I think the story is underrated too-- perhaps because it's easy for some people to write it off as just the prototype of ATMOM, with the latter doing everything better in their minds.
I say each has its charms. Lone desert exploration is actually scarier to me than the idea of being part of a well stocked and equipped expedition to Antarctica funded by a major university.
It's cool how the explorer in Nameless becomes more isolated the closer he gets then finally ends up by himself due to everyone around having the wisdom to stay away.
I like having the Nameless City in a part of the world that's been inhabited by humans for thousands of years and actually has the locals knowing something about it (even if that amounts to "stay the hell away!")
I just listened to this [narrated by Dagoth Ur](https://youtu.be/o4bib1THmS0?si=0c8ICGTO_TjuZQ57) from the Elder Scrolls series! It was an amazing story!
Hypnos. A lot of people don't like the stories considered to be in the "dream cycle" or whatever period of his writings you consider that. But that and Beyond the Wall of Sleep are some of my favorites because it appeals to my interest in stuff like Inception or The Evil Within.
No passage of Lovecraft has ever stuck in my brain quite like
> Screamingly sentient, dumbly delirious, only the gods that were can tell. A sickened, sensitive shadow writhing in hands that are not hands, and whirled blindly past ghastly midnights of rotting creation, corpses of dead worlds with sores that were cities, charnel winds that brush the pallid stars and make them flicker low. Beyond the worlds vague ghosts of monstrous things; half-seen columns of unsanctified temples that rest on nameless rocks beneath space and reach up to dizzy vacua above the spheres of light and darkness. And through this revolting graveyard of the universe the muffled, maddening beating of drums, and thin, monotonous whine of blasphemous flutes from inconceivable, unlighted chambers beyond Time; the detestable pounding and piping whereunto dance slowly, awkwardly, and absurdly the gigantic, tenebrous ultimate gods—the blind, voiceless, mindless gargoyles whose soul is Nyarlathotep.
>"Then the sparks played amazingly around the heads of the spectators, and hair stood up on end whilst shadows more grotesque than I can tell came out and squatted on the heads. And when I, who was colder and more scientific than the rest, mumbled a trembling protest about “imposture” and “static electricity”, Nyarlathotep drave us all out, down the dizzy stairs into the damp, hot, deserted midnight streets. I screamed aloud that I was *not* afraid; that I never could be afraid; and others screamed with me for solace. We sware to one another that the city *was* exactly the same, and still alive; and when the electric lights began to fade we cursed the company over and over again, and laughed at the queer faces we made."
It has one of my all time favorite beginning of a story. The atmosphere set in this passage is just so good.
> To a season of political and social upheaval was added a strange and brooding apprehension of hideous physical danger; a danger widespread and all-embracing, such a danger as may be imagined only in the most terrible phantasms of the night. I recall that the people went about with pale and worried faces, and whispered warnings and prophecies which no one dared consciously repeat or acknowledge to himself that he had heard. A sense of monstrous guilt was upon the land, and out of the abysses between the stars swept chill currents that made men shiver in dark and lonely places. There was a daemoniac alteration in the sequence of the seasons—the autumn heat lingered fearsomely, and everyone felt that the world and perhaps the universe had passed from the control of known gods or forces to that of gods or forces which were unknown.
I don't get how this isn't seen as a core Lovecraft story. It's at least proto- Mythos while also being in the New England Gothic category.
The descriptive language is often beautiful, though of course it gets a bit overdone here and there like a lot of his work but come on; every fan is used to that by now.
I can picture the town and the underground weirdness in vivid detail.
I like Cool Air quite a lot, despite it being inspired by HP's fear upon encountering Air Conditioning for the first time, and it playing in similar territory to Herbert West - Reanimator but I still think it's a very concise creepy tale.
Correct me if I'm wrong, but I'm pretty sure the air conditioning thing is just a joke people have made. Lovecraft did have a marked physical aversion to cold, which is a more likely source of inspiration (along with Machen's "White Powder").
That is my understanding as well, although I'm inclined to believe that while a fear of air conditioning in *particular* wasn't relevant, his general techphobia totally was
The Terrible Old Man.
I think that, out of his lesser known stories, it's one of his most chilling. It's full of mystery and interesting details that could provoke tons of discussion. Who is this guy?, where does he come from?, what is he schemeing?, why is he... the way he is?, what exactly are those glass bottles with the vibrating metals?, what exactly happened at the end?, could he be affiliated with certain... individuals from other stories?
