At the Mountains of Madness and Other Tales of Terror by H.P. Lovecraft

I am guessing Lovecraft never actually rode in an airplane or ascended more than a few thousand feet.Īnd for some reason I had invented parts of the story out of thin air. Neither would they hear the “strange piping” in the mountains’ passes, because of the noise of the airplane whose engines in past times were much noisier than today.

On the other hand, one thing that did not read true was the human characters’ ease with the altitude Lovecraft describes - the mountains passes are 24,000 feet to fly over in an airplane, and the plateau beyond 20,000 feet, so as New Englanders who are not accustomed to climbing high peaks they wouldn’t be so at ease in their explorations. I’ll add that his anecdotes about geology and continental drift also read true and shows that he did his homework. Interestingly, not far from Lake Vostok, though in Lovecraft’s day that area was unexplored. Following the coordinates provided, there was no surprise in that the mountains and the ancient city are smack dab in the middle of the continent’s most remote sector. I even consulted a map to find out exactly where he placed the Mountains of Madness (and the further, even higher, Mountains of More Madness). In the research I did after I finished I discovered it’s because of Lovecraft’s life-long fascination with Antarctica and in following the exploits of its explorers. One was how “authentic” the expedition to Antarctica reads, even today.

The second time I read it, I found new things to discover. I first read this Lovecraft novella in college some decades ago, and enjoyed it, but while I remembered the basic plot, I’d forgotten a lot of the specifics. Each book features a brand new biography and glossary of Literary, Gothic and Victorian terms.

Discover a storehouse of tales gathered specifically for the reader of the fantastic. It is only through sheer luck that two of them manage to escape, leaving the gnarled bodies of their companions, and live to tell the tale as a warning for all those who come after.FLAME TREE 451: From mystery to crime, supernatural to horror and fantasy to science fiction, Flame Tree 451 offers a healthy diet of werewolves and mechanical men, blood-lusty vampires, dastardly villains, mad scientists, secret worlds, lost civilizations and escapist fantasies. In a gripping tale of fast-paced discovery an entire alien ecosystem is uncovered, and an ancient and bloody battle into which the adventurers have been drawn. Lovecraft indulges his talent for the macabre and horrific. Revealing hidden secrets, lost civilisations and alien origins, master storyteller H.P. As a new expedition to Antarctica is planned a dark tale emerges of a previous, life-threatening adventure.

At the Mountains of Madness and Other Tales of Terror by H.P. Lovecraft