The Overstreet Price Guide has always been an unbeatable reference/entertainment bargain. In this edition, boasting nearly a thousand pages, you get feature articles (this time out on Superman, Spider-Man and Archie), a market report, the exhaustive price guide listings (erudite essays by leading experts preface each "age" of comics) and everything you need to know about the care and feeding of comics: grading, collecting, preservation and storage, buying and selling, and so on. The guide's famous cover gallery - thirty-six sumptuous pages of four-color masterpieces - by itself justifies the purchase price.

My collecting years well behind me, I picked up this edition of the OPG for the express purpose of appraising a few duplicate comics I wanted to sell on eBay. Soon, however, my on again, off again love affair with comics was passionately rekindled, and I was deep in the throes of browsing mania. The OPG is insidiously addictive, whether your interest in comics is based on collecting, investing, pop culture or just plain old nostalgia. My modest collection of mainly Silver Age Marvels has priceless sentimental value, and only utter financial ruin could induce me to sell it. Still, it's fun to check values periodically and to enjoy the purely masochistic thrill of looking up key issues I wish I had been savvy enough to buy way back when. (Such as the Holy Grail of Spidey-philes like me, "Amazing Fantasy" #15, whose sinfully high current value in near mint condition assures that I will never own it now!)

The OPG is like a politically incorrect clubhouse for boys of all ages and a "no girls allowed" sign is not so subtly implied. The book is pre-occupied with and gleefully celebrates the stuff that boys and men love: action and more action, gore and more gore, and girls, girls, girls. Archaic references to "headlights" and "Good Girl Art" abound in the price listings. In the cover gallery, feminine pulchritude rules. The hobby has female fans and the OPG does acknowledge them, but it's safe to say comicdom will forever remain a mighty bastion of manly ideals. (Yeah, baby!)

The book's market report points up some disturbing trends. Once a boys club admitting anyone with a pocketful of change, comic book fandom is looking more like a very exclusive Rich Boys Club these days. According to the report, somebody paid $350,000 in 2001 for a high grade copy of the legendary Golden Age "Marvel Comics" #1 - the most ever paid for a single comic. Likewise, key Silver Age comics are fetching house mortgage-sized figures. Investors with very deep pockets dominate the ad pages of the OPG, offering vast amounts of cash for key books or whole collections. Such high-rolling doesn't bode well for a hobby that should be all about fun, not trophies and greed.

It's also chic these days for a collector to have his valuable comic graded by a company of super-experts, who proceed to encase the book in an archival plastic holder with a score on the front. The result is a comic book preserved for eternity, but nobody can enjoy it ever again. You can have your trophies - I'm fine with my stained, spine-rolled, subscription-creased Spideys with my name scrawled all over the covers. Poor, but fine.

I've had an interest in comics for quite a while now and decided to find out the value on my own comic books. Not only has this book given me the guide value of these comics it has allowed me to find new comic series to buy as well.

The book gives you market values for all comic books so that when you go to purchase comics to add to your collection you will not be [cheated]! After browsing through this book you will find out which comics can become real investments.

I highly recommend this book and will continue to buy each new addition as it becomes available.

It goes without saying that Overstreet is the best of the reference guides for pricing comics. Perhaps I have too much time on my hands, but it is also good for a little browsing in your spare time with its articles, cover reproductions, and odd facts. I would also say that it is completely comprehensive, except that I noticed that the 1967 copy of Captain Johner and the Aliens published by Gold Key seems to be missing from some editions....
One important thing to keep in mind is that the guides themselves become collectibles. I always used to discard my old "obsolete" copy when I got a more recent one- now I see that some of the older editions that I threw out are worth big bucks. ARRRRRGH!

Hardly the best collection from the early Lovecraft acolytes, but one that will certainly appeal to the fourteen-year-old in everyone who loves the Mythos. Editor Price is an admirable scholar of this particular niche in literature, here providing rarely anthologized stories tracing the early evolution of Lovecraft's ideas as practiced by his (generally) less famous pulp fiction contemporaries and fans.

