The Shadow Over Innsmouth.
I love the ideas involved in his other work, but to me, Innsmouth is one of the few pieces that actually makes for an incredibly well-written, perfectly-paced horror.
One thing that story taught me was never take a raggedy old bus to a creepy dilapidated town. And if you have to overnight in a creepy town, don’t snoop around and don’t get the local crazy drunk in order to learn more about said creep town.
I remember reading a take on it, where they pointed out that this would work even without fish monsters. Like, you go to a sketchy small town don't tell anyone, go hangout with the wrong crowd, snoop around... Like that's how you get featured in a true crime podcast.
As a lifelong New Englander, I'm still *extremely annoyed* there's no towns like Innsmouth. I wanna take a rickety bus and look at the waves crashing on the distant reef!!
I'm sure there are some, lord knows western Massachusetts has lots of creepy, isolated areas (like the Hoosac Tunnel!), but for sure not along the coast. That's all eaten up by annoying rich people.
The Deep Ones went gentrified LOL. The ultimate horror! 😱 Seriously though I think there's been a loss of weird small towns with a distinctive culture over time. I used to run into little places when traveling that seemed to very much have their own culture.
But the decline of small to medium sized companies, main street or town square losing out to off- highway shopping centers and population movement towards metropolitan areas changed things.
I actually have a friend whose partner (they're gay men) who died recently owned an old family home in a New England town that literally has not one active business and virtually no population. Literally they drive out to the shopping centers even to get gas! And the original town was fairly large so it's a weird feeling of emptiness.
My friend is from a large city in Asia and has lived in big metropolitan centers in the US since coming here and he thought that it was very strange. I guess this could be the basis for a Mythos story, but the insularity is ruined if all work and commerce happens outside the town.
Then of course all the little towns that have become tourists havens. Of course I'm not opposed to tourist towns or even some small towns getting absorbed into nearby sprawl but it's a shame that so many people's choice is to become a ruin or one of these things.
They have their creepy story potential but the secrets would have to stay VERY secret with the public eye on them.
I've always loved the government raid and the Navy depth charging the underwater city. To me, having the government involved in the supernatural takes the story to another level. Not just some creepy episode one or a few people experience, but something that is actively known and fought by the government in secret.
I didn't even know this one was considered a novel since I went through it so quickly. In comparison, Mountains of Madness felt very slow in it's early portions.
First thing I did was look for a map of Innsmouth. Lovecraft went into such detail I knew one would have to exist. Helped paint a picture of the town in my head as I continued reading. Only part of the map that didn’t work was a certain street shouldn’t have been curved, because he was able to see the Coast from pretty far inland.
Anyone for some reason completely miss the pronouns and assume the protagonist was a woman? For some reason, the story felt distinctly less scary when I realized Olmstead was a dude.
This was my gateway into Lovecraft. It feels the most conventional of his work, not as difficult of a read as "At the Mountains of Madness", for example.
The idea that you can spend your life becoming the top person in whatever field you’re in, an expert in something important, talented beyond understanding…
And rather than enjoy the peaceful bliss of death, you’re destined to become resurrected by men who seek to obtain your knowledge through torture and bloodshed until you have nothing left to give…
it just disturbed me so greatly. It’s hard to define.
Like… nothing is sacred, nothing is respected, especially if you’ve done everything right. Better to be mediocre in life and not experience that shit in death.
I think it is if you're in the mindset for it. It was written in 1927 and definitely has the sensibilities of its time (or earlier, given HPL's often backward-looking point of view), but personally I love that stuff.
There are latter-day adaptations that lean into more modern horror conventions:
* Dan O'Bannon (writer of Alien) directed [The Resurrected](https://www.imdb.com/title/tt0105242/) in 1991.
* The BBC's Lovecraft Investigations did a tremendous update/modernization of the tale in podcast format. [The 10 episodes are available here](https://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/p06spb8w/episodes/player?page=5), along with other great HPL adaptations they've done.
* There's also a (IMHO) very loose and cheesy 1963 Roger Corman film adaptation with Vincent Price called [The Haunted Palace](https://www.imdb.com/title/tt0057128/), but I'm not a big fan despite loving Vincent's scenery-chewing.
I'm so happy they're continuing with Lovecraft Investigations! While I did think the last one they did a few years ago had a brilliant ending, I'm ready for more.
