|
Browse categories
|
 |
|
|
|
|
 |
|
|
 Customer Reviews
got it, 20 Nov 2008
just got it will start reading soon :)
i got into a few lines and its quite addictive, niceee :D
Pretty good, 28 Sep 2008
I bought this recently, having never read (but often heard about) Lovecraft and the Cthulhu Mythos.
I'm only about a third of the way through, but it seems pretty good (although the author does seem to have swallowed a thesaurus - and a particularly gibbous and over-nourished one at that, most likely recovered from some Stygian Pit that the mortal mind was not meant to know of). Plus, he does have some rather - ahem - "old fashioned" attitudes to race and class that can seem rather jarring to a modern reader.
This particular edition also does, unfortunately, have a number of typos in the text, some of which ("Necroriomicon", "clay" instead of "day", and "Gthulhu") suggest to me that the publishers had the original text scanned and digitised, but imperfectly. (I'm keeping a note of them as I find them, and will inform the publishers when I've finished the book).
Still, all said, I don't regret getting the book, and if you don't mind those faults, I'd certainly recommend this to anyone interested in the genera.
Just as I remembered!!, 14 Sep 2008
Excellent, worth the wait!! I remember reading this as a child, it's just as good as I remembered. Real Classic stuff!!
I recommend it to anyone looking for some good old creepy stories.
JOIN THE DARKSIDE!!!!, 19 Jul 2008
What can i say that already hasn't been said.
This is truly awesome, a complete collection of lovecraft in a well bound casebound book with faux Leather cover, in black.
All your favorites are there. If you're a real lovecraft fan this is deffinately for you.
And for a very reasanoble price.
100% recommended, buy now & join us on a truly Dark venture into the world of the one & the only H.P.lovecraft
Beautifully produced edition, but -2 stars for horrible tacky price sticker on the back, 28 Jun 2008
Finally a beautifully produced and complete edition of H.P. Lovecraft's works, but whoever at Gollancz/Orion decided to spoil each book with a tacky price sticker - not even put on straight - that leaves a sticky residue when removed (and believe me, it's tenacious) should be punished by the elder gods, or at least someone senior at the publishers.
|
|
|
 |
The Living Dead
|
Stephen KingJoe HillGeorge R. R. MartinClive BarkerNeil GaimanLaurell K. HamiltonJoe R. LansdalePoppy Z. BriteHarlan EllisonRobert SilverbergKelly LinkSusan Palwick;
;
|
Usually dispatched within 1-2 business days
*Best price found from Amazon Marketplace seller
|
*Amazon: £6.79
|
|
|
|
|
|
 |
|
|
|
Customer Reviews
got it, 20 Nov 2008
just got it will start reading soon :)
i got into a few lines and its quite addictive, niceee :D
Pretty good, 28 Sep 2008
I bought this recently, having never read (but often heard about) Lovecraft and the Cthulhu Mythos.
I'm only about a third of the way through, but it seems pretty good (although the author does seem to have swallowed a thesaurus - and a particularly gibbous and over-nourished one at that, most likely recovered from some Stygian Pit that the mortal mind was not meant to know of). Plus, he does have some rather - ahem - "old fashioned" attitudes to race and class that can seem rather jarring to a modern reader.
This particular edition also does, unfortunately, have a number of typos in the text, some of which ("Necroriomicon", "clay" instead of "day", and "Gthulhu") suggest to me that the publishers had the original text scanned and digitised, but imperfectly. (I'm keeping a note of them as I find them, and will inform the publishers when I've finished the book).
Still, all said, I don't regret getting the book, and if you don't mind those faults, I'd certainly recommend this to anyone interested in the genera.
Just as I remembered!!, 14 Sep 2008
Excellent, worth the wait!! I remember reading this as a child, it's just as good as I remembered. Real Classic stuff!!
I recommend it to anyone looking for some good old creepy stories.
JOIN THE DARKSIDE!!!!, 19 Jul 2008
What can i say that already hasn't been said.
This is truly awesome, a complete collection of lovecraft in a well bound casebound book with faux Leather cover, in black.
All your favorites are there. If you're a real lovecraft fan this is deffinately for you.
And for a very reasanoble price.
100% recommended, buy now & join us on a truly Dark venture into the world of the one & the only H.P.lovecraft
Beautifully produced edition, but -2 stars for horrible tacky price sticker on the back, 28 Jun 2008
Finally a beautifully produced and complete edition of H.P. Lovecraft's works, but whoever at Gollancz/Orion decided to spoil each book with a tacky price sticker - not even put on straight - that leaves a sticky residue when removed (and believe me, it's tenacious) should be punished by the elder gods, or at least someone senior at the publishers.
classic Victorian ghost stories, but no surprises, 12 Aug 2008
A collection of short stories, that can be dipped in and out of. None are particularly long, so there is no need to put aside long periods to really get into it. The stories all seemed a little bit quaint to me, and not that dissimilar. The main characters tend to be middle-aged/aging bachelors, either academics or clergymen, which would be fairly unusual in modern fiction. I cannot say I found any of them particularly chilling, but I enjoyed reading them nonetheless.
An infernal collection, 15 Feb 2007
It's surprising how many of these 30 short stories of ghosts, demons and other infernal trouble-makers seem familiar. I recognised over a dozen of them. "Casting the Runes" was the biggest surprise. It's just 18 pages long and easily recognisable as the original story that one of my favourite films from childhood (which I've been trying to get hold of on DVD for ages - my old video copy of it having worn out) is based upon. The film is called "Night of the Demon" (1957). Several of these stories have been read on BBC Radio 4 and BBC Digital Radio 7 recently and others have been made into films for television. The film of "A View from a Hill" (a mere 7 pages long in this book) was shown on one of the BBC channels only a week or so ago. The films are all excellent, but they can't improve on James's writing. It's hard to put a finger on what is so terrifying about his spooks. Some of them crawl. Anyone opening a door or turning on a light and seeing some strange, cadaverous looking thing crawling down a corridor towards them should certainly scream or faint. Some are hairy with long finger nails. After living through the hairy 60s and 70s, hair holds no fear for me - but those finger nails are a different matter. Some are more along the lines of animated skeletons held together by scraps of mouldering flesh and others are toad-like. I wonder James didn't give himself nightmares -- perhaps he did. You really need to give your imagination free-rein to properly experience the delightful tingle of fear M R James was hoping to generate for his audience. These tales are almost entirely goreless. Readers who prefer the blood and guts sort of horror probably won't enjoy this book. There are no rabid psychos leaping about with veins and gizzards dripping from their teeth. This collection is far more subtle and interesting than that.
An Invitation to the Curious..., 27 Jan 2007
Ruth Rendell once remarked that she wished she had never read M.R. James so that she might have the pleasure of reading him for the first time, and I for one understand exactly what she meant. If you have not yet come across his work either in a complete edition or in anthologies then indeed a treat awaits you. The secret of James success lies not in the portrayal of apparitions but in the consequences of an invasion of the supernatural into the cosy, cloistered academic worlds of his dons and squires who exist very happily in their erudite comfort until that moment when their neat assumptions about the world are shattered by the appearance of the irrational. Although James can create monsters as shocking as anyone, they are always implicit rather than explicit, glimpsed for a fleeting moment as much in the brain as in the eye, the consequences of their presence far more powerful than the manifestation itself. The effect of two different dimensions colliding is all the more powerful here for James was steeped in the ideas and traditions of a nineteenth century scholar's world, and spent his whole life in the kind of parsonages, churches and collegiate institutions that provide the atmospheric setting for so many of these stories. Then there is the writer's flair for evoking character in a few short lines and the humour which emerges from a pen that might seem altogether too weighty to indulge in such levity. Everyone has their own favourite M.R James stories: for excitement my pick would be Casting the Runes, others argue the merits of A Warning to the Curious or Lost Hearts but then again I have a soft spot for An Episode of Cathedral History, as it is the epitome of the virtues listed above. Television has made a number of creditable attempts to adapt these stories but nothing beats the original texts. A pleasure not to be missed.
Overall a chilling collection, 22 Dec 2006
For the most part a chilling collection of short stories based around ghostly experiences. The collection started and ended with strong stories, though I felt a few in the middle of the book were a bit hard going and took too long to get to the point. So pretty good overall.
The defintive horror, 09 Sep 2006
Modern tales of the supernatural contain inane levels of gore and attempt to terrify simply through excess blood etc. One reviewer compares one such author, Stephen King, to James, implying the Hollywood style King illicits more fear and excitement than the old scholar. But it is the very lack of obvious graphic blood letting that makes James infinitely superior. The subtlety is in the long, expertly crafted plots that build up to make James' final revelations all the more disturbing. His actual descriptions of supernatural beings are every bit as terrifying as any King invention and he has perfected the art of implying far more than he states. Sadly many of today's readers don't have the patience for James' intricate tales and need more instant gratification - it is however well worth the wait. James' is the darkest imagination in fiction, i would have been afraid even to pen such thoughts.
|
|
|
 |
|
Backup
Usually dispatched within 1-2 business days
*Best price found from Amazon Marketplace seller
|
*Amazon: £11.87
|
|
|
|
|
|
 |
|
Classic Ghost Stories
Usually dispatched within 1-2 business days
*Best price found from Amazon Marketplace seller
|
*Amazon: £5.79
|
|
|
Customer Reviews
got it, 20 Nov 2008
just got it will start reading soon :)
i got into a few lines and its quite addictive, niceee :D
Pretty good, 28 Sep 2008
I bought this recently, having never read (but often heard about) Lovecraft and the Cthulhu Mythos.