The majority of these offerings are in the "freebooting adventurer meets his doom in forbidden archaeology" vein, a la Conan creator Robert E. Howard - two of whose stories (and only one really a Mythos tale) are duly reprinted, "The Thing on the Roof" and "The Fire of Assurbanipal." Robert Bloch's "Fane of the Black Pharaoh," not one of his best but still not bad, has a British explorer running afoul of an ancient Brotherhood protecting the secrets of a mad Egyptian prophet-king. Clark Ashton Smith's "The Seven Geases" concerns the hypnotic magic of a long-forgotten serpent race, who sacrifice men to their unspeakable dark god. August Derleth - you didn't expect he'd miss out on the act, did you? - collaborates with Mark Schorer on "Lair of the Star-Spawn," detailing a missing archaeologist's plan to stop those same serpent-people from releasing their demon-gods upon mankind. (Derleth is also represented by his own virtual plagiarism of Algernon Blackwood, in "Ithaqua" and "The Thing That Walked On the Wind.") E. Hoffman Price's "The Lord of Illusion" and Henry Hasse's "The Guardian of the Book" tell stories of extraterrestrial wayfarers through the gates of time and space, uncovering ancient and extra-dimensional secrets.

Other offerings include more straightforward horror stories, such as Henry Kuttner's "Bells of Horror" and "The Invaders," C. Hall Thompson's "Spawn of the Green Abyss," Carl Jacobi's "The Aquarium" and Duane W. Rimel's "Music of the Stars." Many of these, like Derleth's stories and Bertram Russell's "The Scourge of B'Moth," are essentially...rehashes of recognizable Lovecraft classics, though one or two are fairly original and worthwhile.

And for those who long for the occasional chuckle-break from all the melodramatically histrionic proceedings, Donald A. Wollheim's "The Horror Out of Lovecraft" and Fritz Leiber's "To Arkham and the Stars" will fit the bill - the latter, especially, as it comically rapes virtually every famous story Lovecraft ever wrote (with love, of course).

These aren't all the stories included in this volume, but they are indicative of the rest - certainly sufficient for anyone to determine whether or not Tales of the Lovecraft Mythos will be worth the "Price."

Now, if you'll excuse me, there's something at my window. It seems to be - oh, my God! Words cannot describe the utter blasphemous horror of the nameless dread somehow made flesh incarnate! Someone save me, before I succumb to that unutterable -

This is a solid collection of "pulp" stories out of the Lovecraft tradition ranging from fair to excellent. Some of Price's selections may be arguable, for instance, Howard's "The Fire of Ashurbanipal" or Smith's "The Seven Geases". Both have produced tales that are rooted firmer in the Lovecraft mythos, but the first is the alternate version of the tale of the same title, difficult to find, and the second is simply one of Smith's best stories. Even the Derleth contributions are good tales, centering around his more intruiging and more independent creation Ithaqua. A couple of oddities and relics round off the book.

Price's introduction and defense of Derleth's systemizing of the mythos is less than successful. He argues, more or less, that the roots of the elemental system and the struggle of good vs. evil deities lie in Lovecraft's own tales. For instance, both Derleth's and Lovecraft's protagonists bestow upon the entities negative moral adjectives and connotations. Although I agree with Price that Derleth has been lambasted undeservedly by many contemporary critics, his arguments, in the end, are unconvincing. Though Lovecraft and Derleth both describe the evil from an antropocentric view, Derleth's objective description of the Cthulhu Mythos is explicitly in analogy with Christian mythology and, one should admit, systematic theology, while Lovecraft is objectively explicit in the complete indifference, chaos, and contingency that is breaking in upon a mechanistic materialistic reality.

