The H. P. Lovecraft Collection: Deluxe 6-Volume Box Set Edition: 3 (Arcturus Collector's Classics, 3): Deluxe 6-Book Hardcover Boxed Set

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Adolphe de Castro (revised from “The Automatic Executioner” by Castro, first published 1891 November 14) H.P. Lovecraft has been on my list for years now. Horror fiction isn't usually my genre of choice, but I've heard people cite Lovecraft for so long that I felt a duty to read him and see what all the fuss is about. To be clear, after reading him I still don't understand what all the fuss is about. The five star rating for this book is not because I think every story (or even most of them) were 5 stars, or because Lovecraft was a great writer (though I do think he was a better writer than he's often given credit for). It's because these stories are essential reading. Like him or hate him, Lovecraft casts a long, dark shadow over all of American fantasy and horror, and in fact, the stories are mostly pretty good, in a very dated way. Yes, Lovecraft wrote purple. Yes, his characterization is usually pretty thin. And yes, he was a horrible racist and it shows in his writing. But no one who touched this genre after him has been untouched by it, and if you have ever been awed or frightened or scared by a tale of eldritch horrors, unfathomable beings from beyond time and space, bubbling squamous obscenities so horrible that the very sight of them will erode your sanity, or vast, alien, cosmic gods inimical to humans and regarding us the way we regard germs... well, that's all Lovecraftian influence. There is no purpose, as far as I could tell, for any of the racism present in these stories. They don't advance the plots in any way and the overtly racist characters - like one who calls his dog "niggerman" - are not portrayed as villains. No, they're the good guys.

Old Bugs: An anti-dissolution (drinking and debauchery) cautionary tale written by a lifelong teetotaler for his young friend as a personal missive. It was as subtle as Reefer Madness.The Quest of Iranon: The closest thing to a fable yet encountered in this collection, and rather lovely, but inconsequential. It could be considered a Dreamlands tale.

Y por fin termine de leer las obras completas de H.P.Lovecraft, una de mis grandes asignaturas pendientes desde hace muchos años, desde la adolescencia. Si he tardado tanto ha sido porque estaba obcecada con hacerme con un tomo de sus obras completas, pese a que existen cientos de recopilaciones con solo algunas de las mismas. Pero yo quería tenerlas todas. Me alegro de haberme hecho con la edición de la editorial Plutón, pues no solo está muy bien de precio, también cuenta con una excelente traducción y el tomo esta estupendamente editado. Si tuviera que ponerle algún pero sería que me hubiera gustado que hubiera contado con algún pie de nota más para tratar con mayor profundidad las historias, el contexto histórico, las influencias que más incidieron en estas obras y como se escribieron, y que en el prólogo inicial se hubieran dado más datos sobre la vida y obra de Lovecraft. Pero como he dicho, por ese precio esta edición me parece más que meritoria (ya que otros tomos con las obras completas de este autor tienen un precio casi prohibitivo) y estoy muy satisfecha con ella. At the Mountains of Madness is one of the primary expository works about the Old Ones, here dubbed the “Elder Things” by the explorers as they stumble upon more and more evidence. For instance, Dyer and another colleague discover the remains of massive, inhuman architecture, along with etchings that explain the evolution of the Elder Things and imply their eventual migration into the ocean.

Neke sam ocenila sa slabijom ocenom, odnosno Danički užas i Ispod Piramida, naime Piramide jeste da je dobra priča, lepo zamišljena ali jednostavno ima puno istorijskih informacija da mi je došlo da preskočim čitavu priču ali ipak je završih do kraja. Dok Danički užas je na sva zvona nahvaljen, jeste dobra složena priča sa dobrim likovima ali jednostavno meni u trenutku nije prijala, stoga planiram da je u budućnosti ponovo pročitam i možda joj povećam ocenu.

The Other Gods: Short and meh, but builds a “‘Craftverse” by referencing The Cats of Ulthar. We like continuity. The last element of HPL that should be looked at is his myth. Here is the one place where HPL shines. His creation of an ante-diluvian world of races not human on earth and others that came from off of earth is fascinating and worthy of study. Given the amount of fiction and 'fan-fiction' which his 'Cthulian' mythos has generated HPL remains a significant presence in the world of genre fiction--and, yes, there is a difference between genre and literature. For this reason, and this reason alone, HPL remains a writer worth revisiting. Mysteries of Time and Spirit: The Letters of H. P. Lovecraft and Donald Wandrei ( ISBN 1-892389-49-5)

Empezaré por lo que no me ha gustado con una metáfora en la que no he podido dejar de pensar mientras leía a Lovecraft. Es una comparación que una vez leí en una reseña sobre otra célebre obra de la literatura estadounidense, escrita por por otro no menos célebre escritor americano, y que también ha vuelto locos a más de uno o dos lectores. En dicha reseña, el autor comparaba la obra que le ocupaba y el estilo de su autor con un castillo abandonado en las higlands escocesas donde te invitan a pasar una temporada: Al principio la idea te parece una pasada, toda una aventura. Pero a medida que pasa el tiempo acabas por ver todos los inconvenientes: las cosas no funcionan, hay mucho polvo, hay corrientes de aire helado, está lejos de todo centro habitado… el simil va al pelo no solo por la temática de Lovecraft, también por como me he sentido muchas veces leyéndolo. This 1936 novella sees Lovecraft return to writing about strange creatures, namely the Great Race of Yith, aliens who can travel through space and time. The main human character of the story is Professor Nathaniel Wingate Peaslee, who unexpectedly finds his own consciousness linked to that of a Yithian. Though at first Peaslee worries that he is losing his mind, he’s reassured by the existence of many similar cases before his… and then plunged into terror again, when he realizes the identity of the culprit. These next two entries are both part of the Weird Stories anthology as well, but as longer novellas (and landmark Lovecraftian works), they merit their own entries.