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Spawn of Cthulhu
Ballantine Adult Fantasy Series. The Spawn of CTHULHU & H.P. Lovecraft · Lin CarterThe Whisperer in Darkness · H.P. Lovecraft · in Weird Tales Aug ’31 An Inhabitant of Carcosa · Ambrose Bierce · ss San Francisco Newsletter Dec 25, 1886 The Yellow Sign · Robert W. Chambers · nv The King in Yellow, New York & F. Tennyson Neely, 1895 Cordelia’s Song from The King in Yellow · Vincent Starrett · pm Weird Tales Apr ’38 The Return of Hastur · August Derleth · nv Weird Tales Mar ’39 Litany to Hastur (from Dreams from R’lyeh) · Lin Carter · pm Amra v2 #32 ’65 The Children of the Night · Robert E. Howard · ss Weird Tales Apr/May ’31 K’n-yan · Walter C. DeBill, Jr. · pm The Arkham Collector Win ’71 The Tale of Satampra Zeiros [Satampra Zeiros] · Clark Ashton Smith · ss Weird Tales Nov ’31 The Hounds of Tindalos · Frank Belknap Long · ss Weird Tales Mar ’29 The Curse of Yig · Zealia Brown Reed Bishop · ss Weird Tales Nov ’29 The Mine on Yuggoth [revised from “The Tower from Yuggoth”, Goudy #2 ’61] · Ramsey Campbell · ss The Inhabitant of the Lake, Arkham, 1964
Mass Market Paperback
First published October 1, 1971
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159 people want to read
About the author
H.P. Lovecraft
5,806 books18.9k followersHoward Phillips Lovecraft, of Providence, Rhode Island, was an American author of horror, fantasy and science fiction.
Lovecraft's major inspiration and invention was cosmic horror: life is incomprehensible to human minds and the universe is fundamentally alien. Those who genuinely reason, like his protagonists, gamble with sanity. Lovecraft has developed a cult following for his Cthulhu Mythos, a series of loosely interconnected fictions featuring a pantheon of human-nullifying entities, as well as the Necronomicon, a fictional grimoire of magical rites and forbidden lore. His works were deeply pessimistic and cynical, challenging the values of the Enlightenment, Romanticism and Christianity. Lovecraft's protagonists usually achieve the mirror-opposite of traditional gnosis and mysticism by momentarily glimpsing the horror of ultimate reality.
Although Lovecraft's readership was limited during his life, his reputation has grown over the decades. He is now commonly regarded as one of the most influential horror writers of the 20th Century, exerting widespread and indirect influence, and frequently compared to Edgar Allan Poe.
See also Howard Phillips Lovecraft.
— Wikipedia
Lovecraft's major inspiration and invention was cosmic horror: life is incomprehensible to human minds and the universe is fundamentally alien. Those who genuinely reason, like his protagonists, gamble with sanity. Lovecraft has developed a cult following for his Cthulhu Mythos, a series of loosely interconnected fictions featuring a pantheon of human-nullifying entities, as well as the Necronomicon, a fictional grimoire of magical rites and forbidden lore. His works were deeply pessimistic and cynical, challenging the values of the Enlightenment, Romanticism and Christianity. Lovecraft's protagonists usually achieve the mirror-opposite of traditional gnosis and mysticism by momentarily glimpsing the horror of ultimate reality.
Although Lovecraft's readership was limited during his life, his reputation has grown over the decades. He is now commonly regarded as one of the most influential horror writers of the 20th Century, exerting widespread and indirect influence, and frequently compared to Edgar Allan Poe.
See also Howard Phillips Lovecraft.
— Wikipedia
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Displaying 1 - 6 of 6 reviews
January 2, 2014
This is an entertaining collection of stories. Lin Carter gathered them and provided narrative interludes in order to explicate some of the connections between the stories that a casual reader might miss. I must say, however, that the connections strike me as rather tenuous. Sometimes, these stories share little more than the mention of some mythological names that Lovecraft used in a famous paragraph from "The Whisperer in Darkness."
Whisperer is the opening story of the collection. It is the only selection by Lovecraft. The other selections are either a product of Lovecraft's influence or, in two cases, sources of Lovecraft's inspiration (in particular, the stories by Bierce and Chambers).
I first read Whisperer when I was a teenager, and don't think that I re-read it until this occasion. This time around, I was surprised to discover, after a bit of research, that it is one of the earliest stories about the possibility of removing a human brain from its body and sustaining it through technological means. In the story, humans can travel to Pluto (called "Yuggoth") by having their brains removed and placed in metal cylinders.
According to a Wikipedia article about Whisperer, "The idea of keeping a human brain alive in a jar (with mechanical attachments allowing sight, hearing, and speech) to enable travel in areas inhospitable to the body might have been inspired by the book The World, the Flesh, and the Devil by J.D. Bernal, which describes and suggests the feasibility of a similar device. The book was published in 1929, just a year before Lovecraft wrote his story."
Other than Whisperer, I found the Bierce, Chambers, and Long stories to be the most compelling and interesting selections. Robert E. Howard's story was probably the weakest of the lot. Not only was the story fairly unimaginative, but given its racist themes, it could easily have been written by Hitler, er, I mean "Schickelgruber."
Clark Ashton Smith's story could be made into a fabulous animated film or a short CGI segment. Its impact is primarily visual, which is interesting because I believe Smith did a lot of painting and sculpting. But Smith's writing style is odd and would probably be off-putting to most contemporary readers. It reminds of of the style in which old legal documents were written.
