Customer Reviews

The Quest for Cthulhu (Carroll & Graf Science Fiction)

5 star:		(2)
4 star:		(1)
3 star:		(3)
2 star:		(1)
1 star:		(0)

 

 

Derleth has been disparaged by many fans of Lovecraft's fiction for his revisions to the Cthulhu corpus. Lovecraft had a very modernistic outlook - a rationalistic materialist with the premise that man could indefinitely improve himself through the proper application of his intellect. Naturally, the thing that would disturb him the most is the idea that there ARE gods and other beings, and that they don't CARE about us, because our vaunted intellect is actually quite feeble and entirely unable to grasp the truth of the universe. Derleth is a quintessentially 1950's post-modern man, who sees that the universe is indeed quite a bit more strange than we can imagine, but that through the proper application of scientific inquiry we can make quite a bit of headway in understanding, describing, cataloging, and controlling that strangeness.

Yes, you can imagine that fans of the one might find the other infuriating.

Unfortunately, Derleth is rarely considered as an author in his own right rather than an addendum to HPL. Yes, there is a fannish-quality to Derleth's name-dropping and "Ia!Ia!" proclamations, but he does write a good tale. You may decide that it is really more science-fiction than cosmic horror, but taking each story on its own merits will allow you to appreciate what Derleth has in store for you.

The first half is "The Mask of Cthulhu", which is composed of unrelated short stories dealing with "you-know-who". These are mostly rewrites of Lovecraftian stories - "The Whipporwills in the Hills" is the Dunwich Horror + The Rats in the Walls, "The Seal of R'yleh" is The Shadow Over Innsmounth, etc. These are fairly good stories and would be better than some that make it into Chaosium's Cycle series.

The second half is "The Trail of Cthulhu", which unlike the first half is composed of interlocking short stories. Each one is the testimony of one person who became involved with the mysterious Dr. Shrewsbury and his quest against Cthulhu. Each person's narrative is a glimpse into the war waged by Shrewsbury against Cthulhu and his minions. Unlike the Lovecraftian formula, the protagonists have a way out; Laban has made a contract with Hastur whereby he has gained the secret of space mead (which allows the user to survive in space, among other strange powers), the ability to call for help from Hastur's minions, and a refuge on another world. The servants of Cthulhu are always a step behind Shrewsbury and his assistants, who are doing their best to protect humanity without losing their lives in the process.

The narratives are well written and the interlocking stories are a great device, but "Trail of Cthulhu" seems more clinical to me than it should. No one ever really gets their hands dirty. Dr. Shrewsbury is helping Hastur fight Cthulhu - shouldn't there be a price paid for this assistance? Is Hastur so beneficent, or does Laban have his own secret agenda? Is Laban really who he says he is? Pawns are occasionally sacrificed in this game to save humanity, but no mention is ever made of the degradation of the players' humanity as they sacrifice some to make their moves.

In summary, these are stories I will read more than once, and the collection as a whole is pretty good. It does, however, gloss over the darkness in mankind to tell a cosmic story, and I think that removes the horror from where it should be, which is in the soul.

The stories presented in this book are definitely in keeping with standard Lovecraftian themes and style of story telling. That being said, if you like HP Lovecraft, you'll like this book. Die-hard Lovecraft fans might want to take a look at the table of contents to make sure they don't already own the stories (the last of which was originally printed in the 1950's), but this is an excellent purchase for others. The text at the end discussing Lovecraft's view on the Cthulhu mythos and its evolution is excellent and helps to dispel many lies that have been spread about Lovecraft.

After the great H.P. Lovecraft died, his sometime colleague August Derleth stepped in to keep that author's work alive. Derleth founded Arkham House Press, a publishing company that reprinted the master's stories so new generations of horror/fantasy readers could discover the eldritch nightmares originally penned by Lovecraft. Instead of merely reprinting the thirteen original tales from the master, Derleth contributed his own stories to the mythos and inspired other writers to do the same. Even today, writers of the macabre consider it imperative to churn out at least one Lovecraft themed tale. Robert Bloch, Clark Ashton Smith, Charlee Jacob, Robert E. Howard, Stephen King, J. Ramsey Campbell, and many other authors have all written tales set in Lovecraft's Cthulhu milieu. This book, "Quest for Cthulhu," is August Derleth's contributions to the mythos written from the 1930s to the 1950s. For those unfamiliar with Lovecraft's Cthulhu tales, his stories concerned a whole constellation of "ancient gods," or evil deities cast into exile when another set of gods battled these creatures for control of the universe. These ancient gods are multidimensional beings capable of traveling anywhere in the universe, and some arrived on earth where they built vast cities populated by eerie beings who worshipped these evil deities. Traces of this time before man still exist in out of the way places on the planet and in ancient texts like the "Necronomicon" locked away in Miskatonic University in Massachusetts. The fun comes when some poor soul unlocks part of the secrets of this pre-Adamic age and promptly suffers a whole host of horrors for their incessant curiosity.

