The Loved Dead

by Duane W. Rimel, Zealia Bishop, Henry S. Whitehead, et al.

Book Overview

A collection of some of H P Lovecraft's works of fiction. This description may be from another edition of this product.

• Format: Paperback
• Language: English
• ISBN: 0786704454
• ISBN13: 9780786704453
• Release Date: May 1997
• Publisher: Running Press Book Publishers
• Length: 224 Pages
• Weight: 0.30 lbs.
• Dimensions: 0.7" x 4.2" x 6.8"

Customer Reviews

Obscure stories for the Lovecraft completist

For the obsessive-compulsive bibliophile, finding previously unknown (at least, to yourself) works by your favorite author is a real treat. Fans of H.P. Lovecraft are, of course, familiar with such works as "The Shadow over Innsmouth", "The Dunwich Horror", and "The Call of Cthulhu". Then there are works that Lovecraft ghostwrote or revised (such as the famous collaboration with Harry Houdini "Under the Pyramids", or the stories collected in THE HORROR IN THE MUSEUM AND OTHER REVISIONS). This book, THE LOVED DEAD AND OTHER REVISIONS contains some of Lovecraft's even more obscure revisions. But, in the evolving self-referential universe based on the writing of Lovecraft, his contemporaries, and his followers, you will want answers to such questions as, "Who is Ghatanothoa?" and "What was the horror at Martin's Beach?". Most of these stories are pulp magazine quality, with some winners and some forgettables. There are 14 total: "The Last Test" - similar to other Lovecraftian tales of cold science arrayed against humanity in the pursuit of knowledge. See "Cold Air" and "Herbert West, Re-Animator". "Medusa's Coil" - this story has an excellent atmosphere of Southern decadence, an ancient secret kept alive by descendants of Atlantis, and a husband blinded by love. Or, the cosmic secret could be some stupid bit of racism at the end. I am marking out the las6 sentence so that it never mars my reading enjoyment again. "Out of the Aeons" - I think that this story ranks up there with "The Call of Cthulhu". An excellent mythology, some blasphemous relics from the ancient world, and a cult dedicated to their retrieval. If only the dead could speak - but their eyes are bad enough! "The Ghost-eater" - fairly standard pulp ghost story; good enough for what it is. "The Loved Dead" - I was very surprised to see that this was influenced by HPL, but upon reflection, you can see his mark in the vocabulary and writing style. I'm only surprised that I never noticed it before (I have this story in a collection of Weird Tales, attributed to CM Eddy). "The Tree on the Hill" - a story about the horrors of a tree, alone on a hill. It doesn't sound scary, but Gothic houses are overdone. I thought the author was up to the challenge. "Till A' The Seas" - what will the very last day of humanity be like? Before the Nuke, we went out with a whimper and not a bang. The bleak nihilism in this story as the last of humanity passes away is almost cathartic. I found it elegant (though not desirable!). "The Night Ocean" - The sea has always held an attraction and a mystery to men. Eternity and infinity lie in its deeps; the author posits that there may be more. He has nothing more than half-glimpses and overheard mutterings, but he knows enough to know that he knows too much. To the Lovecraft completist, these stories are necessary apart from their own merits, as part of the canon. On their own, I think they make decent light reading with some highlight

