Rating: 
Summary: One of (if not the) greatest Lovecraftian srories
Review: I'll post my reveiw here since these are the reveiws for the paperback edition of this book-which is the cheapest and so bound to be the most popular-but if you really want to enjoy this story of stories, I recommend purchasing the hardcover edition,or, better yet,locating a rare books store and purchasing yourself an Arkham House edition-which will run you about $50 or 60. Anyway, this story is in my eyes one of Lovecraft's all time greatest works-long or short-besides Shadows over Innsmouth and The Call of Chthulu. It is also a great introduction-to-Lovecraft. It was mine,and now I am a dedicated fan and reader. One thing you'll notice about Lovecaft-he has a great many followers in the writing feild,if you get my point. Most of them are hacks-THIS is the real stuff-THIS is the good stuff-ENJOY!
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Summary: pulpfiction heaven
Review: Let's be real--Lovecraft was a pulp writer, and though much of his imagery may seem to today's reader to be hack in that many of his monstrosities are only hinted at (my favorite tale is "The Unnamable" in which he parodies his own descriptions of his monsters), it scared the hell out of readers in the 30s and 40s. This is one of my personal favorites of his, only hinting at the Cthulhu mythos, and somewhat of a primer for the pantheon of other tales. Do I recommend it? Only highly, along with any other Lovecraft you can get yer hands on. Go for it.
Rating:
Summary: Best of the Best
Review: Lovecraft is certainly one of the the best horror writers of all time, and these are some of his best tales. Indeed, I would consider At the Mountains of Madness his most finely wrought story. It's one of the few stories that has stayed continually with me since the first time I read it (15 years ago now? ). Without giving too much away, the basic plot deals with a Antarctic research mission gone awry. As a researcher now myself, I occasionally travels to remote and solitary field sites. I must admit that it's the Mountains of Madness that I think of when it's been overlong since I've heard from a base camp or from a research party. Overall, you can't go wrong with this one. A true classic.
Rating: 
Summary: Good but twisted
Review: Lovecraft isn't really my sort of thing, but I thought I should at least read one of two of his stories to get some idea of his work. I happened to find this book cheap and read the title story and some of the short stories. At the Mountains of Madness seems to be considered his best. I have to admit, I enjoyed it more than I would have thought, as Lovecraft is a talented but twisted storyteller in a bizarre sort of way. Also, hearing about all these obscure gods with Sumerian and Babylonian sounding names (I guess they do come from their mythology) and finding about what they are about is sort of interesting, actually. Anyway, Lovecraft is a certainly a master of the macabre and the bizarre who can give you a pretty good scare for your money.
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Summary: Quintessential Lovecraft
Review: Lovecraft was the master of contrasting the microroom with macroroom and this is his masterpiece. Antarctic explorers are exploring a mountain range beyond the Transantarctic range. What they find there destroys their sanity. So far typical Lovecraft stuff. But in no other story is his worldview so well-presented. We have the cosy, predictable, and logical world of the scientists. They are exploring the unknown, but they expect it to fit into their worldview, they just want to expand their microroom, the world they know. Instead, they find the totally unexpected, the unexplainable, the bizarre, the diseased, and, instead, they have to redefine the macroroom, their place in the universe, and, in extension, so does the reader. We turn from being the crown of creation to gnats in a hurricane, or one fly in a cloud of flies buzzing around a rotting elephant carcass.
The mountainranges described are borders. The Transantractic range defines the limit of the known, the Mountains of Madness defines the limit of sanity, and shockingly, at the end of the story, it is hinted at an even further mountain range - the border to what? We are afraid to ask.
Lovecraft's style, as even his most ardent fans know, leaves much to be desired. He was not a great author, but he was a storyteller. He also understood the contrast between our ordered modern society and the unknown, or the unknowable, or insane, as no other author.
This is perhaps his most complex story. It can be interpreted in many ways: what is our place in the universe? What laws govern the universe? What happens when we delve into the unknown? Is it an allegory on the subconscious? How can we claim that we posses all the answers, or even questions? etc.
It should be no surprise that the book is an almost must with modern Antarctic explorers. Another thing that tends to forgotten is that Lovecraft wrote at the same time as Kafka, and in many ways they are exploring the same territory.
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Summary: One of Lovecraft's Greatest Triumphs
Review: Lovecraft's "At The Mountains Of Madness" is by far one of the, if not the, best Horror novel written in the Twentieth Century. The story is captivating, the character are engrossing, and the horror is first rate. This novel is the one thing Lovecraft fans should read, after "The Call Of Cthulhu". The novel tells the tale of the Miskatonic University expedition to Antarctica, led by the famous Dr. Pabodie. Seemingly innocuous at first, the story quickly takes a turn to the dark side that happens so very often in Lovecraft's work. The novel explains a few of the Cthulhu Mythos mysteries, such as the history of the Old Ones, and the genesis of the abhorred Shoggoths, and brings up many more questions about the mad universe that Lovecraft created so well. If you like this novel, read "The Whisperer in the Dark", which tells more about of the Old Ones' plans, and "The Call of Cthulhu", just because it is the backbone of the entire Lovecraftian Pantheon.
