish Compositions: https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCPPs...
This feels very different from the other dream quest stories and very different from anything else Lovecraft ever wrote. It actually feels like a subtle attempt at sword & sorcery rather than the usual cosmic horror or even gothic fiction. Lots of bloody battles, majestic fantasy realms and vengeful spirits waging war. Feels like it could be an early Robert E. Howard, Clark Ashton Smith or Lord Dunsany story. It reads like a horrific fairy tale depicting the tragic irony of war, vengeance and greed. Usually the stories within the dream cycle are very short and sweet, but this one I feel could have really benefited from being longer. It has the fundamentals of a dark and gritty sword & sorcery tale but it doesn't hit as hard as it could because it's briefly described by a secondhand narrator rather than allowing us to see the events taking place from the perspective of actual characters.
This collection also includes many of Lovecraft's more obscure, dreamlike stories that he wrote early in his career such as Beyond the Walls of Sleep, The Nameless City and Polaris. The dream cycle stories are my least favorite by Lovecraft, but there's something eerily relaxing about them. They quite literally feel like brief glimpses into alternate planes of mind-bending realities that can only be witnessed in vivid dreams. Though they're heavily lacking in narrative, plot and characters, they can be nice to read for the dazzling prose and eldritch imagery alone.
***
If you're looking for some dark ambient music for reading horror, dark fantasy and other books like this one, then be sure to check out my YouTube Channel called Nightmarish Compositions: https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCPPs...
November 21, 2020
The H.P. Lovecraft collection, The Doom that Came to Sarnath and Other Stories, actually had a few tales by the master that I'd never before come across.
The titular story and the extremely short tale "The Tree" are good, simple, moody as hell prose paintings--fabular fantasies in the poetic Lord Dunsany style. The collection also has "The Festival," which is my favorite of HPL's very short stories--it has such a foggy, dreamlike narrative and progresses through increasingly weirder New England environments and concludes with a stellar closing line.
"The Quest of Iranon" is a beautiful and emotional fantasy short story that is far more sentimental than any other I've read by this author. "In the Walls of Eryx" I'd read before, and it is also a singular HPL work---a sci-fi collaboration with Kennth J. Sterling that revolves around a unique alien world concept. "The Cats of Ulthar" is a nice short fable, inspired by HPL's surprising affinity for cats (an affinity I share); "From Beyond" percolates with paranoia, and the tale he ghost wrote for escape artist Harry Houdini is a fun adventure that feels a bit more in line with stories found in the Argosy pulp.
This collection contains mostly lesser known/non-Cthulhu mythos HPL fantasy and horror and sci-fi, and it is rich, wholly enjoyable weird fiction.
(Note: My all time favorite Lovecraft tale is The Dunwich Horror---one of my favorite works of art in any medium, and a true masterpiece of baroque, moody, and creative horror storytelling.)
The titular story and the extremely short tale "The Tree" are good, simple, moody as hell prose paintings--fabular fantasies in the poetic Lord Dunsany style. The collection also has "The Festival," which is my favorite of HPL's very short stories--it has such a foggy, dreamlike narrative and progresses through increasingly weirder New England environments and concludes with a stellar closing line.
"The Quest of Iranon" is a beautiful and emotional fantasy short story that is far more sentimental than any other I've read by this author. "In the Walls of Eryx" I'd read before, and it is also a singular HPL work---a sci-fi collaboration with Kennth J. Sterling that revolves around a unique alien world concept. "The Cats of Ulthar" is a nice short fable, inspired by HPL's surprising affinity for cats (an affinity I share); "From Beyond" percolates with paranoia, and the tale he ghost wrote for escape artist Harry Houdini is a fun adventure that feels a bit more in line with stories found in the Argosy pulp.
This collection contains mostly lesser known/non-Cthulhu mythos HPL fantasy and horror and sci-fi, and it is rich, wholly enjoyable weird fiction.
(Note: My all time favorite Lovecraft tale is The Dunwich Horror---one of my favorite works of art in any medium, and a true masterpiece of baroque, moody, and creative horror storytelling.)
June 11, 2010
Another Lovecraft fan is born! This has been the direct result of my falling head over heels for the books (the ones I have acquired, that being Silk, Threshold, Murder of Angels, Low Red Moon, Daughter of Hounds, The Red Tree, and Alabaster) of Caitlin R. Kiernan, who has been heavily influenced by Lovecraft in style as well as content and who is to my mind one of the most talented writers of the current day, and one with the most to say. I was not able to immediately procure more of her writing, and fell back on Lovecraft, of whom I had only read The Dream-Quest of Unknown Kadath, and liked it, but I was suffering under the misapprehension that it was "more fantasy" and "less horror" than his other works. None of his stories as I have found them so far, are simple fantasy, sci fi, or horror, but are very much his own way of seeing, incorporating all three. Just as I reflected after going to the horror section looking for Threshold, the first time I'd been there since eighth grade rendered me too mature to appreciate Flowers in the Attic, (the sequel to it, Low Red Moon, my first Kiernan read, was curiously put in fantasy, presumably to draw in a different readership, which worked in my case), "If this is horror, give me more of it". I have read several stories not in this collection on the website dagonbytes.com, and have just received a spanking-new copy of the collection At the Mountains of Madness. I can't wait to begin!
April 28, 2023
2.4 ☆
November 6, 2013
Lin Carter explains in the introduction that this book is a kind of collection of leftovers, stories that he would have liked to include in The Dream-Quest of Unknown Kadath, but couldn’t because of space. It seems to heavily emphasize Lovecraft’s early work, and there are considerable crossovers with other Del Rey releases, especially The Tomb and Other Tales. Carter makes much of Lovecraft’s influences, and especially his love for the poet known as Lord Dunsany, who is seen as the inspiration for much of the Lovecraft dream-cycle.
