Al Azif: The Necronomicon [Paperback]

Abdul Alhazred (Author), L. Sprague de Camp (Preface)

Product Details

• Paperback: 212 pages
• Publisher: Borgo Press (January 1, 1973)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 1587150433
• ISBN-13: 978-1587150432
• Product Dimensions: 8.9 x 6 x 0.6 inches
• Shipping Weight: 12 ounces (View shipping rates and policies)
• Average Customer Review: 3.0 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (50 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #705,336 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

64 of 69 people found the following review helpful:

1.0 out of 5 stars =(, October 17, 2001

By 

achron "a_c_h_r_o_n" (Baltimore, MD United States) - See all my reviews

Amazon Verified Purchase

This review is from: Al Azif: The Necronomicon (Paperback)

.

Given the fact that I expected any publication called "Necronomicon" to be a fake, I thought this one would at least be an /interesting/ fake, in that it might be fun to translate.

I was wrong.

1. It's purportedly in "Duriac," a nonexistent language, supposedly descended from Akkadian. Duriac is actually just a relatively uncommon French surname, as well as a type of wheat.

The script appears to be a fairly heavily modified version of the Estrangelo script of Syriac, which is a genuine descendant of Akkadian. Unfortunately, "heavily modified" in this case means "unreadable" - even to transliterate - thus assuring its apparent mystery.

2. Worse:

the text contains 4 distinct pages at the beginning.

it has 15 unique pages at the end.

in between, 16 pages are repeated, without variation, over and over to produce a book which appears to be a few hundred pages, but is in reality a cheap facsimile of an utterly meaningless 35-page text.

=(

12 of 12 people found the following review helpful:

3.0 out of 5 stars Good for completists, not terribly useful otherwise, January 29, 2002

By 

NecroBones (VA, USA) - See all my reviews

This review is from: Al Azif: The Necronomicon (Paperback)

I just want to point out to everyone that aside from the preface, there is nothing in english. The entirety of the Necronomicon text is in a psuedo-arabic script referred to as "duriac", and except for a few differing pages at the beginning and end, the rest is just "filler" that repeats every 8 pages (physical pages... or 16 "numbered" pages). It's an obvious hoax, and the authors have admitted as such from what I hear. Nevertheless, it can be a good purchase for Cthulhu-Mythos and Lovecraft completists, and it looks real enough that you can freak out your friends, or use it as a LARP prop or halloween item. I'm satisfied with my purchase, but it's important to know what you're getting before you spend your money. My understanding is that one of the major reasons this was created in the first place was to have a Necronomicon on record at the Library of Congress. :)

56 of 72 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars You Can Fool Some of the People Some of the Time...*, April 14, 2001

By 

Franklin Hummel "Lovecraftian Gaylaxian" (Boston, MA USA) - See all my reviews
(REAL NAME)   

This review is from: Al Azif: The Necronomicon (Paperback)

* ...and a lot of these people still remain clueless that the NECRONOMICON is a *fictitious* book created by American horror writer H.P. Lovecraft to use as a story-device. Other authors, many of whom were friends of Lovecraft, started using the NECRONOMICON in their stories (as well as other aspects such as his god-like aliens Cthulhu and Yog-Sothoth) of what has come to be called the "Cthulhu Mythos". This book was original published in a limited hardcover edition for one main reason: to get the Library of Congress to catalogue it! Thus, an official library record came into existence for the NECRONOMICON. It was part of a joke, people! If you look closely at the pages of this edition, you will find that the non-existent "Arabic" language it is written in is just random writing which was pasted together and that the same pages of "text" are repeated over and over again in the book. Oh, yes, there are books publsihed which claim to be the NECRONOMICON. There are always people ready to cash in by using a famous name and there are also some people, saddly, who do believe everything they read. For those not convinced of the fictional nature of the NECRONOMICON, here is something you can do: go to a library, or use the internet, and try to find ANY mention of the NECRONOMICON in books or newspapers or magazines or anything that was published BEFORE 1900. Keep looking and looking. You will never find it mentioned -- because the title NECRONOMICON did not exist until Lovecraft created in AFTER 1900. How do I know all this? Read the "name" on this review!