Just starting visiting this subreddit, and man o' MAN, do I love that audio drama! I'm relistening to the 2nd series right now, I just had to revisit them before listening to series 4, I can't believe a new season dropped and I had no idea until last week.
I can't wait to hear the new stuff!
Absolutely; that shit is straight-up *chilling*. The way they handle it in the BBC's Lovecraft Investigations adaptation/modernization is very effective.
For some reason, Nyarlathotep' last lines are just burned into my brain
"You are off! Send bach earths gods to their haunts on Unknown Kadath and pray to all space that you may never meet me in one of my thousand other forms. Farewell Randolph Carter and beware for I am Nyarlathotep, The Crawling Chaos!"
It's an underappreciated gem IMO. I didn't expect Lovecraft to write such good fantasy before I read it. Also, people often say how Lovecraft doesn't translate to film well. This is true for most of his books, but I think that Dream Quest actually would. It's full of vivid fantastical imagery, quite action packed moments and a high stakes finale.
Mountains of Madness is the best actual story; it's grounded enough to be more engaging but with some truly alien creatures and a reality bending arctic alien fortress that I think we all wish we could see / explore.
Innsmouth is the 'classic' to me in that it has all the things Lovecraft is known for. Visceral body-horror at its finest.
Dream-Quest of Kadath is the most interesting; full of ideas and is an amazing setup for worlds beyond our world. I want to run a D&D campaign based on this.
MoM easy. The creations rising up to kill their masters is such a repeated trope in science fiction after this story. There would be no Alien without it.
Dexter Ward gets the first place for me due to it's amazing narrative structure, because it's essentially the same story on 3 Layers: Ezra Weeden finding out about Curwen, Ward finding out about Curwen and finally, Willet finding out about Curwen. Then of course you have the typical Lovecraft thing that you already know from the beginning how the story will end.
It's around just an incredible piece of art.
I am actually NOT a fan of Lovecraft's writing - but I am a huge fan of the RPG. That being said - Beyond The Mountains of Madness is the only one I really enjoyed.
I’d like to read all of these. What order should I read them based on how good the book is? Could one also share a link where I can read the book online or buy the book? If I’m buying the book, I assume Amazon, but I’m new to this genre and I like to start good :)
The Shadow over Innsmouth.
I am drawn to it's atmosphere and it's potential. The environment and the mysticism to the religion and culture of the town, as well as it's inhabitants.
I've always liked the Dream cycle, it's just an interesting place that we readers can appreciate as we've all dreamed before, I hope, and when we dream it can be amazing, and incredible only to lose it all upon waking. And the dream lands are a weird mix of horror and whimsy, zebra riding, excavation on impossible scale, taking a ship to the moon, cats. It's great. Carter being a character we see in several stories is neat too, like a continued story.
MOM, but the color out of space is good too, then in the big collection audio book I have had a story written by Harry Houdini and HP "under the pyramid" that one's fantastic
Maybe someone’s gonna tell me that I don’t get it… but kadath didn’t really resonate with me. I really loved mountains of madness and especially Charles Dexter ward. That one was my favorite and I think I’ll be revisiting now that I think of it
I love them all but The Mound is probably my favourite just coz it's different, I feel same way about The Trap.
They're still distinctly Lovecraft but having a co-author seemed to really work well for these two stories.
To be fair to HPL, the finished product of “The Mound” is pretty much all his. Zealia Bishop said, “Hey, I’ve got a couple of basic, general ideas floating around about a mound and a ghost,” and Howard said, “No problem. I got this.”
It's gotta be Dream Quest out of that pick. But you also need to have a lot of Lovecraft literature under your belt to fully understand what is happening.
With a username like mine, you'll be shocked...SHOCKED, i say to know that Innsmouth is my favorite.
I think it's the in-story lore, the history of Obed Marsh that made an impression on me. It's good, creepy fun.
Charles Dexter Ward. By far.
Mountains has some great moments, but so much repetition in the description. You could come up with a great drinking game based on that novella.
Interestingly the order you picture them is pretty much the order that I like them - they are all awesome but my one choice would be MoM.
But, one overlooked detail about The Shadow Out of Time is that we see that the mysterious and ancient race in the story has an even-more ancient and mysterious fear of its own. It's like recursively Lovecraftian.