The two stances, and thus the frames of their tales, couldn't be further apart from each other. If Derleth and Lovecraft weren't that different in the end, as Price suggests, the question arises why Derleth's stereotypical tales (which were really clever advertisings for his Arkham House) easily published in the worst pulp magazines, while Lovecraft barely sold any of his own. One could make an analogy with the immensely popular Hammer films of the sixties and seventies, usually depicting stereotypical struggles between good and evil, and the many contemporary horror films that reached deeper than mere dichotomies have been largely forgotten. Even so, Price offers valuable points in defense of Derleth and criticism of recent Lovecraft scholarship.

my first experience with pulp came through this collection, and it is still my favorite. the early masters of pulp and their greatest stories (or almost) are collected here. this collection is excellent, particularly as an introduction to pulp. it's not too weird, focuses a lot on descriptions and understandable plots. gathered here are writers like kuttner, howard, hall thompson, derleth........ filled with masterpieces. great stories.

These early stories show he growth of a master horror writer. The 1st few tales, although readable, are really imitations of Lovecraft and his circle of admirerers. As the stories progress over time, you see the reliance on the Cthulhu Mythos fading to the background as Bloch uses it as a strting point rather than as an end. So although you'll see mention of Yog Sototh and Nyarlohotep, these stories are accessible to readers who aren't "in on it". A good read for Bloch fans, Cthulhu fans or those readers just starting in either group.

I've been a fan of the Mythos for about 8 years and I can say with certainly that this book is one of my favorites. Bloch's vision of the Mythos is both faithful and innovative. He doesnt spasmotically drop spooky names (like Derleth) and he doesnt write with an overly complicated and hard to read style (like Carter). Of all of Lovecraft's cadre of friends, Bloch is one of my favorites. By all means pick this book up!

Mysteries of the Worm is a collection of early Robert Bloch stories, several of which had not seen print in over four decades, based on the Cthulhu Mythos cosmology created by H. P. Lovecraft. As a teenaged burgeoning author, Bloch attained a place in the lofty Lovecraft Circle in the two or three years before HPL's untimely death, and his early writing was heavily influenced by Lovecraft. The earliest of these stories dates back to 1937, and it is rather easy to see Bloch's transition as a writer as one journeys from one story to the next. Early pieces such as The Secret in the Tomb are highly derivative of Lovecraft in terms of mood, setting, language, and flourishing style. The Mannikin bears the influence of Lovecraft's The Dunwich Horror and The Thing on the Doorstep. In time, Bloch began making his own contributions to the Mythos by exploring a newly-discovered avenue of HPL's geometrically twisted cosmos. In The Shambler From the Stars, Bloch introduces his own dark tome of mystic lore, Ludvig Prinn's De Vermis Mysteriis, or The Mysteries of the Worm, and it is this contribution to the Mythos that Bloch is most remembered for.

The Shambler From the Stars is quite interesting because a character clearly based on Lovecraft comes to a nasty end similar to that of the mad Arab Abdul Alhazred himself. Dark Demon features yet another Lovecraft-based character, this one an author who comes to believe that his weird fiction is in fact truth he has been ordained to preach by Nyarlathotep himself. What I find most interesting about Bloch's stories, however, is the incorporation of Egyptian mythology into the Mythos. Inspired by Lovecraft's mention of Nephren-Ka in The Haunter of the Dark, Bloch takes us into the history of this evil pharaoh whose existence was supposedly all but expunged from Egyptian history. Nephren-Ka and his acolytes worshipped Nyarlathotep himself, and Bloch has ancient remnants of the group surviving under Cairo itself, while some of the worshippers along with a number of the priests of the god Bubastis escaped Egypt and settled eventually on the coasts of Britain, underneath the moors of Cornwall, where they continued their efforts to create a hybrid with the attributes of their deity.

