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Most Helpful Customer Reviews
7 of 9 people found the following review helpful:
4.0 out of 5 stars
Fascinating yet unbelievable conspiracy tale,
By Daniel Leach (leachyboy@one.net.au) (Brisbane, Australia) - See all my reviews
This review is from: Lovecraft's Book (Hardcover)
H.P. Lovecraft held captive by fascists in a secret underwater installation off the Massachusetts coast? Harry Houdini's brother a G-Man?This is one of the most baffling and exciting... novels?... I've ever read. Sources are provided to convince us this is an academic work, yet the events described are truly too bizarre to be readily believed. 'Lovecraft's Book' is either a little-known (and incredible), story from the author's life; the astounding background to 'The Shadow Over Innsmouth' ; an extraordinary practical joke; or the most intricately-woven conspiracy tale since 'The X-Files' . Either way, it makes incredulous yet marvellously compelling reading.
3 of 4 people found the following review helpful:
4.0 out of 5 stars
Funny and Entertaining Conspiracy Romp,
This review is from: Lovecrafts Book (Hardcover)
Richard A. Lupoff is having a joke on H. P. Lovecraft's fans. Lupoff does with Lovecraft's letters and personal opinions what many have done with his fiction. Some have become convinced that Lovecraft's elaborate invented occult lore in genuine, and hoaxers have produced phony versions of the Necronomicon and other Lovecraftian titles. Lupoff, on the other hand, proposes with this novel that Lovecraft's racism and political leanings indicate that he was enmeshed in a gigantic conspiracy involving groups that in real life would probably have nothing to do with each other--like Italians fascists and the Ku Klux Klan, all controlled by Nazis with a nefarious plan to take over the U.S. Lupoff's comment about Lovecraft's letters, that they "struck me as covering relationships and occurrences far beyond what was overtly revealed" indicates that he's subtly teasing Lovecraft-inspired conspiracy theorists.
The book features a large cast of historical characters surrounding Lovecraft, who is depicted as an incorrigible but somehow likable bigot. Each figure is trying to pull Lovecraft one way or the other, deeper into the fascist web or out of it. To the novel's detriment, Lovecraft never becomes an assertive main character and learns nothing from this adventurous novel's exciting incidents. He disappears for most of the novel's middle while more proactive characters upstage him. Lupoff plays it straight, stating in the introduction and bibliography that the book is genuine history. Throughout the novel are photographs and "original" documents, some of which are transparently fake. The style of the book's body is that of fiction, not biography. Lupoff could know nothing of some of the events no matter how many documents he has. The writing is at times stilted, but the plot is clever. Lovecraft's Book is entertaining, but readers who are unfamiliar with Lovecraft's work probably won't enjoy it. Joshi's Annotated H. P. Lovecraft gives a good introduction to the Lovecraft, including his odious philosophical views, and makes good preparation for Lovecraft's Book. Fans of Lovecraft will delight in Lupoff's novel.
4.0 out of 5 stars
not your familiar HPL,
By Tom M. "history nut" (Avon, CT USA) - See all my reviews
Amazon Verified Purchase(What's this?)
This review is from: Lovecrafts Book (Hardcover)
This is an interesting one, a historical fiction of sorts. It's not the first time HP Lovecraft has been written into stories (most famously by Robert Bloch), but it is definitely HPL at his most action packed. No starry-eyed dreamer here, no space creatures eating his brain---his antagonists are very human and include Providence mobsters, Nazi spies and ruthless killers that will stop at nothing in their goal to destroy America. The cast of characters includes Houdini, Houdini's brother Theo, Sonia Lovecraft (yes, a love story), Al Capone, Linbergh, Hitler, Henry Ford, Clark Ashton Smith, "Two-Gun" Bob Howard (in a hilarious scene with a Klan Klaxon), and a host of others. Lovecraft in the opening scene is nearly drowned trying to save a guy wearing cement overshoes. He's blindfolded, beaten, kicked in the ribs and even gets in a few good belts of the fistacuffs variety. And he also takes a drink now and then. Wow....what can I say. It's like The Case of Charles Dexter Ward, but on acid, and set in the years running up to World War II. I'm sure all these things really existed in some fashion, but the war and the occupation of Eastern Europe must have given us all amnesia. My only complaint is that HPL was the most two-dimensional character in it, perhaps because he was such a mystery in real life. The flirtatious Sonia is worth the time to read it just by herself, so I'd give this one four stars out of five, in spite of all the krauts spitting out "Ja, Mein Herr!".
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