Repetitive with great moments

Never having listened to any Lovecraft before I was aware of the reputation and influence his work has had on many of my favourite authors so I was intrigued. Overall I am glad I have heard these stories but many of them dragged terribly.
I enjoyed the Chthulu stories but by in large his protagonists are flat and suffer from being very two dimensional.
The performances are on the whole good with a couple so monotone that I found it a little hard to stay focused.
I would recommend dipping into this audio book in small snatches lest you will get a little annoyed with his repetitiveness of themes and words.
For an interest in where the modern horror started though it is a good place to look.

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2 people found this helpful

brilliant existential horror that holds its own

loved it is holds up even against modern horror novelization. Through this you can see the origins of many horror tropes that we typically see in sifi horrors. lovecraft was a man whos work was deeply driven by his own fear; of the sea, the mental illness and of a meaningless death.

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2 people found this helpful

Seminal horror cast and narrated excellently

Less complete than the other lovecraft omnibus on here but still 20+ hours and narrated superbly. Highly recommended. Thoroughly engrossing tales that have lost little to time.

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1 person found this helpful

Original, frightening, amazing

Massive Stephen King fan so eventually picked this after so many mentions of it in King’s work. Really is just as, if not more frightening than any of King’s work. Simply amazing and original.

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Beautiful chaotic insanity

Lovecraft was to me a name which I knew, his stories having leaked into general knowledge to some extent especially if, like me, you are disposed to fantasy, horror or dice based Role Play Games. I must confess that my first direct involvement in his wonderful mythos was through the latter of my examples. To listen at last however to his work was as delightful as it was surprising, his stories are beautifully written yet linguistically dated (do not partake if casual racial slurs within a historical context offend) though this does not detract from the feel of the stories. In some cases this enhances them, the words invoke not simply a two sided view of good and evil, but of humans and all their flaws stumbling upon eldric terrors and dark delights such as no one, save for those of a dark disposition such as Lovecraft, could possibly comprehend.

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Unseen Horror? Not Half.

Lovecraft never fails to thrill. there are tales absent from this collection, but that aside the main and important titles are included. The Call of Cthulhu has been superbly narrated, with just the right amount of tone. It remains my favourite of this collection. I feel I should also mention that there are a few tales which have, in my opinion been very badly narrated. I also think it is a shame that there is no detailed breakdown of the talking books contents and it would be very helpful to have the narrators identities displayed alongside each tale. This production is genuinely something I will listen to again.

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Awesome

If you could sum up Necronomicon in three words, what would they be?

Well worth it.

What did you like best about this story?

The different narrators made the stories more exciting.

Which character – as performed by the narrators – was your favourite?

Herbert West

Was this a book you wanted to listen to all in one sitting?

I did.

Any additional comments?

If there had been ambient sounds I would not have listened to it in the dark, that is how good I found it.

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5 people found this helpful

CTHULU! The slathering,gelatinous beast!

As a Lovecraft virgin I found this a most excellent intro to his work and style, some performancea are better than others but overall a great purchase, Despite the fact that Lovecraft was obviously an old racist/xenophobe which gives a sometimes uncomfortable air to a story, the storytelling is so captivating in his own distinct style that a degree of accepting him "in the context of his era" is forgivable.

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3 people found this helpful

Lost interest after first few stories.

I'm quite new to the whole audio book scene. I love a good ghost stories or sci-fi tale but I really didn't enjoy this book. Some of the stories just seem to repeat themselves. They contain virtually the same story line and the narration in places seems very bland and unenthusiastic.
The same descriptive words used over and over annoyed me to the point of skipping through chapters.
A bit disappointed really as I'd heard good things about H.P. Lovecraft.

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1 person found this helpful

need a love of short horror stories of the 1900ish

definitely worth a listen if you enjoy short stories from late 19-20th century literature... nice

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