Bloch later looked back on many of these early tales with some embarrassment, pointing out the amateur quality many of them possessed. I, however, find all of these stories quite good and great fun to read. I would just point to one other story at this time as being of special interest. After Bloch killed "Lovecraft" in The Shambler From the Stars, HPL kindly reciprocated by killing a Bloch-based character in his classic tale The Haunter of the Dark. That happens to be one of my favorite HPL stories, so I was quite happy to find that Bloch had actually written a sequel to it in the form of The Shadow From the Steeple. While it lacks the stultifying menace of HPL's master work, it proved quite interesting and nostalgic to take up the events surrounding that old church steeple and the Shining Trapezohedron found there, the frightful jewel that served as a gateway through which Nyarlathotep, the Haunter of the Dark, could manifest himself on Earth.

Featuring an introduction by Call of Cthulhu series editor Robert M. Price, an afterword by Robert Bloch himself, an essay by Lin Carter on Bloch's contribution to the Mythos, and a very helpful introduction to each story contained herein, Mysteries of the Worm is a book that all Cthulhu Mythos acolytes should own. While the stories aren't as complex and nourishing as HPL's own fictional creations, they not only satisfy the eternal desire for good Mythos-based weird fiction, they open up new avenues of the whole cosmology that are fascinating in and of themselves.

In Overstreet's 1999 Comic Price Guide (29th edition), a new concept in comic grading is being introduced. Robert Overstreet and his senior advisors are endorsing The Comics Guaranty Corporation (CGC). CGC "is based on the model of successful certification used by the leading grading service in rare coins, and the fastest growing grading system in sports cards" according to the Overstreet Guide. The books are to be graded and evaluated by CGC using exacting standards and sealed in a special holder. If the books are removed from the holder, then re-certification would be necessary. Sounds good, Think again! Excuse the pun, but to compare certification of coins or cards to comic books is like comparing The Batman to The Wasp. Coins and cards can be seen from both sides supporting the grading system, while the pages of a book can not. How would you ever know if all the pages are intact? I guess you have to trust the "integrity" of the grader. Lest we forget, What made comic collecting the hobby it is today are the stories and adventures of our favorite characters. What about the comics who are not considered keys? Would these books fade into oblivion? Who would want to spend money to grade these books? Maybe the best of intentions are being made to honestly grade books, but what happens when there is competition with less accuracy, consistency, impartiality and integrity? The early 1990's proved to be diasterous for the industry with inflated high prices on low-grade books. This concept appears to be heading in the same direction with very few reaping the rewards with monetary gain. Com'un Guys, Back to Basics! The industry has already been monopolized by a few who are cornering the market. How will this entice new collectors? Apparently, it has been forgotten that these books, with our favorite characters,were meant to be read, treasured and enjoyed. They were not made to line the pockets of the few who monopolize the industry. I can not help but wonder how The Batman or The Wasp would feel about being evaluated, encapsulated and never to be read.

Overstreet is the bible for collectors of comic books; a sad fact, considering how lopsided its representation of comic book publishers is. I accept that not everything printed can be represented in a guide, but from the look of Overstreet, everything from either Marvel or DC can be- even a recent Marvel title which had poor sales and remains in low demand is represented here at its original cover price, but where are the independent titles which have enjoyed a substantial share of the same market? Where is the Gold Digger, for example, whose sales held strong even during the B&W bust, and which remains in demand today? It's not a bad guide, really... but for the $22 US cover price, I expect something more thorough.

I've collected comic books for over fifteen years and I have found through my experience that Overstreet's Price Guide serves the purpose of grading comics best. One the opening articles of the guide is decicated to grading comics. This includes grading terminology with a succinct description of each major grade(Near Mint, Very Fine, etc.), factors that will influence the price of a comic(for example, high-grade comics will generally be sold for 50% to 100% over the listed guide price), tips on how to put a collection together as well as sell a collection ( for instance, the guide indicated which category of books would need to be listed individually when selling to a dealer), and a report of some of the top comic book sales of the previous year, plus much more. In my opinion, these opening articles embody the fundamentals of comic book collecting and are required reading for anyone seriously entering the hobby. The Overstreet Guide is also more thoroughly illustrated with black and white photos of comic covers than any other guide I've seen.

