At The Mountains of Madness and Other Tales of Terror (1964)

I listened to the audiobook read by William Roberts. Roberts' narration is excellent. You can hear the stress and anxiety in the storyteller at all the appropriate times. This is a fun pulp horror story along the vein of Whiteout and Alien. ( )

Having now read this, I can see the inspiration for at least two horror films. The first is The Thing which, in terms of its Antarctic setting, terror of the inexplicable and decimation of an expedition, is a simple copy of the book. The second is Alien with its terrifying depiction of another world which, to the detriment of those who discover it, is not quite as dead as it first appears. For such a short book, it wields some weight.

The narrator is attempting to warn a forthcoming Antarctic expedition of the annihilation that almost certainly awaits them should they venture where he himself has gone before. He has not spoken in detail of his horrifying experiences before out of fear, doubt and sheer unspeakability. But now, with his fellow explorers preparing for a trek to their doom, he feels he has to speak out and tell what befell all but a few of those who explored the Mountains of Madness.

Had this been written 50 years earlier than its 1931 publication, it would have been less convincing. But by the time Lovecraft wrote it, not only had the South Pole been reached, horror literature had shed a little more of its Gothic trappings. Of course, H.G. Wells should be credited with inspiring almost an entire body of literature with his superb canon, but Lovecraft writes with a lucid reality that evokes the very real terror you can feel in later horror writers with Stephen King’s The Shining a prime example.

Discovering inadvertently frozen alien beings and a mountain range surpassing anything hitherto known on earth, a forward party of the narrator’s expedition retires for the night. They are never heard from again. The narrator journeys to discover the truth: all have perished in mysterious circumstances. Exploring the mountains themselves, the narrator manages to cross the range via a pass in his aircraft. This brings him to what appears to be a deserted city the like of which he can barely describe. Exploring this brings him and his companion face to face with their worst nightmares…

I was prepared for something much more drearily verbose and mundane and was pleased to find that this was just about the right length and that Lovecraft had done an excellent job at telling just enough of the detail to keep me turning page after page. Very influential and highly readable. What’s more, it provided me with one of the most esoteric quotes I think I’ve ever collected: “The penguins alone could not have saved us…” ( )

I actually think that to properly enjoy this book, you need to be a) a teenage boy who says "whoooa!" a lot (or have fond memories of being one) or b) on drugs. Its appeal, in that sense, is not unlike outdoor music festivals or a lot of '60s psychedelic rock - i.e completely lost on me. Whatevs, different strokes for different folks etc etc.

There were some moments in this book that were... a bit frightening. Like when Lake and co were initally poking about the SPOOKY ALIEN THINGS and you're just like NO BRO LEAVE THAT ALONE. But then it's approximately several million pages of the narrator looking at FRIGHTENING SCULPTURES, and then encountering GIANT ALBINO BLIND PENGUINS (I can't lie, those were pretty cool). And then they run away from something that he later describes as "the primal white jelly" (and here I will be a teenage boy: hur hur hur). It's not my thing, but I probably just haven't got the right mindset for it, DUUUUDE. ( )

A novella written in the early 1930s and set in Antarctica during that time period. A team of explorers discover a many-millions-of-years old city on the far side of known territory, encountering in the process two ancient races only hinted at in some of the oldest of human mythologies. Usually categorized as horror but to my mind equally science fiction, the story is told in florid language which nevertheless pulls the reader inexorably towards each new dreaded revelation. There are many references to places and myths common in Lovecraft's other works, and familiarity with those might make this more chilling. One aspect I found particularly meaningful was several references to Sir Douglas Mawson (my favorite Antarctic explorer), including a contemporaneous expedition he was on in a nearby area of Antarctica. Lovecraft also worked into the story the then-new theory of continental drift.

All-in-all, quite enjoyable, although I imagined a couple of even more horrible disclosures than those produced by the finale. ( )

At the Mountains of Madness is a tense and sinister novella that continually hints of dark things waiting in the shadows. Like all great (rather than simply good) horror writing it's not what Lovecraft does say but what he hints at that makes this so spine tinglingly good

A classic novella that has not dated and still works 80 years on from being written. ( )