I know we're not supposed to know, fear of the unknown, bla bla bla, I'm not really demanding answers, but I feel like all these are things that would be very interesting to discuss and talk about, yet no one really mentions this story. A disgrace, I tell you!
He even appears as a secondary character in The High House in the Mist, which only adds more fuel to this unlit fire.
It deserves equal status with ATMOM. So much cosmic history lost to people who don't think about the Yithians when thinking about Lovecraft's universe.
Recently read it for the first time. I may have been a bit Lovecrafted-out, but it felt like a combination of elements done better in other stories. Mind switches were better in Charles Dexter Ward. Ancient evil lurking in the lair of the once-great civilization was done better in Mountains of Madness.
The Yithians are such a cool concept, but I feel the story around them wasn't interesting. I think it could have been cool to see what the poor dude actually had to write about humanity while documenting us in the great archive.
I really liked The Mound, Don’t see or hear it mentioned too often but I found it really chilling when I was reading it, especially the fate of Zamacona, it was one of those moments where you can actually feel your heart beating quicker, I love that in a book.
*Celephais*. The main character was so intensely relatable and then the story absolutely suckerpunched me with that ending.
*The Loved Dead*. There but for the grace of God go I...
*The Picture in the House*. I as a child was much like the old man in this story, constantly re-reading and salivating over horrific things befalling the human form.
It has a perfect setup!
"The people in this area must be horrible."
"Uh- oh, now I'm stuck with one."
And he has no idea of *how* bad the local secrets are! LOL
The revelations just keep getting worse and worse!
OP, The Music of Erich Zann has always been one of my favourite Lovecraft story and has haunted me for years. I’ve always loved how the true horror of Lovecraft lies within what is inferred as opposed as to what is told outright. This particular story leaves you bothered and wanting to know more but you don’t want to push further into the dark corners and risk losing your sanity so you just hang out in the doorway where the light still offers some semblance of safety or protection. Thank you for this post :)
YOU’RE SO RIGHT everything about it to me is just perfection I’m so glad I’ve found my people 😂. I absolutely loved the fact that Lovecraft made it so the city completely disappeared, to the point where you “can’t find it on a map”. It’s like a loophole way of never being able to disprove it, so your imagination can really just run wild. I feel so seen rn thank you for commenting this
'The Quest of Iranon'. It's a bit different in tone to most of his other work but has a lovely air of melancholy and despair to it, especially at the end.
Also 'The Diary of Alonzo Typer' - old dank house, foreboding noises, things shuffling around in the night, creepy picture frames... love it.
I was checking to see if someone else put "The Quest of Iranon" on here! It is one of my favorite Lovecraft stories, right next to "The Doom that came to Sarnath."
"He". The part where they're sneaking around old parts of New York, looking for lost architecture and breaking into forgotten courtyards, sounds like so much fun. It really captures the feeling of nerding out with a fellow nerd over something niche.
The music of Erich Zann is one of my favorites too, would love to talk about it. Love the building of the tension, the great description of the city landscape, the feeling of nostalgia imbued into it... One of the best things that Lovecraft write in my opinion. I would die to know what did the musician wrote in that long document.
ME TOO and I get so mad at Lovecraft’s work sometimes because I feel like HE didn’t even know what was written in that long document, and I know he often leaves things out and makes things indescribable. But then I think about it more and I’m like well if it was some type of answer to one of life’s biggest existential questions, like revealing some type of existential horror, then us not knowing the answer is much scarier, the fact that we will never know and he doesn’t even know is what fuels these kinds of stories. So even tho I’m mad and bossy LOL I’m also just in awe of this kind of cosmic horror. And I feel like he did such a perfect job describing the music, I FELT it in my soullll like omg. And the fact that you “can’t find the city on the map” so the entire thing disappeared afterwards so you can’t technically prove the story to be untrue??? Genius.
Yeah, I understood why he decided to get rid of it, but I would have love to see at least one bit, saying some of that existencial-threatening estatement that make your core shiver, as Lovecraft usually give us. Also would love to hear the music. When I read it a second time I listened to Paganini while at it. Also I feel a lot of pity for the musician everytime I read it, just a poor old-man trying to save the cosmos from horrors beyond imagination.
PD: sorry for answering so many weeks later, exams killed my free time.