Rating:
Summary: One of Lovecraft's Greatest Triumphs
Review: Lovecraft's "At The Mountains Of Madness" is by far one of the, if not the, best Horror novel written in the Twentieth Century. The story is captivating, the character are engrossing, and the horror is first rate. This novel is the one thing Lovecraft fans should read, after "The Call Of Cthulhu".
The novel tells the tale of the Miskatonic University expedition to Antarctica, led by the famous Dr. Pabodie. Seemingly innocuous at first, the story quickly takes a turn to the dark side that happens so very often in Lovecraft's work. The novel explains a few of the Cthulhu Mythos mysteries, such as the history of the Old Ones, and the genesis of the abhorred Shoggoths, and brings up many more questions about the mad universe that Lovecraft created so well. If you like this novel, read "The Whisperer in the Dark", which tells more about of the Old Ones' plans, and "The Call of Cthulhu", just because it is the backbone of the entire Lovecraftian Pantheon.
Rating:
Summary: Tomentous to Hirsute Horror
Review: Lovecraft's stylistic eccentricities detract significantly from the effect of this novel. Read a botanical description of a plant part in Gray's Manual of Botany...."Ciliiate, hursute to somewhat scabrous acuminate appendages appressed to squamous bracts..." (Egad!!! Let me out of here....!) compares well with the " squamous, octopoid monstrosities" with which H.P. populates many of his visions....Taking a child's distortions of reality based on what psychologist might call "deficiency needs" (Colin Wilson in the intro to "The Crawling Chaos") Lovecraft adorns his preoccupations with fancy words.....strange locals....and people on the verge of losing track of local reality...and creates what the unimaginative would call a "really good horror story". The situation resulting is quite humorous when one considers the legions of fans who are captivated by the technique. Compare the methods and subject matter of Lovecraft with that of Lehninger in his discussion of thermodynamics in his BIOCHEMISTRY volume. Both authors investigate strange beasties "octpoid, tentacular monstrosities" or "enthapy, free energy, entropy, work, equilibrium constants, etc." , but in the first case we only learn of Lovecraft's psychologic preoccupations, whereas in the second we learn of the hidden existants of the Universe with which we can all achieve a much greater understanding of Reality. The present writer has compared the thrill derived from reading these authors....Lovecraft only increases my appreciation of Lehninger...and causes me to ask. "Why does the human brain find the complex nonsense (advanced by H.P., etc) so attractive? The reason is probably hidden somewhere deep in the DNA responsible for our limbic system.
Rating:
Summary: Tomentous to Hirsute Horror
Review: Lovecraft's stylistic eccentricities detract significantly from the effect of this novel. Read a botanical description of a plant part in Gray's Manual of Botany...."Ciliiate, hursute to somewhat scabrous acuminate appendages appressed to squamous bracts..." (Egad!!! Let me out of here....!) compares well with the " squamous, octopoid monstrosities" with which H.P. populates many of his visions....Taking a child's distortions of reality based on what psychologist might call "deficiency needs" (Colin Wilson in the intro to "The Crawling Chaos") Lovecraft adorns his preoccupations with fancy words.....strange locals....and people on the verge of losing track of local reality...and creates what the unimaginative would call a "really good horror story". The situation resulting is quite humorous when one considers the legions of fans who are captivated by the technique. Compare the methods and subject matter of Lovecraft with that of Lehninger in his discussion of thermodynamics in his BIOCHEMISTRY volume. Both authors investigate strange beasties "octpoid, tentacular monstrosities" or "enthapy, free energy, entropy, work, equilibrium constants, etc." , but in the first case we only learn of Lovecraft's psychologic preoccupations, whereas in the second we learn of the hidden existants of the Universe with which we can all achieve a much greater understanding of Reality. The present writer has compared the thrill derived from reading these authors....Lovecraft only increases my appreciation of Lehninger...and causes me to ask. "Why does the human brain find the complex nonsense (advanced by H.P., etc) so attractive? The reason is probably hidden somewhere deep in the DNA responsible for our limbic system.
Rating:
Summary: An odd selection from the master of horror
Review: Lovescraft's ideology was not to write horror. It was to impress the mind with the sense of awe and wonder, to impugn upon it that there are ineffable, unfathomable things lurking in the universe, things that we cannot analyze and understand. Naturally, since humans tend to be afraid of the unknown, Lovecraft's reasoning led him to the use of terror as the conveyer of awe. One who reads Lovecraft just for the sake of seeing a few characters get eaten or dismembered is avoiding the best parts. In theory one reads Lovecraft to become disturbed. To expand his mind beyond what is considered human, to break out of the bounds of placidity and decadence, self-assuredness and security, and to feel it in his heart of hearts that humans are not the masters of the world.At the Mountains of Madness sits proudly as one of Lovecraft's greatest achievements. It is a tale of time immemorial and of an incredible civilization that came to Earth long before it was populated. A truly stellar read that leads one to thinking where exactly humanity's evolution will lead. One of the greatest features of Lovecraft's horror is that all of his stories are interwoven into a single nighmarish parchment- at the mountains of madness is no exception: it includes a number of references to both Cthulhu and the quasi-real "Necronomicon". Oddly enough, the other stories included in this selection (especially Shunned House, probably because it is about what one might probably call a vampire - in the pre-Dracula sense of the word) don't seem to be quite as deep and absorbing as the first. Nevertheless, if you care for a new view of the world around you, one where you do not dominate - please, read this book. I myself am too far gone...
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