The first three stories are from the early “Dunsanian” period, and they all feel like experiments, not entirely like complete works. “The Other Gods” is sort of a short version of “Dream-Quest of Unknown Kadath,” with a sort of heavy-handed detachment. “The Tree” is a more interesting mythical piece set in ancient Greece, but which doesn’t quite live up to its potential. “The Doom that Came to Sarnath” is, in some respects, the most Lovecraftian of the stories, dealing as it does with pre-human beings and their returning after a long period of dormancy, but it doesn’t seem interesting enough to have named the volume after it.
In the next section are three early tales that Carter finds “uninspired,” although I’d disagree in at least two cases. The first story is “The Tomb,” and I have written about it elsewhere. I’ll add here that Lin Carter says it reminds him of Poe, which is fair enough, I guess, but for me it will always be quintessentially Lovecraft, perhaps because it was the first Lovecraft story I ever read. After that comes “Polaris,” which is a prose poem about a young lookout that fails in his post, and the consequences he pays when he finds himself transported in time to our era. “Beyond the Wall of Sleep” is actually one of my favorite early Lovecraft stories, which combines embryonic Mythos elements with the dream-cycle work. In it, Joe Slader, a eugenically degenerate backwoods New Englander appears possessed by an extra-earthly entity which takes control of him in his sleep and causes him to behave insanely towards his fellows. The narrator, an attendant at a mental hospital, gets charge of Slader and through him learns of his own nocturnal dual nature.
The next section is “prose poems,” and I’m completely at a loss to explain why “Polaris” wasn’t included here, unless it’s because it was “uninspired.” I do like all of these pieces, although they are short and under-developed. Each tells a story of the end of the world. “Memory” is an apocalyptic tale from the perspective of classical spirits/deities. “What the Moon Brings” has some similarities to “Dagon,” albeit with an implication that the world has already fallen into decadence. “Nyarlathotep” is my favorite, and probably my favorite usage of that particular Mythos deity, written years before Carter considers the Mythos to have begun. In it, the Crawling Chaos comes to Earth in human form, and spreads insanity by means of a kind of magic lantern show. The final entry is “Ex Oblivione,” which is to me the most poetic of the prose poems, and I would say the most Poe-derivative as well, obsessed as it is with yearning and death.
Next is a very popular early tale, “The Cats of Ulthar.” Carter avoids extensive comment, using most of his intro space to repeat an excerpt from Lovecraft’s correspondence in which he expresses his love of cats, and rehearses the opening lines of the story. It has a Dunsanian feel, and Ulthar and other locations mentioned in the story would later become part of the Dream cycle. This, along with the “Wall of Sleep,” is a great insight into Lovecraft’s early genius, and also a surprisingly sentimental tale from one who did not generally give in to sentiment.
The next section is two works inspired by ancient Greek mythology (as was “The Tree,” if anyone’s counting). First up is “Hypnos,” one of the latest stories (1922) we’ve seen in this book. It resembles later stories such as “The Hound” and “The Statement of Randolph Carter” in which a young seeker after mysteries meets a mentor who leads him into the peril of his soul. In this case, the adventurers are interested in sleep and dream, but seem to arouse something in that world that stalks them and ultimately destroys the mentor figure, in the name of Hypnos, god of sleep. The second is a poem in verse, “Nathicana.” I don’t care for it that much, and apparently Carter didn’t either, really. He tells us in detail how difficult it was to find a Lovecraft poem that wasn’t already under copyright, but it’s not clear why he made the effort when the purpose of this book was as a place to publish things he couldn’t fit into “Dream Quest.”
The next three stories Carter calls “Cthulhoid,” and they are among the strongest in the volume. “From Beyond” is also included in The Lurking Fear and Other Stories so I’ve written about it before. What struck me this time is how effectively Lovecraft describes the new senses awakening as if he knew something of hallucinogenic drugs (though that’s unlikely). It’s one of his best early stories. “The Festival” is another copy from _The Tomb_, and it is a favorite of mine as well. It involves a young traveler returning to his ancestral village at Yuletide, only to discover a bizarre form of worship among the current residents. It introduces some of Lovecraft’s more interesting monstrosities, and (I think) is the first mention of the Necronomicon in one of his stories. “The Nameless City” introduces the name of Abdul Alhazred, and also the “crazed couplet” later to become famous in “Call of Cthulhu.” This story seems the most proto-mythos of all to me, and follows a basic structure and uses tropes that will be familiar to readers of “At the Mountains of Madness” and “The Shadow Out of Time” as well as lesser tales such as “The Temple.”
“The Quest of Iranon” is something of a return to the Dunsanian and the dream cycle, and it may be the best story of those not in other Del Rey editions (a slim list, I admit). It is about a traveler seeking the joyous city he remembers of old, and his journeys through lands of grim toil and debauched corruption. Lovecraft had described it himself as “pathos,” and it is, but sensitively and skillfully done.
The final three stories are collaborations with other authors, although they generally are pronouncedly influenced by Lovecraft’s style and language. Two out of three also appear in _The Tomb_, again raising the question of why Del Rey released two volumes with so much overlap. The one that didn’t is “The Crawling Chaos” (which later became an appellation of Nyarlathotep), whose imagery, according to a letter by HPL, was created by a poet named Jackson, and then given a narrative structure by Lovecraft. It describes an opium dream, with implications that the dreamer has seen a world more real, and more dangerous, than our own.
