Customer Reviews

Antarktos Cycle (Call of Cthulhu Fiction)

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There is an interesting story about this Chaosium collection [...]Charles Engan relates that when Chaosium was preparing to release the enormous campaign "Beyond the Mountains of Madness", there was not enough money to print everything in its entirety. The authors wanted to include "The Narrative of Arthur Gordon Pym" as well as "At the Mountains of Madness", but since it was too expensive to include with the campaign, a friend offered to underwrite the expense of publishing the material, plus other fiction, as a separate volume. Voila! The Antarktos Cycle.

Contents:
"Antarktos" - from the "Fungi of Yuggoth" poem by HPL
"The Narrative of Arthur Gordon Pym of Nantucket"
"The Sphinx of the Ice Fields" - excerpts
"The Greatest Adventure"
"At the Mountains of Madness"
"The Tomb of the Old Ones"
"At the Mountains of Murkiness"
"The Thing From Another World"
"The Brooding City"
"The Dreaming City"

Traditionally, these cycles are used to illustrate how HPL developed the concepts used in his stories. "Arthur Gordon Pym" might be included solely for the purpose of the aformentioned campaign, but it is excellent Antarctic fiction by a rather important author in the development of horror. Also, have you ever wondered where "tekel-li-li" comes from? "Sphinx of the Ice Fields" has excerpts related to Pym's narrative.

"The Greatest Adventure" might also be useful for keepers planning to run the camapign for which Antarktos was designed - it describes the preparations for an Antarctic expedition as well as the actual undertaking itself. The incredibly potent seeds of life that they find undoubtedly inspired the movie "Evolution" as well as other fiction

"At the Mountains of Madness" is one of HPL's finest stories. I would love to see a cinematic version of this. Perhaps with global warming, Lovecraft's Mountains of Madness will someday be seen rising over the Antarctic plain!

I don't have much to say about the other titles. The last two develop the "Old Ones" that lived in Irem. Lovecraft sometimes used the same name for different concepts - he claimed that contradictory facts were more appropriate to an ancient myth cycle than having everythinng fit together neatly. They could have been left out and finished the book with ...

"The Thing From Another World" - I expected this to be pulpy, but it was surprisingly serious. Antarctic researchers discover an alien craft embedded in the ice. Unwittingly releasing an alien with control over its morphology at the sub-cellular level, it replicates itself by consuming and imitating life around itself. Who is human, and who is the monster? Do the infected humans even know that they are no longer human? Can they take the chance on anyone leaving the base alive? An incredible psychodrama as well as science fiction and horror. Great stuff - made me want to watch Carpenter's version again.

So yes, there are some very annoying typos, but the quality of the fiction is mostly top-notch, with some very unusual themes being explored. Don't let this collection pass you by.

An excellent collection of short to medium length stories, all dealing with Antarctic expeditions and what the adventurers found (but wish they hadn't).

I only gave this book three stars because of the horrible proof-reading. It appeared as if the original documents had been scanned in and run through OCR software without a human bothering to check the results. Some examples: in one story, Tekeli-li is printed T>k>li-li; in one story all instances of "he" are printed as "be".

Other than that, I would recommend this collection to anyone interested in weird fiction set in Antarctica.

My main problem with this collection is the typos. At one point, I found three of them on one page. These weren't hard to spot typos either. Most of them involved spanish characters, tildes, umlauts and the like. While the occasional typo isn't all that big of a deal, if they occur in these amounts, it breaks the mood, which is all important in a horror story.

Of the stories themselves, I didn't get the Taine one at all, although there were some cool scenes in it, the tomb of the old ones was good fun but predictable, the thing from another world seemed over rated, the brooding city was also formulaic, but rather amusing, and the narrative of arthur gordon pym was uneven, although at its heights, it demonstrated unprecedented imagination.

