A reread for me. Most of these are classic examples of Lovecraft: strange unearthly beings come to earth and terrorize people. Lovecraft's monsters are always cosmically alien. His characters are always pedantic academics who don't believe the stories they are told, or even their own experiences, until it is too late. A lot of the tension in these stories comes from the reader realizing the danger and the horror long before the narrator does. People fault Lovecraft for his lack of character development, but that is never the point of his stories. The horror is always something from outside, and the hapless narrator is forced to deal with it -- or not.

The Colour out of Space: highly original, creepy and satisfying. The monster is an alien miasma, or color.
The Picture in the House: also creepy, less satisfying. This time the monster is human.
The Call of Cthulhu: evil godlike creature from outer space, waiting to take over the world.
Cool Air: an unorthodox search for immortality goes wrong
The Whisperer in Darkness: one of Lovecraft's best stories, IMHO. Aliens with a secret agenda invade rural Vermont, and no one can stand in their way.
The Terrible Old Man: meh
The Shadow out of Time: this one was okay, but dragged quite a bit and had some redundancy. But I liked reading about the ancient creatures who once ruled the earth. ( )

"The Colour Out of Space" is a science fiction/horror short story by American author H. P. Lovecraft, written in March 1927. In the tale, an unnamed narrator pieces together the story of an area known by the locals as the "blasted heath" in the hills west of the fictional town of Arkham, Massachusetts. The narrator discovers that many years ago a meteorite crashed there, poisoning every living being nearby; vegetation grows large but foul-tasting, animals are driven mad and deformed into grotesque shapes, and the people go insane or die one by one.

The Colour Out of Space is one of Lovecraft's famous stories, and for good reason. The existential dread is palpable throughout the story. Lovecraft, in attempting to create a horror that is beyond human reasoning, I think succeeded. Why? The entity's motive (if any) is unknown and it is impossible to discern whether or not the "colour" is emotional, moral, or even conscious. It just wreaks havoc on the inhabitants of a New England Farm.

Literally, all hell breaks loose.

Grounded in material reality, and scientific theories, this work of horror quickly becomes otherwordly.

A must-read if you're a horror fan.

And don't miss the Nicholas Cage film adaptation. It's different but bonkers. ( )

I'm going to throw out my first five-star rating for Lovecraft. I don't think he ever does better than he does in this short story. While he does tend to slip back into his old ways here and there, the writing that actually opens this story is gorgeous, and I don't think he ever attains the same level of creeping horror in any other story.

This story was a standout the first time I read it, and it remains so, as I work my way through this illustrated series. ( )

Who would have thought that a colour could be so terrifying...

I guess it helps that it's actually some life devouring, madness inducing shade that fell to earth in a meteorite and proceeded to wreck havoc on a local farm.

It's a quick, solid story, telling about how everyone was so intrigued by the meteorite--until the family nearest it fell apart.

Worth the read. ( )

It was not a matter of old legendry at all, but something within the lifetime of those who spoke. It had happened in the ’eighties, and a family had disappeared or was killed. Speakers would not be exact; and because they all told me to pay no attention to old Ammi Pierce’s crazy tales, I sought him out the next morning, having heard that he lived alone in the ancient tottering cottage where the trees first begin to get very thick.

To me this reads entirely as camp, and it's camp I love. (I have no doubt whatsoever that Lovecraft was deadly serious about it, though. I was going to plaster photo realistic rainbow fields and forests all over this review, but I will tip my hat to Lovecraft and refrain. The story is sufficiently horrifying in spite of its rainbows of disgusting vegetation.) There's even an almost killer bunny. That said, Lovecraft's writing is awful and he's back to using characters as props to observe the horror as it unfolds rather than allowing them to do anything actual people would do when faced with a threat of this nature. (And the Darwin Award on this entry goes to the entire municipality of Arkham, or at least whoever is in charge of their water and sanitation departments.) By rights this should be two stars, but it made me laugh. Take your three stars and go, Lovecraft.


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