Tales of H.P. Lovecraft

Rating:
Summary: Not his best, but still okay
Review: As much as i hate to admit, this collection isn't the best out there. I feel that Lovecraft is probably the best and most influential horror writer ever, but the problems lie, well... the last reviewer has said much of its problems, hasn't he? Still, it's fairly enjoyable.

Rating:
Summary: Still the Best
Review: H.P. Lovecraft is my favorite horror writer. At his best, he is unsurpassed by any current author, including Stephen King. He creates nightmarish worlds which are uniquely his own. However, in regard to consistency, he may be likened to a pure power hitter in baseball: for the most part, he either hits a homerun or strikes out. Fortunately, most of the stories in this collection are homeruns. "The Rats in the Wall", "The Call of Cthulu", "Shadow over Innsmouth", "The Colour out of Space", and "The Dunwich Horror" are arguably five of the best horror stories ever written. Most of the others are almost as good. The one clear strikeout in the collection is "The Shadow out of Time" which I found murky, unfocused, and repetitive in style. Speaking of repetitive, a few of the stories do make you wish that Lovecraft had sprung for a thesaurus at some point: if I read the words "eldritch" or "nameless" one more time, I thought I would scream! At any rate, the collection is a good introduction to one of the true masters of the horror genre.

Rating:
Summary: An excellent intro to Lovecraft literature
Review: I found this collection a superb introduction to the works of H. P. Lovecraft, starting with some shorter tales and including such Lovecraft classics as "The Dunwich Horror" and "At the Mountains of Madness". The unitiated can obtain a taste of the unholy,foetid, dripping putrescence of Lovecraftian descriptions to determine if one's interest into further perusal of the Chthulu Mythos, the Great Old Ones, and the works found in the mad Arab Abdul Alhazred's "Necronomicon" is warranted.

Rating:
Summary: Lovecraft for Starters
Review: Oates provides a nice collection of mature HPL stories which might be a nice introduction for everyone who has not made acqaintance with Lovecraft's work yet. Included are stories such as, The Shunned House, Rats in the Walls (great!), The Outsider, The Dunwich Horror -> mature works!

The stories provided by this selction are very dark, true gothic horror stories which won't disappoint any fan of the genre. Reading Lovecraft's language is like looking at a painting by Van Gogh or Da Vinci - overwhelming!

Lovecraft's words are very sensitive for the story they tell, very true to the heart of the darkness within, as haunting as seeing a ghost by yourself.

Rating:
Summary: Lovecraft for Starters
Review: Oates provides a nice collection of mature HPL stories which might be a nice introduction for everyone who has not made acqaintance with Lovecraft's work yet. Included are stories such as, The Shunned House, Rats in the Walls (great!), The Outsider, The Dunwich Horror -> mature works!

The stories provided by this selction are very dark, true gothic horror stories which won't disappoint any fan of the genre. Reading Lovecraft's language is like looking at a painting by Van Gogh or Da Vinci - overwhelming!

Lovecraft's words are very sensitive for the story they tell, very true to the heart of the darkness within, as haunting as seeing a ghost by yourself.

Rating:
Summary: Not his best, but still okay
Review: This is the first time I have ready anything H.P. Lovecraft has written. I enjoyed them and have bought other books of similar nature. Joyce C. Oats chose a good cross section of tales, and it would be good for those that are not familiar with Lovecraft's writtings. i would recommend this book to anyone.

Rating:
Summary: Good selection of H.P. Lovecraft's works.
Review: This is the first time I have ready anything H.P. Lovecraft has written. I enjoyed them and have bought other books of similar nature. Joyce C. Oats chose a good cross section of tales, and it would be good for those that are not familiar with Lovecraft's writtings. i would recommend this book to anyone.

Rating:
Summary: Not my first choice for Lovecrtaft
Review: While this is an attractive volume, well-printed andwell-bound, and does include a nice selection of Lovecraft's best, Iwould not recommend it. I really enjoyed Ms. Oates' notes in the front of the front of the book: interesting and well-written, so what's my problem? She provides synopses of the stories, giving away the plot and ending. What fun is it to read a novel, when you've been told the ending in advance?

Rating:
Summary: The contents of this book
Review: With so many different Lovecraft collections out there, it may help prospective buyers to know what's actually in this one:

[By Joyce Carol Oates:] Introduction; [by H.P. Lovecraft:] The Outsider; The Music of Erich Zann; The Rats in the Walls; The Shunned House; The Call of Cthulhu; The Colour out of Space; The Dunwich Horror; At the Mountains of Madness; The Shadow over Innsmouth; The Shadow out of Time

This is an excellent introductory selection of short fiction -- Lovecraft didn't write any other kind -- by one of the major figures in the history of what is nowadays called horror fiction (though a very good case can be made that, as with his idol Poe, Lovecraft belongs among the ranks of literary greats, period). Still, there are comparably fine collections available, e.g. THE CALL OF CTHULHU AND OTHER WEIRD TALES, THE THING ON THE DOORSTEP AND OTHER WEIRD TALES (both of which, unlike the collection being reviewed here, have endnotes), THE DUNWICH HORROR AND OTHERS, and AT THE MOUNTAINS OF MADNESS AND OTHER NOVELS.

What makes this particular collection a marketing novelty -- indeed, why it was ever published in the first place -- is that it's edited and introduced by a well-established, much-respected mainstream literary fiction writer, namely Oates. The publisher's hope may have been that some of those who wouldn't otherwise consider reading an oldtime pulp horror writer like Lovecraft will finally give him a try, what with Oates's more widely intellectually respected name attached. As one who believes Lovecraft deserves a much higher rank in the proverbial literary pantheon than the literary establishment generally accords him, I have no complaint about trying that approach.

But marketing strategy aside, the main reason a prospective buyer should consider choosing this particular collection is the moderate-length introductory essay by Oates, since the fiction selections are readily available elsewhere. The question, in other words, is: How valuable is her essay?

Somewhat. It's a repackaging of her review of S.T. Joshi's LOVECRAFT: A LIFE that she wrote some years back for THE NEW YORK REVIEW OF BOOKS. In it, she makes some sophisticated observations about Lovecraft's psyche, literary techniques, and parallels with various great mainstream American writers: Little that serious-minded Lovecraft readers don't already know, but perhaps have never before seen put so well.

Oates's essay, for those who care to do a search, can be found on her own site.