Reviews with content warning for Racial slurs - The Call of Cthulhu and Other Weird Stories

The thing about reading Lovecraft is that he was really in need of a good editor. Some of his prose is stunning and the ideas are astonishing, but sometimes his prose is too dense or repetitive. So a mixture of glorious and terrible. He was a hideous racist even for the time period, it's disgusting. But it's important to not erase writing like this lest we deify writers who had unconscionable opinions without knowing that was the case.

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oddityoverseer's review against another edition

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challenging dark mysterious tense medium-paced

Plot- or character-driven? Plot
Strong character development? No
Loveable characters? No
Diverse cast of characters? No
Flaws of characters a main focus? It's complicated

2.5

I really wanted to like this. I love the idea of cosmic horror... Unknowably large and mysterious beings that could crush us out of existence with barely a thought... That idea is terrifying!

Unfortunately, the writing style was hard for me to follow. There were many words I had to look up, and many phrasings that had me rereading sentences or even paragraphs to follow what happened. Hell, in the climax of the namesake story in this book, I MISSED a crucial part, because it was described so strangely. I only realized later when I read a review online!

That said, I know this is classic writing, and I know it inspired many later horror writers, so I have to give some credit there.

THAT said, I also learned Lovecraft was a very racist person, and it showed through in some of the stories.

I did not read all the stories here. I recommend not starting at the first one, but instead doing research about which ones people liked. Out of those I read, I'd say Rats In The Walls was probably my favorite.

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briereader's review against another edition

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dark mysterious medium-paced

Plot- or character-driven? Plot
Strong character development? No
Loveable characters? No
Diverse cast of characters? No
Flaws of characters a main focus? It's complicated

3.25

My first time reading any of Lovecraft's work, and I wasn't really impressed. Even beyond the blatant xenophobia that pervades his work, I simply didn't find the horrors he described quite that horrifying. I don't think time treated the wok kindly (once more, even beyond the BLATANT and PERVASIVE xenophobia)--the once titillating and unimaginable horrors are honestly well within my understanding.

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meghenee's review against another edition

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4.5

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lmy612's review against another edition

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dark mysterious fast-paced

Plot- or character-driven? Plot
Strong character development? No
Loveable characters? No
Diverse cast of characters? No
Flaws of characters a main focus? No

2.0

I’ve never read anything by H. P. Lovecraft before and now I don’t know if I will.

The Call of Cthulhu is one of H. P. Lovecraft’s best known stories but it was a big flop for me. I guess people in the 1920s were scared by different things than people in the 2020s.

And let it be known, I scare easily! I rarely read horror because I generally can’t handle them and scare myself senseless. Especially at night. This wasn’t that.

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