"Quest for Cthulhu" has two parts. The first, under the title of "The Mask of Cthulhu," contains several stand alone short stories about men who would have been better off in the long run if they had simply checked their curiosity. "The Return of Hastur" relates what happens when one ignores the directions contained in a last will and testament. "The Whippoorwills in the Hills" describes how one man falls under the evil spell of an ancient god while living in an abandoned house with disastrous consequences for the local populace. "Something in the Wood" is a very short story about an art critic who ultimately disappears without a trace after obtaining a creepy looking statue from a friend. "The Sandwin Compact" discusses the terrible fate awaiting those humans who welch on a contract with the ancient ones. "The House in the Valley" is more or less a retread of "The Whippoorwills in the Hills." "The Seal of R'lyeh" sets up the second part of the book with a story about the horrors that lie off the coast of Innsmouth, Massachusetts and the strange link between the denizens of that town and the ancient ones.

The second section of the book, a series of "statements" from various individuals comprising a novella entitled "The Trail of Cthulhu," finds Derleth exploring the attempts of Cthulhu's minions to bring their evil deity back to power on earth. Each statement builds on the previous one as we see a growing effort on the part of several men to prevent the horrible reemergence of one of the most powerful of the ancient gods.

While I appreciated reading several new tales about Lovecraft's epic mythos, I found Derleth's stories somewhat derivative of the original tales. Far too often this author reincorporates the same themes in each of his stories, making it quite difficult to get through some parts of the book. In a few places, "The Quest for Cthulhu" is downright plodding. Another annoying aspect for me was whenever Derleth had a character refer directly to one of H.P. Lovecraft's stories as proof of the presence of the evil ones. This reference appears in several places and seemed very fanboyish, as though Derleth sought credibility for his own stories by dropping Lovecraft's name. Moreover, the six stories that make up the first part of the book are absolutely arthritic to read due to Derleth's massive use of commas. I always enjoyed Lovecraft's ornate language, the endless adjectives and arcane language that author used in his writings, but some of the run-on sentences in these stories would frustrate Marcel Proust. Fortunately, "The Trail of Cthulhu" sequence flows much better than the first few stories. A final complaint here is the huge plot hole threading its way throughout nearly every tale in the book. If the minions of the ancient ones truly seek to bring back their gods and oppose every attempt by the "good guys" to prevent this eventuality, why not simply burn the library at Miskatonic University? That depository houses all of the important texts about the ancient gods along with documents donated to the library by those opposing these evil deities, so why waste time following people around? Destroying the library would virtually insure that no new opponents would arise to interfere with the nefarious plans of Innsmouth and the dreaming Cthulhu.

I liked how Derleth subtly hinted at the "real" reasons behind nuclear testing in the South Pacific, how he explored in greater depth some of the dread texts outlining the existence of the ancient gods, and the greater reliance on "anthropological proof" of the pervasive influence of the evil deities. This last point appears repeatedly throughout the stories as Derleth ties together many ancient religions under the banner of Cthulhu. Moreover, he insinuates that Christianity's Satan/God taxonomy is really a distorted representation of the titanic battle that took place in outer space between the elder gods and the ancient gods. While there are many problems with Derleth's interpretation of Lovecraft, the book isn't a total loss. Fans of the Cthulhu mythos will still find much to like with August Derleth.

Yes, this book deals with many of the Lovecraft Mythos characters, but it falls far short of anything HPL ever wrote. One of the things that makes Lovecraft engaging is the claustrophobic atmosphere and feeling of empty weirdness and helplessness in the face of what lurks "out there." This book has none of that--Derleth never comes close. I found the stories to be mechanical and predictable. (Of course, HPL's detractors sometimes say the same thing about his work). I would only recommend this to hardcore Lovecraft junkies who really are hurting for a fresh Lovecraft Mythos fix... better yet, just go re-read the real thing. Or read Derleth's "co-written" stories with HPL--at least in those he was starting with the germ of an idea or or plot outline of Lovecraft's.

In a way the book is a tribute to Lovecraft's skill as a writer--you can toss together the elements he often used, but it's a harder thing to actually make it work.

I gave this a two start rating only because it was connected to HPL... it really only deserves one star.

