Reviews
The Lurking Fear was what drew me into this one. I enjoyed the suspense, the accentuating sense of mystery and horror, and it's clear why Lovecraft and his fictional universe stand out as one of the pillars of the horror genre. I found it very impressive how Derleth mirrors Lovecraft's writing - it's almost uncanny, that if the book had not stated discreetly in the copyrights section the stories' respective authors, I would be surprised had I been told they were written by different people. Of course, Lovecraft tends to be rather philosophical and introspective in his own tales and this is the salient feature which distinguishes them - they seem to be less plot driven, no, to put it in another way, it's not only the incidents which seem to matter but the implications behind the phenomena, if indeed they were true (as in the tales they are very much so to the protagonists). It shows because Lovecraft seems to devote many lines of musings to these assortments. (Other than that I found it a challenge to do so without much help from a reference page.) That is why I liked them the best. Perhaps The Lurking Fear was the first story of the anthology, and that explains why I loved it most out of all of the listed, or maybe it worked the other way around (in that it was put first because its quality stands out). Either way no harm done and much enjoyment ensues. Reading it intermittently across a couple of days is recommended as one's familiarity grows with the basic 'template' of each tale, it becomes a little tiring to sit through one after another.