That’s followed by “In the Walls of Eryx,” and it helps to know that this largely straight-faced experiment in sci fi was a collaboration with another author, one Kenneth Sterling who is otherwise forgotten. The protagonist is a mineral scavenger on a recently-colonized Venus, who battles reptiloid aliens with a hand flamer for energy-providing crystals to ship back to Earth. Those aliens manage to trap him in a very unique kind of maze, and only slowly does he come to appreciate their cunning and his own helplessness. It does have Lovecraft’s pacing and language, but really not much of his soul. It is the longest story in the volume, at over thirty pages.
The final story, “Impisoned with the Pharoahs,” is also relatively long, and also a collaboration of sorts. It was published under the name of Harry Houdini, but really ghost-written by Lovecraft on the basis of a vague idea of Houdini’s. Lovecraft uses the locale and mythos of Egypt as entrée to a protoype-Cthulhu-mythos story that, without using any of his invented deities or creatures, suggests them in a different cultural context. It has elements of an adventure story, but rapidly becomes more typical of the Lovecraftian horror genre.
In all, I would tend to recommend _The Tomb_ as a preferable introduction to Lovecraft and this as a weaker collection, with a few interesting rare pieces thrown in. I suspect “Doom” was published before Del Rey decided to release “Tomb,” and that Carter’s analytical introductions (a-typical of the rest of the Del Rey series) were seen as a drag on sales, warranting the second release. Several of the stories are good, a couple are great, but mostly this collection of “leftovers” is a bit of a letdown.
The first three stories are from the early “Dunsanian” period, and they all feel like experiments, not entirely like complete works. “The Other Gods” is sort of a short version of “Dream-Quest of Unknown Kadath,” with a sort of heavy-handed detachment. “The Tree” is a more interesting mythical piece set in ancient Greece, but which doesn’t quite live up to its potential. “The Doom that Came to Sarnath” is, in some respects, the most Lovecraftian of the stories, dealing as it does with pre-human beings and their returning after a long period of dormancy, but it doesn’t seem interesting enough to have named the volume after it.
In the next section are three early tales that Carter finds “uninspired,” although I’d disagree in at least two cases. The first story is “The Tomb,” and I have written about it elsewhere. I’ll add here that Lin Carter says it reminds him of Poe, which is fair enough, I guess, but for me it will always be quintessentially Lovecraft, perhaps because it was the first Lovecraft story I ever read. After that comes “Polaris,” which is a prose poem about a young lookout that fails in his post, and the consequences he pays when he finds himself transported in time to our era. “Beyond the Wall of Sleep” is actually one of my favorite early Lovecraft stories, which combines embryonic Mythos elements with the dream-cycle work. In it, Joe Slader, a eugenically degenerate backwoods New Englander appears possessed by an extra-earthly entity which takes control of him in his sleep and causes him to behave insanely towards his fellows. The narrator, an attendant at a mental hospital, gets charge of Slader and through him learns of his own nocturnal dual nature.
The next section is “prose poems,” and I’m completely at a loss to explain why “Polaris” wasn’t included here, unless it’s because it was “uninspired.” I do like all of these pieces, although they are short and under-developed. Each tells a story of the end of the world. “Memory” is an apocalyptic tale from the perspective of classical spirits/deities. “What the Moon Brings” has some similarities to “Dagon,” albeit with an implication that the world has already fallen into decadence. “Nyarlathotep” is my favorite, and probably my favorite usage of that particular Mythos deity, written years before Carter considers the Mythos to have begun. In it, the Crawling Chaos comes to Earth in human form, and spreads insanity by means of a kind of magic lantern show. The final entry is “Ex Oblivione,” which is to me the most poetic of the prose poems, and I would say the most Poe-derivative as well, obsessed as it is with yearning and death.
Next is a very popular early tale, “The Cats of Ulthar.” Carter avoids extensive comment, using most of his intro space to repeat an excerpt from Lovecraft’s correspondence in which he expresses his love of cats, and rehearses the opening lines of the story. It has a Dunsanian feel, and Ulthar and other locations mentioned in the story would later become part of the Dream cycle. This, along with the “Wall of Sleep,” is a great insight into Lovecraft’s early genius, and also a surprisingly sentimental tale from one who did not generally give in to sentiment.
The next section is two works inspired by ancient Greek mythology (as was “The Tree,” if anyone’s counting). First up is “Hypnos,” one of the latest stories (1922) we’ve seen in this book. It resembles later stories such as “The Hound” and “The Statement of Randolph Carter” in which a young seeker after mysteries meets a mentor who leads him into the peril of his soul. In this case, the adventurers are interested in sleep and dream, but seem to arouse something in that world that stalks them and ultimately destroys the mentor figure, in the name of Hypnos, god of sleep. The second is a poem in verse, “Nathicana.” I don’t care for it that much, and apparently Carter didn’t either, really. He tells us in detail how difficult it was to find a Lovecraft poem that wasn’t already under copyright, but it’s not clear why he made the effort when the purpose of this book was as a place to publish things he couldn’t fit into “Dream Quest.”
The next three stories Carter calls “Cthulhoid,” and they are among the strongest in the volume. “From Beyond” is also included in The Lurking Fear and Other Stories so I’ve written about it before. What struck me this time is how effectively Lovecraft describes the new senses awakening as if he knew something of hallucinogenic drugs (though that’s unlikely). It’s one of his best early stories. “The Festival” is another copy from _The Tomb_, and it is a favorite of mine as well. It involves a young traveler returning to his ancestral village at Yuletide, only to discover a bizarre form of worship among the current residents. It introduces some of Lovecraft’s more interesting monstrosities, and (I think) is the first mention of the Necronomicon in one of his stories. “The Nameless City” introduces the name of Abdul Alhazred, and also the “crazed couplet” later to become famous in “Call of Cthulhu.” This story seems the most proto-mythos of all to me, and follows a basic structure and uses tropes that will be familiar to readers of “At the Mountains of Madness” and “The Shadow Out of Time” as well as lesser tales such as “The Temple.”