I'm only about a third of the way through, but it seems pretty good (although the author does seem to have swallowed a thesaurus - and a particularly gibbous and over-nourished one at that, most likely recovered from some Stygian Pit that the mortal mind was not meant to know of). Plus, he does have some rather - ahem - "old fashioned" attitudes to race and class that can seem rather jarring to a modern reader.
This particular edition also does, unfortunately, have a number of typos in the text, some of which ("Necroriomicon", "clay" instead of "day", and "Gthulhu") suggest to me that the publishers had the original text scanned and digitised, but imperfectly. (I'm keeping a note of them as I find them, and will inform the publishers when I've finished the book).
Still, all said, I don't regret getting the book, and if you don't mind those faults, I'd certainly recommend this to anyone interested in the genera.
Just as I remembered!!, 14 Sep 2008
Excellent, worth the wait!! I remember reading this as a child, it's just as good as I remembered. Real Classic stuff!!
I recommend it to anyone looking for some good old creepy stories.
JOIN THE DARKSIDE!!!!, 19 Jul 2008
What can i say that already hasn't been said.
This is truly awesome, a complete collection of lovecraft in a well bound casebound book with faux Leather cover, in black.
All your favorites are there. If you're a real lovecraft fan this is deffinately for you.
And for a very reasanoble price.
100% recommended, buy now & join us on a truly Dark venture into the world of the one & the only H.P.lovecraft
Beautifully produced edition, but -2 stars for horrible tacky price sticker on the back, 28 Jun 2008
Finally a beautifully produced and complete edition of H.P. Lovecraft's works, but whoever at Gollancz/Orion decided to spoil each book with a tacky price sticker - not even put on straight - that leaves a sticky residue when removed (and believe me, it's tenacious) should be punished by the elder gods, or at least someone senior at the publishers.
classic Victorian ghost stories, but no surprises, 12 Aug 2008
A collection of short stories, that can be dipped in and out of. None are particularly long, so there is no need to put aside long periods to really get into it. The stories all seemed a little bit quaint to me, and not that dissimilar. The main characters tend to be middle-aged/aging bachelors, either academics or clergymen, which would be fairly unusual in modern fiction. I cannot say I found any of them particularly chilling, but I enjoyed reading them nonetheless.
An infernal collection, 15 Feb 2007
It's surprising how many of these 30 short stories of ghosts, demons and other infernal trouble-makers seem familiar. I recognised over a dozen of them. "Casting the Runes" was the biggest surprise. It's just 18 pages long and easily recognisable as the original story that one of my favourite films from childhood (which I've been trying to get hold of on DVD for ages - my old video copy of it having worn out) is based upon. The film is called "Night of the Demon" (1957). Several of these stories have been read on BBC Radio 4 and BBC Digital Radio 7 recently and others have been made into films for television. The film of "A View from a Hill" (a mere 7 pages long in this book) was shown on one of the BBC channels only a week or so ago. The films are all excellent, but they can't improve on James's writing. It's hard to put a finger on what is so terrifying about his spooks. Some of them crawl. Anyone opening a door or turning on a light and seeing some strange, cadaverous looking thing crawling down a corridor towards them should certainly scream or faint. Some are hairy with long finger nails. After living through the hairy 60s and 70s, hair holds no fear for me - but those finger nails are a different matter. Some are more along the lines of animated skeletons held together by scraps of mouldering flesh and others are toad-like. I wonder James didn't give himself nightmares -- perhaps he did. You really need to give your imagination free-rein to properly experience the delightful tingle of fear M R James was hoping to generate for his audience. These tales are almost entirely goreless. Readers who prefer the blood and guts sort of horror probably won't enjoy this book. There are no rabid psychos leaping about with veins and gizzards dripping from their teeth. This collection is far more subtle and interesting than that.
An Invitation to the Curious..., 27 Jan 2007
Ruth Rendell once remarked that she wished she had never read M.R. James so that she might have the pleasure of reading him for the first time, and I for one understand exactly what she meant. If you have not yet come across his work either in a complete edition or in anthologies then indeed a treat awaits you. The secret of James success lies not in the portrayal of apparitions but in the consequences of an invasion of the supernatural into the cosy, cloistered academic worlds of his dons and squires who exist very happily in their erudite comfort until that moment when their neat assumptions about the world are shattered by the appearance of the irrational. Although James can create monsters as shocking as anyone, they are always implicit rather than explicit, glimpsed for a fleeting moment as much in the brain as in the eye, the consequences of their presence far more powerful than the manifestation itself. The effect of two different dimensions colliding is all the more powerful here for James was steeped in the ideas and traditions of a nineteenth century scholar's world, and spent his whole life in the kind of parsonages, churches and collegiate institutions that provide the atmospheric setting for so many of these stories. Then there is the writer's flair for evoking character in a few short lines and the humour which emerges from a pen that might seem altogether too weighty to indulge in such levity. Everyone has their own favourite M.R James stories: for excitement my pick would be Casting the Runes, others argue the merits of A Warning to the Curious or Lost Hearts but then again I have a soft spot for An Episode of Cathedral History, as it is the epitome of the virtues listed above. Television has made a number of creditable attempts to adapt these stories but nothing beats the original texts. A pleasure not to be missed.
Overall a chilling collection, 22 Dec 2006
For the most part a chilling collection of short stories based around ghostly experiences. The collection started and ended with strong stories, though I felt a few in the middle of the book were a bit hard going and took too long to get to the point. So pretty good overall.
The defintive horror, 09 Sep 2006
Modern tales of the supernatural contain inane levels of gore and attempt to terrify simply through excess blood etc. One reviewer compares one such author, Stephen King, to James, implying the Hollywood style King illicits more fear and excitement than the old scholar. But it is the very lack of obvious graphic blood letting that makes James infinitely superior. The subtlety is in the long, expertly crafted plots that build up to make James' final revelations all the more disturbing. His actual descriptions of supernatural beings are every bit as terrifying as any King invention and he has perfected the art of implying far more than he states. Sadly many of today's readers don't have the patience for James' intricate tales and need more instant gratification - it is however well worth the wait. James' is the darkest imagination in fiction, i would have been afraid even to pen such thoughts.
Who is the reader?, 08 Dec 2007
I was recommended this CD by a friend. I have to confess I was cynical at first but then was hooked very early on. The tales themselves are enough to chill the spine but the reader, Stephen Critchlow, certainly created the atmosphere. He has a wonderfully enticing and hypnotic voice which I think is perfect for such a medium as horror. I was transfixed and even pulled over on the M3 to listen to the end.Why isn't Stephen Critchlow a household name? More please....
I love being scared !, 05 Dec 2007
These stories are wonderfully scary. Congratulations to Stephen Critchlow, he is a Master of the genre. He must be a really scary person... well done. I look forward to more of his work.
SCARY STUFF, 05 Dec 2007
This is a spinetingler indeed - the readers meliflouous voice takes us into the dark side of our souls.....just great!
Truly Scary, 04 Dec 2007
This was recommended by a friend for its atmospheric presentation and I was not disappointed! To hear the stories told in this way is certainly more spine-tingling than reading for yourself. Perfect for dark winter nights, but you may not want to listen alone...
|
|
|
 |
|
|
|
Customer Reviews
got it, 20 Nov 2008
just got it will start reading soon :)
i got into a few lines and its quite addictive, niceee :D
Pretty good, 28 Sep 2008
I bought this recently, having never read (but often heard about) Lovecraft and the Cthulhu Mythos.
I'm only about a third of the way through, but it seems pretty good (although the author does seem to have swallowed a thesaurus - and a particularly gibbous and over-nourished one at that, most likely recovered from some Stygian Pit that the mortal mind was not meant to know of). Plus, he does have some rather - ahem - "old fashioned" attitudes to race and class that can seem rather jarring to a modern reader.
This particular edition also does, unfortunately, have a number of typos in the text, some of which ("Necroriomicon", "clay" instead of "day", and "Gthulhu") suggest to me that the publishers had the original text scanned and digitised, but imperfectly. (I'm keeping a note of them as I find them, and will inform the publishers when I've finished the book).
Still, all said, I don't regret getting the book, and if you don't mind those faults, I'd certainly recommend this to anyone interested in the genera.
Just as I remembered!!, 14 Sep 2008
Excellent, worth the wait!! I remember reading this as a child, it's just as good as I remembered. Real Classic stuff!!
I recommend it to anyone looking for some good old creepy stories.
JOIN THE DARKSIDE!!!!, 19 Jul 2008
What can i say that already hasn't been said.
This is truly awesome, a complete collection of lovecraft in a well bound casebound book with faux Leather cover, in black.
All your favorites are there. If you're a real lovecraft fan this is deffinately for you.
And for a very reasanoble price.
