This is the longest 'collaboration' I've read between August Derleth and HP Lovecraft and turns out to be almost wholly Derleth based on a few short fragments of HPL's. It does read that way, although seems better than most of Derleth's efforts until the last third where it degenerates into his usual tendency of throwing in everything including the kitchen sink in his efforts to name check all the Old Ones, their minions and the various forbidden books about them. The main issue though is the rushed conclusion which for me spoils what should be a great scene of enormous suspense and scariness. So definitely going back to HPL for the real deal, although this effort is not awful and there are some novel elements - the old tower, stone circles, Native American beliefs etc - that I haven't so far encountered in the other collaborations. ( )

Ambrose Dewart inherits an old mansion in rural Massachusetts and as he investigates his family history, the sinister estate begins to take hold on him...

This novel is actually mostly written by August Derleth from a few fragments left by Lovecraft after his death. As a result, the prose is somewhat less...impenetrable (apart from a few passages written in olde English)...and, there's dialogue! But if you've read much Lovecraft already, the story and content is going feel like more of the same. If you're new to his work and his world, it may serve as a decent introduction. ( )

There are two important things about this book. Firstly, despite the covers, this is NOT by HP Lovecraft. It's entirely by August Derleth, with only a couple of small details inspired by notes left by Lovecraft. This is a Derleth novel and nothing more. Secondly, it's really not very good.

The book has three distinct phases with specific narrators. The first does a reasonable job of seeming Lovecraftesque, though the words don't flow as smoothly and the story seems somehow congested. However, the protagonist is okay, and the area and house are portrayed quite evocatively at times. I liked some of the details, like the significance of the frogs. On the downside, Derleth seems to mash elements of Lovecraft Country together carelessly, portraying Dunwich as very much like Innsmouth when this doesn't seem to fit the original story, where its stolid inhabitants were horrified and mystified by supernatural forces.

The second shows up a lot of Derleth's bad habits: substantial quotes that are supposed to add atmosphere but just bog things down, and a repetitiveness that makes it frustrating. The narrator seems perversely obtuse; the idea may be that he's influenced by sinister powers, but if so it wasn't convincing, and he mostly seems to bumble around like an idiot. The Mythos elements previously laid down are jumbled and conflated with other scraps of ideas, losing any sense of distinctiveness they had established.

Finally, there's an incredibly compressed, rushed bodge of an ending. Here Derleth tosses out most of what's previously been accomplished. A stock detective character takes over, with an encyclopaedic knowledge of the supernatural and entirely unfazed by the information he receives. Our narrator is a pedantic, tiresome bore of an idiot who seems to have very little interest in any of it. Vast amounts of information are recycled, others are retconned (the entirety of the Mythos explanation, for a start) and everything is told at great length and in contortedly dull prose. The story is concluded offstage in the least interesting way possible.

Despite this agonisingly lengthy word vomit, I didn't locate a clear explanation. I don't mean a real explanation of what's going on; that's common enough in weird fiction. I mean, it's never very clear to me what Derleth thought was going on, between the various bits of plot he seems to try and set up at various stages and his contradictory explanations.

The characterisation is minimal, the plot very much the same as he's used in various short stories but padded to novel length.

I read this one for general interest in the genre and its history, but that's the only circumstance in which I could recommend doing so. ( )

I'd heard some bad things about Derleth's posthumous collaborations with Lovecraft, how he had a tendency to over-categorise the Mythos and apply a simplistic Christian morality on creatures whose very power to chill stemmed from the fact that they were utterly beyond human notions of good or evil. Despite that, I found this quite an effective and well written work, and Derleth's vision, if not entirely in keeping with Lovecraft's own, was not wholly incompatible either. There's a lot of good, if derivative, stuff in here and a nice sense of sustained menace running throughout the piece. Derleth might not have "got" Lovecraft entirely, but he understood enough about what made him an effective horror writer as regards the basics of tone, imagery, characterisation, and plot not to drop the ball. Only the last act really lets the piece down, leaving the reader on a distinctly "that's it? moment. A pity considering all the good work leading up to it. ( )

I'd heard some bad things about Derleth's posthumous collaborations with Lovecraft, how he had a tendency to over-categorise the Mythos and apply a simplistic Christian morality on creatures whose very power to chill stemmed from the fact that they were utterly beyond human notions of good or evil. Despite that, I found this quite an effective and well written work, and Derleth's vision, if not entirely in keeping with Lovecraft's own, was not wholly incompatible either. There's a lot of good, if derivative, stuff in here and a nice sense of sustained menace running throughout the piece. Derleth might not have "got" Lovecraft entirely, but he understood enough about what made him an effective horror writer as regards the basics of tone, imagery, characterisation, and plot not to drop the ball. Only the last act really lets the piece down, leaving the reader on a distinctly "that's it? moment. A pity considering all the good work leading up to it. ( )