“The Quest of Iranon” is something of a return to the Dunsanian and the dream cycle, and it may be the best story of those not in other Del Rey editions (a slim list, I admit). It is about a traveler seeking the joyous city he remembers of old, and his journeys through lands of grim toil and debauched corruption. Lovecraft had described it himself as “pathos,” and it is, but sensitively and skillfully done.
The final three stories are collaborations with other authors, although they generally are pronouncedly influenced by Lovecraft’s style and language. Two out of three also appear in _The Tomb_, again raising the question of why Del Rey released two volumes with so much overlap. The one that didn’t is “The Crawling Chaos” (which later became an appellation of Nyarlathotep), whose imagery, according to a letter by HPL, was created by a poet named Jackson, and then given a narrative structure by Lovecraft. It describes an opium dream, with implications that the dreamer has seen a world more real, and more dangerous, than our own.
That’s followed by “In the Walls of Eryx,” and it helps to know that this largely straight-faced experiment in sci fi was a collaboration with another author, one Kenneth Sterling who is otherwise forgotten. The protagonist is a mineral scavenger on a recently-colonized Venus, who battles reptiloid aliens with a hand flamer for energy-providing crystals to ship back to Earth. Those aliens manage to trap him in a very unique kind of maze, and only slowly does he come to appreciate their cunning and his own helplessness. It does have Lovecraft’s pacing and language, but really not much of his soul. It is the longest story in the volume, at over thirty pages.
The final story, “Impisoned with the Pharoahs,” is also relatively long, and also a collaboration of sorts. It was published under the name of Harry Houdini, but really ghost-written by Lovecraft on the basis of a vague idea of Houdini’s. Lovecraft uses the locale and mythos of Egypt as entrée to a protoype-Cthulhu-mythos story that, without using any of his invented deities or creatures, suggests them in a different cultural context. It has elements of an adventure story, but rapidly becomes more typical of the Lovecraftian horror genre.
In all, I would tend to recommend _The Tomb_ as a preferable introduction to Lovecraft and this as a weaker collection, with a few interesting rare pieces thrown in. I suspect “Doom” was published before Del Rey decided to release “Tomb,” and that Carter’s analytical introductions (a-typical of the rest of the Del Rey series) were seen as a drag on sales, warranting the second release. Several of the stories are good, a couple are great, but mostly this collection of “leftovers” is a bit of a letdown.
May 19, 2021
This is a generous three stars. If Goodreads allowed half stars, it’d be a solid 2.5. This actually made me rethink whether I actually like Lovecraft, because so many of these stories are just not very good (and many are pretty racist)! The title story, “Beyond the Wall of Sleep,” and “From Beyond” are highlights, but everything else relies too heavily on adjective-laced description that gets pretty tiring after a while. Very repetitive “I went to these old ruins and saw something that was too horrifying for me to describe but trust me it was bad!” narratives.
I’ll chalk it up to this being a collection of earlier work that comes pre-Cthulu Mythos, so maybe I need to revisit some of the later (and longer) stuff.
I’ll chalk it up to this being a collection of earlier work that comes pre-Cthulu Mythos, so maybe I need to revisit some of the later (and longer) stuff.
Read
June 6, 2009When I was a freshman in high school I found this book in the school library. It was my introduction to Lovecraft and his "eldritch" tales of shambling horrors from beyond the stars, haunted childhoods, and fantastical dreamworlds. I had never read anything like them. In some way he tapped an emotional vein of gothic nostalgia that has always been a part of my world view, giving it voice. While his writing is full of flaws (racism, no characterization whatsoever, hyperbolic adjectives ad infinitum, and little or no actual conflict) there's one thing Lovecraft can do: atmosphere--not showing or telling you anything, but making you feel his own existential dread and longing for the past. In my own writing, I've tried to do the same, balancing the gothic with a more hopeful recognition of the limits of human knowledge and the potential we have to be more than what was.
September 28, 2012
I think Lovecraft often gets a bad rap. People read that he influenced the modern greats, everyone form authors like Stephen King and Clive Barker, to movie makers like John Carpenter and Wes Craven, and then dive into his books expecting the same fare. He wrote for a different era. His mind-bending, first person surrealistic approach to a creeping, nameless horror stunned and fascinated huge segments of early century America. The America that read, that is, which wasn't nearly what it is today. I enjoy his approach, even if some of it is a bit florid, but his ideas are dauntless. They broke conventions and rearranged the way a future breed of horror authors would look at the world. Even today, I find them stunningly original, and well worth the read. If any sound familiar, it is only because they have been copied, usually far less efficiently, by later day authors.
September 30, 2020
What I really liked: The world building he creates. I mean, I really REALLY liked this.
What I didn't like: The predictable ending. If I he threw a curveball like he did in The Beast in the Cave, I would have LOVED it.
What I didn't like: The predictable ending. If I he threw a curveball like he did in The Beast in the Cave, I would have LOVED it.
November 17, 2020
A book of wierd, spooky little stories.