At The Mountains of Madness itself is somewhat odd. It starts very, very well, establishing the threatening menace of its setting and then getting right on to the monsters, which are very imaginative. Slowly, however, it loses its way. The monsters become an alien race we are meant to sympathize with. A second set of monsters is introduced, and these are memorable, but they are not given enough time to attain the desired impact. However, the story does possess Lovecraft's funniest (and possibly only) joke (although whether this is intentional or not is somewhat debatable).

I bought this book solely for the John Campbell story, "The Thing from Another Planet." I've been looking for this story since seeing John Carpenter's "The Thing" in the mid-1980's. A older friend in Denver told me he had read Campbell's story many years before and that it was a good story.

I just finished reading "The Thing..." and the story didn't disappoint me in the slightest. While I don't recommend waiting as long as I did to read this story, it was worth the wait and the hunt to find it. "The Thing" is definitely creepy.

I've read Lovecraft in the past and the remainder of the stories will be candy on top of the Campbell treat. Yes, there are typographical errors. The stories are still worth the read.

I know a lot of people get sick of the Cycle books - and I can't blame them for that. There are only so many Lovecraft stories and they always end up in books and, well, this does become bothersome. Thankfully, in this set, you at least have the one story that can be said to be the best. You also have other stuff in it as well, and those contributions are given by some rather talented pens. Added to that is an introduction by robert Price on how some of the mythos works and, well, this has to be one of the more informed pieces i have seen in the front of a book in quite some time. Normally you just have someone heaping praise where priase may or may not be needed but, in the end, that is all it is. here, however, there are things being explained and, well, i like that. i like that because, when sharing it with someone, they can understand what some things mean. They don't ask about Old Gods or the things that came before man because they know. They also see how the circle has evolved, bringing in some of the big hitters they know and love.
King, Lumley, Smith, Moore - there's an army out there.
And that army has introduced the monstrosities from everyone from Koljac to Batman.

In this book you have Jules Verne in The Sphinx of the Ice Fields - a story I really like, At the Mountains of Madness - possibly Lovecraft's finest hour, The Tomb of the Old Ones - some fun with Mr. Wilson, The Dreaming City - Johnson's portrait that I love to look at from time to time, and the Thing from another World. The Thing from Another World has to be one of the best shorts i laid eyes one in my youth and still today, and I can't rave about it enough. It has a modern touch in a time when that touch was unheard of, and the first time I read it it literally made me shiver from fright because of what it implied.
The horror, the horror - you don't have to be drifting the Heart of Darkness to feel that one, for sure.

Of all the Cycles, this is one of the best to pick up. i like the Innsmouth stuff as well, but this is one that has shining moment after shining moment and, really, it makes my mind happy. Even reviewing it makes me want to read it some more.
It comes highly touted.

From the ends of the Earth come stories of adventure and really BAD things. Start off with a sonnet by Lovecraft himself, called, 'Antarktos', then on to the first course with 'The Narrative of Arthur Gordon Pym of Nantucket' by Edgar Allan Poe, with a follw-up of excerpts by Jules Vern's called 'The Sphinx of the Ice Fields'. This is followed by the not-so-well-known 'The Greatest Adventure' by John Taine. 'At The Mountains of Maddness' by H.P. Lovecraft is served next, the main course, followed by 'The Tomb of the Old Ones' by Colin Wilson. Arthur C. Clarke cooks up a fine story in 'At the Mountains of Murkiness' and what meal would be complete without 'The Thing From Another World' by John W. Campbell Jr.? We finish off our fine dining with 'The Brooding City' by John S. Glasby and 'The Dreaming City' by Roger Johnson. Full yet?

againandagainandagain. it gets almost interesting. lovecraft's scientific story ending up with nothing much of a climax, Poe drowning in nautical technical information and fragmentary style. taine's is the most interesting one. first too little happens, then too much. could have been good, but is first too boring then too much in the overwhelming action-genre. glasby has good descriptions, but his story doesn't go anywhere. some of the other stories could have been good too. but always, something destroys. too boring, not going anywhere, lacks suspence. truly sad since many of the stories shows potential.

This campain is excellent in every way. The chracters are strong, the story is involving. This campaingn will draw investigators like flies and honey.