100% recommended, buy now & join us on a truly Dark venture into the world of the one & the only H.P.lovecraft
Beautifully produced edition, but -2 stars for horrible tacky price sticker on the back, 28 Jun 2008
Finally a beautifully produced and complete edition of H.P. Lovecraft's works, but whoever at Gollancz/Orion decided to spoil each book with a tacky price sticker - not even put on straight - that leaves a sticky residue when removed (and believe me, it's tenacious) should be punished by the elder gods, or at least someone senior at the publishers.
classic Victorian ghost stories, but no surprises, 12 Aug 2008
A collection of short stories, that can be dipped in and out of. None are particularly long, so there is no need to put aside long periods to really get into it. The stories all seemed a little bit quaint to me, and not that dissimilar. The main characters tend to be middle-aged/aging bachelors, either academics or clergymen, which would be fairly unusual in modern fiction. I cannot say I found any of them particularly chilling, but I enjoyed reading them nonetheless.
An infernal collection, 15 Feb 2007
It's surprising how many of these 30 short stories of ghosts, demons and other infernal trouble-makers seem familiar. I recognised over a dozen of them. "Casting the Runes" was the biggest surprise. It's just 18 pages long and easily recognisable as the original story that one of my favourite films from childhood (which I've been trying to get hold of on DVD for ages - my old video copy of it having worn out) is based upon. The film is called "Night of the Demon" (1957). Several of these stories have been read on BBC Radio 4 and BBC Digital Radio 7 recently and others have been made into films for television. The film of "A View from a Hill" (a mere 7 pages long in this book) was shown on one of the BBC channels only a week or so ago. The films are all excellent, but they can't improve on James's writing. It's hard to put a finger on what is so terrifying about his spooks. Some of them crawl. Anyone opening a door or turning on a light and seeing some strange, cadaverous looking thing crawling down a corridor towards them should certainly scream or faint. Some are hairy with long finger nails. After living through the hairy 60s and 70s, hair holds no fear for me - but those finger nails are a different matter. Some are more along the lines of animated skeletons held together by scraps of mouldering flesh and others are toad-like. I wonder James didn't give himself nightmares -- perhaps he did. You really need to give your imagination free-rein to properly experience the delightful tingle of fear M R James was hoping to generate for his audience. These tales are almost entirely goreless. Readers who prefer the blood and guts sort of horror probably won't enjoy this book. There are no rabid psychos leaping about with veins and gizzards dripping from their teeth. This collection is far more subtle and interesting than that.
An Invitation to the Curious..., 27 Jan 2007
Ruth Rendell once remarked that she wished she had never read M.R. James so that she might have the pleasure of reading him for the first time, and I for one understand exactly what she meant. If you have not yet come across his work either in a complete edition or in anthologies then indeed a treat awaits you. The secret of James success lies not in the portrayal of apparitions but in the consequences of an invasion of the supernatural into the cosy, cloistered academic worlds of his dons and squires who exist very happily in their erudite comfort until that moment when their neat assumptions about the world are shattered by the appearance of the irrational. Although James can create monsters as shocking as anyone, they are always implicit rather than explicit, glimpsed for a fleeting moment as much in the brain as in the eye, the consequences of their presence far more powerful than the manifestation itself. The effect of two different dimensions colliding is all the more powerful here for James was steeped in the ideas and traditions of a nineteenth century scholar's world, and spent his whole life in the kind of parsonages, churches and collegiate institutions that provide the atmospheric setting for so many of these stories. Then there is the writer's flair for evoking character in a few short lines and the humour which emerges from a pen that might seem altogether too weighty to indulge in such levity. Everyone has their own favourite M.R James stories: for excitement my pick would be Casting the Runes, others argue the merits of A Warning to the Curious or Lost Hearts but then again I have a soft spot for An Episode of Cathedral History, as it is the epitome of the virtues listed above. Television has made a number of creditable attempts to adapt these stories but nothing beats the original texts. A pleasure not to be missed.
Overall a chilling collection, 22 Dec 2006
For the most part a chilling collection of short stories based around ghostly experiences. The collection started and ended with strong stories, though I felt a few in the middle of the book were a bit hard going and took too long to get to the point. So pretty good overall.
The defintive horror, 09 Sep 2006
Modern tales of the supernatural contain inane levels of gore and attempt to terrify simply through excess blood etc. One reviewer compares one such author, Stephen King, to James, implying the Hollywood style King illicits more fear and excitement than the old scholar. But it is the very lack of obvious graphic blood letting that makes James infinitely superior. The subtlety is in the long, expertly crafted plots that build up to make James' final revelations all the more disturbing. His actual descriptions of supernatural beings are every bit as terrifying as any King invention and he has perfected the art of implying far more than he states. Sadly many of today's readers don't have the patience for James' intricate tales and need more instant gratification - it is however well worth the wait. James' is the darkest imagination in fiction, i would have been afraid even to pen such thoughts.
Who is the reader?, 08 Dec 2007
I was recommended this CD by a friend. I have to confess I was cynical at first but then was hooked very early on. The tales themselves are enough to chill the spine but the reader, Stephen Critchlow, certainly created the atmosphere. He has a wonderfully enticing and hypnotic voice which I think is perfect for such a medium as horror. I was transfixed and even pulled over on the M3 to listen to the end.Why isn't Stephen Critchlow a household name? More please....
I love being scared !, 05 Dec 2007
These stories are wonderfully scary. Congratulations to Stephen Critchlow, he is a Master of the genre. He must be a really scary person... well done. I look forward to more of his work.
SCARY STUFF, 05 Dec 2007
This is a spinetingler indeed - the readers meliflouous voice takes us into the dark side of our souls.....just great!
Truly Scary, 04 Dec 2007
This was recommended by a friend for its atmospheric presentation and I was not disappointed! To hear the stories told in this way is certainly more spine-tingling than reading for yourself. Perfect for dark winter nights, but you may not want to listen alone...
For the completeists..., 17 Nov 2008
This is essential to get all of Lovecraft's stories.
For some reason, the three excellent omnibuses (omnibi ?)('Omnibus 1: At the Mountains of Madness and Other Novels of Terror', 'Omnibus 2: Dagon and Other Macabre Tales' and 'Omnibus 3: Haunter of the Dark and Other Tales') don't include the short story 'Cool Air'.
These four books together are the complete stories.
Amazing stuff from the Master of Horror, 30 Aug 2007
Forget Stephen King, Lovecraft IS the true master of horror.
Ok, some stories may be just oniric ramblings like Celephais or Festival, but never has anyone scared me so much over so few pages and for every lemon of a story there are four peaches, and that is good trade off.
Even though Lovecraft draws on monsters and phantastical creatures to conduct his stories, it is more often than not the consequences and the implications of their existence rather than the creatures themselves that create the sense of fear when reading the stories.
And again, in contrast with Stephen King, a 400 page novel cannot be scary nearly by definition. But condense it all on 12 and simply do not read them before switching off the light, after all, beware of the Whisperer in the Darkness...
Great varied collection, 19 Jul 2007
This collection contains some quite different stories, from Arthur Jermyn (of opening paragraph fame: Life is a hideous thing), The Picture in the House (takes place in a modest and quiet New England farm house, but the mere sight of such dwellings always fills the author with extraordinary horror), Herbert West (eventually torn to pieces by legions newly out of the tomb lead by a certain resurrected Thing waxen head in hand orchestrating the ceremonious clawing asunder of the mad scientist responsible for animating their corpses) to the excellent and really uncanny "Whisperer in Darkness" and the unbelievable "The Shadow over Innsmouth". Well worth it.
Horror Fiction at it's finest, 20 Apr 2007
Howard Phillips Lovecraft (1890-1937) is a name synonomous with most horror fiction fans; and one can easily see why once one reading the first few sentences of his beautiful prose.
Most of the stories contained in this teriffic compilation are of 'short' veriety - with some noticeably lengthier. They deal with all sorts of strange beasts and ideas; from creepy old men in the backwoods of New England, Zombies, unseen ghouls and massive god-like monsters.
Of course, these stories would hold up without the assistance of explanatary notes which occuply the end of this particular volume; however, editor ST Joshi's notes complement these stories brillinatly, providing an interesting backstory on some of the more curious passages, and offer exhaustive information on the inspiration for the fiction.
Joshi's introduction is also excellent, offering a short biography of Lovecraft's brief and tragic life.
Even though Lovecraft's fiction has been collected in various other volumes for dacades, this (along with 'Thing on the Doorstep' and 'Dreams in the Witch House') is the difinative version of the stories collected in this volume, and it will offer hours of reading pleasure.
Rather dull, 03 Oct 2006
Don't get me wrong, I think Lovecraft a talented writer able to create atmosphere and set the scene. For me though, the main problem is the stories themselves, they are just not terribly interesting, convincing or entertaining. I guess if you are a fan of MR James and the like you'll probably enjoy this. For myself, it all left me rather cold and with no great desire to read any more of his work.
|
|
|
 |
|
|
Customer Reviews
got it, 20 Nov 2008
just got it will start reading soon :)
i got into a few lines and its quite addictive, niceee :D
Pretty good, 28 Sep 2008
I bought this recently, having never read (but often heard about) Lovecraft and the Cthulhu Mythos.
I'm only about a third of the way through, but it seems pretty good (although the author does seem to have swallowed a thesaurus - and a particularly gibbous and over-nourished one at that, most likely recovered from some Stygian Pit that the mortal mind was not meant to know of). Plus, he does have some rather - ahem - "old fashioned" attitudes to race and class that can seem rather jarring to a modern reader.