August 10, 2021
Może się powtórzę z opinią, którą wystawiałam innemu zbiorowi Lovecrafta, ale na dobrą sprawę trudno dodać mi coś nowego. Bogaty język i minimalna ilość dialogów czynią jego opowiadania dość trudne do czytania, szczególnie w podróży, bo wymagają skupienia. Głównych bohaterów dalej traktuję jako pośrednicy w przedstawieniu świata, bo w gruncie rzeczy nie różnią się zbyt bardzo od siebie, a nawet bym powiedziała, że różnią się tylko imieniem i nazwiskiem - dużo ciekawsi są bohaterowie poboczni.
Takim większym zaskoczeniem było dla mnie bardzo długie i bogate w treść, jak na opowiadanie, Ku nieznanemu Kadath śniąca się wędrówka. Pojawiło się ciekawe nawiązanie do innego opowiadania, było też dużo nowych stworzeń, których nie kojarzyłam z innych treści autora. Całość może mieć jednak dla niektórych pewną wadę, bo mogłaby być z tego powieść, jednak forma opowiadania sprawia, że akcja jest przyspieszona i trochę mi to miejscami zabijało klimat.
Takim większym zaskoczeniem było dla mnie bardzo długie i bogate w treść, jak na opowiadanie, Ku nieznanemu Kadath śniąca się wędrówka. Pojawiło się ciekawe nawiązanie do innego opowiadania, było też dużo nowych stworzeń, których nie kojarzyłam z innych treści autora. Całość może mieć jednak dla niektórych pewną wadę, bo mogłaby być z tego powieść, jednak forma opowiadania sprawia, że akcja jest przyspieszona i trochę mi to miejscami zabijało klimat.
July 26, 2016
I love these Del Rey Lovecraft collections from the 70s. Cool artwork, not too long (usually around 180 - 250 pages), and of course, full of awesome H. P. Lovecraft stories. However, picking these at random hasn't quite worked for me, as I've read this collection of his early work twice now (2007, 2014) and still haven't read much of the Cthulu Mythos, for which he is most well-known. I'll be remedying that in the very near future.
"The Doom that Came to Sarnath" collects the excellent titular story, a few other exquisite horror tales ("The Cats of Ulthar," "From Beyond"), and other writings from Lovecraft's early period. The stories are broken up by helpful interludes by Lovecraft historian Lin Carter, which tell about the circumstances which bore the stories and about what style they fit in, whether what Carter describes as his "Dunsanian-influenced" works, his dream tales, or his more traditional horror stories.
This book also includes two of his more unusual stories, both co-written, neither entirely successful. The first of these is "In the Walls of Eryx," his only true science fiction story, about a man trapped in an invisible building on a strange planet, and "Imprisoned with the Pharaohs," which, strangely, was a tale Harry Houdini first described to the editor of "Weird Tales," who in turn requested Lovecraft to adapt the tale for his magazine.
"The Doom that Came to Sarnath" collects the excellent titular story, a few other exquisite horror tales ("The Cats of Ulthar," "From Beyond"), and other writings from Lovecraft's early period. The stories are broken up by helpful interludes by Lovecraft historian Lin Carter, which tell about the circumstances which bore the stories and about what style they fit in, whether what Carter describes as his "Dunsanian-influenced" works, his dream tales, or his more traditional horror stories.
This book also includes two of his more unusual stories, both co-written, neither entirely successful. The first of these is "In the Walls of Eryx," his only true science fiction story, about a man trapped in an invisible building on a strange planet, and "Imprisoned with the Pharaohs," which, strangely, was a tale Harry Houdini first described to the editor of "Weird Tales," who in turn requested Lovecraft to adapt the tale for his magazine.
November 23, 2015
This collection shows Lovecraft's early writing: his dream-like stories of ancient fantasy civilizations his more classical ghost stories, the ruin of a couple over-curious explorers. Some have great twists, but most pale in comparison to those of his later "Cthulhu Mythos" period: Mountains of Madness, Call of Cthulhu, Shadow of Innsmouth, Dunwich Horror, Color out of Space, to name my favorites. So I'd recommend the collection in "The Doom that Came to Sarnath" to a Lovecraft fan wanting to learn more about his development. The editor prefaces most of the stories with background about their writing and their place in Lovecraft's biography and evolving style.
That said, this collection does contain "Nyarlathotep," a short prose-poem whose title character is alluded to occasionally in the Mythos. "The Tomb" is a classic ghost story done well. "From Beyond" and "Beyond the Walls of Sleep" begin Lovecraft's exploration of parallel universes. The most poignant for me was "Polaris," in creating an atmosphere of solitude, beauty, and then utter despair.
That said, this collection does contain "Nyarlathotep," a short prose-poem whose title character is alluded to occasionally in the Mythos. "The Tomb" is a classic ghost story done well. "From Beyond" and "Beyond the Walls of Sleep" begin Lovecraft's exploration of parallel universes. The most poignant for me was "Polaris," in creating an atmosphere of solitude, beauty, and then utter despair.
July 6, 2017
This was a great sampling of Lovecrafts earlier work. It was especially interesting to someone already familiar with his more popular works to see where it all started. Most of the stories in this collection differs a lot from his more famous writings.
Not all of the stories were great, but almost all were at least good.
Not all of the stories were great, but almost all were at least good.
August 31, 2019
This was my introduction to Lovecraft and it blew me away. Some of the stories work better than others, to be polite about HP's earlier style; but I remember realising that here I'd discovered something truly different ...
And I keep going back to HP, having learnt to appreciate the incredible Eldritch atmosphere he creates with his unique style.
And I keep going back to HP, having learnt to appreciate the incredible Eldritch atmosphere he creates with his unique style.
February 3, 2011
I found this collection particularly great. Lovecraft's sleeping/dreaming-centered stories are my favorites. They all have such a fantastic air of anonymous terror.