Whether I've bought or sold books (I'm not a professional dealer, by the way, I simply sell books from my collection from time to time to generate cash for a new comic I really want) I've always found that the prices and particularly the grading standards listed in the Overstreet Guide are what is almost universally excepted by collector and dealer alike.

I've consistently found the listings in the guide to be thorough and complete. Overstreet makes a concerted effort to indicated which issues have artists and key events that many collectors are looking for(An example would be: N.Adams art, 1st appearance Ras Al Gul). Of course, everyone has their own opinion of which issues are most important, but Overstreet does a fine job of listing the ones that most people demand, and there are many. A previouse review indicated that the Platinum Age listings may be incomplete. However, I believe there is an article preceeding this listing that indicates that, because material from this period is so rare, the listing is more than likely incomplete. Additionally, the author invites any collectors who have issues from this period that are not included in the listing to contact the author so that the new information can be incorporated into the new edition. Another reviewer felt that the listing for Modern Age comics was also lacking. There may be two reasons for this. First, the edition you purchase takes several months to prepare, and when it is published, it represents the activity in the comic book market for the previous year. The Modern Age issues in question may have been published durning the period of time that the guide does not cover. Second, the comics produced in the last ten years, with a few exceptions, represent, in my experience, a very glutted market. Supply of these books far surpasses demand. Thus, most of these books don't experience much of a price increase. So it's possible that a book published within the last couple of years that hasn't increased above its cover price in value may not be included in the guide. What would be the point? And in either case, these issues will more than likely be included in a future edition.

As regards the claim that Mr. Overstreet "fixes" the prices in the guide to suit his personal interests, who can really say? What can be said is this: only a person who has a thorough knowledge of and an avid interest in the medium (i.e. a collector) could produce a comprehensive grading and price guide for the use of other collectors. I can't imagine a guide put together by someone who had absolutely no interest in the hobby. Where whould such a person get his information from? He'ld have to depend on other collectors and thus you'ld more than likely have the same charge of conspiracy all over again. Mr. Overstreet evidently has not only the the knowledge and interest but the experience as well as the knowledge and experience of his many adivsors. He's just as qualified, if not more so, than anyone else.

Let me provide a word of caution. The Overstreet Guide contains numerous dealer advertisements. Some are genuinely strict graders and provide excellent products and service (Four Color Comics and Metropolis Comics are two of these). However, there are many who are VERY liberal in their grading and whose claim of "unconditional money back guarantee" quickly evaporates when you try and make a return (Want List Comics comes to mind). Buy all means, take advantage of these dealer listings, but do so with carefully.

To conclude, I sincerely feel the Overstreet Comic Book Price Guide is the best available. If your serious about collecting comics, it's a valuable tool for buying, selling, and personal research. I've learned much from just going through the guide page by page and discovering books I never thought existed. Additionally, it's more than likely that at some point in your collecting you'll have to deal with someone who uses this guide a the standard.

This book is only slightly better than worthless. Even the most superficial internet search on the subject of Mauser rifles gives far more detail for any given model. The average ad placed by people looking to sell their Mausers gives more information than this book. Several of the photos are mislabeled and many are too blurred to help at all. The only thing you really get from this book is a list of models and the countries that used them. Don't waste your money like I did.

This book is perhaps the best general reference on Mauser military rifles in print. The book is divided alphabetically by country to allow you to quickly find information about the rifle you are looking for. There are black and white pictures of many of the rifles mentioned, as well as several full-color sections.
Because of the wide range of Mausers covered, descriptions and information on each rifle is short and brief.
This book is a must for any and every Mauser collector and enthusiast.

This book was written to give the collector an overall review of all models and countries where the Mauser military rifles were used. A short history of the countries and of each individual model gives the researcher a fine source of information. Based on the chapter covering my own country (Brazil), I can say that Mr. Ball has made a very good job in writting this book. It is not a book to read from the beginning to the end, but a research source in which you will find a good amount of information before you buy a rifle or to help you catalog your already purchased one. It has helped me a lot (Brazil, alone, has 13 different models!).

