HPL stories you just don't really care for

[Viatorium Press]

Call me a fanboy, but I don't think there is a single Lovecraft story (excepting collabs, revisions) that I can say I wholly dislike. There certainly are elements of certain stories that are weak, but no H. P. story is without some kind of interesting element or concept that makes it enjoybale to read and reread. I like the concept of the "guilty pleasure" story, those in the Lovecraft corpus that we are told by critics or whomever are unworthy, but which we nevertheless derive great pleasure from. The White Ship is an apt example of a story that has elements that could be ridiculed, but we find ourselves returning to it, for just how vast and often captivatingly beautiful it is. I had that story memorized at one point! And it is still quite engaging to read, moonbeam bridges and all.

[bar1scorpio]

Honestly, I don't find all his stuff all that horrific.  But I do find them all weird.  And that's why I'm finding myself liking the stories.  Just the crazy notions and possibilities in them.  And I think, that pulp & fantasy authors can be more valuable than their "Modernist" counterparts for some things.  The Modernists may have written to reflect small town life, or concentrate on historically unimportant characters, but did they really touch on the most fantastical ideas of the times in which they wrote?

The comment "A sign of the times" keeps popping up with a lot of writers.  And that can be more interesting when more esoteric of intellectual concepts are discussed, mainly because that reveals a lot more about the time - at least, in the way of learning and social theory.

[Jape]

High House in the Mist - meh, its has an interesting dreamy quality to it but the ending is confused, and the efforts to suggest evil forces lurking nearby are half-hearted. Its very short but still it hardly goes anywhere.

Shadow out of Time is a story I costantly return to, I'm enthralled for about a third of the way, as it runs on the mystery and the broad concetps and then it feels like it peters out. Love the idea, a nice of marriage of the Mythos and Dreamcycle in many ways but only finished once due to a long train journey.

[Genus Unknown]

I know exactly what you mean about The Shadow Out of Time.   The second half of that story is always kind of hazy to me.  I remember the Great Race of Yith, and the whole mind-transferal thing, which is pretty cool, and then we get into Flying Polyp territory, and... there's some ruins in Australia, right? And he finds his own handwriting (or claw, or tentacle-writing, whatever) in them, even though that makes no sense because he couldn't have even written it with human hands, right? And there's still some monsters lurking around?

[Padz]

Dreamquest - I have not been able to get through the story. It's a tedious dream-travelogue that frankly just bores me to the point of not being able to continue.

The Street - the unbridled racism and the rather uninteresting theme makes it a really, really bad read.

Facts concerning the late Arthur Jermyn and his family *groan* White monkeys, interbreeeding - bah! Another story I just couldn't finish, sorry lost interest very early on in the story...

[old book]

Shadow Out of Time is one of my favorites!!! Joshi found a new manuscript I think in Hawaii of all places.

Arthur Jemyn really needs woodcut block illustrations from ca. 1610. I guess it would be possible to find the real book mentioned in Arthur and raid it for pictures to compile an illustrated version, but I don't care for the story enough either to do it.

[whpugmire]

I am shock'd  by how many of you dislike "The Shadow out of Time"!  Great Yuggoth, the ending of that story is one of ye moft terrifying things I have ever read.  It has been superbly render'd as a radio drama for the Dark Adventure Radio Theatre series from Ye H. P. Lovecraft Historical Society.  I was rather dismay'd, at this months H. P. Lovecraft Film Festival, when ye HPLHS said that one of ye new radio dramas they will be recording will probably be "Herbert West--Reanimator," a story I do not care for.  The tale by Grandpa that I cannot read is "The Horror in Red Hook" -- so bloody boring.  There are some of the lesser tales that don't intrigue me until I read a fascinating essay on them wherein the writer conveys aspects of the story that I am too dull-witted to catch, & then I can return to that story and read it in a new light and it becomes wonderful.

[Bassik]

The Shadow Out of Time? Realy? That's quite a surprise to me, not to say a bit shocking. I was hypnotized by the entire story on my first read-through, and have re-visited that strange, dream-lost city ever since in my dreams. The second part got actually a bit exciting, with his underground exploration, and I was realy shocked at what he found!

And even his "dreamworld" stories have a certain charm to me, their otherworldlyness and removal from common day life makes more then up for their inherit weirdness.
 altho I absoluteley loath the quest of Iranon. It has no redeeming qualities. Just like the street.

And the horror at red hook. I can get past the.... you know, but the story itself is just so dull. It's as if New York realy was poisoning his mind!

