The Definitive Lovecraft!

Few writers of speculative fiction can say they have never heard of H. P. Lovecraft. The truth is that his fiction has molded strange imaginative fiction since the the early 1900's, and when you read it, you'll understand why.

What is it about his work that makes it stand out so well? In my opinion it stands out because Lovecraft understood one undeniable fact: our own imagination can conjure fear better than the words of any other person. In his tales, the descriptions of the ultimate horrors are muted and slight, and just as the protagonists come to the realization of the truths of the universe, Lovecraft masterfully removes the reader before anything too specific is revealed.

This unknown endears his work to his fans. To borrow a quote of his, "The oldest and strongest emotion of mankind is fear, and the oldest and strongest kind of fear is fear of the unknown." I couldn't have said it better myself :-)

Over the holidays, I managed to get my hands on the current Arkham House editions containing much of his work: The Dunwich Horror and Others, At the Mountains of Madness, Dagon and Other Macabre Tales, and The Horror in the Museum.

Before purchasing these books, I must be honest, I had already read most of the tales within, with a few exceptions (The Other Gods, for instance), so this is primarily about Arkham's books, themselves. On a whole, the quality shines--very solid tomes, indeed. One thing that stands out to me the most is that while Arkham House is considered a specialty press, the cover work is leaps-and-bounds above that from other small publishing houses (well, except for HD-IMAGE, but I'm biased). It was a pleasant surprise. In fact, if there is anything that i could comment on as being a negative, it would be the fact that the books are printed as a 5x8 format instead of the more common 6x9, but that is mostly semantics.

My final verdict, they are really great editions for any library.

Sincerely,

Joe :-)