This particular edition also does, unfortunately, have a number of typos in the text, some of which ("Necroriomicon", "clay" instead of "day", and "Gthulhu") suggest to me that the publishers had the original text scanned and digitised, but imperfectly. (I'm keeping a note of them as I find them, and will inform the publishers when I've finished the book).
Still, all said, I don't regret getting the book, and if you don't mind those faults, I'd certainly recommend this to anyone interested in the genera.
Just as I remembered!!, 14 Sep 2008
Excellent, worth the wait!! I remember reading this as a child, it's just as good as I remembered. Real Classic stuff!!
I recommend it to anyone looking for some good old creepy stories. JOIN THE DARKSIDE!!!!, 19 Jul 2008
What can i say that already hasn't been said.
This is truly awesome, a complete collection of lovecraft in a well bound casebound book with faux Leather cover, in black.
All your favorites are there. If you're a real lovecraft fan this is deffinately for you.
And for a very reasanoble price.
100% recommended, buy now & join us on a truly Dark venture into the world of the one & the only H.P.lovecraft
Beautifully produced edition, but -2 stars for horrible tacky price sticker on the back, 28 Jun 2008
Finally a beautifully produced and complete edition of H.P. Lovecraft's works, but whoever at Gollancz/Orion decided to spoil each book with a tacky price sticker - not even put on straight - that leaves a sticky residue when removed (and believe me, it's tenacious) should be punished by the elder gods, or at least someone senior at the publishers. classic Victorian ghost stories, but no surprises, 12 Aug 2008
A collection of short stories, that can be dipped in and out of. None are particularly long, so there is no need to put aside long periods to really get into it. The stories all seemed a little bit quaint to me, and not that dissimilar. The main characters tend to be middle-aged/aging bachelors, either academics or clergymen, which would be fairly unusual in modern fiction. I cannot say I found any of them particularly chilling, but I enjoyed reading them nonetheless. An infernal collection, 15 Feb 2007
It's surprising how many of these 30 short stories of ghosts, demons and other infernal trouble-makers seem familiar. I recognised over a dozen of them. "Casting the Runes" was the biggest surprise. It's just 18 pages long and easily recognisable as the original story that one of my favourite films from childhood (which I've been trying to get hold of on DVD for ages - my old video copy of it having worn out) is based upon. The film is called "Night of the Demon" (1957). Several of these stories have been read on BBC Radio 4 and BBC Digital Radio 7 recently and others have been made into films for television. The film of "A View from a Hill" (a mere 7 pages long in this book) was shown on one of the BBC channels only a week or so ago. The films are all excellent, but they can't improve on James's writing. It's hard to put a finger on what is so terrifying about his spooks. Some of them crawl. Anyone opening a door or turning on a light and seeing some strange, cadaverous looking thing crawling down a corridor towards them should certainly scream or faint. Some are hairy with long finger nails. After living through the hairy 60s and 70s, hair holds no fear for me - but those finger nails are a different matter. Some are more along the lines of animated skeletons held together by scraps of mouldering flesh and others are toad-like. I wonder James didn't give himself nightmares -- perhaps he did. You really need to give your imagination free-rein to properly experience the delightful tingle of fear M R James was hoping to generate for his audience. These tales are almost entirely goreless. Readers who prefer the blood and guts sort of horror probably won't enjoy this book. There are no rabid psychos leaping about with veins and gizzards dripping from their teeth. This collection is far more subtle and interesting than that.
An Invitation to the Curious..., 27 Jan 2007
Ruth Rendell once remarked that she wished she had never read M.R. James so that she might have the pleasure of reading him for the first time, and I for one understand exactly what she meant. If you have not yet come across his work either in a complete edition or in anthologies then indeed a treat awaits you. The secret of James success lies not in the portrayal of apparitions but in the consequences of an invasion of the supernatural into the cosy, cloistered academic worlds of his dons and squires who exist very happily in their erudite comfort until that moment when their neat assumptions about the world are shattered by the appearance of the irrational. Although James can create monsters as shocking as anyone, they are always implicit rather than explicit, glimpsed for a fleeting moment as much in the brain as in the eye, the consequences of their presence far more powerful than the manifestation itself. The effect of two different dimensions colliding is all the more powerful here for James was steeped in the ideas and traditions of a nineteenth century scholar's world, and spent his whole life in the kind of parsonages, churches and collegiate institutions that provide the atmospheric setting for so many of these stories. Then there is the writer's flair for evoking character in a few short lines and the humour which emerges from a pen that might seem altogether too weighty to indulge in such levity. Everyone has their own favourite M.R James stories: for excitement my pick would be Casting the Runes, others argue the merits of A Warning to the Curious or Lost Hearts but then again I have a soft spot for An Episode of Cathedral History, as it is the epitome of the virtues listed above. Television has made a number of creditable attempts to adapt these stories but nothing beats the original texts. A pleasure not to be missed. Overall a chilling collection, 22 Dec 2006
For the most part a chilling collection of short stories based around ghostly experiences. The collection started and ended with strong stories, though I felt a few in the middle of the book were a bit hard going and took too long to get to the point. So pretty good overall.
The defintive horror, 09 Sep 2006
Modern tales of the supernatural contain inane levels of gore and attempt to terrify simply through excess blood etc. One reviewer compares one such author, Stephen King, to James, implying the Hollywood style King illicits more fear and excitement than the old scholar. But it is the very lack of obvious graphic blood letting that makes James infinitely superior. The subtlety is in the long, expertly crafted plots that build up to make James' final revelations all the more disturbing. His actual descriptions of supernatural beings are every bit as terrifying as any King invention and he has perfected the art of implying far more than he states. Sadly many of today's readers don't have the patience for James' intricate tales and need more instant gratification - it is however well worth the wait. James' is the darkest imagination in fiction, i would have been afraid even to pen such thoughts. Who is the reader?, 08 Dec 2007
I was recommended this CD by a friend. I have to confess I was cynical at first but then was hooked very early on. The tales themselves are enough to chill the spine but the reader, Stephen Critchlow, certainly created the atmosphere. He has a wonderfully enticing and hypnotic voice which I think is perfect for such a medium as horror. I was transfixed and even pulled over on the M3 to listen to the end.Why isn't Stephen Critchlow a household name? More please.... I love being scared !, 05 Dec 2007
These stories are wonderfully scary. Congratulations to Stephen Critchlow, he is a Master of the genre. He must be a really scary person... well done. I look forward to more of his work. SCARY STUFF, 05 Dec 2007
This is a spinetingler indeed - the readers meliflouous voice takes us into the dark side of our souls.....just great! Truly Scary, 04 Dec 2007
This was recommended by a friend for its atmospheric presentation and I was not disappointed! To hear the stories told in this way is certainly more spine-tingling than reading for yourself. Perfect for dark winter nights, but you may not want to listen alone... For the completeists..., 17 Nov 2008
This is essential to get all of Lovecraft's stories.
For some reason, the three excellent omnibuses (omnibi ?)('Omnibus 1: At the Mountains of Madness and Other Novels of Terror', 'Omnibus 2: Dagon and Other Macabre Tales' and 'Omnibus 3: Haunter of the Dark and Other Tales') don't include the short story 'Cool Air'.
These four books together are the complete stories. Amazing stuff from the Master of Horror, 30 Aug 2007
Forget Stephen King, Lovecraft IS the true master of horror.
Ok, some stories may be just oniric ramblings like Celephais or Festival, but never has anyone scared me so much over so few pages and for every lemon of a story there are four peaches, and that is good trade off.
Even though Lovecraft draws on monsters and phantastical creatures to conduct his stories, it is more often than not the consequences and the implications of their existence rather than the creatures themselves that create the sense of fear when reading the stories.
And again, in contrast with Stephen King, a 400 page novel cannot be scary nearly by definition. But condense it all on 12 and simply do not read them before switching off the light, after all, beware of the Whisperer in the Darkness...
Great varied collection, 19 Jul 2007
This collection contains some quite different stories, from Arthur Jermyn (of opening paragraph fame: Life is a hideous thing), The Picture in the House (takes place in a modest and quiet New England farm house, but the mere sight of such dwellings always fills the author with extraordinary horror), Herbert West (eventually torn to pieces by legions newly out of the tomb lead by a certain resurrected Thing waxen head in hand orchestrating the ceremonious clawing asunder of the mad scientist responsible for animating their corpses) to the excellent and really uncanny "Whisperer in Darkness" and the unbelievable "The Shadow over Innsmouth". Well worth it. Horror Fiction at it's finest, 20 Apr 2007
Howard Phillips Lovecraft (1890-1937) is a name synonomous with most horror fiction fans; and one can easily see why once one reading the first few sentences of his beautiful prose.
Most of the stories contained in this teriffic compilation are of 'short' veriety - with some noticeably lengthier. They deal with all sorts of strange beasts and ideas; from creepy old men in the backwoods of New England, Zombies, unseen ghouls and massive god-like monsters.
Of course, these stories would hold up without the assistance of explanatary notes which occuply the end of this particular volume; however, editor ST Joshi's notes complement these stories brillinatly, providing an interesting backstory on some of the more curious passages, and offer exhaustive information on the inspiration for the fiction.
Joshi's introduction is also excellent, offering a short biography of Lovecraft's brief and tragic life.