[Kirit]

I don't particularly dislike The Horror at Red Hook, but I was definitely disappointed by it. I tend to like a slow start, especially if it really well establishes what "normal" is like for the setting, so that it has more impact when things start turning strange. Overall I think that cutting down the first half or so would definitely make it stronger. A big reason that it stands out in my mind, is that the horror itself was kind of bland to me, though I really did like the "dream" and also liked Malone as a protagonist. I think particularly the part early on when he comments about having lied to psychiatrists to prevent spending longer in the institution. Considering the Mythos, that immediately chalked him up as genre savvy in my book. I also was kind of disappointed for a personal reason. As when I was playing CthulhuMUD at one point, I'd been planning to go fight some of the bugs in the Colour Out of Space area, but I took a wrong turn and wound up in Red Hook. It stood out in my mind as one of the creepiest areas in the MUD, so I was pretty excited to see what the title horror was, and it wasn't quite what I'd been hoping for.  I was planning on waiting until I listened to the podcast episode to comment on it, but I'm not sure when I'll have time at the moment, so I decided to just post it now.

I also have to mention The Doom That Came To Sarnoth. It's another I don't actually dislike, but I'll definitely not read again. I agree with the Podcast that it does a good job of establishing the setting with the "travel guide" pages. But I still got pretty bored and ended up commenting "Come on, just trash the place already!" halfway in.

Actually this got me curious about the opposite, less popular stories that people like. I incidentally love Polaris. Mostly for an element I found particularly horrific that I haven't heard mentioned before. The main character is constantly terrorized by the Polestar, it shines down constantly and dominates his thoughts. Then, slowly but surely, he begins to find the dream world, and finds a place there, and finds escape from the star. Then, not only does it fall by his own actions, but then, as he sits there helpless, his dream world crumbling around him, he looks up and sees the Pole Star staring down again. That mental image of his supposed escape crumbling, as it slowly pans up to reveal the star, pretty much made it my favorite story. That and the stars rhyming, what can I say, I've had a thing for that kind of prose since I was about 3 ^_^

[old book]

I agree with Wilum, did not care much for Herbert West: Reanimator. On the other hand I really really like Red Hook.

[JulieH]

I've never liked any of the dreamland stories (except Cats Of Ulthar).  I remember when I first got into Lovecraft, read a Colour and a couple of the other choice ones in a collection, and talked my mom into buying me more for xmas.  And what did I get?  The Doom that came to Sarnath - the all dreamlands and poetry collection.

And I was 14, and was like WTF???  Is this the same author?

On the other hand, I am inexplicably fond of Arthur Jermyn.  It's my next Lovecraft 5 episode.

[Scarecrow]

For me this has to be At the Mountains of Madness.

As a teenager this story put me off Lovecraft for about a decade, preferring instead Derleth's 'Trail' and 'Masks'.

It starts off great with the Antarctic expedition, the discovery of the strange, frozen creatures, the loss of contact with the expedition and then the horrific discovery of the remains of the expedition. And then there's the frantic ending.

But in the middle (and making up the vast majority of the story) it was just walking about and looking at things. Lots and lots of walking about and looking at things and not really doing very much.

I was bored to tears.

I've re-read the story recently and whilst I didn't hate it as much, indeed I got a lot more from it, I still found it overlong and dull. I think if DelToro does a movie of it, much like the Lord of the Rings movies, it'll be much more concise and to the point and I, for one, am looking forward to it.

Crow

[TransconaSlim]

I don't particularly dislike The Horror at Red Hook, but I was definitely disappointed by it. I tend to like a slow start, especially if it really well establishes what "normal" is like for the setting, so that it has more impact when things start turning strange. Overall I think that cutting down the first half or so would definitely make it stronger. A big reason that it stands out in my mind, is that the horror itself was kind of bland to me, though I really did like the "dream" and also liked Malone as a protagonist. I think particularly the part early on when he comments about having lied to psychiatrists to prevent spending longer in the institution. Considering the Mythos, that immediately chalked him up as genre savvy in my book. I also was kind of disappointed for a personal reason. As when I was playing CthulhuMUD at one point, I'd been planning to go fight some of the bugs in the Colour Out of Space area, but I took a wrong turn and wound up in Red Hook. It stood out in my mind as one of the creepiest areas in the MUD, so I was pretty excited to see what the title horror was, and it wasn't quite what I'd been hoping for.  I was planning on waiting until I listened to the podcast episode to comment on it, but I'm not sure when I'll have time at the moment, so I decided to just post it now.

CthulhuMUD?  Whats that?

[old book]

Multiple User Dungeon.

[Genus Unknown]

CthulhuMUD website.