Lovecraft is spoooky. But good.

I really wanted to understand what this guy’s whole deal is so i was finally like okay fine i’ll actually go to the source. very weird! spooky but not always for the reasons he thinks! a really interesting blend of fantasy fables and sci fi horror, some of the stories are total nonsense and some of them really work. i think i enjoyed the shortest stories the most - his writing is at its best when he manages to evoke a very specific mood in only a few pages and then leaves the reader to ponder.

my favourites in this collection were probably Nyarlathotep(mostly because i like saying nyarlathotep. and because i think HPL’s obsession/irrational fear of nikola tesla is hilarious), the hound, and from beyond. The longest story, The Dream Quest of Unknown Kadath is also really compelling and brings together the loose threads of many other stories together in a strange, fantastical odyssey.

this guy loves explaining his dreams to people, adjectives, new england, and being scared. he hates fish, the colour green, foreigners(to be clear bc i think everyone knows this now, yes he Was Very Racist), and machines/science. i took brief notes while reading just to keep track of all the different stories in this collection but they’re all absolutely useless and incomprehensible. some selections: “do i have friends or do i just have this cool statue?”, “STUPID moon! stupid worms!!!”, “aaaaaa there was a dead guy”, “what if a mummy was also a scary lizard”, “if u kill fish people u will get fish peopled”, “aaaaaah science”, “book that makes you Scream”, andx of course, “aaaaaa! Nikola Tesla!”

genuinely this is just fascinating work and i feel like maybe the scariest thing about these stories is the extent of how impactful they have been on popular culture? much like lovecraft’s narrators and the forbidden/dangerous/incomprehensible knowledge they seek, once you learn about the whole lovecraft thing, there’s no escaping! you start to see him absolutely EVERYWHERE!!! you fool! it’s too late!!

Some of the stories were not very interesting, some were but were ponderous even for Lovecraft. But some, such as The Case of Charles Dexter Ward, are some of his better work. Some of the stories betray his xenophobic and racist tendencies in varying degrees of severity, alas. Dude had his issues, but he also had a sometimes very interesting imaginative prowess. Cool stuff, by and large.

I have a tough time reviewing classic literature. Does my opinion matter at this point? Yes, Lovecraft is a classic author for a reason. If you enjoy the works of Poe, you will probably like Lovecraft.

Ok, truth be told, I didn't completely finish it.
I can absolutely appreciate Lovecraft's level of dark imagination and the place he holds as an inspiration and precursor to modern horror, but the sheer number of redundant adjectives left me dizzy and, well, bored. (If I ever have to read about the 'waning wan moon' or the 'unwholesome midsts' ever again it will be too soon)
But there were some stories I genuinely liked. Most notably, the Cats of Ulthar and Pickman's Model were fun and intriguing. Where this work lost me was during the rambling The Dream Quest of Unknown Kadath. Although getting to see more of the warrior cats and having the fate of Pickman woven in was fun, it just felt never-ending and dragging.
I might revisit some of the short stories at another time, or check out the ones I skipped the first time, but I just couldn't make it through any more of it at this time.

90% agonising boredom, 10% mind blowing gold.

As a fan of Lovecraft, I enjoyed reading this book. However, one aspect of Lovecraft's work that I enjoy is the realism that's present in many of his tales. The seeming plausibility of the stories and the horrors that his characters confront are what allow his work to affect me so much. In the dream cycle, many of the stories seem to lean more toward fantasy. As one might expect given the title of this collection, much that occurs is meant to be incredible and fantastic. So for me, I enjoyed many of these stories much less than many of this other works. However, I knew that I would be reading stories that aren't thought to be his best works, so it's not as if this was a letdown. I recommend this book for anyone that is curious to read beyond some of the classics from the Cthulhu mythos, but if one is only beginning, I would point them in the direction of his more popular works.

DNF at 69% - 13.75 hours into Audiobook.

This is my second Lovecraft book and I have come to the conclusion that Lovecraft is boring. Like, none of this is very compelling. There are never any stakes for the reader, no suspense, nothing, it's like some kid's report on what they did over the summer, if the summer was kinda creepy. There's nothing really engaging here. In something with "Terror" in the subtitle, I kind of expect things to be scary, but Lovecraft doesn't tell scary stories. He tells weird or creepy stories which have scary *implications* but those implications are so buried under the narrator's hemming and hawing about reader sensibilities and qualifications about the scientific accuracy and reliability of whatever it is, that the subjective experience gets totally lost. So we get a cold, factual retelling of stuff that should, by all rights, be scary.

Other people may very well find this interesting, given the reputation around Lovecraft, but I just can't get enthusiastic about his writing.

Mnoho poviedok bolo naozaj desivých a mal som z nich parádny zážitok, cez mnohé som sa však musel znova prehrýzť... Lovecraftova tvorba sa však jednoznačne posunula, avšak na viac ako 3* to nevidím.