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H.P. Lovecraft - The Complete Fiction Omnibus Collection - Second Edition: The Prime Years: 1926-1936
This volume contains the stories that nearly everyone agrees are the best work of H.P. Lovecraft's life. Chronologically, it is the second book in a three-volume omnibus set comprising the complete fictional works of Howard Phillips Lovecraft.
Highlights of this volume
Cool Air The Call of Cthulhu Pickman's Model The Colour out of Space The Dream-Quest of Unknown Kadath The Case of Charles Dexter Ward The Dunwich Horror The Whisperer in Darkness At the Mountains of Madness The Shadow over Innsmouth The Dreams in the Witch House The Thing on the Doorstep The Shadow out of Time The Haunter of the Dark
Highlights of this volume
Cool Air The Call of Cthulhu Pickman's Model The Colour out of Space The Dream-Quest of Unknown Kadath The Case of Charles Dexter Ward The Dunwich Horror The Whisperer in Darkness At the Mountains of Madness The Shadow over Innsmouth The Dreams in the Witch House The Thing on the Doorstep The Shadow out of Time The Haunter of the Dark
814 pages, Hardcover
Published March 15, 2018
About the author
H.P. Lovecraft
7,088 books19.9k 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 - 8 of 8 reviews
October 7, 2018
Volume 2 of the second edition of Lovecraft's Complete Fiction Omnibus represents Lovecraft at the top of his game. Lovecraft's most famous stories such as "The Call of Cthulhu", "The Dunwitch Horror", "The Colour out of Space", and "The Shadow Over Innsmouth" are here. We also get more of his fantasy-inspired Dreamland stories such as "The Dream Quest of Unknown Kadath" and "The Silver Key".
If I have to make any criticism here, it is that Lovecraft was far more skilled as a short story writer than a writer of longer pieces. His novellas "At the Mountains of Madness" and "The Case of Charles Dexter Ward" (the latter of which Lovecraft didn't even think was any good and left it unpublished in his lifetime) could both be improved by a lot of trimming down. The novella "The Dream Quest of Unknown Kadath" is a bit easier to read because it is just so weird and fantastical.
What else is there to say about Lovecraft? He seems to be one of those writers that people either love or loathe. I, for one, love his work and I feel that, even if you hate him, you have to give him some credit for being so influential in the horror and weird fiction genres for a hundred years and counting.
I will also say that, for me, there is no "Lovecraftian" fiction that is quite like Lovecraft's originals. When reading Robert E. Howard's Conan stories, for example, I am likely to get almost as much enjoyment from pastiches as I am his original tales. With Lovecraft, however, only the originals will do.
If I have to make any criticism here, it is that Lovecraft was far more skilled as a short story writer than a writer of longer pieces. His novellas "At the Mountains of Madness" and "The Case of Charles Dexter Ward" (the latter of which Lovecraft didn't even think was any good and left it unpublished in his lifetime) could both be improved by a lot of trimming down. The novella "The Dream Quest of Unknown Kadath" is a bit easier to read because it is just so weird and fantastical.
What else is there to say about Lovecraft? He seems to be one of those writers that people either love or loathe. I, for one, love his work and I feel that, even if you hate him, you have to give him some credit for being so influential in the horror and weird fiction genres for a hundred years and counting.
I will also say that, for me, there is no "Lovecraftian" fiction that is quite like Lovecraft's originals. When reading Robert E. Howard's Conan stories, for example, I am likely to get almost as much enjoyment from pastiches as I am his original tales. With Lovecraft, however, only the originals will do.
September 23, 2021
It's probably a rounded down 3. I'll give each a rating and then look at the average again.
The quality of the stories, novels, novellas, and poems really varied quite a bit. I see how some were extremely important for future horror writers and how Lovecraft still has an immense influence, but we also have to admit that some of the stories maybe don't hold up super well, at least not for the general audience (yeah, yeah, pulp fans, I getchu).