Most of the stories in this collection have some sort of twist revelation at the end. Lovecraft often used this technique, which I think may have been a pulp fiction convention. Of all the twist endings in this book, I felt that Whisperer's was the most effective.
Whisperer is the opening story of the collection. It is the only selection by Lovecraft. The other selections are either a product of Lovecraft's influence or, in two cases, sources of Lovecraft's inspiration (in particular, the stories by Bierce and Chambers).
I first read Whisperer when I was a teenager, and don't think that I re-read it until this occasion. This time around, I was surprised to discover, after a bit of research, that it is one of the earliest stories about the possibility of removing a human brain from its body and sustaining it through technological means. In the story, humans can travel to Pluto (called "Yuggoth") by having their brains removed and placed in metal cylinders.
According to a Wikipedia article about Whisperer, "The idea of keeping a human brain alive in a jar (with mechanical attachments allowing sight, hearing, and speech) to enable travel in areas inhospitable to the body might have been inspired by the book The World, the Flesh, and the Devil by J.D. Bernal, which describes and suggests the feasibility of a similar device. The book was published in 1929, just a year before Lovecraft wrote his story."
Other than Whisperer, I found the Bierce, Chambers, and Long stories to be the most compelling and interesting selections. Robert E. Howard's story was probably the weakest of the lot. Not only was the story fairly unimaginative, but given its racist themes, it could easily have been written by Hitler, er, I mean "Schickelgruber."
Clark Ashton Smith's story could be made into a fabulous animated film or a short CGI segment. Its impact is primarily visual, which is interesting because I believe Smith did a lot of painting and sculpting. But Smith's writing style is odd and would probably be off-putting to most contemporary readers. It reminds of of the style in which old legal documents were written.
Most of the stories in this collection have some sort of twist revelation at the end. Lovecraft often used this technique, which I think may have been a pulp fiction convention. Of all the twist endings in this book, I felt that Whisperer's was the most effective.
November 23, 2012
As with all tales within the Cthulhu Mythos that weren't penned by Lovecraft himself - this collection is very hit-and-miss. No one is comparable to the great originality of Lovecraft, and sadly any attempts to "further" his stories tend to feel forced and extraneous. It, at least, furnishes an excuse to re-read the wonderful 'The Whisperer in Darkness'.
August 20, 2009
I am way into slime monsters and unspeakable terror.
May 16, 2023
gonna say first that I really like how this collection is put together. Carter starts with The Whisperer in Darkness, which has a paragraph name dropping various mythos entities, and then the rest of the stories showcase other writers Lovecraft was borrowing from/writers that in turn borrowed from Lovecraft. really cool way to show the growth of the mythos! i just really wish some of the stories were better
one story is an excerpt from The King In Yellow, which I've been meaning to read for a while, and it's shot up to the top of my to-read list because The Yellow Sign was phenomenal. easily the best in the collection. also included:
-The Return of Hastur - my first Derleth! I've heard a lot about how he expanded the mythos so that was exciting. turns out he's not very good! set up a framework combining the great old ones and the elder gods, which turned out to be boring and needless! and his writing style is just as awful as Lovecraft's! Sad!
-The Children of the Night - from Robert E. Howard, of Conan the Barbarian fame. this one starts out with three full pages of race science, as characters discuss whether the Alpine people are Aryans or if they're a separate race. not a joke! then a character gets hit in the head with a hammer, travels back in time, and comes back determined to wage race war. weird story!
-The Hounds of Tindalos - this one ruled! this is like a prototype for a great Lovecraftian story. captures the feeling of paranoia perfectly. 10/10!
-The Curse of Yig - structurally this one is really good! it has all the beats of an EC Comics type story and a lot of it really works. insanely poorly written though! took me like 3 days to read this 15ish page story because I was so incredibly bored
-The Mine on Yuggoth - my first Ramsey Campbell! it wasn't very good! extremely mechanical, no emotional at all, flat, complicated, and boring. oh well!
one story is an excerpt from The King In Yellow, which I've been meaning to read for a while, and it's shot up to the top of my to-read list because The Yellow Sign was phenomenal. easily the best in the collection. also included:
-The Return of Hastur - my first Derleth! I've heard a lot about how he expanded the mythos so that was exciting. turns out he's not very good! set up a framework combining the great old ones and the elder gods, which turned out to be boring and needless! and his writing style is just as awful as Lovecraft's! Sad!
-The Children of the Night - from Robert E. Howard, of Conan the Barbarian fame. this one starts out with three full pages of race science, as characters discuss whether the Alpine people are Aryans or if they're a separate race. not a joke! then a character gets hit in the head with a hammer, travels back in time, and comes back determined to wage race war. weird story!
-The Hounds of Tindalos - this one ruled! this is like a prototype for a great Lovecraftian story. captures the feeling of paranoia perfectly. 10/10!
-The Curse of Yig - structurally this one is really good! it has all the beats of an EC Comics type story and a lot of it really works. insanely poorly written though! took me like 3 days to read this 15ish page story because I was so incredibly bored
-The Mine on Yuggoth - my first Ramsey Campbell! it wasn't very good! extremely mechanical, no emotional at all, flat, complicated, and boring. oh well!
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Displaying 1 - 6 of 6 reviews