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The Call of Cthulhu
The Call of Cthulhu
Three independent narratives linked together by the device of a narrator discovering notes left by a deceased relative. Piecing together the whole truth and disturbing significance of the information he possesses, the narrator's final line is ''The most merciful thing in the world, I think, is the inability of the human mind to correlate all its contents.''
Book Excerpt
ndscape in the Paris spring salon of 1926. And so numerous are the recorded troubles in insane asylums that only a miracle can have stopped the medical fraternity from noting strange parallelisms and drawing mystified conclusions. A weird bunch of cuttings, all told; and I can at this date scarcely envisage the callous rationalism with which I set them aside. But I was then convinced that young Wilcox had known of the older matters mentioned by the professor.
II. The Tale of Inspector Legrasse.
The older matters which had made the sculptor's dream and bas-relief so significant to my uncle formed the subject of the second half of his long manuscript. Once before, it appears, Professor Angell had seen the hellish outlines of the nameless monstrosity, puzzled over the unknown hieroglyphics, and heard the ominous syllables which can be rendered only as "Cthulhu" ; and all this in so stirring and horrible a connexion that it is small wonder he pursued young Wilcox with queries and demands for data.
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An excellent, chilling story.
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Horror story about, like, an evil blob. I wasn’t wild about the blob, but I loved the way the story was told. Our first-person narrator discovers his dead uncle’s notes on a strange occurrence and pieces together a really nifty little story, a potential world-ender.
09/16/2010
"Call of Cthulhu" is a noteworthy novel about gruesome and horror-inducing story. Lovecraft zealously describes everything in such precise details that it creates and keeps an ambiance of fear and terror whilst reading the story to the very end.
A-must-read for everyone who cherishes fantastically interesting horror stories set in style of sci-fi.
A-must-read for everyone who cherishes fantastically interesting horror stories set in style of sci-fi.
07/20/2010
Lovecraft was not a great writer, but he was great at imagining.
He writes with an awkward, clunky, affected style that does not flow well and can be disruptive to the mood he would like to build.
But the ideas themselves, the stories he wanted to tell, are in themselves so chilling that they transcend his less than stellar prose. A lot of horror and science fiction that we have today is influenced by Lovecraft. A lot of authors in these genres consider him a powerful influence.
It says something that authors like Stephen King, Brian Lumley, Robert Bloch, and others, have written stories set in Lovecraft's mythology. It also says something that these stories are usually better than Lovecraft's own.
Not a great writer, and yet a huge figure in horror and science fiction. He just understood what frightens people.
He writes with an awkward, clunky, affected style that does not flow well and can be disruptive to the mood he would like to build.
But the ideas themselves, the stories he wanted to tell, are in themselves so chilling that they transcend his less than stellar prose. A lot of horror and science fiction that we have today is influenced by Lovecraft. A lot of authors in these genres consider him a powerful influence.
It says something that authors like Stephen King, Brian Lumley, Robert Bloch, and others, have written stories set in Lovecraft's mythology. It also says something that these stories are usually better than Lovecraft's own.
Not a great writer, and yet a huge figure in horror and science fiction. He just understood what frightens people.
06/05/2010
Very interesting.
01/23/2010
This was moderately interesting but not of Lovecraft's better stories.
09/28/2009
you know, everyone, that the metal band Metallica made several songs off of Lovecrafts books, such as: 'Ride the Lightning', 'The Call of Ktulu' (they changed the spelling cuz no1 could pronounce it), 'The Thing That Should Not Be' and among others, check um out
04/07/2009
Wow. That was short, but it felt like it was very long, you get drawn into the story. The imagery was so good, I coulld almost see the bas-reliefs of Cthulhu. I am glad that I was able to read this, and wish to thank whoever put this here.
02/11/2009
The book that started the Cthulhu mythos! What more reason do you need to read it?
If you read Stross, or Gaiman, or Bradbury, or practically any science fiction, this is a must-read to understand the development of the genre.
If you read Stross, or Gaiman, or Bradbury, or practically any science fiction, this is a must-read to understand the development of the genre.
11/11/2008
I can't believe I never read Lovecraft before! Cool, creepy and intriguing. Even though some of the story elements were a little predictable, I still wanted to read through to the end.
09/16/2008