August Derleth generated over 1 million words a year, and this collection puts some of his best on display. Thoughtful and engaging, it shows the affection Derleth has for the strangers in our world -- those quirky men and women who don't quite blend with our society. This anthology brings together most of Derleth's science fiction writings under one cover, and is well-worth the price of admission.

During the big explosion in popularity of science fiction during the early 1950s, August Derleth edited several science fiction anthologies. Here, found in his files, is the final, hitherto-unpublished anthology that he assembled. The stories collected range in original magazine publication date from roughly 1915 to 1945, with the emphasis on the earlier dates. Authors include such stalwarts as Murray Leinster, David H. Keller, Stanton Coblentz, and A. Hyatt Verril. The best stories are in the general Gernsback-magazine genre of "inventions gone awry," by a couple of obscure authors I had never encountered before.

I found the introductions and comments by someone named Wrzos fairly annoying. Because he doesn't write in complete sentences. Like this. Makes the reader breathless. You know?

This final Derlethian netful of pre-Golden-Age science fiction certainly merited publication and I read it in one sitting.

I read this book because I was given a signed copy of it as a gift (the author is now deceased). I grew up in the same town as the author, and he wrote extensively about the area in many books, not just this one. But this was the first (and so far only) book of his I read. His philosophy is similar to James Joyce's DUBLINERS or Sherwood Anderson's WINESBURG OHIO. The book examines the lives of people living in a specific community and how it shapes them, and although the other books were fiction, Derleth's is not. The book started out very slowly but I stuck with it and it did get better. He tells the story of people in a small Wisconsin town from the late 1800s to the 1950s. Many of the people went crazy or committed suicide. It also has a good dose of nature stories, as Derleth recounts his walks in the forest and marsh in the countryside and describes the wildlife he met. This book is definitely not for everyone but if you are patient and are interested in nature and a slice of life in olden days Sac Prairie (known more commonly as Sauk Prairie or Sauk City and Prairie du Sac), then this will be an enlightening read.

Having read two books chocked full of REAL Lovecraft short stories, I was looking forward to a "book length" story of his horror. Sadly, I was fooled by a "Derleth Knockoff," and should have known better.

For real Lovecraftian horror read, "Call of Cthullu," "The Shadow over Innsmouth," "Dagon," "The Thing on the Doorstep," "The Picture in the House," "The Outsider" and you will be rewarded will true chills down your spine... not this insipid drivel.

The first section, which is told in third person narrative isn't too bad, and sets up the story nicely. It is actually a fair representation of Lovecraft, however, there is not a word of dialogue uttered for 39 pages!! Now once the dialogue starts, the story starts to move, and that familiar Lovecraftian "buildup" starts.

However...just when things are getting interesting, Derleth moves to the next section which is told from Dewart's cousin first person narrative. I found the change in narrative styles in mid story a little disconcerting, but I managed to adjust, and found it interesting, but I was still waiting for the pay off.

Then Derleth ineptly moves to the third section, which is first person again, but told from the perspective of assistant Winfield Phillips. The previous narrator(Dewart's cousin Steven Bates) is summarily dispatched via a NOTE in one paragraph. Derleth obviously wrote himself into a trap with his narrative, and couldn't figure out how to bring about Bates death in a suitably gruesome and terrifying way as the story was currently being told from the wrong perspective. How could the narrator know of Bates horrible fate as he wasn't present at the scene. Thus the death of a major character has little impact or horror that it should in a story such as this.

The biggest issue I had with this third section was it
seemed "dumbed down." the narrator goes into a long tirade of Mythology, and explanation, which if the reader was paying attention, would have already figured most of it out from the previous two narratives! Then, Dewart is summarily shot, and buried, and the "horror" comes to an end. The third section was a complete let down from the build up of the previous two. There was no payoff in the end, and absolutely no shock value at all as the narrator took great pains to over explain everything.

The best I can say about this is that there is some reasonable "Mythos" background, albeit slightly contradictory that might interest the Lovecraftian enthusiast.

This is a fairly good novel and one of the better Mythos works August Derleth ever wrote. Yes, I said August Derleth. H. P. Lovecraft is given credit on the cover, but he only supplies two short fragments that are about a page's worth of material each and were probably not intended to go together. The rest is entirely August Derleth's work. In all fairness, this is Carroll and Graf's problem, not Amazon Book's.

Why did these people give this bad ratings? It ends because the guy summoning the thing dies. These people don't seem to understand that. My favorite book.