"Quest for Cthulhu" is a compilation of two very different Lovecraft-inspired books by August Derleth. "The Mask of Cthulhu" is a collection of a handful of Lovecraftian short stories written and published in the 1940s and 1950s, and is easily the stronger of the two books. Since all the stories in "Mask" were previously published in magazines such as "Weird Tales" you'd be right in assuming they pack quite a punch and are satisfying atmospheric fiction. There are three standout stories here:

"The Return of Hastur" in which the contents of a last will are not properly honored.

"Something in Wood" in which we're presented with a mysterious miniature idol.

"The House in the Valley" in which an artist in a secluded house descends into madness.

The novel "The Trail of Cthulhu," on the other hand, is pretty disappointing. Most of the chapters in the book were originally published as short stories, which in itself isn't always a bad thing. But despite a promising setup - each chapter is "authored" by the latest assistant of an occult investigator named Dr. Shrewsbury - the stories themselves are anticlimatic, repetitious, and often dull in the extreme. It's difficult to distinguish the lead characters from one another, and the various villains throughout are defeated far too easily. The cookie-cutter approach not only robs the overarching story of what drama it has, but also weakens the contents of the individual chapters. When characters are given powerful talismans as protection and can summon magical beings to whisk them away from danger in every single chapter, it's hard to feel any suspense.(It's here that Derleth also repeatedly editorializes regarding the Lovecraftian Mythos and conceives of them as an elaboration of pre-Adamic history from Christian theology, which is radically at odds with how Lovecraft himself presented the Mythos in stories such as "At The Mountains of Madness" and "The Call of Cthulhu." It's also at odds with how the horrors in the chapters are portrayed, because there's almost no evidence of any active and beneficial supernatural powers at work here. To be fair, Derleth does similar sermonizing in "Mask of Cthulhu" but because those stories are far more varied it isn't as noticable.)

"Mask" is strongly recommended for anyone who enjoyed "Lurker at the Threshold" or "Watchers in the Dark." "Trail," on the other hand, is only recommended for diehard Derleth fans. Still, since neither book is currently in print alone, this compilation is the only way to get a fresh copy of either book."

Quest For Cthulhu is some of the the best "Lovecraft" there is, aside from HP himself. I don't believe that any other author has as good a feel for the Mythos as August Derleth, and this is some of his best work. "Ph'nglui mglw'nafh Cthulhu R'lyeh wgah' nagl fhtagn".

This book was put together from two seperate Derleth novels, "Mask of Cthulhu" and "Trail of Cthulhu." Of these "Trail" is by far the best.

"Mask of Cthulhu" is basically six unrelated Lovecraft pastiches. None of the stories are horrible, but none of them equal Lovecraft's Cthulhu Mythos stories. Derleth's insertion of a good/evil dichotomy and hokey elemental alignments for the Great Old Ones is annoying, but easy to ignore, especially since Derleth acknowledges in the afterword that the Elder Gods and Great Old Ones are above conventional human morality, and that he intended "good" and "evil" to be shorthand for a more complex "order" vs. "chaos" dichotomy.

What hurts the stories more is that they have very similar plots, generally consisting of someone finding some artifact of Cthulhu or some other Great Old One. At first being entranced and then scared then finally having something dreadful happen to them. The stories seems routine and formulaic by the time you've gotten to the end of "Mask." Luckily the final story "The Seal of R'Lyeh" breaks the formula to some extent, particularly in its sympathetic portrayal of certain minions of Cthulhu, and is much better than all the other stories.

"Trail of Cthulhu" is much better. Rather than simply rehash Lovecraft's ideas, like he did in "Mask" Derleth expands upon them. Whereas most of Lovecraft's stories (and Derleth's from "Mask") deal with the discovery of the Great Old Ones and the character's immediate reaction to them Derleth's character Dr. Shrewsbury already knows of the existence of Cthulhu as the story begins, and is taking steps to stop him from escaping his watery prison by aligning himself with Cthulhu's enemy Hastur. He and the various viewpoint characters who help him travel around the world, often stopping at places Lovecraft had covered in earlier stories, like Innsmouth and the Nameless City, in their attempts to stop Cthulhu's followers from freeing him. It gives the story an epic feel and ties together elements from previous stories in a fairly satisfying way. Even if the reader doesn't neccessarily like what Derleth does with the Mythos in this book, it's certainly nice to see him work up the guts to try to do something new, instead of just rehashing previous Lovecraft stories.

If you are a fan of the Cthulhu Mythos you should get this volume, but if you're only interested in reading some well written cosmic horror stories you might want to find a standalone copy of "Trail of Cthulhu" in a used bookstore somewhere first.