Mostly meets expectations--if your expectations are informed

First, we'll get the perfunctories out of the way: no, this is not an H. P. Lovecraft anthology, a fact easily discernible in the bookstore but not as easily realized online. More specifically, this is a collection of stories by a variety of authors, published in magazines such as Weird Tales in the 1920s and 1930s, apparently edited or revised at some point by Lovecraft (this is all courtesy of the web, as these Carroll and Graf reprints contain absolutely no paratextual information; no copyright information, no author bios, not even a clear explanation of what we're getting). Most of the writers are notable primarily for having written Lovecraftian fiction, though C. M. Eddy, Jr. authored a reflective book about Lovecraft, and Sonia H. Greene was married to him for some few years. Perhaps the most interesting author in the anthology is Adolphe de Castro, who was actually Adolphe Danziger, a rabbi and friend of Ambrose Bierce best known for his biography of that man. Perfunctory the second: as has been observed, these stories are not particularly Lovecraftian, save for the occasional oblique reference to something within the mythos. Collectively they boil down to a haphazard little arrangement of mostly unremarkable horror stories, but, measured by that standard, this is worth spending a few hours on. The Adolphe de Castro piece is among my personal favorites; its depiction of a mistaken plague panic in San Francisco is a nice counterpoint to the insidious experiments being performed in secret labs in that story, a reminder that horror can take root in the human mind in open, broad daylight as well as in cramped darkness. "Medusa's Coil" by Zealia Bishop, another favorite, is an interesting account of the forces of evil insinuating themselves into a southern plantation family, though it suffers from an unnecessary (and trite) tacked-on twist at the end. My favorite piece (and this will put me in disagreement with almost everyone who reads the book) is actually the least Lovecraftian in the entire book; "Till A' the Seas" by R. H. Barlow is not horror at all in the usual sense, but rather a far future science fiction (or science fantasy) tale dealing with the ultimate fate of the human race. It actually has no plot to speak of, and is more of a sketch than an actual story. Nevertheless, Barlow (or Barlow/Lovecraft) does a good job of communicating the epic scale of events, which I found more captivating than the material dealing with his nominal protagonist. The prospective reader will likely know going in whether he or she is an aficionado of Lovecraft, or in this case vaguely Lovecraft-like fiction. If this is the case, these stories may serve to divert for a few hours; the price is worth the risk, and this slim volume won't steal away a great deal of the reader's time.

Lovecraft revisions offering some enjoyable reads

The Loved Dead assembles a number of stories that H.P. Lovecraft revised for less talented would-be authors of weird tales. While it is quite impossible to know just how much of himself Lovecraft inserted into these tales, they are by no means to be assigned to his creative endeavors. Personally, I don't see a lot of Lovecraft at all in these tales despite the sorts of cryptic, Mythos-related references made in a number of the selections. Examining these stories in and of themselves, on their own merit, I must say I rather enjoyed a number of them, however. Adolphe de Castro's The Last Test manages to insert a nice little aura of creepiness into what is essentially an unremarkable pulp horror tale. Zealia Bishop, one of the better writers of Lovecraft-revised fiction, sets the story of Medusa's Coil in such an atmospheric setting that its far-fetched plot does only minimal damage to one's enjoyment. Two entries from Hazel Heald are really quite good indeed; not only are The Man of Stone and Out of the Aeons compelling stories, they come closer than all of the other revised stories to capturing the spirit of Lovecraft himself. Duane W. Rimel's The Tree on the Hill lacks an original ending but does succeed in tapping a small vein into the cosmological realm so richly mined by Lovecraft. Rimel's The Disinterment also shows potential but is more seriously weakened by a far too predictable plot.The remaining stories seem to decline in quality as one progresses through them. 1922's The Horror at Martin's Beach is remarkable not for its rather ineffective craftsmanship so much as its attribution to Sonia H. Greene, Lovecraft's wife of some two years. C.M. Eddy, Jr. contributes four short stories to this collection: Ashes, The Ghost-Eater, The Loved Dead, and Deaf, Dumb, and Blind. These tales just fall too much in line with standard, pulp horror themes that they become caricatures of themselves and of the weird tales in vogue at the time; a Lovecraft would have been able to make the ideas come out in an effective way, but nothing really seems to click in the revised words of Eddy himself. Henry S. Whitehead makes a valiant effort in The Trap, but the story of a magical mirror capable of pulling someone into it and thus freeing that person from time and space just never finds a plane of plausibility upon which it might flourish. The only two stories I did not care for at all in this book are R.H. Barlow's Till A' the Seas and The Night Ocean, both of which seem to be exercises in over-description lacking any discernible backbone of an actual plot. While many of these stories possess an unmistakably amateurish quality and can by no means be associated with the literary genius and fruitful imagination of H.P. Lovecraft himself, I did get a lot of enjoyment from reading most of them. Lovers of weird tales in all their sundry fashions should find several pleasant diversions in the pages of this book. Those looking for Lovecraft-quality fictio

a very good collaberation of stories

The stories in this book are short but sweet. Who am I kidding? They are NOT sweet. They gave me nightmares. I loved it and I am very glad I bought the book. Whenever I need a new scare I just re-read some of it and hope that I sleep soundly... I highly recommend this book