Even though Lovecraft's fiction has been collected in various other volumes for dacades, this (along with 'Thing on the Doorstep' and 'Dreams in the Witch House') is the difinative version of the stories collected in this volume, and it will offer hours of reading pleasure. Rather dull, 03 Oct 2006
Don't get me wrong, I think Lovecraft a talented writer able to create atmosphere and set the scene. For me though, the main problem is the stories themselves, they are just not terribly interesting, convincing or entertaining. I guess if you are a fan of MR James and the like you'll probably enjoy this. For myself, it all left me rather cold and with no great desire to read any more of his work. Short and Sweet Surrealism, 01 Aug 2007
If you are drawn to surrealist work you will definitely enjoy this book. The stories have been written as a collection of gothic tales, but I found myself laughing at the tragedy of it all most of the time! Well written, warped literature. Poe's Tales, 22 Jan 2006
In terms of this anthology in particular, all of Poe's well-known stories seem to be there, including 'The Pit & The Pendulum' and 'The Tell-Tale Heart.' However, Poe's frequent use of foreign languages in his stories can spoil enjoyment, and on at least two occasions I could not fully grasp the ending of a story because no translation to these languages was given in this edition. This is a particular concern for the opening story, 'Duc de L'Omelette'. In terms of Poe's writing, my opinion is divided. His stories (those in this book, at least), seem to be either his famous tales of terror or more essay-type pieces. The tales of terror, especially 'The Pit & the Pendulum' and 'The Cask of Amontillado', are very well-written and I enjoyed them a lot. However, a number of his stories are more like essays and these can be hard to follow in the old-fashioned language Poe used and, if you are unaccustomed to Poe, can leave you waiting forever for the story to begin. Overall, I enjoyed Poe's writings supplied here and they grew on me as I became more used to his style, but they are not as scary nor as easy to follow as more modern tales.
|
|
|
 |
|
Different Seasons
Usually dispatched within 1-2 business days
*Best price found from Amazon Marketplace seller
|
*Amazon: £4.36
|
|
Product Description
Different Seasons is a collection of four novellas, markedly different in tone and subject, each on the theme of a journey. The first is a rich, satisfying, non-horrific tale about an innocent man who carefully nurtures hope and devises a wily scheme to escape from prison. The second concerns a boy who discards his innocence by enticing an old man to travel with him into a reawakening of long-buried evil. In the third story, a writer looks back on the trek he took with three friends on the brink of adolescence to find another boy's corpse. The trip becomes a character-rich rite of passage from youth to maturity. These first three novellas have been made into well-received movies: Rita Hayworth and Shawshank Redemption into Frank Darabont's 1994 The Shawshank Redemption, Apt Pupil into Bryan Singer's 1998 film Apt Pupil, and The Body into Rob Reiner's Stand by Me (1986). The final novella, Breathing Lessons is a horror yarn told by a doctor, about a patient whose indomitable spirit keeps her baby alive under extraordinary circumstances. It's the tightest, most polished tale in the collection. --Fiona Webster
Customer Reviews
got it, 20 Nov 2008
just got it will start reading soon :)
i got into a few lines and its quite addictive, niceee :D
Pretty good, 28 Sep 2008
I bought this recently, having never read (but often heard about) Lovecraft and the Cthulhu Mythos.
I'm only about a third of the way through, but it seems pretty good (although the author does seem to have swallowed a thesaurus - and a particularly gibbous and over-nourished one at that, most likely recovered from some Stygian Pit that the mortal mind was not meant to know of). Plus, he does have some rather - ahem - "old fashioned" attitudes to race and class that can seem rather jarring to a modern reader.
This particular edition also does, unfortunately, have a number of typos in the text, some of which ("Necroriomicon", "clay" instead of "day", and "Gthulhu") suggest to me that the publishers had the original text scanned and digitised, but imperfectly. (I'm keeping a note of them as I find them, and will inform the publishers when I've finished the book).
Still, all said, I don't regret getting the book, and if you don't mind those faults, I'd certainly recommend this to anyone interested in the genera.
Just as I remembered!!, 14 Sep 2008
Excellent, worth the wait!! I remember reading this as a child, it's just as good as I remembered. Real Classic stuff!!
I recommend it to anyone looking for some good old creepy stories. JOIN THE DARKSIDE!!!!, 19 Jul 2008
What can i say that already hasn't been said.
This is truly awesome, a complete collection of lovecraft in a well bound casebound book with faux Leather cover, in black.
All your favorites are there. If you're a real lovecraft fan this is deffinately for you.
And for a very reasanoble price.
100% recommended, buy now & join us on a truly Dark venture into the world of the one & the only H.P.lovecraft
Beautifully produced edition, but -2 stars for horrible tacky price sticker on the back, 28 Jun 2008
Finally a beautifully produced and complete edition of H.P. Lovecraft's works, but whoever at Gollancz/Orion decided to spoil each book with a tacky price sticker - not even put on straight - that leaves a sticky residue when removed (and believe me, it's tenacious) should be punished by the elder gods, or at least someone senior at the publishers. classic Victorian ghost stories, but no surprises, 12 Aug 2008
A collection of short stories, that can be dipped in and out of. None are particularly long, so there is no need to put aside long periods to really get into it. The stories all seemed a little bit quaint to me, and not that dissimilar. The main characters tend to be middle-aged/aging bachelors, either academics or clergymen, which would be fairly unusual in modern fiction. I cannot say I found any of them particularly chilling, but I enjoyed reading them nonetheless. An infernal collection, 15 Feb 2007
It's surprising how many of these 30 short stories of ghosts, demons and other infernal trouble-makers seem familiar. I recognised over a dozen of them. "Casting the Runes" was the biggest surprise. It's just 18 pages long and easily recognisable as the original story that one of my favourite films from childhood (which I've been trying to get hold of on DVD for ages - my old video copy of it having worn out) is based upon. The film is called "Night of the Demon" (1957). Several of these stories have been read on BBC Radio 4 and BBC Digital Radio 7 recently and others have been made into films for television. The film of "A View from a Hill" (a mere 7 pages long in this book) was shown on one of the BBC channels only a week or so ago. The films are all excellent, but they can't improve on James's writing. It's hard to put a finger on what is so terrifying about his spooks. Some of them crawl. Anyone opening a door or turning on a light and seeing some strange, cadaverous looking thing crawling down a corridor towards them should certainly scream or faint. Some are hairy with long finger nails. After living through the hairy 60s and 70s, hair holds no fear for me - but those finger nails are a different matter. Some are more along the lines of animated skeletons held together by scraps of mouldering flesh and others are toad-like. I wonder James didn't give himself nightmares -- perhaps he did. You really need to give your imagination free-rein to properly experience the delightful tingle of fear M R James was hoping to generate for his audience. These tales are almost entirely goreless. Readers who prefer the blood and guts sort of horror probably won't enjoy this book. There are no rabid psychos leaping about with veins and gizzards dripping from their teeth. This collection is far more subtle and interesting than that.
An Invitation to the Curious..., 27 Jan 2007
Ruth Rendell once remarked that she wished she had never read M.R. James so that she might have the pleasure of reading him for the first time, and I for one understand exactly what she meant. If you have not yet come across his work either in a complete edition or in anthologies then indeed a treat awaits you. The secret of James success lies not in the portrayal of apparitions but in the consequences of an invasion of the supernatural into the cosy, cloistered academic worlds of his dons and squires who exist very happily in their erudite comfort until that moment when their neat assumptions about the world are shattered by the appearance of the irrational. Although James can create monsters as shocking as anyone, they are always implicit rather than explicit, glimpsed for a fleeting moment as much in the brain as in the eye, the consequences of their presence far more powerful than the manifestation itself. The effect of two different dimensions colliding is all the more powerful here for James was steeped in the ideas and traditions of a nineteenth century scholar's world, and spent his whole life in the kind of parsonages, churches and collegiate institutions that provide the atmospheric setting for so many of these stories. Then there is the writer's flair for evoking character in a few short lines and the humour which emerges from a pen that might seem altogether too weighty to indulge in such levity. Everyone has their own favourite M.R James stories: for excitement my pick would be Casting the Runes, others argue the merits of A Warning to the Curious or Lost Hearts but then again I have a soft spot for An Episode of Cathedral History, as it is the epitome of the virtues listed above. Television has made a number of creditable attempts to adapt these stories but nothing beats the original texts. A pleasure not to be missed. Overall a chilling collection, 22 Dec 2006
For the most part a chilling collection of short stories based around ghostly experiences. The collection started and ended with strong stories, though I felt a few in the middle of the book were a bit hard going and took too long to get to the point. So pretty good overall.
