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THROWBACK THURSDAY: REVIEWING A REISSUE

Does anyone write psychological horror better than Howard Phillips Lovecraft?

I first started reading Lovecraft when I was a teen and much of his work was a little more than I could understand.  But thanks to many publishers re-issuing his works (such as this collection), I’ve been fortunate to re-familiarize myself – and come to a much greater appreciation for – the works of H.P. Lovecraft.

This slim volume, published by masters of the re-issue, Dover Publications, contains six short stories that are a GREAT introduction to Lovecraft for those who might not already know his work. the stories, mostly from the 1920’s, prove that you don’t need to be graphic with splatter descriptions but that true horror comes from foul deeds and the unknown.  Sometimes we never see a corpse coming back to life, but we KNOW that’s what’s happened and it’s scarier because we didn’t see it.  We create the image based on the information we are given.  And that’s darned scary.

“Herbert West — Reanimator” was the basis for the film “Re-Animator” which mostly bombed.  Though it was as much a comedy as it was a horror film … yeah, like that makes sense … and is now a ‘cult classic.’

One of the things we see in this brief collection is a theme that Lovecraft often explored: knowledge and curiosity.  The reanimating of the dead comes from a human desire to understand – a scientific curiosity – rather than today’s literary zombies which are the results of various diseases.  It’s powerful.

The stories included here are:

“The Outsider”
“Herbert West — Reanimator”
“In the Vault”
“Cool Air”
“Pickman’s Model”
“The Thing on the Doorstep”

This is highly recommended for anyone who enjoys the dark fantasy/horror genre, for anyone who has read Lovecraft but not in a while, and for anyone who is curious as to why Lovecraft is ‘famous.’

Looking for a good book?  The Zombie Stories of H.P. Lovecraft is a great way to re-animate Lovecraft’s standing as a master of the horror genre.

I received a digital copy of this book from the publisher, through Netgalley, in exchange for an honest review.

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The Zombie Stories of H. P. Lovecraft: Featuring Herbert West–Reanimator and More!

author: H.P. Lovecraft

publisher: Dover Publications

ISBN: 0486798062

paperback, 96 pages