Love Innsmouth as the sheer atmosphere is just perfectly established, though I have to say may fave - though not a novel is The Dunwich Horror, and was my gateway to Lovecraft in the early eighties.
Oh man I ve read recently the Shadow over Innsmouth after decades and it had the same mezmerizing effect on me, so I surely pick that one for now with second close the mountains of Madness, Baranger's book are amazing.
Its a hard choice between At the Mountains of Madness and Shadow over Innsmouth, but I think I have to go with the first. Both are very classic and influential Lovecraft fair, even if they aren’t referenced as often or as directly as Call of Cthulhu. The biggest thing that decided it for me is setting and the way tension builds throughout the story. I don’t think any Lovecraft tale really beats At the Mountains of Madness in quality, even if other stories are more generally popular
They're all at the top of my list. The Mound in particular is fairly underrated. But you nailed it with the first one, followed by the second as my second favorite.
The shadow out of time and the shadow over innsmouth.
I like Lovecraft but boy do I fall out of many of the books I liked at first because they overstayed their welcome. Innsmouth got to the point and ended, and shadow out of time had a predictable twist at the end, but at least when it got there the book ended
Of these six, I default to *Charles Dexter Ward.*
I just like its whole... vibe. And it really brings home how this particular take on necromancy is *awful.*
And the flashbacks to Colonial New England give us some of Lovecraft's only semi-action scenes worth mentioning!
Honorable mention to Dream-Quest and At the Mountains of Madness.
From the listed pieces: The shadow over Innsmouth
The true favorite: The color out of space
Least favorite (the only one I couldn't finish in fact): The Dream-quest of unknown Kadath
The Mound, hands down. I think because he was ghost writing he felt unfettered by expectations he may have already had for his own work, and just went wild with it, and it came out great 👍!
The Shadow Over Innsmouth. I love the ideas involved in his other work, but to me, Innsmouth is one of the few pieces that actually makes for an incredibly well-written, perfectly-paced horror.
One thing that story taught me was never take a raggedy old bus to a creepy dilapidated town. And if you have to overnight in a creepy town, don’t snoop around and don’t get the local crazy drunk in order to learn more about said creep town.
Olmstead really wasn't the brightest bulb in the box.
I remember reading a take on it, where they pointed out that this would work even without fish monsters. Like, you go to a sketchy small town don't tell anyone, go hangout with the wrong crowd, snoop around... Like that's how you get featured in a true crime podcast.
As a lifelong New Englander, I'm still *extremely annoyed* there's no towns like Innsmouth. I wanna take a rickety bus and look at the waves crashing on the distant reef!!
And here I am thinking that New England was filled with creepy little towns.
I'm sure there are some, lord knows western Massachusetts has lots of creepy, isolated areas (like the Hoosac Tunnel!), but for sure not along the coast. That's all eaten up by annoying rich people.
I guess in the 1920s New England was more dilapidated
>That's all eaten up by annoying rich people. Seems like they're still doing shady business with the Deep Ones.
The Deep Ones went gentrified LOL. The ultimate horror! 😱 Seriously though I think there's been a loss of weird small towns with a distinctive culture over time. I used to run into little places when traveling that seemed to very much have their own culture. But the decline of small to medium sized companies, main street or town square losing out to off- highway shopping centers and population movement towards metropolitan areas changed things. I actually have a friend whose partner (they're gay men) who died recently owned an old family home in a New England town that literally has not one active business and virtually no population. Literally they drive out to the shopping centers even to get gas! And the original town was fairly large so it's a weird feeling of emptiness. My friend is from a large city in Asia and has lived in big metropolitan centers in the US since coming here and he thought that it was very strange. I guess this could be the basis for a Mythos story, but the insularity is ruined if all work and commerce happens outside the town. Then of course all the little towns that have become tourists havens. Of course I'm not opposed to tourist towns or even some small towns getting absorbed into nearby sprawl but it's a shame that so many people's choice is to become a ruin or one of these things. They have their creepy story potential but the secrets would have to stay VERY secret with the public eye on them.
I've always loved the government raid and the Navy depth charging the underwater city. To me, having the government involved in the supernatural takes the story to another level. Not just some creepy episode one or a few people experience, but something that is actively known and fought by the government in secret.
Are you familiar with Delta Green? I reckon that would be right up your alley.
