The Dream-Quest of Unknown Kadath (Beyond the Wall of Sleep, 1943) - 81-page novella. 2 stars.

According to this anthology's introduction, "Lovecraft felt that the work was merely 'practice' for novel-writing, and he made no effort to prepare it for publication...." It's easy to see that Lovecraft didn't think much of the finished product, more a draft or outline than actual story. But his estate apparently didn't care and published it posthumously. As such, it is more of a historical artifact than a real piece of literature. The Retro Hugo voters undoubtedly nominated it on the strength of Lovecraft's name rather than the story's quality.

Nevertheless, this novella is not without some measure of interest. In it, Lovecraft certainly created a myriad of strange and monstrous landscapes and creatures. The stream-of-consciousness style of the story is quite dreamlike.

But the overall effect is not very satisfying. There is no dialog save for a long monolog near the end by Nyarlanthotep, an outer god. The protagonist, Randolph Carter, moves from one event to another without any chapter or section breaks. The prose is often dense with long, descriptive sentences, yet just as often these sentences don't really convey a clear mental picture of what's going on. I imagine it could be expanded by another writer and a compelling book would emerge.

I didn't read the rest of this anthology, although I have read many of the stories elsewhere. So I give the anthology 4 stars, but the novella only gets 2 stars.

A nice addition for any Lovecraft fan. I always love to see artwork from the original stories as well as the inspirations (which include photos and locations). Annotations are a nice addition but not earth shattering knowledge. If you are new to HP Lovecraft and his writings they can be a big help with understanding the stories/writing style. Because of the annotations the collection of short stories are on the shorter side but still a nice well rounded collection.

I mean H.P. Lovecraft

I read a bit of H.P Lovecraft in my early twenties. I loved his nightmarish short stories. Returning to them as an adult, I can see how profound his influence on science fiction, horror and fantasy has been. Many of his ideas have been regurgitated and are familiar to readers of modern horror. Some of his novels are really just rambling descriptions of nightmares and moonscapes and down right awful. Others are creepy, modern horror stories. Yet others show the awful eugenic philosophy of the day, and Lovecraft clearly had the idea of an over- and underclass of people in terms of racist characteristics. That added an additional layer of uneasiness to many of his stories. Anyway, given his profound influence and, in many instances, masterful storytelling, I do recommend this. Perhaps not the complete fiction, but at least assorted bits.

I had been looking for a decent collected volume of H.P. Lovecraft's work for some time now without luck. Every collection I found either suffered from obvious holes in the collected fiction, shoddy construction, or both. I found this edition at Barnes and Noble (It's one of their "library" editions) and was immediately impressed. This edition is leather bound with ribbon bookmark. The cover art is relatively tasteful, and the inside cover illustration is downright gorgeous (if you're into Dagonite cultists opening a gateway to eldritch horrors).

In terms of the collect, this is about as complete as possible. All published works, several early stories and even a discarded draft of [b:The Shadow of Innsmouth|320697|The Shadow Over Innsmouth And Other Stories Of Horror|H.P. Lovecraft|http://photo.goodreads.com/books/1173738881s/320697.jpg|1125937] are included along with a biography and well done introduction. Despite all of his work being available for free online, at $20 this one is a steal. Thank you Barnes and Noble for finally putting together a worthwhile and definitive H.P Lovecraft collection!

After Edgar Allen Poe, but before Stephen King, H P Lovecraft took the horror genre and mixed it with sci-fi, mythology and folklore. One of the best horror writers, period.

I highly recommend reading:

Herbert West-Reanimator
The Call of Cthulhu
The Dream-Quest of Unknown Kadath
The Colour Out of Space
The Dunwich Horror
The Whisperer in Darkness
At the Mountains of Madness
The Shadow Over Innsmouth
The Dreams in the Witch House
The Thing on the Doorstep
The Shadow out of Time
The Haunter of the Dark

I need to reread some of his other stories, but the ones I have mentioned have stuck with me for years.

Writing is a bit flowery, but undeniably interesting and inspirational.