March 28, 2020
3.5 stars. Not the best collection of stories as they are mostly early stories, but some good ones for sure.
February 6, 2024
"There is in the land of Mnar a vast still lake that is fed by no stream and out of wich no stream flows. Ten thousand years ago there stood by its shore the mighty city of Sarnath, but Sarnath stands there no more".
Jezivi i efektni početak Lovecraftove kratke priče o propasti jednog moćnog i slavnog grada zbog svoje krvave prošlosti.
Naime, u području velikog jezera oduvijek je postojao i grad Ib, dom čudnih stvorenja koja su opisana kao ružna, zelena, buljavih očiju i mlitavih usana. Isto tako bila su vrlo ljigava te nijema. Samim time stvarala su prijezir i strah ljudi koji su se nakon tisuće godina uselili na to područje i osnovali svoj grad Sarnath. Odlučili su ih pobiti i nakon tog čina bacili su im tijela u jezero te ukrali idola boga Bokruga. Jedan svećenik prije smrti na kamen je napisao znak za propast, no ljudi to nisi shvatili previše ozbiljno.
Prošlo je mnogo godina i Sarnath je postao ruglo ološa i dekadencije, no i vrlo moćan bogati grad. Građani Sarnatha bi slavili obljetnice uništenja svojih ljigavih susjeda, pravile bi se orgije i ostali gnjusni obredi.
Na tisućutu obljetnicu magla je prekrila jezero i grad, stvorenja su se sa moglom vratila i uzela ono što im pripada.
Ne mogu se oteti dojmu da je Lovecraftu inspiracija za ovu priču bila propast Babilona.
Jezivi i efektni početak Lovecraftove kratke priče o propasti jednog moćnog i slavnog grada zbog svoje krvave prošlosti.
Naime, u području velikog jezera oduvijek je postojao i grad Ib, dom čudnih stvorenja koja su opisana kao ružna, zelena, buljavih očiju i mlitavih usana. Isto tako bila su vrlo ljigava te nijema. Samim time stvarala su prijezir i strah ljudi koji su se nakon tisuće godina uselili na to područje i osnovali svoj grad Sarnath. Odlučili su ih pobiti i nakon tog čina bacili su im tijela u jezero te ukrali idola boga Bokruga. Jedan svećenik prije smrti na kamen je napisao znak za propast, no ljudi to nisi shvatili previše ozbiljno.
Prošlo je mnogo godina i Sarnath je postao ruglo ološa i dekadencije, no i vrlo moćan bogati grad. Građani Sarnatha bi slavili obljetnice uništenja svojih ljigavih susjeda, pravile bi se orgije i ostali gnjusni obredi.
Na tisućutu obljetnicu magla je prekrila jezero i grad, stvorenja su se sa moglom vratila i uzela ono što im pripada.
Ne mogu se oteti dojmu da je Lovecraftu inspiracija za ovu priču bila propast Babilona.
January 25, 2025
Nie należy Lovecrafta czytać w dużych ilościach, ponieważ powtarzalność motywów i schematów narracyjnych, będzie zabierać przyjemność z lektury, co z kolei utrudni wychwycenie tych utworów, które w jego prozie są naprawdę wyjątkowe albo po prostu odstające poziomem od reszty.
Nie będę też ukrywał, że zbiór Vespera pt. “Zgroza w Dunwich”, przemawia do mnie dużo bardziej, niż “Przyszła na Sarnath zagłada”. Ten pierwszy jest jakby dojrzalszy, bardziej spójny koncepcyjnie (mitologia Cthulhu) i bogatszy w teksty znaczące dla twórczości Lovecrafta – lepiej przemyślane, skonstruowane i kodyfikujące, to co dla weird fiction fundamentalne.
Nie będę też ukrywał, że zbiór Vespera pt. “Zgroza w Dunwich”, przemawia do mnie dużo bardziej, niż “Przyszła na Sarnath zagłada”. Ten pierwszy jest jakby dojrzalszy, bardziej spójny koncepcyjnie (mitologia Cthulhu) i bogatszy w teksty znaczące dla twórczości Lovecrafta – lepiej przemyślane, skonstruowane i kodyfikujące, to co dla weird fiction fundamentalne.
March 24, 2022
I found the stories a bit repetitive and not that well written. While some were more enjoyable than others (I particularly liked the one about John West, the reanimator), I have the funny feeling that Lovecraft's type of horror isn't exactly for me. I do enjoy the take on human life as being meaningless and unimportant and the idea that there is much more to know out there than we can possibly imagine, but I find that solving each mystery by having the characters go insane or thinking it was just a silly dream, a bit like an escape hatch for the author who enjoys setting up rather interesting plots and then leaving the readers expecting more.
April 23, 2023
Segundo monstruo que se menciona literalmente.
Más lore que terror.
Más lore que terror.
