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The Dream-Quest of Unknown Kadath

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If you enjoy tales of fantasy, qv the Hobbit series by JRR Tolkein or the Elric tales by Michael Moorcock, you must read this scarcely read tale of fantasy by american author H.P. Lovecraft. Understand from the first that this story is more sublime beauty than horror. The horrific cover on the del rey book, though compelling, mis-sells the story. This is a fantasy tale about a dreamer/adventurer who quests through an incredible dreamscape world on a quest to rediscover a fleeting dream city. The main character, Randolph Carter, is a hero of sorts in the Lovecraft universe and his adventures through the dreamlands are some of the most spectacular ever written in any tale of fantasy adventure. Encounters with fantastic creatures of dream and nightmare, compelling characters from ethereal kings and strange gods, to moon flying cats await you. Moreover, you will experience a new sensitivity to the power of beauty, dreams and forgotten childhood memories in a way only the master of the sublime can share. You will experience the imaginitive genius of Lovecraft fully in this often bizarre tale. Lovecraft's command of the English language make virtually every sentence a delight. "Dream-quest of Unknown Kadath" is a spectacularly unusual fantasy tale: the only thing that will haunt you is the power of the breathtaking beauty Lovecraft will paint for you in his commanding eloquence. It is perfectly paced, with no dragging areas, and somewhat of a quick read. A shame because you will wish as you near the end that the book was infinitely thicker. Do not miss this delight of fantasy storytelling! -Javier Roman

H.P. Lovecraft continues to exert an enormous influence in the horror/fantasy genre. This may be surprising because Lovecraft's writings were nearly impossible to find for decades. Unlike those poor souls who, in the old days, fruitlessly searched for copies of his stories, today we can locate copies of them quite easily. And they are definitely worth seeking out, as Lovecraft writes chilling stories like no other person, alive or dead. Unfortunately for horror buffs, Lovecraft died at a young age, thus leaving his work to be carried on by others.

Lovecraft is famous for his creation of the Cthulhu mythos, an alternate universe (or series of universes) populated by strange beings of infinite evil. These are the Elder Gods, beings who enjoy tormenting the human race. Time and time again, Lovecraft takes his characters into unfortunate encounters with the Elder Gods, almost always to the detriment of these hapless souls. In "The Dream-Quest of Unknown Kadath," DelRey collects yet another batch of Lovecraft gems.

The main course of this collection is "The Dream-Quest of Unknown Kadath," a story about Randolph Carter, a mystic who has the ability to enter a fabulous world through his dreams. Carter isn't content with merely shuffling about a dream world; he wants to track down Kadath, a fortress where the gods live and play. Carter's quest takes him through endless adventures where he faces both good and evil realms. Carter goes to the moon, talks to cats, sails on the seas, and encounters weird creatures both helpful and harmful. All of this brings him steadily closer to his goal. This story is a synthesis of many of Lovecraft's other stories, such as "The Cats of Ulthar."

"Celephais" is a short story about one of Carter's friends who became a king in the dream world. It is a short story that serves to give some background on both the dream world and one of the characters Carter encounters in his quest for Kadath.

"The Silver Key," a story that again incorporates the Carter character, finds Carter discovering a key engraved with strange hieroglyphics. With the key, Carter attempts to reconnect to the dream world. His subsequent disappearance raises more questions than it answers. Fortunately, these questions are answered in the next story.

"Through the Gates of the Silver Key" picks up where the previous story left off. Carter uses the key to move through a portal into a universe beyond any human comprehension. Carter learns that through advanced mathematics he is capable of changing the very barriers of time and space. Some barriers shouldn't be messed with, as Carter quickly discovers. While his estate is being hashed out on Earth, Carter is working diligently to return to his world. Lovecraft co-wrote this story with another author, named E. Hoffman Price.