The defintive horror, 09 Sep 2006
Modern tales of the supernatural contain inane levels of gore and attempt to terrify simply through excess blood etc. One reviewer compares one such author, Stephen King, to James, implying the Hollywood style King illicits more fear and excitement than the old scholar. But it is the very lack of obvious graphic blood letting that makes James infinitely superior. The subtlety is in the long, expertly crafted plots that build up to make James' final revelations all the more disturbing. His actual descriptions of supernatural beings are every bit as terrifying as any King invention and he has perfected the art of implying far more than he states. Sadly many of today's readers don't have the patience for James' intricate tales and need more instant gratification - it is however well worth the wait. James' is the darkest imagination in fiction, i would have been afraid even to pen such thoughts. Who is the reader?, 08 Dec 2007
I was recommended this CD by a friend. I have to confess I was cynical at first but then was hooked very early on. The tales themselves are enough to chill the spine but the reader, Stephen Critchlow, certainly created the atmosphere. He has a wonderfully enticing and hypnotic voice which I think is perfect for such a medium as horror. I was transfixed and even pulled over on the M3 to listen to the end.Why isn't Stephen Critchlow a household name? More please.... I love being scared !, 05 Dec 2007
These stories are wonderfully scary. Congratulations to Stephen Critchlow, he is a Master of the genre. He must be a really scary person... well done. I look forward to more of his work. SCARY STUFF, 05 Dec 2007
This is a spinetingler indeed - the readers meliflouous voice takes us into the dark side of our souls.....just great! Truly Scary, 04 Dec 2007
This was recommended by a friend for its atmospheric presentation and I was not disappointed! To hear the stories told in this way is certainly more spine-tingling than reading for yourself. Perfect for dark winter nights, but you may not want to listen alone... For the completeists..., 17 Nov 2008
This is essential to get all of Lovecraft's stories.
For some reason, the three excellent omnibuses (omnibi ?)('Omnibus 1: At the Mountains of Madness and Other Novels of Terror', 'Omnibus 2: Dagon and Other Macabre Tales' and 'Omnibus 3: Haunter of the Dark and Other Tales') don't include the short story 'Cool Air'.
These four books together are the complete stories. Amazing stuff from the Master of Horror, 30 Aug 2007
Forget Stephen King, Lovecraft IS the true master of horror.
Ok, some stories may be just oniric ramblings like Celephais or Festival, but never has anyone scared me so much over so few pages and for every lemon of a story there are four peaches, and that is good trade off.
Even though Lovecraft draws on monsters and phantastical creatures to conduct his stories, it is more often than not the consequences and the implications of their existence rather than the creatures themselves that create the sense of fear when reading the stories.
And again, in contrast with Stephen King, a 400 page novel cannot be scary nearly by definition. But condense it all on 12 and simply do not read them before switching off the light, after all, beware of the Whisperer in the Darkness...
Great varied collection, 19 Jul 2007
This collection contains some quite different stories, from Arthur Jermyn (of opening paragraph fame: Life is a hideous thing), The Picture in the House (takes place in a modest and quiet New England farm house, but the mere sight of such dwellings always fills the author with extraordinary horror), Herbert West (eventually torn to pieces by legions newly out of the tomb lead by a certain resurrected Thing waxen head in hand orchestrating the ceremonious clawing asunder of the mad scientist responsible for animating their corpses) to the excellent and really uncanny "Whisperer in Darkness" and the unbelievable "The Shadow over Innsmouth". Well worth it. Horror Fiction at it's finest, 20 Apr 2007
Howard Phillips Lovecraft (1890-1937) is a name synonomous with most horror fiction fans; and one can easily see why once one reading the first few sentences of his beautiful prose.
Most of the stories contained in this teriffic compilation are of 'short' veriety - with some noticeably lengthier. They deal with all sorts of strange beasts and ideas; from creepy old men in the backwoods of New England, Zombies, unseen ghouls and massive god-like monsters.
Of course, these stories would hold up without the assistance of explanatary notes which occuply the end of this particular volume; however, editor ST Joshi's notes complement these stories brillinatly, providing an interesting backstory on some of the more curious passages, and offer exhaustive information on the inspiration for the fiction.
Joshi's introduction is also excellent, offering a short biography of Lovecraft's brief and tragic life.
Even though Lovecraft's fiction has been collected in various other volumes for dacades, this (along with 'Thing on the Doorstep' and 'Dreams in the Witch House') is the difinative version of the stories collected in this volume, and it will offer hours of reading pleasure. Rather dull, 03 Oct 2006
Don't get me wrong, I think Lovecraft a talented writer able to create atmosphere and set the scene. For me though, the main problem is the stories themselves, they are just not terribly interesting, convincing or entertaining. I guess if you are a fan of MR James and the like you'll probably enjoy this. For myself, it all left me rather cold and with no great desire to read any more of his work. Short and Sweet Surrealism, 01 Aug 2007
If you are drawn to surrealist work you will definitely enjoy this book. The stories have been written as a collection of gothic tales, but I found myself laughing at the tragedy of it all most of the time! Well written, warped literature. Poe's Tales, 22 Jan 2006
In terms of this anthology in particular, all of Poe's well-known stories seem to be there, including 'The Pit & The Pendulum' and 'The Tell-Tale Heart.' However, Poe's frequent use of foreign languages in his stories can spoil enjoyment, and on at least two occasions I could not fully grasp the ending of a story because no translation to these languages was given in this edition. This is a particular concern for the opening story, 'Duc de L'Omelette'. In terms of Poe's writing, my opinion is divided. His stories (those in this book, at least), seem to be either his famous tales of terror or more essay-type pieces. The tales of terror, especially 'The Pit & the Pendulum' and 'The Cask of Amontillado', are very well-written and I enjoyed them a lot. However, a number of his stories are more like essays and these can be hard to follow in the old-fashioned language Poe used and, if you are unaccustomed to Poe, can leave you waiting forever for the story to begin. Overall, I enjoyed Poe's writings supplied here and they grew on me as I became more used to his style, but they are not as scary nor as easy to follow as more modern tales.
Amazing, 26 Nov 2008
This is one of my favourite books.
We have four short stories, each around a bit more than 100 pages long and corresponding with the four different seasons. A tale of spring hope, summer corruption, a fall from inocence and a cold winter's tale.
The typical horror story is the one of winter and is chilling, i.e. normal King horror fashion.
But the others are something different altogether.
The horror of the summer story, about a young boy and how his mind is corrupted, you feel in the pit of your stomach. King, never one to shy away from graphic detail, creates a true atmosphere of foreboding in this shocking story.
The tale of spring is astounding, it gives you a true insight into a world anyone who has not been to prison has never seen. It's an inspirational story and leaves a real impact on you.
The Body - the one about autumn/fall - is about four young boys going to discover something morbid and how their journey towards it has a great effect on them. It's a really touching story, and it will move you to an extent that will stay with you forever.
Each of the four stories is narrated in true King manner, the characters being so real it's almost as if you know them personally. A great book.
Incredible Collection, 15 Aug 2008
Different Seasons is a collection of 4 novella's, each rather different but all incredibly well written. The four novella's are 'Rita Hayworth and the Shawshank Redeption', 'The Body', 'Apt Pupil' and 'The Breathing Method'.
The novella's are somewhat different to King's other work. The novella's do have undertone's of horror in them, but horror or the aim to scare the reader is not the point of the collection. Each of the novella's are full of emotion, humour and suspense - which helps create some of King's best work.
'The Body', later made into the popular 'Stand By Me', is my favourite of the novella's. It is a great story of friendship and growing up, which King writes well about in this and in 'It'.
Buy this now!! You won't be dissappointed!
Art of the Novella, 11 Jul 2007
Different Seasons is a collection of 4 novellas, each set in a different season. The stories do not interlink except for a few minor references to each other here and there.
The most notable thing that will first hit you upon reading is that none of the stories are horror, as you may have expected from Stephen King.
What you get are four beautifully crafted individual stories. However, it must be said that each story still does hint upon certain 'horror aspects', but I believe this to only be part of good storytelling and not King slipping into his usual typecast role. The final story 'The Breathing Method' has the strongest connection to horror, being very reminiscent of an Edgar Allan Poe story.
Three of the stories have been made into films, The Shawshank Redemption, The Body (Stand by Me) and Apt Pupil. So the likelihood is that you may have already seen at least one of the adaptations. Do not let this pass you up on reading Different Seasons. Rita Hayworth and the Shawshank Redemption as well as Apt Pupil in novella form are far superior and enjoyable to their movie counterparts.
My personal favourite of the novellas in Different Seasons is Apt Pupil. The sheer human psychological torture and overall bleakness makes an outstanding read. It pushes far beyond what a film of our time would DARE to reference to. I should perhaps warn you of the bleakness you will find whilst reading it. But the human condition is a strange thing, and you will find yourself at times questioning why and how you are being entertained by reading it. Amazing.
Four out of four, 11 Aug 2006
Different Seasons is a collection of 4 novellas, and is notable for seeing King beginning to stretch away from writing just horror tales, though there is certainly enough macabre moments contained here to keep the more bloodthirsty fans happy. `Rita Hayworth and Shawshank Redemption' tells the story of a wrongly convicted murderer and his escape from prison, seemingly a tale told so many times there's nothing more to add, but King transforms this into a beautifully moving character study. `Apt Pupil', while containing no supernatural elements, is certainly close to King's horror territory, being a disturbing a tale about a young boys blackmail of an ex-Nazi concentration camp commandant. A trifle overlong perhaps (this `novella' is around the same length of King's debut novel Carrie) but the bizarre double-blackmail relationship between the two characters is compulsive, and the dispassionate finale is memorable. `The Body' is undoubtedly the highlight of the collection, and certainly one of the best things King has ever written - a thinly-disguised childhood reminiscence fictionalised as a successful authors thinly-disguised childhood reminiscence - it captures brilliantly the coming of age from childhood to adulthood, and features some of King's best prose. Finally `The Breathing Method' is a back to basics old-fashioned horror story - all the basic tropes are familiar genre favourites: the mysterious gentleman's club where Lovecraftian things slither out of sight in upstairs rooms; the Victorian-style Christmas fireside ghost story - but King injects some modern-day grand guignol splatter horror to keep things fresh - slightly ridiculous, but good fun.