November 23, 2024
Bro had a thing for tentacles and lizard people - that's all I'm sayin'. (3.5 stars)
November 12, 2020
The other gods - reads like a fable or fairy tale as to why a primitive people are afraid of eclipses. There are worse and more powerful gods beyond the ones they know. Decent story, very short
The tree - another really short fable sort. I didn't really understand, it made it sound like these rivals were basically brothers but the one kills the other beyond the grave? I guess that's fitting for being like a Greek /Roman mythos style
The Doom that came to sarnath - a little fantasy story where a doomed water lizard people bring Doom to the men who conquered them. I guess I expected more considering its the books title story
The tomb - crazy guy, or possession of long lost killed ghost? I liked this one, and it's more like what I think of for hpl writing
Polaris - a fantasy dream that feels like the true reality and a man that let his people down. Ok story
Beyond the wall of sleep - almost the same story as the last one but a pov shift. Mediocre
Nyarlathotep & ex oblivione - two very short stories. Wasn't impressed by either. A lot of flowery writing without much substance
Cats of ulthar - good mystical revenge fantasy
Hypnos - moderate story. really hits home Lovecraft's use of 'unexplainable' and writing of that nature. Little twist ending
Nathicana - long form poem. Meh
From beyond - a friend shows what's there but unseen and dangerous because when you see, they see back. Friend turns out not so friendly but can't handle it himself. 4/5
The Festival - Creepy. Man goes back to his lineage and finds out about a rite that is most terrifying in a weird otherworld. Very Lovecraftian underground, but not Cthulhu 4.5/5
The Nameless City - Guys discovers ancient missing city in the desert with a weird wind. Explores and learns the history of an ancient species. I realized a lot of HPL's stories have this sort of sequence where the narrator can tell everything about the history of a 'people' from just a short jaunt in a tomb. meh 2.5/5
Quest of Iranon - a little more traditional fantasy of a traveling man and his compatriot that he picks up along the way, searching for a fabled city. Start to wonder if he's imaginary as he ages before Iranon. Then the (mild) madness comes into play at the end. Decent story 3.5/5
The crawling chaos - overly flowery description of an opium overdose nightmare 1.5/5
In the walls of eryx - see other anthology. Though I didn't realize before this was a collaboration with a young fan and this is the only true Sci fi story hpl was involved with 4.5/5
Imprisoned with the Pharaohs - Ghostwritten for Harry Houdini?! Starts as an Egypt travelogue and delves into a more typical Lovecraftian horror, that hints at it being a dream but leaves it semi-open ended. 3/5
Not the best anthology of HPL stories, but I can appreciate the range in his history of writing. I also liked the writeups and pieces of letters explaining a bit about the history in between stories.
The tree - another really short fable sort. I didn't really understand, it made it sound like these rivals were basically brothers but the one kills the other beyond the grave? I guess that's fitting for being like a Greek /Roman mythos style
The Doom that came to sarnath - a little fantasy story where a doomed water lizard people bring Doom to the men who conquered them. I guess I expected more considering its the books title story
The tomb - crazy guy, or possession of long lost killed ghost? I liked this one, and it's more like what I think of for hpl writing
Polaris - a fantasy dream that feels like the true reality and a man that let his people down. Ok story
Beyond the wall of sleep - almost the same story as the last one but a pov shift. Mediocre
Nyarlathotep & ex oblivione - two very short stories. Wasn't impressed by either. A lot of flowery writing without much substance
Cats of ulthar - good mystical revenge fantasy
Hypnos - moderate story. really hits home Lovecraft's use of 'unexplainable' and writing of that nature. Little twist ending
Nathicana - long form poem. Meh
From beyond - a friend shows what's there but unseen and dangerous because when you see, they see back. Friend turns out not so friendly but can't handle it himself. 4/5
The Festival - Creepy. Man goes back to his lineage and finds out about a rite that is most terrifying in a weird otherworld. Very Lovecraftian underground, but not Cthulhu 4.5/5
The Nameless City - Guys discovers ancient missing city in the desert with a weird wind. Explores and learns the history of an ancient species. I realized a lot of HPL's stories have this sort of sequence where the narrator can tell everything about the history of a 'people' from just a short jaunt in a tomb. meh 2.5/5
Quest of Iranon - a little more traditional fantasy of a traveling man and his compatriot that he picks up along the way, searching for a fabled city. Start to wonder if he's imaginary as he ages before Iranon. Then the (mild) madness comes into play at the end. Decent story 3.5/5
The crawling chaos - overly flowery description of an opium overdose nightmare 1.5/5
In the walls of eryx - see other anthology. Though I didn't realize before this was a collaboration with a young fan and this is the only true Sci fi story hpl was involved with 4.5/5
Imprisoned with the Pharaohs - Ghostwritten for Harry Houdini?! Starts as an Egypt travelogue and delves into a more typical Lovecraftian horror, that hints at it being a dream but leaves it semi-open ended. 3/5
Not the best anthology of HPL stories, but I can appreciate the range in his history of writing. I also liked the writeups and pieces of letters explaining a bit about the history in between stories.
February 19, 2020
——all was good as is boot to say re hp lovecraft, and to such as his works as correspond necessarily, etc., with the salient, so grossly salient example of “In the Walls of Eryx,” a plebian phantasy of the hither-for-lovecraft almost unknown take on a purely hard sci-fi narrative which prose - for iirc this ‘un his plodding inditions were perpetrated alongside an amateurish novicish fan of his (hpl’s) - is not “jaunty” or “fun” nor even in the starkest of remotest senses can anything of this story be made qualify as acceptable writing. the narration is stunted to such a fault as fault knows of no fault and besides the language is so deeply couched in a haph - sophomoric / haph - barbarian-ly (barbarous? much of the story could sartainly stand to be shaved, if that means anything here) elementary crudity and crudeness of authorship which i blame on hpl’s wanting a quick buck in a pulp ‘30s market where he had’ta prolly buck up and make probably buck none all said bc the arrantly stupid drivel of which this story consists does not merit any even partial treatment of curious inspection. in a word / tripe and in another / unreadable.
——the poem “Nathicana” composed thereabouts 1927 (?) is in the other way almost sacramental in its prosody and the effect altogether is one of purechrist benison.
and much too of the other fiction is cleancrisp and clear hpl-ish at his most capable.