The book ends with two very short stories, "The White Ship," and "The Strange High House in the Mist." In "The White Ship," a man who watches over a lighthouse embarks on a strange journey into lands only dreamed about by mankind. When the lighthouse keeper becomes bored with the paradise he discovers, his wish to move on leads to tragedy for the white ship. In "The Strange High House in the Mist," a weird house on a cliff overlooking a fishing village serves as a meeting place for creatures of the sea both wicked and wise. When a curious clergyman explores the house, he comes back with knowledge some people in the village would rather not hear about.

All of these stories employ Lovecraft's usual trademarks: elegant prose, descriptions of horror beyond the knowledge of man, and imaginative plots that make the reader shake their head in wonder. There are Lovecraftian stories that are better than the ones in this collection, such as "At the Mountains of Madness," but this is still an excellent collection of chillers from a master who, even on his off days, produced work vastly superior to many writers in the genre. Lovecraft richly deserves the consideration he receives to this day.

This book was my introduction to the worlds of HP Lovecraft. I found it in the library, was enthralled for some reason by the title, and took it home to read it. Unfortunately, I took it back when I was done. It took me another eight years to find the Ballantine paperback, when a whole series of HPL was published. Because I remembered this book so fondly, I bought the whole series sight unseen, and have never had a second thought about that decision. tDQoUK is extremely accessible to readers of fantasy in particular, and readers in general. Lovecraft's imagination takes flight in his descriptions of the Dreamlands, with exotic creatures and locales abounding, and a strange little mission undertaken to petition the gods of that land. Strongly influenced by the work of Lord Dunsany, Lovecraft would never again write with such hope and beauty, though his writing would grow stronger as his mature voice emerged. This book is not horror, but high fantasy without elves and swords, rare in these days of Tolkienesque pastiche. Buy it, read it, and your imagination may never be the same again. Join me on the seven hundred steps to the gate of the Dreamlands, and don't forget to count. I'll see you in the Enchanted Wood.

Randolph Carter is Lovecraft's only hero. He is an expert dreamer, who passes at will through the Gates of Deeper Slumber and openly defies the mythos. He rides Night Gaunts and communicates with Ghouls, Zoots and Cats. In this way, the Randolph Carter series is entirely unlike Lovecraft's other weird tales. The reader actually gets the feeling that things will work out for Randolph Carter.

While to stories are different in tone, they are not different in content. In "Dream Quest of Unknown Kadath," Randolph Carter goes in search of Unknown Kadath, the mountainous home of the gods. In his long journey, he drifts in and out of other stories, encountering Richard Upton Pickman, the City of Celephais, the Cats of Ulthur and an enjoyable assortment of other characters. I advise you to read this story with other Lovecraft books at hand, to reference the cast of characters.

Other tales in this volume complete the quests of Randolph Carter, and tell the stories of other journeys through the Dreamlands. Each story is enjoyable, mixing fancy and horror in equal measure. I recommend this book to fans of "The Sandman."

"The Dream-Quest of Unknown Kadath" is perhaps Lovecraft's greatest piece of fiction; it certainly is a culmination of the Dunsanian fantasy pieces he wrote early in his career, several of which are also featured in this collection. While I recognize the seminal importance of "The Dream-Quest of Unknown Kadath," I must also say that I find it a particularly difficult read; if my powers of concentration are less than 100%, I simply can't make heads or tails of the story. Perhaps my trouble is a personal idiosyncrasy, but this novella is certainly complex and not well suited for the casual reader. The story describes Randolph Carter's obsessive search for the abode of earth's gods on mystical Kadath and his determination to find and abide in a glorious city he has seen in his dreams. Carter is a proficient dreamer, and his journey introduces us to important denizens and personalities in the dream world. Unafraid, Carter sets himself to brave a meeting even with Nyarlathotep, the Crawling Chaos. There are monstrous creatures and horrible vistas brought to life in these pages, but the entire dreamlike atmosphere of the story seems to rise up and cover my mind with mists that force me to reread passages in order to maintain my focus. While I don't necessarily enjoy this story in the normal sense of the word, I do regard it as a grand achievement by the author.

