The Whisperer in Darkness by HP Lovecraft (2007)

 This is the first volume in a paperback reissue of all of Lovecraft's works. I'd been directed toward him many a time over many years, via the interest in him of people I knew. I finally got there, and my responses are mixed. There are nine pieces in this first volume, among them some of his most famous, like The Dunwich Horror, Dagon and At the Mountains of Madness. Initially, with short pieces like Dagon as a first exposure, I was quietly impressed; there seemed a strange place he occupied, full of landscapes empty of obvious life but which harboured it in hidden places. A fascination with archaeological records persisted, showing lost civilisations and the possible influence of vaguely hinted at others, either of a previously unknown prehistoric intelligent species, or visitors from elsewhere, surviving secretly. This was riddled with the author's queasiness at such things, which was elaborately explained. I could also see where the prejudice against him has received its energy, through the hackneyed adage "show, don't tell". There's a lot of telling here. But also a lot of showing, so that relation is an interesting one. As the volume progressed, though, that criticism gathered some weight, I will admit. It foundered in the middle of the volume in his longest piece (at least as far as I am aware) The Case of Charles Dexter Ward, which really did chug back and forth in a tiring sargasso sea of blasphemous this, and stench-laden that. It would have been better if those elements had been searing, and capable of raising the ghost of Giger, but they were less horrifying by quite a way, mainly because they were so often referenced as "nameless" or  "incapable of description" or whatever. And the treatment was profoundly repetitive. Surviving behind though was a peculiar atmosphere. The depth and specificity of his imagining of these others and their alien cultures still has great underlying charm. It seems to me that his pulp origins are most betrayed in this element: these stories would be much better not read all together in omnibus volumes, but encountered periodically, at good distances from one another. He seems to me almost the paragon of a little going a long way. So I'll no doubt pick up the second volume at some point, but at the moment I'm Lovecrafted out.