Great Book! The book gives super information about the slot car hobby. The information is very basic though, so keep that in mind. Great pictures throughout.

This is a "must have" book for anyone either getting into slot cars or returning to slot cars as an adult. Robert Schleicher has an obvious passion for "true to scale" slot cars and doesn't let that passion get in the way of writing clearly. The book is a great source of information for the home slot car enthusiast particularly for 1/32 scale and to a lesser degree HO. He is not into "hopping up" slot cars and even states that it is more fun to win a race between equally matched cars using luck and skill than to win having the faster car. He does however, cover how to customize and optimize as well as performance match "ready to race" slot cars. The pictures are spectacular while the layouts and cars are worthy of the pictures. The book has quite a few typographical errors but weather you want to collect slot cars, build a detailed layout, both or just assemble your slot car set on the floor and race, this is a great book.

"Racing and Collecting Slot Cars" is a book for every slot car racer and collector. It's primary focus is HO and 1/32 scale slot cars; however, the information provided applies to all scales. This book is well layed out. Each chapter exploring a specific aspect of these table top racers. The photos (many in color) are EXCELLENT. Best book around on the topic. No book is perfect, but Mr. Schleicher does a great job.

lovecraft's story here is my personal favorite. derleth's is a good one. in addition chambers have his Yellow king here, his masterpiece. Bierce is here, though i'm not a fan of him, his stories have an interesting concept. brennan's story is not that great, but i was amused. wagner's story contains a very well written opening, but the concept turns out to be poor. between 3 and 4 stars, i'd say. i have to agree that the last part of the anthology, with this mysterious race or whatever, shouldn't been here. hastur turned out to be an entertaining concept.

Chaosium starts an attempt to make the works of HP Lovecraft and his followers accessible to fans who haven't subscribed to the esoteric fanzines. The series ranges between general anthologies of mythos stories, works by a single author and studies of certain aspects of the mythos. This book is of the 3rd variety and gives us the history of Hastur. We get works by Lovecraft, Derleth, Chambers and others while tracing the concept of Hastur in the stories. This is an excellent way to get introduced to the classic horror of Chambers King in Yellow. These eerie works are best in short doses as given here. Couple that with a Lovecraft classic and a story by Will Murray (the hardest working man in pulp these days) and you've got yourself a feast of great horror stories. This book is also a good intro to horror fans who haven't discovered Lovecraft yet. Yes, it's like a private eye fan who doesn't know Hammett, but they both exist.

THE HASTUR CYCLE was a very entertaining book of frightening short stories. Some of the stories didn't make sense to me(this may be because I'm just a teenager), but most of them were good. I enjoyed this book immensely, especially Lovecraft's short story "THE WHISPERER IN DARKNESS." The book was pretty good.

I BOUGHT THE BOOK TO IDENTIFY THE HULL VASES WHICH I'VE COLLECTED OVER THE YEARS, BUT I WAS REALLY DISAPPOINTED WHEN I OPENED THIS BOOK. MANY OF THE ITEMS WERE ALMOST UNIDENTIFIABLE, DUE TO WASHED OUT PHOTOS OF THE PASTEL ITEMS - AND THE PASTELS ARE THE ONLY HULL ITEMS WHICH I OWN. I WAS HARD-PRESSED TO BE ABLE TO TELL WHAT I WAS LOOKING AT. THE YELLOWS, PINKS, GREENS AND LIGHT BLUES ARE SO PALE, AS TO NOT BE ABLE TO TELL WHERE ONE COLOR ENDS AND THE OTHER BEGINS. IN MANY PHOTOS, THERE IS ALMOST AN ABSENCE OF COLOR - EVERYTHING IS JUST A BLUR. IF IT HADN'T BEEN FOR THE NUMBERS ON THE BOTTOMS OF THE VASES I OWN, I'D NOT HAVE BEEN ABLE TO FIND THEM - CERTAINLY NOT BY THE PICTURES. REALLY POOR EDITING. THOSE PHOTOS SHOULD HAVE BEEN REJECTED AND RE-DONE.