With four long stories in different genres, and every one in it's own way is successful, this is an excellent collection, and one of King's best books.
Great Novellas, 26 Jul 2006
If you are in any doubt about the quality of these stories, consider the fact that 3 out of the 4 have been made into films.
Stephen King is known as a horror writer, but these three show that the man is one of the worlds best story tellers. They are not horror stories.
Shawshank as most people will know is a prison story. Some of this is harrowing and upsetting (such that they couldn't show it in the film), but it is essential for the development of the main character and I never thought it was gratutious.
The Body is a story about growing up and Apt Pupil is about a man with black past and his relationship with a young lad. Both are excellent and compelling reading.
The 4th story, which is as good as the other 3, is gripping and original, and a real page turner. This is more of a traditional King horror story, so if you buy Different Seasons you don't miss out completely on the horror front.
Of course what this book amply demonstrates is Kings marvellous story telling abilities, whether he is writing horror or not.
|
|
|
 |
|
|
Customer Reviews
got it, 20 Nov 2008
just got it will start reading soon :)
i got into a few lines and its quite addictive, niceee :D
Pretty good, 28 Sep 2008
I bought this recently, having never read (but often heard about) Lovecraft and the Cthulhu Mythos.
I'm only about a third of the way through, but it seems pretty good (although the author does seem to have swallowed a thesaurus - and a particularly gibbous and over-nourished one at that, most likely recovered from some Stygian Pit that the mortal mind was not meant to know of). Plus, he does have some rather - ahem - "old fashioned" attitudes to race and class that can seem rather jarring to a modern reader.
This particular edition also does, unfortunately, have a number of typos in the text, some of which ("Necroriomicon", "clay" instead of "day", and "Gthulhu") suggest to me that the publishers had the original text scanned and digitised, but imperfectly. (I'm keeping a note of them as I find them, and will inform the publishers when I've finished the book).
Still, all said, I don't regret getting the book, and if you don't mind those faults, I'd certainly recommend this to anyone interested in the genera.
Just as I remembered!!, 14 Sep 2008
Excellent, worth the wait!! I remember reading this as a child, it's just as good as I remembered. Real Classic stuff!!
I recommend it to anyone looking for some good old creepy stories. JOIN THE DARKSIDE!!!!, 19 Jul 2008
What can i say that already hasn't been said.
This is truly awesome, a complete collection of lovecraft in a well bound casebound book with faux Leather cover, in black.
All your favorites are there. If you're a real lovecraft fan this is deffinately for you.
And for a very reasanoble price.
100% recommended, buy now & join us on a truly Dark venture into the world of the one & the only H.P.lovecraft
Beautifully produced edition, but -2 stars for horrible tacky price sticker on the back, 28 Jun 2008
Finally a beautifully produced and complete edition of H.P. Lovecraft's works, but whoever at Gollancz/Orion decided to spoil each book with a tacky price sticker - not even put on straight - that leaves a sticky residue when removed (and believe me, it's tenacious) should be punished by the elder gods, or at least someone senior at the publishers. classic Victorian ghost stories, but no surprises, 12 Aug 2008
A collection of short stories, that can be dipped in and out of. None are particularly long, so there is no need to put aside long periods to really get into it. The stories all seemed a little bit quaint to me, and not that dissimilar. The main characters tend to be middle-aged/aging bachelors, either academics or clergymen, which would be fairly unusual in modern fiction. I cannot say I found any of them particularly chilling, but I enjoyed reading them nonetheless. An infernal collection, 15 Feb 2007
It's surprising how many of these 30 short stories of ghosts, demons and other infernal trouble-makers seem familiar. I recognised over a dozen of them. "Casting the Runes" was the biggest surprise. It's just 18 pages long and easily recognisable as the original story that one of my favourite films from childhood (which I've been trying to get hold of on DVD for ages - my old video copy of it having worn out) is based upon. The film is called "Night of the Demon" (1957). Several of these stories have been read on BBC Radio 4 and BBC Digital Radio 7 recently and others have been made into films for television. The film of "A View from a Hill" (a mere 7 pages long in this book) was shown on one of the BBC channels only a week or so ago. The films are all excellent, but they can't improve on James's writing. It's hard to put a finger on what is so terrifying about his spooks. Some of them crawl. Anyone opening a door or turning on a light and seeing some strange, cadaverous looking thing crawling down a corridor towards them should certainly scream or faint. Some are hairy with long finger nails. After living through the hairy 60s and 70s, hair holds no fear for me - but those finger nails are a different matter. Some are more along the lines of animated skeletons held together by scraps of mouldering flesh and others are toad-like. I wonder James didn't give himself nightmares -- perhaps he did. You really need to give your imagination free-rein to properly experience the delightful tingle of fear M R James was hoping to generate for his audience. These tales are almost entirely goreless. Readers who prefer the blood and guts sort of horror probably won't enjoy this book. There are no rabid psychos leaping about with veins and gizzards dripping from their teeth. This collection is far more subtle and interesting than that.
An Invitation to the Curious..., 27 Jan 2007
Ruth Rendell once remarked that she wished she had never read M.R. James so that she might have the pleasure of reading him for the first time, and I for one understand exactly what she meant. If you have not yet come across his work either in a complete edition or in anthologies then indeed a treat awaits you. The secret of James success lies not in the portrayal of apparitions but in the consequences of an invasion of the supernatural into the cosy, cloistered academic worlds of his dons and squires who exist very happily in their erudite comfort until that moment when their neat assumptions about the world are shattered by the appearance of the irrational. Although James can create monsters as shocking as anyone, they are always implicit rather than explicit, glimpsed for a fleeting moment as much in the brain as in the eye, the consequences of their presence far more powerful than the manifestation itself. The effect of two different dimensions colliding is all the more powerful here for James was steeped in the ideas and traditions of a nineteenth century scholar's world, and spent his whole life in the kind of parsonages, churches and collegiate institutions that provide the atmospheric setting for so many of these stories. Then there is the writer's flair for evoking character in a few short lines and the humour which emerges from a pen that might seem altogether too weighty to indulge in such levity. Everyone has their own favourite M.R James stories: for excitement my pick would be Casting the Runes, others argue the merits of A Warning to the Curious or Lost Hearts but then again I have a soft spot for An Episode of Cathedral History, as it is the epitome of the virtues listed above. Television has made a number of creditable attempts to adapt these stories but nothing beats the original texts. A pleasure not to be missed. Overall a chilling collection, 22 Dec 2006
For the most part a chilling collection of short stories based around ghostly experiences. The collection started and ended with strong stories, though I felt a few in the middle of the book were a bit hard going and took too long to get to the point. So pretty good overall.
The defintive horror, 09 Sep 2006
Modern tales of the supernatural contain inane levels of gore and attempt to terrify simply through excess blood etc. One reviewer compares one such author, Stephen King, to James, implying the Hollywood style King illicits more fear and excitement than the old scholar. But it is the very lack of obvious graphic blood letting that makes James infinitely superior. The subtlety is in the long, expertly crafted plots that build up to make James' final revelations all the more disturbing. His actual descriptions of supernatural beings are every bit as terrifying as any King invention and he has perfected the art of implying far more than he states. Sadly many of today's readers don't have the patience for James' intricate tales and need more instant gratification - it is however well worth the wait. James' is the darkest imagination in fiction, i would have been afraid even to pen such thoughts. Who is the reader?, 08 Dec 2007
I was recommended this CD by a friend. I have to confess I was cynical at first but then was hooked very early on. The tales themselves are enough to chill the spine but the reader, Stephen Critchlow, certainly created the atmosphere. He has a wonderfully enticing and hypnotic voice which I think is perfect for such a medium as horror. I was transfixed and even pulled over on the M3 to listen to the end.Why isn't Stephen Critchlow a household name? More please.... I love being scared !, 05 Dec 2007
These stories are wonderfully scary. Congratulations to Stephen Critchlow, he is a Master of the genre. He must be a really scary person... well done. I look forward to more of his work. SCARY STUFF, 05 Dec 2007
This is a spinetingler indeed - the readers meliflouous voice takes us into the dark side of our souls.....just great! Truly Scary, 04 Dec 2007
This was recommended by a friend for its atmospheric presentation and I was not disappointed! To hear the stories told in this way is certainly more spine-tingling than reading for yourself. Perfect for dark winter nights, but you may not want to listen alone... For the completeists..., 17 Nov 2008
This is essential to get all of Lovecraft's stories.
For some reason, the three excellent omnibuses (omnibi ?)('Omnibus 1: At the Mountains of Madness and Other Novels of Terror', 'Omnibus 2: Dagon and Other Macabre Tales' and 'Omnibus 3: Haunter of the Dark and Other Tales') don't include the short story 'Cool Air'.
These four books together are the complete stories. Amazing stuff from the Master of Horror, 30 Aug 2007
Forget Stephen King, Lovecraft IS the true master of horror.
Ok, some stories may be just oniric ramblings like Celephais or Festival, but never has anyone scared me so much over so few pages and for every lemon of a story there are four peaches, and that is good trade off.