——i likewise want to point out the titular story as plainly shining lyric, and with “The Cats of Ulthar,” wherein old sable-effigied Sarnath is passingly-obscurely referenced (i say this for only the skolar’s notice), one sees hpl’s adoring cats in a lionized episode at turns snappishly written at times sometimes sappy but for all of it it is good and goodness doth dex-amphz māk yuh churn out plinky palaver.
———
The end result is 4 bright ones.
****
——the poem “Nathicana” composed thereabouts 1927 (?) is in the other way almost sacramental in its prosody and the effect altogether is one of purechrist benison.
and much too of the other fiction is cleancrisp and clear hpl-ish at his most capable.
——i likewise want to point out the titular story as plainly shining lyric, and with “The Cats of Ulthar,” wherein old sable-effigied Sarnath is passingly-obscurely referenced (i say this for only the skolar’s notice), one sees hpl’s adoring cats in a lionized episode at turns snappishly written at times sometimes sappy but for all of it it is good and goodness doth dex-amphz māk yuh churn out plinky palaver.
———
The end result is 4 bright ones.
****
December 6, 2013
This book collects some of Lovecraft's "dream sequence" stories as well as some straight horror. Most of these predate "Call Of Cthulhu;" Lin Carter includes a chronology of the stories here and from the collection The Dream Quest Of Unknown Kadath, which I find interesting because you get a sense of Lovecraft's development as a writer.
Lots of good stuff here but the real standout for me was "Nyarlathotep." Lovecraft manages to convey a sense of terror in a (then) modern setting, telling of the coming of Nyarlathotep and the terror and destruction left in his wake. It has the feel of Nazi war rallies, conspiracy theories and disaster films.
I also love "The Cats Of Ulthar," which has found its way into a few Lovecraft collections. Lovecraft loved cats and, despite it's serious, gruesome nature, this story has a playfulness to it.
There are a few stories in which Lovecraft collaborated with other authors, most notably "Imprisoned With The Pharaohs." More ghost writing than collaboration, this is a tale written by Lovecraft in 1924 and based upon an outline supplied by Harry Houdini. Apparently, Houdini liked it so much he commissioned Lovecraft for other ghost writing projects before his death two years later.
I had read all these stories previously but it was a treat to read them again. Though Lovecraft occasionally got a little out of hand with the weird wordage, there is a lot of beautiful prose and interesting ideas. That these are generally lesser known tales is an added bonus.
Lots of good stuff here but the real standout for me was "Nyarlathotep." Lovecraft manages to convey a sense of terror in a (then) modern setting, telling of the coming of Nyarlathotep and the terror and destruction left in his wake. It has the feel of Nazi war rallies, conspiracy theories and disaster films.
I also love "The Cats Of Ulthar," which has found its way into a few Lovecraft collections. Lovecraft loved cats and, despite it's serious, gruesome nature, this story has a playfulness to it.
There are a few stories in which Lovecraft collaborated with other authors, most notably "Imprisoned With The Pharaohs." More ghost writing than collaboration, this is a tale written by Lovecraft in 1924 and based upon an outline supplied by Harry Houdini. Apparently, Houdini liked it so much he commissioned Lovecraft for other ghost writing projects before his death two years later.
I had read all these stories previously but it was a treat to read them again. Though Lovecraft occasionally got a little out of hand with the weird wordage, there is a lot of beautiful prose and interesting ideas. That these are generally lesser known tales is an added bonus.
October 20, 2020
A lot of early Lovecraft stories and prose poems, and a little poetry. Most of these aren't among his best, but most have at least something that makes them worthwhile. The Festival is collected in this book as well, and it is one of the strongest stories in this volume. Some of the Dunsany influenced stories have beautiful prose, but are lacking in event. Lots of colour, not much action. Lord Dunsany does Dunsany much better than Lovecraft. Interesting collection to see how Lovecraft grew as a writer, but not the best collection of his work.
Part II:
Second time through. I am reading all of Lovecraft's published fiction this time, in conjunction with listening to the H. P. Lovecraft Literary Podcast and Voluminous The Letters of H. P. Lovecraft.
As a collection, this is an odds and ends book, though there are some interesting pieces here among the dross, and even the weaker fragments often have passages that are fantastic. The Festival, The Nameless City, and perhaps The Tomb and From Beyond are among the best here, and the Harry Houdini story Imprisoned with the Pharoahs is also of interest.
The rest, is a motley collection of not quite stories heavily influenced by Lord Dunsany and a sprinkling of poetry that is heavily influenced by Poe, both of those writers having the advantage over Lovecraft in their respective arenas. Lovecraft is at his best when he is dealing with his own Mythos, as evidenced by the singled out stories above, which all contain fragments of what will eventually coalesce into the style Lovecraft is ultimately known for.
Part II:
Second time through. I am reading all of Lovecraft's published fiction this time, in conjunction with listening to the H. P. Lovecraft Literary Podcast and Voluminous The Letters of H. P. Lovecraft.
As a collection, this is an odds and ends book, though there are some interesting pieces here among the dross, and even the weaker fragments often have passages that are fantastic. The Festival, The Nameless City, and perhaps The Tomb and From Beyond are among the best here, and the Harry Houdini story Imprisoned with the Pharoahs is also of interest.
The rest, is a motley collection of not quite stories heavily influenced by Lord Dunsany and a sprinkling of poetry that is heavily influenced by Poe, both of those writers having the advantage over Lovecraft in their respective arenas. Lovecraft is at his best when he is dealing with his own Mythos, as evidenced by the singled out stories above, which all contain fragments of what will eventually coalesce into the style Lovecraft is ultimately known for.
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