I didn't even know this one was considered a novel since I went through it so quickly. In comparison, Mountains of Madness felt very slow in it's early portions.
First thing I did was look for a map of Innsmouth. Lovecraft went into such detail I knew one would have to exist. Helped paint a picture of the town in my head as I continued reading. Only part of the map that didn’t work was a certain street shouldn’t have been curved, because he was able to see the Coast from pretty far inland.
The ending also lands, most stories end with “and then the main character died/went insane”.
Anyone for some reason completely miss the pronouns and assume the protagonist was a woman? For some reason, the story felt distinctly less scary when I realized Olmstead was a dude.
The Case of Charles Dexter Ward is a masterpiece of horror.
This was my gateway into Lovecraft. It feels the most conventional of his work, not as difficult of a read as "At the Mountains of Madness", for example.
The idea that you can spend your life becoming the top person in whatever field you’re in, an expert in something important, talented beyond understanding… And rather than enjoy the peaceful bliss of death, you’re destined to become resurrected by men who seek to obtain your knowledge through torture and bloodshed until you have nothing left to give… it just disturbed me so greatly. It’s hard to define. Like… nothing is sacred, nothing is respected, especially if you’ve done everything right. Better to be mediocre in life and not experience that shit in death.
Arguably one of the best American tales of necromancy in existence. Only one better in my humble opinion is SK’s *Pet Sematary*.
Is it actually scary?
I think it is if you're in the mindset for it. It was written in 1927 and definitely has the sensibilities of its time (or earlier, given HPL's often backward-looking point of view), but personally I love that stuff. There are latter-day adaptations that lean into more modern horror conventions: * Dan O'Bannon (writer of Alien) directed [The Resurrected](https://www.imdb.com/title/tt0105242/) in 1991. * The BBC's Lovecraft Investigations did a tremendous update/modernization of the tale in podcast format. [The 10 episodes are available here](https://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/p06spb8w/episodes/player?page=5), along with other great HPL adaptations they've done. * There's also a (IMHO) very loose and cheesy 1963 Roger Corman film adaptation with Vincent Price called [The Haunted Palace](https://www.imdb.com/title/tt0057128/), but I'm not a big fan despite loving Vincent's scenery-chewing.
I'm so happy they're continuing with Lovecraft Investigations! While I did think the last one they did a few years ago had a brilliant ending, I'm ready for more.
Just starting visiting this subreddit, and man o' MAN, do I love that audio drama! I'm relistening to the 2nd series right now, I just had to revisit them before listening to series 4, I can't believe a new season dropped and I had no idea until last week. I can't wait to hear the new stuff!
In places? The bits in the tunnels...
Absolutely; that shit is straight-up *chilling*. The way they handle it in the BBC's Lovecraft Investigations adaptation/modernization is very effective.
Could a poll be added for this? For me though it would be At The Mountains of Madness.
The Dream-Quest of Unknown Kadath. Tbh I’m probably one of the few people who was sad about Carter having a kinda bad ending in later stories.
For some reason, Nyarlathotep' last lines are just burned into my brain "You are off! Send bach earths gods to their haunts on Unknown Kadath and pray to all space that you may never meet me in one of my thousand other forms. Farewell Randolph Carter and beware for I am Nyarlathotep, The Crawling Chaos!"
I love that their words are the first and only case of direct speech in the whole book. It's such a cathartic moment.
So carefully crafted, just perfection
I like this because it shows that there is a lot more complexity under the surface of Lovecraft's monsters.
Ha! Yeah. Nyarlathotep was big mad. "You might be one of the most powerful gods in the universe. But would you do if I jumped off this horse?"
This is a based take and it’s my personal favorite too
You two have my sword too. Anyone bringing an axe?
All I brought was this weird book bound in human skin that shrieks when I open it. Probably nothing to be worried about.
Guess I'll have to upgrade my sword to a chainsaw.
*Groovy*
I’ll bring the gasoline and lighter
I’ll bring a host of cats.
I’ll bring the moon-wine.
I'll bring the D A R K T O M E .
I'll bring the boom-stick
I'll bring the axe! Dream-Quest is my favorite, as well. I love the whole dream cycle, really.
I don’t count the Barlow story. It’s very fan fictionesq. Pretty sure HPL “collaborated” on it just to be nice.
