The Trail of Cthulhu

Rating:
Summary: Trail leads to nothing new.
Review: After Howard Lovecraft's untimely death in 1937, August Derleth fought to keep the man's work and Mythos alive. In addition to republishing the original tales, Derleth also completed unfinished stories and created others from Lovecraft's notes and outlines. The Trail of Cthulhu is a series of linked stories regarding the efforts of Dr. Laban Shrewsbury, Andrew Phelan, and others to thwart the awakening of the mighty sleeping Cthulhu. Derleth imitates Lovecraft's verbose writing style so poorly that it reads almost as a parody rather than the well intentioned expansion of the Mythos that was intended. Derleth also goes into such detail, leaves so little to the imagination, and is so repetitive in his narratives, that it robs the stories of any real suspense, foreboding, or fear. As big a fan of Lovecraft as I am, this book was a disappointment and a real chore to finish. I can only recommend this to other Cthulhu enthusiasts, and then only to those that, after having emptied the well completely, still find themselves thristing for more of the shunned Old Ones. Otherwise skip it, you will not miss it, believe me.

Rating:
Summary: Trail leads to nothing new.
Review: After Howard Lovecraft's untimely death in 1937, August Derleth fought to keep the man's work and Mythos alive. In addition to republishing the original tales, Derleth also completed unfinished stories and created others from Lovecraft's notes and outlines. The Trail of Cthulhu is a series of linked stories regarding the efforts of Dr. Laban Shrewsbury, Andrew Phelan, and others to thwart the awakening of the mighty sleeping Cthulhu. Derleth imitates Lovecraft's verbose writing style so poorly that it reads almost as a parody rather than the well intentioned expansion of the Mythos that was intended. Derleth also goes into such detail, leaves so little to the imagination, and is so repetitive in his narratives, that it robs the stories of any real suspense, foreboding, or fear. As big a fan of Lovecraft as I am, this book was a disappointment and a real chore to finish. I can only recommend this to other Cthulhu enthusiasts, and then only to those that, after having emptied the well completely, still find themselves thristing for more of the shunned Old Ones. Otherwise skip it, you will not miss it, believe me.

Rating:
Summary: A Guilty Pleasure
Review: H.P. Lovecraft posthumously owes a great debt to August Derleth. Derleth is responsible for the fact that Lovecraft's work is still available today. Derleth created a publishing house to help keep this work in print. Derleth also attempted to continue Lovecraft's tradition of horror by writing new tales himself, many created from one or two sentences of Lovecraft's. Derleth's reputation as a writer has suffered (deservedly) from this. The present book builds on some of Lovecraft's concepts. However, where other works of Derleth's are the worst sort of hack work, I actually found this book to be both fun and interesting. This book would never be considered literary in the way Lovecraft's work is, but it is a fun read for fans of Lovecraft's Cthulhu Mythos.

Rating:
Summary: A great Cthulhu Book
Review: I bought this book second hand about 15 years ago and it still continues to be a favoutite. As a life-long HPL fan and a formerly avid Call of Cthulhu player, this book really does a wonderful job of giving some life to all the places that HPL only names. How many times has HPL made reference to Irem of te Pillars or the Rub al Khali or any of the multitude of place-names that are associated wit the Mythos? The great thing about this book is that Derleth actually takes you to some of these places and sket ches them out in vivid detail.

I have always felt that while Derleth may not have had the dark, cosmic vision of HPL, he did manage to find a way to give his stories a more human element, with clearer imagery and detail.

Along with Trail, I also recommend Masks of Cthulhu, a collection of short stories and The Lurker at the Threshold, a solid Mythos novel from top to bottom.›