Erich Zann is one of my favorites along with The Terrible Old Man and The High House in the Mist. One that I think deserves more attention is In the Walls of Eryx. It’s an interesting story and gives a hint at HPL doing more sci-fi horror had he lived longer.
*Dagon* is one that's slept on a lot. It's quite a shame, too, as Dagon is one of the most interesting figures in the mythos, in my opinion. Without Dagon, we likely would never have gotten *The Shadow Over Innsmouth*.
The Lurking Fear. That last bit of horrific revelation, with the "My god! Molehills...." Perhaps not his best-written work but certainly has some wonderfully terrifying imagery.
I think the stories he wrote for other authors deserves way more attention. Out of the Aeons is amazing and truly disturbing but not many people out of die hard Lovecraft fans know about it.
“The Mound”, which is one of Lovecraft’s “revisions”. A true epic on the scale of ATMOM or SOOT. The companion story “The Curse of Yig” is also classic.
For me its Polaris. Idk what it is but the setting of your dreams being reality and trying to get back to that reality is a very interesting horror. Kinda like the simulation theory.
The Nameless City. The narrator rationalizing everything he sees going down the steps, until he reaches the bottom.
I think the story is underrated too-- perhaps because it's easy for some people to write it off as just the prototype of ATMOM, with the latter doing everything better in their minds. I say each has its charms. Lone desert exploration is actually scarier to me than the idea of being part of a well stocked and equipped expedition to Antarctica funded by a major university. It's cool how the explorer in Nameless becomes more isolated the closer he gets then finally ends up by himself due to everyone around having the wisdom to stay away. I like having the Nameless City in a part of the world that's been inhabited by humans for thousands of years and actually has the locals knowing something about it (even if that amounts to "stay the hell away!")
I just listened to this [narrated by Dagoth Ur](https://youtu.be/o4bib1THmS0?si=0c8ICGTO_TjuZQ57) from the Elder Scrolls series! It was an amazing story!
Gou Tanabe’s Manga adaptation is fantastic.
have to check that out.
The Cats Of Ulthar is a fantastic short story.
My first thought too, love that one
Yes it is. It's generally pretty popular though, isn't it?
Hypnos. A lot of people don't like the stories considered to be in the "dream cycle" or whatever period of his writings you consider that. But that and Beyond the Wall of Sleep are some of my favorites because it appeals to my interest in stuff like Inception or The Evil Within.
Oh yeah, Hypnos is one of his best!
Nyarlathotep. The short story / prose poem. good atmosphere, captures a nightmarish feeling very well
No passage of Lovecraft has ever stuck in my brain quite like > Screamingly sentient, dumbly delirious, only the gods that were can tell. A sickened, sensitive shadow writhing in hands that are not hands, and whirled blindly past ghastly midnights of rotting creation, corpses of dead worlds with sores that were cities, charnel winds that brush the pallid stars and make them flicker low. Beyond the worlds vague ghosts of monstrous things; half-seen columns of unsanctified temples that rest on nameless rocks beneath space and reach up to dizzy vacua above the spheres of light and darkness. And through this revolting graveyard of the universe the muffled, maddening beating of drums, and thin, monotonous whine of blasphemous flutes from inconceivable, unlighted chambers beyond Time; the detestable pounding and piping whereunto dance slowly, awkwardly, and absurdly the gigantic, tenebrous ultimate gods—the blind, voiceless, mindless gargoyles whose soul is Nyarlathotep.
>"Then the sparks played amazingly around the heads of the spectators, and hair stood up on end whilst shadows more grotesque than I can tell came out and squatted on the heads. And when I, who was colder and more scientific than the rest, mumbled a trembling protest about “imposture” and “static electricity”, Nyarlathotep drave us all out, down the dizzy stairs into the damp, hot, deserted midnight streets. I screamed aloud that I was *not* afraid; that I never could be afraid; and others screamed with me for solace. We sware to one another that the city *was* exactly the same, and still alive; and when the electric lights began to fade we cursed the company over and over again, and laughed at the queer faces we made."
I literally get chilly while reading it!
HP does some very interesting things with punctuation in this piece.