The other stories in the collection also take us to the dream world created by Lovecraft. "The Silver Key" and "Through the Gates of the Silver Key" (written in collaboration with E. Hoffman Price) reveal much of the history of Randolph Carter and offer glimpses of other dream quests he embarked on in life. "Celephais" tells of the dream world town ruled by King Kuranes, a former earthly acquaintance of Randolph Carter, and "The Strange High House in the Mist" contains references to the dream world Carter explored. Only "The White Ship" does not relate in some way to Carter's travels.

One simply should not read "The Dream-Quest of Unknown Kadath" without first reading a number of other related stories, several of which are unfortunately not contained in this volume (such as "The Other Gods," "The Cats of Ulthar," "Pickman's Model," and most especially "The Statement of Randolph Carter"). This book requires work on the part of the reader due to its unique complexity. Lovecraft's horror stories are much more appealing to me than the fantasy stories collected here, yet Lovecraft's true genius and talent are most easily discerned by a reading of "The Dream-Quest of Unknown Kadath."

The Dreamquest of unknown kadath creates a beautiful dreamworld. The way HP Lovecraft talks about the boundaries between dreams and reality and paints a magical world of beasts and dreams makes this my favorite story by HP Lovecraft ever

H.P. Lovecraft was a gentleman and a true artist - the stories released under his name are works of his singular genius, unbending to commercial pressures. The revisions and ghost-writing he did to supplement his income were never throwaway pulp tripe, but chances seized upon by the author to test out and perfect his trademark blend of horror and wonder in the face of an infinite cosmos.

One piece stands out among his work, and that is The Dream-Quest of Unknown Kadath. It was done as a personal exercise and was only released posthumously - never even formally typed in the author's own lifetime. He was concerned it was so singular and out-of-the-ordinary in his field of weird fiction that it wouldn't be well-received and thus he never submitted it to a publisher. Fortunately for the world, it was lovingly transcribed by his associates and released for all to enjoy.

It is certainly the most personal of his works - his recurring character Randolph Carter is the star, and Mr. Carter is the closest thing to an alter-ego among Lovecraft's gallery of literary creations. By day he is just another man (revealed in other stories to be a writer of weird fiction as was his creator), but by night he is a master dreamer privy to realms of the collective unconscious unknown to the average traveller of Hypnos' domain. As haunting dreams of beauty trouble him, Carter sets out on a quest to find a fabled city of the gods of which Fate has cursed him with tantalizing visions. This takes him deep into the Dreamlands, a fantastic and wondrous realm where civilizations of the primitive and the classical reside in staggering landscapes of beauty and dread. He takes on the will of the blind and dangerous Outer Gods as he seeks to attain a privilege of the gods that few mortals have attempted, and in the course of his trek he finds himself adrift at sea, taken to the moon, battling alongside feline hordes, and in the clutches of darkest cosmic force.

The diction is wordy and dense, done both as a tribute to Lovecraft's beloved Lord Dunsany and as an exercise of the unparalled vocabulary that marks Lovecraft's work. This lofty prose works well to bolser the otherworldly, epic feel of the work. No apologies are made to the audience regarding the fantastic setting, and the audience is tantalized with some details and left to speculate on others concerning the background of the world Randolph Carter tranverses. It is the Dreamlands, after all - and Lovecraft provides elusive and mesmerizing revelations to inspire his audience to bring the land to life in their own dreams.

Ultimately, the book is a thrilling read equal parts breathless fantasy, unrelenting adventure, and dawning horror. Any fan of Lovecraft's other work will find this book indispensable, and fans of the epic work of Edgar Rice Burroughs, J.R.R. Tolkien, C.S. Lewis, or Lovecraft-inspired modern icon Neil Gaiman will thrill to this tale of dreams sought and hopes attained.

Any scholar of Lovecraft's biography will be moved at the contents of the final paragraph, where the mask of Carter slips and we see Lovecraft recalling the dreams of his own life which always remained just out of reach. To understand Lovecraft, and to experience a world of fantasy and horror unlike any other in print, one must do himself or herself the favor of taking the Dream-Quest of Unknown Kadath.