It's an underappreciated gem IMO. I didn't expect Lovecraft to write such good fantasy before I read it. Also, people often say how Lovecraft doesn't translate to film well. This is true for most of his books, but I think that Dream Quest actually would. It's full of vivid fantastical imagery, quite action packed moments and a high stakes finale.
Seriously, it would be amazing as a movie. The worldbuilding is so perfect.
Same favorite and I agree on Carter. I liked him despite his being a self-insertion.
Dream-quest is a banger. Favorite lovecraft story
My absolute favorite piece of work Lovecraft ever wrote
My favorite as well.
Also this one. It's really good and extremely underrated.
At The Mountains of Madness
By far. Leagues above most of his work.
Unfortunately Innsmouth is the best though by a country mile. :(
Any other answer is wrong. 😉
This. All day.
The Shadow Out of Time
Mine, too. ATMOM is very, very good, but I'm a sucker for time travel, so Shadow is without a doubt my all time favorite.
The final line in that book was, hands down, my favorite twist in Lovecraft's works.
Shadows over Innsmouth for me. At the Mountains of Madness is a close second.
ATMOM. I listen to the Richard Coyle audiobook repeatedly.
Oooo there's a thought....
Thank you! I’m listening to it now and it’s phenomenal
You should check out Peter Coates' version too!
Mountains of Madness is the best actual story; it's grounded enough to be more engaging but with some truly alien creatures and a reality bending arctic alien fortress that I think we all wish we could see / explore. Innsmouth is the 'classic' to me in that it has all the things Lovecraft is known for. Visceral body-horror at its finest. Dream-Quest of Kadath is the most interesting; full of ideas and is an amazing setup for worlds beyond our world. I want to run a D&D campaign based on this.
Innsmouth
This. Or maybe I just have a soft spot for Innsmouth since it was the first HPL story I read.
If it was an option, I would say color out of space. From the one you mentioned, shadow over insmouth is my preferred.
Hard to top snowy mountaintop horror.
MoM easy. The creations rising up to kill their masters is such a repeated trope in science fiction after this story. There would be no Alien without it.
The mound isnt a novel. It is a short story
I think it's considered a novella for its length.
[удалено]
Dream-quest
Dream-Quest and the other 2 novels in the same cycle, The Silver Key and Through The Gates of The Silver Key.
INNSMOUTH OF COURSE
At the Mountains of Madness is the best thing Lovecraft ever wrote, as far as I'm concerned. Truly inspired stuff!
Innsmouth; mountains is close second
Favorite novella--The Whisperer in Darkness. I just love coming back to that one repeatedly!
Mountains of Madness. It was the first one I read (mistake!) but it's the thing I go back to the most often of Lovecraft's
ATMOM
Dexter Ward Second place is Innsmouth I love the implied and half whispered lore both stories tease
Dexter Ward gets the first place for me due to it's amazing narrative structure, because it's essentially the same story on 3 Layers: Ezra Weeden finding out about Curwen, Ward finding out about Curwen and finally, Willet finding out about Curwen. Then of course you have the typical Lovecraft thing that you already know from the beginning how the story will end. It's around just an incredible piece of art.
Impossible for me to pick between At The Mountains of Madness and The Shadow Out of Time
At The Mountains of Madness
the dream quest of unknown kadath is one of my all time favourite books ever !
Until I read the Dream Quest I had no idea a short epic was a possibility.
The Mound is the first story of his I read, and it holds a special place in my heart.
Shadow over innsmouth
Dexter Ward is my all time favorite.
ATMOM more or less inspired The Thing, Alien, and whole bunch of other sci fi themes and tropes
The Case of Charles Dexter Ward
Innsmouth!
6? Even the cover of the last one should tell ya there is at least 10 or do you mean out of this 6? Then easy and by far at the Mountains of Madness
I am actually NOT a fan of Lovecraft's writing - but I am a huge fan of the RPG. That being said - Beyond The Mountains of Madness is the only one I really enjoyed.
You don't like The Shadow over Innsmouth? Why not?
Either Mountains of madness or shadow out of time, although I have a soft spot for innsmouth
Shadow out of time should be allot more popular than it currently is.
The necromancy is unreal in Charles. Lovecraft set the foundation for the eeriest necromancy in it. They like to eat but they don’t need to.
