Customer Reviews

Watchers Out of Time and Others

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Ye Nameless Contents:
Foreword, by April Derleth
THE LURKER AT THE THRESHOLD
The Survivor
Wentworth's Day
The Peabody Heritage
The Gable Window
The Ancestor
The Shadow out of Space
The Lamp of Alhazred
The Shuttered Room
The Fisherman of Falcon Point
Witches' Hallow
The Shadow in the Attic
The Dark Brotherhood
The Horror from the Middle Span
Innsmouth Clay
THE WATCHERS OUT OF TIME

The history of the writing of these tales needs to be published. Efforts are being made, particularly by the amazing John D Haefele -- but the task is an enormous one and will require much work and a long length of time. This hardcover edition from Arkham House is the best edition of these books, and one wishes that the House would reprint it. It will noted on the image of the front cover here at Amazon that Derleth never printed Lovecraft's name larger or more prominently than his own. I wish now that I could remember what so annoy'd me about the foreword written by Derleth's daughter -- but it so annoy'd me that I ripped it from the book. I think it was comments in which she insinuated that Derleth was a normal, regular guy and that Lovecraft was an infantile freak. Derleth was the real freak, which is one of the reasons I so admire him, being a wee bit of a freak meself.

This collection is a work of PASTICHE and the stories were written to be acknowledge as such, just as Derleth's Solar Pons books were written as clear pastiche of the Sherlock Holmes canon. I feel that they were begun in earnest seriousness, not only as homage to the genius of H. P. Lovecraft, but in an attempt to write authentic pastiche in Lovecraft's style and fictive voice. They sometimes come close, and these stories are indeed extremely well written -- Derleth was a solid professional in his abilities as author.

THE LURKER AT THE THRESHOLD is an entertaining novel that was inspir'd by bits of notes that Derleth found among Lovecraft's paper's after the New England writer's death. Here is the complete portion that is known as 'The Round Tower':

"S. of Arkham is cylindrical tower of stone with conical roof--perhaps 12 feet across & 20 ft. high. There has been a great arched opening quarter way up, but it is sealed with masonry. The thing rises from the bottom of a densely wooded ravine once the bed of an extinct tributary of the Miskatonic. Whole region feared & shunned by rustics. Tales of fate of persons climbing into tower before opening was sealed. Indian legends speak of it existing as long as they could remember--supposed to be older than mankind. Legend that it was built by Old Ones (shapeless & gigantic amphibia) & that it was once under water. Dressed stone masonry shew odd & unknown technique. Geometrical designs on large stone above sealed opening utterly baffling. Suposed to house a treasure or something which Old Ones value highly. Possible nothing of interest to human beings. Rumours that it connects with hidden caverns where water still exists. Perhaps Old Ones still alive. Base seems to extend indefinitely downward--ground level having somewhat risen. Has not been seen for ages, since everyone shuns the ravine."

Now how could that NOT inspire a fervid Lovecraftian to want to use it in some fictive way!? It inspir'd me to create a similar tower for my tales of the Sesqua Valley. This novel has stayed in print since its first publication, although it has done so by sneaky publishers who often publish it as having been written by H. P. Lovecraft, whose name is the only one on the book's cover. The first two-thirds of the novel are excellent, but Derleth seems to have run out of steam or imagination when writing the final portion, which entirely shifts in focus from the first two parts. Robert M. Price was so annoyed by this that he had ye chutzpah to write his own version of the book's final portion, which may be found in the Chaosium anthology, THE DUNWICH CYCLE, and in Bob's massive and delightful collection, BLASPHEMIES & REVELATIONS (Mythos Books 2008).

"The Survivor" originally sold to WEIRD TALES, but it is one of only two of the stories that had their initial publication in magazines -- the rest first saw publication in books published by Derleth via Arkham House. "The Survivor" remains one of the finest Lovecraftian stories written by someone other than Lovecraft. Its fatal flaw is that Derleth dragged in mention of the Cthulhu Mythos into the tale, for no good reason. Had he not done so, this story would have stood as an excellent example of a tale of Lovecraftian horror that is not a Cthulhu Mythos story in any way. People sometimes forget that there is a different between Lovecraft horror and the Mythos.

When we get to "The Shadow out of Space," things get rather awful, for the story has no originality whatsoever, and is merely one big ripoff of other things that Lovecraft had written. It is pure plagiarism. Then, with "The Shuttered Room," plagiarism is combined with utter stupidity -- this stupid stupid story is one awful ripoff of "The Dunwich Horror." One is almost tempted to guess that Derleth cranked it out spur-of-the-moment for the book he was editing of Lovecraftian marginalia etc., THE SHUTTERED ROOM AND OTHER PIECES. (And yet that book also includes one of the finer of the fake collaborations, "The Fisherman of Falcon Point.")

The "crime" of these stories is that they have Lovecraft's name added to them, and thus H. P. Lovecraft the writer is often criticized or dismissed because of the weaknesses of stories in which he had no hand. As tales of the Cthulhu Mythos, they are fine stories, enjoyable light reading. As such they should be judged.