Recommend me some Lovecraft?

WhyBotherToTry

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I'm looking to read some Lovecraft but I'm not really sure where to start. Are there any stories of his in particular that are better to read for getting into his work than others?
 

Noala

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WhyBotherToTry said:
I'm looking to read some Lovecraft but I'm not really sure where to start. Are there any stories of his in particular that are better to read for getting into his work than others?
Try starting with Mountains Of Madness or The Call Of Cthulu.
 

Hal10k

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'The Call of Cthulhu' and 'At the Mountains of Madness' are good distillations of his work, but they're fairly long. I'd suggest 'The Colour Out of Space'- it's short enough to read in a single sitting, but long enough to capture everything you need to know about Lovecraft, aside from its suspicious lack of racist undertones.
 

Vexik

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I find a lot of his early work to be pretty good, and also short. "Shadow Over Innsmouth" is probably most recognizably Lovecraftian, and it's pretty awesome.
 

Shadowstar38

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You should try "Dream Quest of Unknown Kadath". Man thats a mouthful. Its like morphine that you read.
http://www.yankeeclassic.com/miskatonic/library/stacks/literature/lovecraft/novellas/dreamque.htm
 

BreakfastMan

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Jul 22, 2010
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*gets out musty lovecraft tome he just happens to have lying around his room*

I would recommend... Dagon, The Statement of Randolph Carter, The Nameless City, The Music of Erich Zann, The Lurking Fear, The Rats in the Walls, The Colour out of Space, The Call of Cthulhu, The Dunwich Horror (one of my favorites), The Whisperer in the Darkness, The Dreams in the Witch House, At the Mountains of Madness, The Shadow Over Innsmouth, The Haunter of the Dark, The Thing on the Doorstep, and The Case of Charles Dexter Ward.

Generally, just stay away from his "Dream-cycle" (re: blatant rippoff of Dunsany) and his stuff that rips of Poe, and you should be good. Most of his stuff that focuses on what he does best is great or, at the very least, interesting. Don't read them if you don't like a slower pace and lots of detail, though.
 

Avatar Roku

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Shadowstar38 said:
You should try "Dream Quest of Unknown Kadath". Man thats a mouthful. Its like morphine that you read.
http://www.yankeeclassic.com/miskatonic/library/stacks/literature/lovecraft/novellas/dreamque.htm
That was going to be my recommendation as well. People tend to focus on Lovecraft's later stuff (i.e, Cthulhu, Mountains of Madness), and those are all great, but no matter what BreakfastMan above says, the Dream Cycle stuff is actually quite good and underrated.

EDIT: Plus, there are certain implications made in At the Mountains of Madness that will only be understood if you've read Kadath.
 

Dwarfman

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I'm a fan of the dram cycle myself - especially Celephias - however I would recomend much like everyone else so far Call of Cthulhu and At the mountains of Madness. Shadow over Insmouth and the Case of Charles Dexter Ward are pretty cool as well.
 

dimensional

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I just bought the Necronomicon and read it through lots of a good stories in there with a few duds. I didnt particularly like the dream cycle with the exception of

Shadowstar38 said:
"Dream Quest of Unknown Kadath".
this one.

Others that I remember off the top of my head are Reanimator,Colour from outer space and shadow over innsmouth but TBH you are unlikely to go wrong with whatever you read of his as the good stories far outweigh the few bad. (using bad as a relative term here)
 

IamLEAM1983

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Aug 22, 2011
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Call of Chtulhu for the recognizable brand appeal or The Shadow Over Innsmouth for the same reason, the rest of his Tales for getting a general sense of how his style evolved, and the Dream Cycle for, as said above, something that feels very Dunsany-ish (think "Gods of Pegana").

Or if you're feeling extremely skittish, look up some of the members of the Lovecraft Circle, first. Robert Bloch, Arthur Machen, etc.

Oooor, if you're entirely new to gothic lit but want to stay close enough, review Poe's works.

As far as games are concerned, I'd have to go with Eternal Darkness: Sanity's Requiem. It's not Lovecraftian in the creatures and locales used, but it's *highly* Lovecraft-inspired in everything else. Dark Corners of the Earth is a fun in-between-quel to TSoI, but its gameplay is a little clumsy and unforgiving.

For the purposes of practice, play Amnesia: the Dark Descent - which is actually heavily based on Lovecraft's "The Outsider".
 

Avatar Roku

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dimensional said:
I just bought the Necronomicon and read it through lots of a good stories in there with a few duds. I didnt particularly like the dream cycle with the exception of

Shadowstar38 said:
"Dream Quest of Unknown Kadath".
this one.

Others that I remember off the top of my head are Reanimator,Colour from outer space and shadow over innsmouth but TBH you are unlikely to go wrong with whatever you read of his as the good stories far outweigh the few bad. (using bad as a relative term here)
On this note, I think I should probably tell you the bad stuff:

Dream Quest of Unknown Kadath is great. It had a tie-in story called the Silver Key, which was pretty good. That tie-in had a sequel called Through the Gates of the Silver Key. Avoid this one at all costs.
 

Truehare

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If you want to get a feel for Lovecraftian fiction, you should start with a short story. "Call of Cthulhu" is better in that aspect than "Mountains of Madness", besides being a very good example of what the man is about. If you want something less obvious (and less focused on the Cthulhu Mythos), try "The Shunned House" or "From Beyond".

And even if you don't like it, try "The Tree", "The Quest of Iranon" and "The Silver Key", three short and very good examples of his "dreamlands" cycle.

My personal first was "The Color Out of Space", and it's one of my favorites to this day. It has a suffocating pace which is way more intense than all his other works.

Clive Howlitzer said:
I also recommend playing Call of Cthulhu: Dark Corners of The Earth.
Agreed. I'd add Shadow of the Comet and the first Alone in the Dark.
 

Buzz Killington_v1legacy

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Also, be prepared for some pretty horrible racism here and there in parts of his stories. I still like his work, but in some ways Lovecraft was very definitely a product of his time.
 

Thaluikhain

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Colour from Space is, IMHO, his best story, at least of the ones I've read.

After a while, though, his stories get a bit samey.
 

Saltarius

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It's also probably one of the least purple of works. I'm still not even done with COC because of that.
 

JesterRaiin

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Hal10k said:
'The Call of Cthulhu' and 'At the Mountains of Madness' are good distillations of his work, but they're fairly long. I'd suggest 'The Colour Out of Space'- it's short enough to read in a single sitting, but long enough to capture everything you need to know about Lovecraft, aside from its suspicious lack of racist undertones.
I'm not that easy to be surprised, but to see a real telepath in action... o_O

OT : Brace yourself for rather hard trip. Lovecraft isn't just for anyone not only because of what he wrote, but how he wrote. That's why i would stay away from his longer works at the beginning.

Because of that, even despite some people not agreeing with me, i'd suggest reading some works of E.A.Poe prior to trying Lovecraft hinself. "The Fall of the House of Usher", "Lenore", "The Black Cat" are very good novels to start.
 

wolf thing

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colour out of space in my favorit of his short story, i found it the book of short story's called call of cthulhu and other weird storys which is where i would start