The whole trope of not revealing a horrible monster and only showing the manifestation of it on someone's face or a dream or a sound, seems to have its origin with Lovecraft. Despite being sometimes massively plastered with descriptions, adjectives and adverbials à discrétion, he mostly succeeded to pull off a creepy and lingering ending. Even in modern Dungeons and Dragons, when you enter some long-forgotten town with a grime-ridden wall, dank cellars and lurid faces staring at you from the side street, you might be tapping into some far-flung reverberation of Lovecraft-speak. A shadowy eidolon hunts your dream, right before you wake up, struck by the sheer awesome-ness (in the 30s meaning of the word) of the cosmic influences, and you know the Shfla Qreknoqs have been living on this planet myriads of eons before the human era. Something something, it's not perfect but certainly imitable, aye!
Cool Air: 4.5
The Call of Cthulhu: 4
I get why it is his most popular story. It really marries a bit of both, this cosmic, only techoscopically perceived world with an awesome (pre- and post 2010 meaning) monster at end. Maybe I would've liked it even a bit better without the collapse of the mystique around Cthulhu, but it worked anyways for me.
Pickman's Model: 3.5
The Colour out of Space: 3
The Dream-Quest of Unknown Kadath: 2.5
I get how it is a hallmark of this type of literature, but it was a bit *too* dreamy with fantasy names and more and more crazy things without a clear direction. I like the theme of dreaming a lot but it didn't speak to me.
The Case of Charles Dexter Ward: 2
The Dunwich Horror: 3
The Whisperer in Darkness: 4
Similar criticism that above worked against my enjoyment, worked here against me: Lovecraft collapses the mystique and ventures deep into sci-fi territory. As far as I learned, it wasn't super popular with many readers, but the extremely alien ideas were quite interesting, I found.
At the Mountains of Madness: 4.5
Maybe his best story and (maybe not coincidentally) with a similar arc to the Cthulhu mythos. A team of researchers like in any other horror movie gets entangled into something that should not have been stirred. But unlike these cheap B-movies, this is the OG of this trope, which I honor. For most of the story, it's just madness creeping up and only in the very end we half-remove the haziness. For me, this is a big part of Lovecraft's contribution and lasting influence.
This was probably my favorite story
The Shadow over Innsmouth:3.5
The Dreams in the Witch House:2.5
The Thing on the Doorstep: 2
The Shadow out of Time: 2.5
The Haunter of the Dark: 3
Lastly a word on his ideas on anybody who isn't a white dude. Lovecraft was, even given his times (as if that was ever an excuse), extremely racist and backward. Just from this fact, I braced myself for an entire slew of problematic bits. But surprisingly, it was a quite a bit less than anticipated or compared to other, extremely outward racists of the time. I don't know what to make of it, the guy was racist. There are still a bunch of tropes and some weird approaches to women, though, like, it's not nice either.
The average of the above rating is exactly 3, which is about what I had expected.
The quality of the stories, novels, novellas, and poems really varied quite a bit. I see how some were extremely important for future horror writers and how Lovecraft still has an immense influence, but we also have to admit that some of the stories maybe don't hold up super well, at least not for the general audience (yeah, yeah, pulp fans, I getchu).
The whole trope of not revealing a horrible monster and only showing the manifestation of it on someone's face or a dream or a sound, seems to have its origin with Lovecraft. Despite being sometimes massively plastered with descriptions, adjectives and adverbials à discrétion, he mostly succeeded to pull off a creepy and lingering ending. Even in modern Dungeons and Dragons, when you enter some long-forgotten town with a grime-ridden wall, dank cellars and lurid faces staring at you from the side street, you might be tapping into some far-flung reverberation of Lovecraft-speak. A shadowy eidolon hunts your dream, right before you wake up, struck by the sheer awesome-ness (in the 30s meaning of the word) of the cosmic influences, and you know the Shfla Qreknoqs have been living on this planet myriads of eons before the human era. Something something, it's not perfect but certainly imitable, aye!
Cool Air: 4.5
The Call of Cthulhu: 4
I get why it is his most popular story. It really marries a bit of both, this cosmic, only techoscopically perceived world with an awesome (pre- and post 2010 meaning) monster at end. Maybe I would've liked it even a bit better without the collapse of the mystique around Cthulhu, but it worked anyways for me.