Even though Lovecraft draws on monsters and phantastical creatures to conduct his stories, it is more often than not the consequences and the implications of their existence rather than the creatures themselves that create the sense of fear when reading the stories.
And again, in contrast with Stephen King, a 400 page novel cannot be scary nearly by definition. But condense it all on 12 and simply do not read them before switching off the light, after all, beware of the Whisperer in the Darkness...
Great varied collection, 19 Jul 2007
This collection contains some quite different stories, from Arthur Jermyn (of opening paragraph fame: Life is a hideous thing), The Picture in the House (takes place in a modest and quiet New England farm house, but the mere sight of such dwellings always fills the author with extraordinary horror), Herbert West (eventually torn to pieces by legions newly out of the tomb lead by a certain resurrected Thing waxen head in hand orchestrating the ceremonious clawing asunder of the mad scientist responsible for animating their corpses) to the excellent and really uncanny "Whisperer in Darkness" and the unbelievable "The Shadow over Innsmouth". Well worth it. Horror Fiction at it's finest, 20 Apr 2007
Howard Phillips Lovecraft (1890-1937) is a name synonomous with most horror fiction fans; and one can easily see why once one reading the first few sentences of his beautiful prose.
Most of the stories contained in this teriffic compilation are of 'short' veriety - with some noticeably lengthier. They deal with all sorts of strange beasts and ideas; from creepy old men in the backwoods of New England, Zombies, unseen ghouls and massive god-like monsters.
Of course, these stories would hold up without the assistance of explanatary notes which occuply the end of this particular volume; however, editor ST Joshi's notes complement these stories brillinatly, providing an interesting backstory on some of the more curious passages, and offer exhaustive information on the inspiration for the fiction.
Joshi's introduction is also excellent, offering a short biography of Lovecraft's brief and tragic life.
Even though Lovecraft's fiction has been collected in various other volumes for dacades, this (along with 'Thing on the Doorstep' and 'Dreams in the Witch House') is the difinative version of the stories collected in this volume, and it will offer hours of reading pleasure. Rather dull, 03 Oct 2006
Don't get me wrong, I think Lovecraft a talented writer able to create atmosphere and set the scene. For me though, the main problem is the stories themselves, they are just not terribly interesting, convincing or entertaining. I guess if you are a fan of MR James and the like you'll probably enjoy this. For myself, it all left me rather cold and with no great desire to read any more of his work. Short and Sweet Surrealism, 01 Aug 2007
If you are drawn to surrealist work you will definitely enjoy this book. The stories have been written as a collection of gothic tales, but I found myself laughing at the tragedy of it all most of the time! Well written, warped literature. Poe's Tales, 22 Jan 2006
In terms of this anthology in particular, all of Poe's well-known stories seem to be there, including 'The Pit & The Pendulum' and 'The Tell-Tale Heart.' However, Poe's frequent use of foreign languages in his stories can spoil enjoyment, and on at least two occasions I could not fully grasp the ending of a story because no translation to these languages was given in this edition. This is a particular concern for the opening story, 'Duc de L'Omelette'. In terms of Poe's writing, my opinion is divided. His stories (those in this book, at least), seem to be either his famous tales of terror or more essay-type pieces. The tales of terror, especially 'The Pit & the Pendulum' and 'The Cask of Amontillado', are very well-written and I enjoyed them a lot. However, a number of his stories are more like essays and these can be hard to follow in the old-fashioned language Poe used and, if you are unaccustomed to Poe, can leave you waiting forever for the story to begin. Overall, I enjoyed Poe's writings supplied here and they grew on me as I became more used to his style, but they are not as scary nor as easy to follow as more modern tales.
Amazing, 26 Nov 2008
This is one of my favourite books.
We have four short stories, each around a bit more than 100 pages long and corresponding with the four different seasons. A tale of spring hope, summer corruption, a fall from inocence and a cold winter's tale.
The typical horror story is the one of winter and is chilling, i.e. normal King horror fashion.
But the others are something different altogether.
The horror of the summer story, about a young boy and how his mind is corrupted, you feel in the pit of your stomach. King, never one to shy away from graphic detail, creates a true atmosphere of foreboding in this shocking story.
The tale of spring is astounding, it gives you a true insight into a world anyone who has not been to prison has never seen. It's an inspirational story and leaves a real impact on you.
The Body - the one about autumn/fall - is about four young boys going to discover something morbid and how their journey towards it has a great effect on them. It's a really touching story, and it will move you to an extent that will stay with you forever.
Each of the four stories is narrated in true King manner, the characters being so real it's almost as if you know them personally. A great book.
Incredible Collection, 15 Aug 2008
Different Seasons is a collection of 4 novella's, each rather different but all incredibly well written. The four novella's are 'Rita Hayworth and the Shawshank Redeption', 'The Body', 'Apt Pupil' and 'The Breathing Method'.
The novella's are somewhat different to King's other work. The novella's do have undertone's of horror in them, but horror or the aim to scare the reader is not the point of the collection. Each of the novella's are full of emotion, humour and suspense - which helps create some of King's best work.
'The Body', later made into the popular 'Stand By Me', is my favourite of the novella's. It is a great story of friendship and growing up, which King writes well about in this and in 'It'.
Buy this now!! You won't be dissappointed!
Art of the Novella, 11 Jul 2007
Different Seasons is a collection of 4 novellas, each set in a different season. The stories do not interlink except for a few minor references to each other here and there.
The most notable thing that will first hit you upon reading is that none of the stories are horror, as you may have expected from Stephen King.
What you get are four beautifully crafted individual stories. However, it must be said that each story still does hint upon certain 'horror aspects', but I believe this to only be part of good storytelling and not King slipping into his usual typecast role. The final story 'The Breathing Method' has the strongest connection to horror, being very reminiscent of an Edgar Allan Poe story.
Three of the stories have been made into films, The Shawshank Redemption, The Body (Stand by Me) and Apt Pupil. So the likelihood is that you may have already seen at least one of the adaptations. Do not let this pass you up on reading Different Seasons. Rita Hayworth and the Shawshank Redemption as well as Apt Pupil in novella form are far superior and enjoyable to their movie counterparts.
My personal favourite of the novellas in Different Seasons is Apt Pupil. The sheer human psychological torture and overall bleakness makes an outstanding read. It pushes far beyond what a film of our time would DARE to reference to. I should perhaps warn you of the bleakness you will find whilst reading it. But the human condition is a strange thing, and you will find yourself at times questioning why and how you are being entertained by reading it. Amazing.
Four out of four, 11 Aug 2006
Different Seasons is a collection of 4 novellas, and is notable for seeing King beginning to stretch away from writing just horror tales, though there is certainly enough macabre moments contained here to keep the more bloodthirsty fans happy. `Rita Hayworth and Shawshank Redemption' tells the story of a wrongly convicted murderer and his escape from prison, seemingly a tale told so many times there's nothing more to add, but King transforms this into a beautifully moving character study. `Apt Pupil', while containing no supernatural elements, is certainly close to King's horror territory, being a disturbing a tale about a young boys blackmail of an ex-Nazi concentration camp commandant. A trifle overlong perhaps (this `novella' is around the same length of King's debut novel Carrie) but the bizarre double-blackmail relationship between the two characters is compulsive, and the dispassionate finale is memorable. `The Body' is undoubtedly the highlight of the collection, and certainly one of the best things King has ever written - a thinly-disguised childhood reminiscence fictionalised as a successful authors thinly-disguised childhood reminiscence - it captures brilliantly the coming of age from childhood to adulthood, and features some of King's best prose. Finally `The Breathing Method' is a back to basics old-fashioned horror story - all the basic tropes are familiar genre favourites: the mysterious gentleman's club where Lovecraftian things slither out of sight in upstairs rooms; the Victorian-style Christmas fireside ghost story - but King injects some modern-day grand guignol splatter horror to keep things fresh - slightly ridiculous, but good fun.
With four long stories in different genres, and every one in it's own way is successful, this is an excellent collection, and one of King's best books.
Great Novellas, 26 Jul 2006
If you are in any doubt about the quality of these stories, consider the fact that 3 out of the 4 have been made into films.
Stephen King is known as a horror writer, but these three show that the man is one of the worlds best story tellers. They are not horror stories.
Shawshank as most people will know is a prison story. Some of this is harrowing and upsetting (such that they couldn't show it in the film), but it is essential for the development of the main character and I never thought it was gratutious.
The Body is a story about growing up and Apt Pupil is about a man with black past and his relationship with a young lad. Both are excellent and compelling reading.
The 4th story, which is as good as the other 3, is gripping and original, and a real page turner. This is more of a traditional King horror story, so if you buy Different Seasons you don't miss out completely on the horror front.
Of course what this book amply demonstrates is Kings marvellous story telling abilities, whether he is writing horror or not.
Nocturnal chills, 25 Oct 2007
H.P. Lovecraft is definitely one of the masters of the horror and gothic genre, and this omnibus contains some of his best work. Lovecraft must have had a very rich imagination indeed to have come up with these bizarre stories, but they work very well because Lovecraft always succeeds in walking the fine line between the totally absurd and the matter-of-fact reality. In the best stories there's always this nagging sense that 'it might be true'.
Reading these stories now and knowing that most of them were written in the 1920s makes you appreciate Lovecraft's complete mastery of the genre all the more. | | |