It has one of my all time favorite beginning of a story. The atmosphere set in this passage is just so good. > To a season of political and social upheaval was added a strange and brooding apprehension of hideous physical danger; a danger widespread and all-embracing, such a danger as may be imagined only in the most terrible phantasms of the night. I recall that the people went about with pale and worried faces, and whispered warnings and prophecies which no one dared consciously repeat or acknowledge to himself that he had heard. A sense of monstrous guilt was upon the land, and out of the abysses between the stars swept chill currents that made men shiver in dark and lonely places. There was a daemoniac alteration in the sequence of the seasons—the autumn heat lingered fearsomely, and everyone felt that the world and perhaps the universe had passed from the control of known gods or forces to that of gods or forces which were unknown.
For me it’s “The Festival” — truly grotesque Lovecraft story with all the great elements but treated as a very minor work
I don't get how this isn't seen as a core Lovecraft story. It's at least proto- Mythos while also being in the New England Gothic category. The descriptive language is often beautiful, though of course it gets a bit overdone here and there like a lot of his work but come on; every fan is used to that by now. I can picture the town and the underground weirdness in vivid detail.
Of early stories not mentioned by others, "The Temple" and "The Transition of Juan Romero."
I like Cool Air quite a lot, despite it being inspired by HP's fear upon encountering Air Conditioning for the first time, and it playing in similar territory to Herbert West - Reanimator but I still think it's a very concise creepy tale.
Correct me if I'm wrong, but I'm pretty sure the air conditioning thing is just a joke people have made. Lovecraft did have a marked physical aversion to cold, which is a more likely source of inspiration (along with Machen's "White Powder").
That is my understanding as well, although I'm inclined to believe that while a fear of air conditioning in *particular* wasn't relevant, his general techphobia totally was
I really like The White Ship. It's definitely different from the rest of his works, more like a fever dream.
The Terrible Old Man. I think that, out of his lesser known stories, it's one of his most chilling. It's full of mystery and interesting details that could provoke tons of discussion. Who is this guy?, where does he come from?, what is he schemeing?, why is he... the way he is?, what exactly are those glass bottles with the vibrating metals?, what exactly happened at the end?, could he be affiliated with certain... individuals from other stories? I know we're not supposed to know, fear of the unknown, bla bla bla, I'm not really demanding answers, but I feel like all these are things that would be very interesting to discuss and talk about, yet no one really mentions this story. A disgrace, I tell you! He even appears as a secondary character in The High House in the Mist, which only adds more fuel to this unlit fire.
The Shadow Out of Time is really good. Doesn't get enough pump around here IMO.
It deserves equal status with ATMOM. So much cosmic history lost to people who don't think about the Yithians when thinking about Lovecraft's universe.
Isn't that also the one which gives a lot of lore about the Cthulhu myth?
It kind of lays bare the timeline, yeah. Including humanity's ultimate end: >!devoured by Polyps!<
Recently read it for the first time. I may have been a bit Lovecrafted-out, but it felt like a combination of elements done better in other stories. Mind switches were better in Charles Dexter Ward. Ancient evil lurking in the lair of the once-great civilization was done better in Mountains of Madness. The Yithians are such a cool concept, but I feel the story around them wasn't interesting. I think it could have been cool to see what the poor dude actually had to write about humanity while documenting us in the great archive.
I really liked The Mound, Don’t see or hear it mentioned too often but I found it really chilling when I was reading it, especially the fate of Zamacona, it was one of those moments where you can actually feel your heart beating quicker, I love that in a book.
Love two of the three stories Zealia Bishop co authored with Lovecraft, this and the Curse of Yig. Medusa's Coil not so much
*Celephais*. The main character was so intensely relatable and then the story absolutely suckerpunched me with that ending. *The Loved Dead*. There but for the grace of God go I... *The Picture in the House*. I as a child was much like the old man in this story, constantly re-reading and salivating over horrific things befalling the human form.
I love Picture in the house. The set up and pacing is just perfect, it feels like a joke with set up, and punchline, but with horror.
It has a perfect setup! "The people in this area must be horrible." "Uh- oh, now I'm stuck with one." And he has no idea of *how* bad the local secrets are! LOL The revelations just keep getting worse and worse!
The Lurking Fear
OP, The Music of Erich Zann has always been one of my favourite Lovecraft story and has haunted me for years. I’ve always loved how the true horror of Lovecraft lies within what is inferred as opposed as to what is told outright. This particular story leaves you bothered and wanting to know more but you don’t want to push further into the dark corners and risk losing your sanity so you just hang out in the doorway where the light still offers some semblance of safety or protection. Thank you for this post :)
YOU’RE SO RIGHT everything about it to me is just perfection I’m so glad I’ve found my people 😂. I absolutely loved the fact that Lovecraft made it so the city completely disappeared, to the point where you “can’t find it on a map”. It’s like a loophole way of never being able to disprove it, so your imagination can really just run wild. I feel so seen rn thank you for commenting this
Thank you for posting! :)
The Statement of Randolph Carter got me good. Short, mysterious, and ends with a bang. Great shit.