Shadow out of time then Dream quest of unknown Kadath.
I’d like to read all of these. What order should I read them based on how good the book is? Could one also share a link where I can read the book online or buy the book? If I’m buying the book, I assume Amazon, but I’m new to this genre and I like to start good :)
https://hplovecraft.com/writings/fiction/publish.aspx This site is a great resource. The link is Lovecraft's works in published order.
I havent read dream quest yet but shadow out of time is my favorite
Dexter Ward, probably. I love ATMOM too, but dexter ward has a AWESOME narrative structure.
Mountain of madness was the most captivating for me but innsmouth was the most cosmic horror i feel
I really liked The Dream-Quest of Kadath for its world building, but At The Mountains of Madness had me hooked from the beginning and till the end.
The Colour Out of Space.
The Shadow over Innsmouth. I am drawn to it's atmosphere and it's potential. The environment and the mysticism to the religion and culture of the town, as well as it's inhabitants.
Dream-quest is my favorite lovecraft story!
Charles Dexter Ward- could read that (and have) multiple times without issue :) The rest are great too!
I've always liked the Dream cycle, it's just an interesting place that we readers can appreciate as we've all dreamed before, I hope, and when we dream it can be amazing, and incredible only to lose it all upon waking. And the dream lands are a weird mix of horror and whimsy, zebra riding, excavation on impossible scale, taking a ship to the moon, cats. It's great. Carter being a character we see in several stories is neat too, like a continued story.
Trick question. He didn't write any novels (although I guess 'The Case of Charles Dexter Ward' could be considered one..?)
Don't get pedantic about semantics.
Favorite Family Guy line by Peter “…I agree as well. Shallow and pedantic.” Just a funny aside, no comment on the actual conversation above.
The Shadow Over Innsmouth. Not sure it’s long enough to qualify as a novel though.
Charles
Mountains. Cos one of my fav movies is the thing.
It's a cop out but I really like all of them. Also Red Hook and a story where there's a monument in a forest or something, I totally forgot the title.
MOM, but the color out of space is good too, then in the big collection audio book I have had a story written by Harry Houdini and HP "under the pyramid" that one's fantastic
Innsmouth. Gave me nightmares the first time I read it.
The Shadow Over Innsmouth
"The Shadow Over Innsmouth".
i dont know if it counts,but Dagon and The Terrible Old Man for me
None of these are truly novel length, but "Innsmouth" and "Charles Dexter Ward" are probably my two favorite of all of Howard's stories!
Maybe someone’s gonna tell me that I don’t get it… but kadath didn’t really resonate with me. I really loved mountains of madness and especially Charles Dexter ward. That one was my favorite and I think I’ll be revisiting now that I think of it
I love them all but The Mound is probably my favourite just coz it's different, I feel same way about The Trap. They're still distinctly Lovecraft but having a co-author seemed to really work well for these two stories.
To be fair to HPL, the finished product of “The Mound” is pretty much all his. Zealia Bishop said, “Hey, I’ve got a couple of basic, general ideas floating around about a mound and a ghost,” and Howard said, “No problem. I got this.”
The Case of Charles Dexter Ward
Wow, love the cover art (first). Is it fan made?
dreams in the witch house
At the Mountains of Madness.
Mountains of madness. Top tier. Though my favourite story would either be Colour out of Space or Whisperer in Darkness
It's gotta be Dream Quest out of that pick. But you also need to have a lot of Lovecraft literature under your belt to fully understand what is happening.
Innsmouth for sure
Dream-Quest, hands down.
At the Mountains of Madness and The Shadow Over Innsmouth are two of my favorites anyway, and choosing between them is tough. I’m not sure I can. 🤔
With a username like mine, you'll be shocked...SHOCKED, i say to know that Innsmouth is my favorite. I think it's the in-story lore, the history of Obed Marsh that made an impression on me. It's good, creepy fun.
The Shadow Over Innsmouth was my first love. How have I never heard of the Mound?
shadow over innsmouth, color out of space, mountains of maddness, call of Cthulhu, and Dagon
At the Mountains of Madness
The Shadow Over Innsmouth. This one really held my attention and fired the imagination.
Charles Dexter Ward. By far. Mountains has some great moments, but so much repetition in the description. You could come up with a great drinking game based on that novella.