These old Del Rey Lovecraft anthologies have a certain charm, don't they? They package a novelette with related short stories of a similar theme, and provide a fairly concentrated dose of a single aspect of Lovecraft's output. This one mainly focuses on the adventures of Randolph Carter, a bookish lifelong dreamer who finds more comfort in the world of fantasy and sleep than he does with reality. In his dreams, Randolph Carter is quite the active hero with a wide range of enemies and allies.

"Dream Quest," the title story, is a long chronicle of several of Carter's adventures while asleep. Parts of this story reminded me of a darker, more adult version of Frank Baum's Oz stories with gnomelike Zoogs, talking magical cats, grotesque graveyard-dwelling Ghouls, and blackened rubbery Night Gaunts. If this starts to sound like sword and sorcery, then Lovecraft's friendship with both Clark Ashton Smith and Robert E. Howard will make more sense to you. "Dream Quest" is episodic and sometimes rambling in parts, but the denoument contains some of Lovecraft's most beautiful sentiments which will surprise those who thought he was only capable of writing creeping terrors. "Dream Quest" could very well be turned into a fantasy film one day, and it's a pleasure to read a fantasy adventure that predates (and is radically different from) The Lord of the Rings, Harry Potter, and their imitators.

"The Silver Key" is a polarizing tale about Randolph Carter's difficulty in maintaining his ability to dream as he enters adulthood and middle age. Some people hate it. I love it, because it seems to give a glimpse into how lonely it must have been to be Lovecraft and to be criticized for writing horror, science fiction, and fantasy instead of creating 'respectable' fiction or at least well-paying fiction. To me, this is a beautiful and philosophical story, but I recognize that the word 'beauty' is not one that many connect to Lovecraft.

The remainder of the stories, to me, are far from Lovecraft's best. The sequel to "The Silver Key" is totally unnecessary and dilutes the impact of the original story, and the short stories are all redundant and inferior to "Dream Quest," so I would consider buying different compliations that contain "Dream Quest" if you are interested in fantasy. "The Silver Key" can be found in more consistent company in many other anthologies.

To sustain a fantasy tale solely on the strength of the imagery, without the support of strong character development or a narrative that is richly symbolic or allegorical, is extraordinarily difficult. To achieve it, the imagery must be sufficiently novel and compelling to hold the reader's interest by itself. In Dreamquest, Lovecraft makes the task even more difficult for himself in two ways; firstly by making it clear from the beginning that this is all a dream - thus the dreamer could safely wake up at any moment - and secondly by making the stakes seem very modest. In most fantasy tales, the fate of nations or of the entire Universe rests on the hero's success in retrieving a ring or slaying a dragon, or whatever. Here, the aim of the journey is to visit a city that the dreamer once saw in dreamland and yearned to enter. Hardly the stuff of dramatic tension.

Nonetheless, Dreamquest succeeds magnificently, purely with the strangeness and poetic beauty of its imagery. Despite the manner in which the publishers promote this book, it is not a collection of horror stories. They are fantasies. The title story is a fine prose-poem that will live with you and very likely encroach on your dreamland long after you read it.

Clearly, Lovecraft was extremely introverted and introspective. There are references in the story to those perilous places where dreamland and reality meet, and where insanity threatens. The destruction of the individual may be at stake in too ambitious a dreamquest, even if the future of mankind is not.

Although some passages have a light touch, the story lacks the humor that Tolkien, for example, brings to his work. Also, there is no erotic element -- not even a single female character. Ironically enough, considering his name, Lovecraft appears to have had little or no sexual awareness.

In short, Dreamquest attempts none of the usual functions of storytelling. It seeks only to take you on a journey through one expert dreamer's psyche. When the guide is as competent as Lovecraft, that is enough.

One of the most beautiful books written, Lovecraft's story of the pursuit into the world of dreams, searching for the unknown city. Inspired by Lord Dunsunay and Windsor McKay's Little Nemo, but pure Lovecraft, and unequaled. The city of cats, the vast fantasy worlds; and an ending of aching beauty. I read it my second summer of college; and could not tell if I was dreaming. Read it!