The Dunwish Horror and Others [Book Review]

That is the biggest image I can find for this book... sad.

Years ago, a good friend gave me a set of H.P. Lovecraft collections.
Due to circumstances, I only recently finished the first volume.

A portion of blame lay at the feet of my Master's degree. Completing the degree nearly killed my ability to read books for fun, especially dense fiction like that written by H.P. Lovecraft. Another portion of blame lay at the feet of H.P. Lovecraft himself.

He writes very dense stories.
There is almost no dialogue.
Everything is written from a first person point of view.  Even if a story seems to begin in third person, or in third person omniscient, point of view it will quickly become first person.

I'm not used to many fictional stories being told in the first person pov. I understand that it is actually a common device in both YA (young adult) and Romance novels. Not in the sorts of stories I usually read for fun - commercial fiction of the science fiction / fantasy genre.

Now that I'm done grousing about the writting style, let me get to the meat of the review.

This is what horror should be.
There are no gory deaths, disgusting dismemberment, or all the other typical 'slasher flick' accoutrements. This is psychological horror. It is about the mundane made horrifying, the typical rendered terrible. It is the slow creep of the unseen, the revelation of the hidden.

Now this book is a compilation of stories, and some of my all time favorite Lovecraftian tales are contained within.

The Colour out of Space
The Picture in the House
The Haunter of the Dark
The Shadow over Innsmouth
and
The Shadow out of Time

The copy I have is a nice old 1963 hardback printing with one of those classic clear plastic covers. That is just nice. The book feels weighty.

I have two more books in the series to get through, well... three, but I need to find a copy of that missing tome.

4 out of 5 stars

I really want to play this right now...