If I could purchase only one Hull reference it would be Jeffrey Snyder's Hull Pottery: Decades of Design. The Roberts book uses color photos that look they were taken in the 1950's and in at least one case I was unable to ID a piece because of the graniness of the photo. She does include some pieces Synder's book does not and vice versa. I have found using one book to supplement the other the best bet.

I am a dealer so I use this book for pricing, but whether a dealer or collector this is a good book. Plenty of photos, price guide is right on the mark. I am satisfied with it.

This book was written in '96 and as such, Easy Language could have been included since it was available then. The system requires high maintenance observation (in 1 minute, 5 minute, 15 minute and 60 minute charts in each future discussed) that would require programming assistance in the background. NB Another reviewer states he has programmed this in ELA & offers his email address.

There are many charts which take up half of the book, but since most of the time the chart being referenced in the text is on another page, it's a hassle to jump back and forth. The writing style could cure insomnia.

As in Larry Williams' daytrading book, this book would have benefitted greatly by inclusion of Performance Reports with Profit Factors, ROI, consecutive losers and the like. In fairness to the author, he provides the results of all trades in a month period for the different time periods (1-minute through 60-minutes) for various futures including the DM. These could have been enhanced with profit targets, it was surprising to see better than potential $1000+ trades allowed to turn into losers.

Once the single system was explained, the various futures could have been presented with 1 time frame Performance Report and the best value, on successive pages.

Unfortunately since Barnes limited himself to 1 month of trades, there is insufficient information on those time frames greater than 1 or 5 minute charts, to determine the validity of the system. One needs a minimum of 30 samples and in many instances there are only 3 trades for the time period presented.

Better editing would have enhanced the value of this book in making it more comprehensible and capable of the system being confirmed as being viable.

I used the system outlined in the book to develop a highly successful longer term system that makes very good returns with low drawdowns. It also recovers very quickly from losses. Enough said!

VERY HELPFULL BOOK FOR THE NOVICE. QUICK DELIVERY

againandagainandagain. it gets almost interesting. lovecraft's scientific story ending up with nothing much of a climax, Poe drowning in nautical technical information and fragmentary style. taine's is the most interesting one. first too little happens, then too much. could have been good, but is first too boring then too much in the overwhelming action-genre. glasby has good descriptions, but his story doesn't go anywhere. some of the other stories could have been good too. but always, something destroys. too boring, not going anywhere, lacks suspence. truly sad since many of the stories shows potential.

An excellent collection of short to medium length stories, all dealing with Antarctic expeditions and what the adventurers found (but wish they hadn't).

I only gave this book three stars because of the horrible proof-reading. It appeared as if the original documents had been scanned in and run through OCR software without a human bothering to check the results. Some examples: in one story, Tekeli-li is printed T>k>li-li; in one story all instances of "he" are printed as "be".

Other than that, I would recommend this collection to anyone interested in weird fiction set in Antarctica.

From the ends of the Earth come stories of adventure and really BAD things. Start off with a sonnet by Lovecraft himself, called, 'Antarktos', then on to the first course with 'The Narrative of Arthur Gordon Pym of Nantucket' by Edgar Allan Poe, with a follw-up of excerpts by Jules Vern's called 'The Sphinx of the Ice Fields'. This is followed by the not-so-well-known 'The Greatest Adventure' by John Taine. 'At The Mountains of Maddness' by H.P. Lovecraft is served next, the main course, followed by 'The Tomb of the Old Ones' by Colin Wilson. Arthur C. Clarke cooks up a fine story in 'At the Mountains of Murkiness' and what meal would be complete without 'The Thing From Another World' by John W. Campbell Jr.? We finish off our fine dining with 'The Brooding City' by John S. Glasby and 'The Dreaming City' by Roger Johnson. Full yet?