The Call of Cthulhu and Other Weird Stories

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tumsā” – Karkosa un Hastūrs te ir pieminēti tikai kā vārdi šausmonīgos rituālos, par kuru patieso dabu mēs varam nojaust tikai no trakā arāba Nekronomikona un Pnekotiskajiem manuskriptiem. Bet stāsts ir labs, pa Senajiem, kas mums līdzās dzīvo jau no senseniem laikiem. Par to, kā cilvēces izplešanās ASV mežonīgajos apgabalos ir radījusi sadursmi starp Senajiem un cilvēkiem. Zinātnieki kā vienmēr ir apbrīnojami naivi un lētticīgi, vietējais novadpētnieks izpilda episku last stand pret citdimensiju ordām, viņa liktenis paliek neskaidrs. Viņa līdzinātājs paliek, lai pastāstītu stāstu. Plutona atklāšana ir liela kļūda. 10 no 10 ballēm. This reminds me of the Twilight Zone a bit. Yet another unnamed protagonist is invited by a weird dude to his house and witnesses weird scenes through a window. Soon it is not just the window… This is the story that brought it all together, paving way for incredible tales such as The Dunwich Horror, The Shadow Over Innsmouth, At The Mountains of Madness as well as thousands of other tales by writers that followed in Lovecraft’s macabre and charmingly eldritch footsteps. HPL at his most verbose, I would have gone with “Me and Johnny got bored with the same old crap, so we looked for some weird stuff to do”. Anyway, a couple of tomb raiders steal an amulet from an ancient corpse in a Dutch cemetery. A lot of hounding ensues. Not a bad story, nice brooding atmosphere. For more than seventy years, Penguin has been the leading publisher of classic literature in the English-speaking world. With more than 1,700 titles, Penguin Classics represents a global bookshelf of the best works throughout history and across genres and disciplines. Readers trust the series to provide authoritative texts enhanced by introductions and notes by distinguished scholars and contemporary authors, as well as up-to-date translations by award-winning translators.

Frequently imitated and widely influential, Howard Philips Lovecraft reinvented the horror genre in the 1920s, discarding ghosts and witches and instead envisioning mankind as a tiny outpost of dwindling sanity in a chaotic and malevolent universe. S. T. Joshi, Lovecraft’s preeminent interpreter, presents a selection of the master’s fiction, from the early tales of nightmares and madness such as “The Outsider” to the overpowering cosmic terror of “The Call of Cthulhu.” More than just a collection of terrifying tales, this volume reveals the development of Lovecraft’s mesmerizing narrative style and establishes him as a canonical- and visionary-American writer. Its companion volumes from Penguin Classics are The Thing on the Doorstep and Other Weird Stories (2001), and The Dreams in the Witch House and Other Weird Stories (2004). If that does not set the scene for The Call of Cthulhu, and indeed for the works of H.P. Lovecraft as a whole, I'm not sure much will.Howard Phillips Lovecraft, of Providence, Rhode Island, was an American author of horror, fantasy and science fiction.

Don’t get me wrong, I love the theatrical adaptions of King so I am assuming that I would love them of H.P. Lovecraft as well, no matter how ironic his last name is. But I can’t seem to stop getting distracted while reading books written by the two dominate horror-writers. Whether it be a pretty butterfly fluttering a foot away or my mind wondering to the never-ending list of books I want and need to read. Ktulu aicinājums”– interesants vecmeistara stāsts, kas radīja Ktulu, un šeit ir par viņa atgriešanos. Kaut kur Jaunzēlandes krastu tuvumā parādās ne vairāk ne mazāk R’ljē pilsēta, tas viss sapīts kopā ar sapņiem un dīvainiem kultiem, stāsts ir pa pirmo. 9 no 10 ballēm. Jābrīdina, ka šis stāsts pēc mūsdienu standartiem ir ļoti rasistisks un autors nudien neslēpj savus uzskatus par kanakiem un citiem jaukteņiem. Neatkarīgi no stāsta novēroju, ka Jaunzēlandes cilvēkiem Kutulu nav svešs un mans t-krekls ar uzrakstu Obey Cthulhu zinātāju vidū tika uzņemts ar atzinību gan lielveikalā, gan vulkānu piekājē. “Ktulu fhtagn”, “Ktulu fhtagn” Ancient texts, insane cults, forbidden knowledge, social recluses going mad and blasphemous abominations galore.This anthology “The Call of Cthulhu and Other Weird Stories” of course contains most of his best stories. I will just run through them briefly, some of them I already reviewed in my The Best of H.P. Lovecraft review. That is what almost all of The Call of Chthulu and Other Weird Stories felt like to me - a terrified narrator recounts a scarring encounter with an evil force as overwhelmingly powerful as it is vague. And I mean vague- trying to get a feel for the nature and appearance of the evil forces in Lovecraft's stories is a little like wearing dark glasses while trying to spot a green dog in a forest on a foggy night. Although not my favorite of the Cthulhu Mythos tales, it certainly does the best job of encompassing all of the primary and lovable elements of weird tales and cosmic horror.

I'm afraid the creatures are learning to steer better with their space wings" is either your favorite sentence ever or you're not gonna love Lovecraft. For a long time, Lovecraft himself seemed to be a bit of a myth to me. Until recently, I have never read anything written by him and yet a disconcerting amount of pop culture I've consumed in my life (may that be a TV show such as Stranger Things or even a video game like Bloodborne) would be described as "Lovecraftian" by somebody who knew more about it than me. How could an author, who died as young as he did and who didn't even write a full-length novel influence an entire genre even a hundred years after his lifetime to this extent? It all lead me to believe that it was my fate to meet the so-called father of horror.

Now, this is very odd because the protagonist dreams of nice things in a nice place, not in our world of course. Wut? Gentle reader - what I saw that night was so horrifyingly horrible, such a cavalcade of horrid, horrific horror, that I cannot describe its horrendousness to you. I pen these words whilst I foam at the mouth in a padded cell." Has the makings of a great horror setting, but the ending falls incredibly flat. The decrepit house where the protagonist is forced to seek shelter during a horrible storm, the ravings of a crazed old man, the blood dripping from the ceiling. It was all building up to something fantastically scary.