Pickman's Model: 3.5
The Colour out of Space: 3
The Dream-Quest of Unknown Kadath: 2.5
I get how it is a hallmark of this type of literature, but it was a bit *too* dreamy with fantasy names and more and more crazy things without a clear direction. I like the theme of dreaming a lot but it didn't speak to me.
The Case of Charles Dexter Ward: 2
The Dunwich Horror: 3
The Whisperer in Darkness: 4
Similar criticism that above worked against my enjoyment, worked here against me: Lovecraft collapses the mystique and ventures deep into sci-fi territory. As far as I learned, it wasn't super popular with many readers, but the extremely alien ideas were quite interesting, I found.
At the Mountains of Madness: 4.5
Maybe his best story and (maybe not coincidentally) with a similar arc to the Cthulhu mythos. A team of researchers like in any other horror movie gets entangled into something that should not have been stirred. But unlike these cheap B-movies, this is the OG of this trope, which I honor. For most of the story, it's just madness creeping up and only in the very end we half-remove the haziness. For me, this is a big part of Lovecraft's contribution and lasting influence.
This was probably my favorite story
The Shadow over Innsmouth:3.5
The Dreams in the Witch House:2.5
The Thing on the Doorstep: 2
The Shadow out of Time: 2.5
The Haunter of the Dark: 3
Lastly a word on his ideas on anybody who isn't a white dude. Lovecraft was, even given his times (as if that was ever an excuse), extremely racist and backward. Just from this fact, I braced myself for an entire slew of problematic bits. But surprisingly, it was a quite a bit less than anticipated or compared to other, extremely outward racists of the time. I don't know what to make of it, the guy was racist. There are still a bunch of tropes and some weird approaches to women, though, like, it's not nice either.
The average of the above rating is exactly 3, which is about what I had expected.
September 5, 2024
Lovecraft is Lovecraft. Both stars are for the few moments of good writing in his work.
The interstitials and biographical segments are just as annoying and as much of a slog as the first volume. And Finn maintains his failings throughout. Those being, only admitting to the presence of prejudice in Lovecraft's work at it's most blatant (while still praising the subtlety, mind you) and being the worst audiobook narrator I've had the displeasure of listening to.
The narration is akin to listening to a statistics lecture and also only becomes bearable at 1.2x speed if not 1.5x. Truly making the subject matter worse.
The interstitials and biographical segments are just as annoying and as much of a slog as the first volume. And Finn maintains his failings throughout. Those being, only admitting to the presence of prejudice in Lovecraft's work at it's most blatant (while still praising the subtlety, mind you) and being the worst audiobook narrator I've had the displeasure of listening to.
The narration is akin to listening to a statistics lecture and also only becomes bearable at 1.2x speed if not 1.5x. Truly making the subject matter worse.
April 26, 2023
It's widely known at this point that H.P. Lovecraft was deeply troubled and much of his writing is steeped in his own problematic fears of people from other races. Nonetheless, the reach of influence from his creative work is stunning and powerful. This complete omnibus is truly impressive, and does not skirt around Lovecraft's flaws. I love many of the stories (though a couple of them are just too prejudiced to be enjoyable), and the asides about what was going on in the author's life at the time of writing them are fascinating.
February 16, 2023
A truly legendary collection of short stories that peaks at "At the Mountains of Madness" and (almost) ends with one of my favourite lovecraft stories, Haunter in the Dark.
Truly a visionary of his time, his voice still echoes almost a century after his death and we keep feeding off of his own work.
Truly a visionary of his time, his voice still echoes almost a century after his death and we keep feeding off of his own work.
October 5, 2022
I really liked the commentary that accompanied each story - the background information was very enlightening for certain stories. I also enjoyed reading some of my favorites again, and some of the great stories that I had missed before.
January 15, 2020
Strong editorial transitions and just enough biographical context for each entry without dragging on too long.
Displaying 1 - 8 of 8 reviews