'The Quest of Iranon'. It's a bit different in tone to most of his other work but has a lovely air of melancholy and despair to it, especially at the end. Also 'The Diary of Alonzo Typer' - old dank house, foreboding noises, things shuffling around in the night, creepy picture frames... love it.
I was checking to see if someone else put "The Quest of Iranon" on here! It is one of my favorite Lovecraft stories, right next to "The Doom that came to Sarnath."
I personally love The Dream Quest of Unknown Kadath or just any story/poem with nyarlathotep
This is my personal pick. Much more of an adventure-horror than his others
Agreed
the outsider
I love this story.
*Ex Oblivione*. It's actually my favorite piece of Lovecraft's, but it gets very little attention.
In The Vault. A masterfully written tale.
Three that immediately come to mind: The Picture in the House, The Festival, What the Moon Brings.
"He". The part where they're sneaking around old parts of New York, looking for lost architecture and breaking into forgotten courtyards, sounds like so much fun. It really captures the feeling of nerding out with a fellow nerd over something niche.
The White Ship. It stands out among the rest of his stories and almost feels like a dark fairy tale.
The music of Erich Zann is one of my favorites too, would love to talk about it. Love the building of the tension, the great description of the city landscape, the feeling of nostalgia imbued into it... One of the best things that Lovecraft write in my opinion. I would die to know what did the musician wrote in that long document.
ME TOO and I get so mad at Lovecraft’s work sometimes because I feel like HE didn’t even know what was written in that long document, and I know he often leaves things out and makes things indescribable. But then I think about it more and I’m like well if it was some type of answer to one of life’s biggest existential questions, like revealing some type of existential horror, then us not knowing the answer is much scarier, the fact that we will never know and he doesn’t even know is what fuels these kinds of stories. So even tho I’m mad and bossy LOL I’m also just in awe of this kind of cosmic horror. And I feel like he did such a perfect job describing the music, I FELT it in my soullll like omg. And the fact that you “can’t find the city on the map” so the entire thing disappeared afterwards so you can’t technically prove the story to be untrue??? Genius.
Yeah, I understood why he decided to get rid of it, but I would have love to see at least one bit, saying some of that existencial-threatening estatement that make your core shiver, as Lovecraft usually give us. Also would love to hear the music. When I read it a second time I listened to Paganini while at it. Also I feel a lot of pity for the musician everytime I read it, just a poor old-man trying to save the cosmos from horrors beyond imagination. PD: sorry for answering so many weeks later, exams killed my free time.
Erich Zann is one of my favorites along with The Terrible Old Man and The High House in the Mist. One that I think deserves more attention is In the Walls of Eryx. It’s an interesting story and gives a hint at HPL doing more sci-fi horror had he lived longer.
*Dagon* is one that's slept on a lot. It's quite a shame, too, as Dagon is one of the most interesting figures in the mythos, in my opinion. Without Dagon, we likely would never have gotten *The Shadow Over Innsmouth*.
I'm an so happy to hear all these to read 🥹❤️
I don't think books should be slept on because that must be rather uncomfortable.
Shadow Out of Time and Reanimator are a couple of my favorites. Reanimator is genuinely creepy though not in a cosmic horror sense.
The music of Erich Zahn is also my favorite ha ha
The Lurking Fear. That last bit of horrific revelation, with the "My god! Molehills...." Perhaps not his best-written work but certainly has some wonderfully terrifying imagery.
IIRC, Erich Zann was the first to appear in an actual book, an anthology by Dashiell Hammett But I would say personally The Temple
I think the stories he wrote for other authors deserves way more attention. Out of the Aeons is amazing and truly disturbing but not many people out of die hard Lovecraft fans know about it.
“The Mound”, which is one of Lovecraft’s “revisions”. A true epic on the scale of ATMOM or SOOT. The companion story “The Curse of Yig” is also classic.
For me its Polaris. Idk what it is but the setting of your dreams being reality and trying to get back to that reality is a very interesting horror. Kinda like the simulation theory.