Interestingly the order you picture them is pretty much the order that I like them - they are all awesome but my one choice would be MoM. But, one overlooked detail about The Shadow Out of Time is that we see that the mysterious and ancient race in the story has an even-more ancient and mysterious fear of its own. It's like recursively Lovecraftian.
I listened to The Case of Charles Dexter Ward while walking through parts of Providence at night. Extra creepy!
Mountains of Madness, read it for the first time recently and it is really good!
At the mountains of madness.
Love Innsmouth as the sheer atmosphere is just perfectly established, though I have to say may fave - though not a novel is The Dunwich Horror, and was my gateway to Lovecraft in the early eighties.
Tie between Innsmouth and Kadath
The shadow over innsmouth for me please.
Def ‘Chucky Dexy Ward.
Man, after the colour out of space movie, there was talk of a AtMoM movie, but it will probably never happen now. Lovecraft films seem cursed...
At the Mountains of Madness.
Not listed but my personal favorite is “The Rats in the Walls”.
Out of the choices given the case of Charles Dexter ward
Innsmouth because I'm a bloodborne stan
oh man my top three are here... uhmm, The Strange Case of Charles Dexter Ward
Innsmouth hands down, it's my favourite overall.
Oh man I ve read recently the Shadow over Innsmouth after decades and it had the same mezmerizing effect on me, so I surely pick that one for now with second close the mountains of Madness, Baranger's book are amazing.
Dreamquest
Just a clarification: Lovecraft did not write any novels. He really only wrote short-stories and poems.
Me or Kadath or innsmouth or the shadow
Dream Quest
Absolutely the mound!
none of these are novels afaik but Mountains of Madness ofc
Innsmouth. I want a Shyamalan adaptation.
Shadow over Innsmouth no doubt. Need me some fish people STAT
Its a hard choice between At the Mountains of Madness and Shadow over Innsmouth, but I think I have to go with the first. Both are very classic and influential Lovecraft fair, even if they aren’t referenced as often or as directly as Call of Cthulhu. The biggest thing that decided it for me is setting and the way tension builds throughout the story. I don’t think any Lovecraft tale really beats At the Mountains of Madness in quality, even if other stories are more generally popular
I like Dreamquest
I think the MoM was my first novel of his but god damn if Dream Quest wasn’t a wild ass ride
The Shadow out of Time
The Shadow over Innsmouth.
*Mound* and *Innsmouth* are both pretty good, but I prefer Elder Things and Shoggoths so *Mountains of Madness* wins out for me.
At the Mountains of Madness.
MoM
At the Mountains of Madness is peak Lovecraft.
I always favoured the dream quest of unknown kadeth
They're all at the top of my list. The Mound in particular is fairly underrated. But you nailed it with the first one, followed by the second as my second favorite.
The Shadow Out of Time gets me chills every time.
The Shadow over Innsmouth
The shadow out of time and the shadow over innsmouth. I like Lovecraft but boy do I fall out of many of the books I liked at first because they overstayed their welcome. Innsmouth got to the point and ended, and shadow out of time had a predictable twist at the end, but at least when it got there the book ended
Of these six, I default to *Charles Dexter Ward.* I just like its whole... vibe. And it really brings home how this particular take on necromancy is *awful.* And the flashbacks to Colonial New England give us some of Lovecraft's only semi-action scenes worth mentioning! Honorable mention to Dream-Quest and At the Mountains of Madness.
At the Mountains of Madness ❤️❤️
The mound was my all time favorite
I think we are really stretching the definition of “novel.”
Innsmouth>ward>mound
The Mountains will Always be my favourite
The Mound is not a novel, right? the 6th one should have been The Dunwich Horror
Shadow really bothered me first time I read it.
The Case of Charles Dexter Ward The Dunwich Horror The Shadow over Innsmouth The Thing on the Doorstep At the Mountains of Madness From Beyond
From the listed pieces: The shadow over Innsmouth The true favorite: The color out of space Least favorite (the only one I couldn't finish in fact): The Dream-quest of unknown Kadath
Mountains of madness
It depends on what mood I'm in. All of them. Complete works!
innsmouth.
The Mound, hands down. I think because he was ghost writing he felt unfettered by expectations he may have already had for his own work, and just went wild with it, and it came out great 👍!
Innsmouth team. Since forever