Rating: 
Summary: Beautiful
Review: The Dreamquest of unknown kadath creates a beautiful dreamworld. The way HP Lovecraft talks about the boundaries between dreams and reality and paints a magical world of beasts and dreams makes this my favorite story by HP Lovecraft ever
Rating:
Summary: Lovecraft's most accessible tale, told in his unique style
Review: The plot moves quickly. A series of scenes, word-paintings, are connected by the dreamer's journey. This arcane Odessey is much more accessible to the first-time reader than Lovecraft's many darker stories that lumber forward under his ornate ellipsis and oblique references. I recommend this novella for its wonderful images, its powerful sentiment and the absence of an overt agenda. The wonderful story-telling leaves the reader free to exercise the imagination to its fullest extent
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Summary: No Elves!
Review: This book was my introduction to the worlds of HP Lovecraft. I found it in the library, was enthralled for some reason by the title, and took it home to read it. Unfortunately, I took it back when I was done. It took me another eight years to find the Ballantine paperback, when a whole series of HPL was published. Because I remembered this book so fondly, I bought the whole series sight unseen, and have never had a second thought about that decision. tDQoUK is extremely accessible to readers of fantasy in particular, and readers in general. Lovecraft's imagination takes flight in his descriptions of the Dreamlands, with exotic creatures and locales abounding, and a strange little mission undertaken to petition the gods of that land. Strongly influenced by the work of Lord Dunsany, Lovecraft would never again write with such hope and beauty, though his writing would grow stronger as his mature voice emerged. This book is not horror, but high fantasy without elves and swords, rare in these days of Tolkienesque pastiche. Buy it, read it, and your imagination may never be the same again. Join me on the seven hundred steps to the gate of the Dreamlands, and don't forget to count. I'll see you in the Enchanted Wood.
Rating: 
Summary: Such stuff as dreams are made on
Review: To sustain a fantasy tale solely on the strength of the imagery, without the support of strong character development or a narrative that is richly symbolic or allegorical, is extraordinarily difficult. To achieve it, the imagery must be sufficiently novel and compelling to hold the reader's interest by itself. In 'Dreamquest', Lovecraft makes the task even more difficult for himself in two ways; firstly by making it clear from the beginning that this is all a dream ' thus the dreamer could safely wake up at any moment ' and secondly by making the stakes seem very modest. In most fantasy tales, the fate of nations or of the entire Universe rests on the hero's success in retrieving a ring or slaying a dragon, or whatever. Here, the aim of the journey is to visit a city that the dreamer once saw in dreamland and yearned to enter. Hardly the stuff of dramatic tension.Nonetheless, 'Dreamquest' succeeds magnificently, purely with the strangeness and poetic beauty of its imagery. Despite the manner in which the publishers promote this book, it is not a collection of horror stories. They are fantasies. The title story is a fine prose-poem that will live with you ' and very likely encroach on your dreamland ' long after you read it. Clearly, Lovecraft was extremely introverted and introspective. There are references in the story to those perilous places where dreamland and reality meet, and where insanity threatens. The destruction of the individual may be at stake in too ambitious a dreamquest, even if the future of mankind is not. Although some passages have a light touch, the story lacks the humor that Tolkien, for example, brings to his work. Also, there is no erotic element -- not even a single female character. Ironically enough, considering his name, Lovecraft appears to have had little or no sexual awareness. In short, 'Dreamquest' attempts none of the usual functions of storytelling. It seeks only to take you on a journey through one expert dreamer's psyche. When the guide is as competent as Lovecraft, that is enough.
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