Reviews

There are a lot of folks besides us out there creating interesting new stuff for the Lovecraft community, and we thought it might be fun and useful to have an official HPLHS Reviews page. We have a team of volunteer reviewers who will take a look at the new books, movies, games, music, and more which come our way. If you’ve got something you think would be appropriate for an HPLHS Review, please click on this e-mail link and we’ll take a look at it.

Review by Sean Branney
Posted January 1, 2021

Mansions of Madness, Vol. 1: Behind Closed Doors

This excellent collection of tales of troubled real estate offers a variety of fun and innovative approaches to a well-worn horror trope.

Review by David G. Cercone II
Posted November 6, 2020

Houses Under the Sea

An excellent introduction to Kiernan's Mythos Tales for first time readers - and an indispensable resource for longtime admirers of her Mythos inspired work.

Review by Sean Branney
Posted November 4, 2020

PX Poker Night

A superb "welcome to the world of Delta Green" scenario. A strange set of circumstances collide at a remote Air Force base and set the stage for mistrust, madness and mayhem: a great launching point into the world of Delta Green.

Review by Sean Branney
Posted August 14, 2020

Delta Green

The X-Files collides with Call of Cthulhu in a modern day roleplaying game. Players are government agents trying to thwart unspeakable monstrosities through the veil of dubious conspiracies.

Review by William Dean
Posted June 8, 2020

The Dulwich Horror & Others

A really exciting and well-written collection of mythos stories, ranging from adventure to brooding mystery to creeping existential horror. High quality stuff yet, like the best literature, a joy to read. Hambling is an author to watch.

Review by Agustina Piñeiro
Posted October 29, 2019

Necronomicon: The Book from Hell

A pretty good movie about a humble librarian who discovers a closed section at the National Library in Buenos Aires, full of strange tomes. An interesting story full of Lovecraftian lore and local legends.

Review by Sean Branney
Posted September 17, 2019

The King in Yellow: Annotated Edition

Arc Dream's new annotated collection of tales by Robert W. Chambers shines an eerie light on his King in Yellow tales. Lavishly produced and copiously annotated, this edition is a great way to add Chambers' work to your mythos library.

Review by William Dean
Posted March 1, 2019

The Harry Stubbs Adventures: Vol. 1

Light and easy to read, they nevertheless feature careful pacing, well-thought-out plots and remain true to the Lovecraftian tradition.

Review by Reber Clark
Posted December 20, 2018

The Great God Pan and other Horror Stories

An excellent and thorough collection of the works of Arthur Machen, one of Lovecraft's favorite authors, in a beautiful edition by Oxford University Press.

Review by Geoff Groff
Posted December 20, 2018

The Gate of R'lyeh

Cthulhu is coming and the clock is ticking. Close the gate before Cthulhu arrives, but be wary of cultists amongst you.

Review by James K. Nelson
Posted November 12, 2018

Call of Cthulhu: The Official Video Game

I loved playing Call of Cthulhu: The Official Video Game. Easily among the very best Lovecraft-themed games in terms of atmosphere, experience, and faithfulness to the spirit of the source.

Lovecraft: Selected Works, Perspectives & Influence

Review by James K. Nelson
Posted August 13, 2018

H.P. Lovecraft: Selected Works, Critical Perspectives and Interviews on His Influence

A good introduction for students.

Review by Sean Branney
Posted February 2, 2018

Achtung! Cthulhu

This lavishly produced Lovecraftian role playing game pits investigators against the forces of the Cthulhu Mythos AND Axis forces in World War II. The result is a dramatic and thrilling gaming milieu with a wealth of horrors and large explosions, and features a large amount of supporting material.

Review by Andrew Leman
Posted January 8, 2018

A Game of Ghosts

John Connolly has written almost as many Charlie Parker thrillers as there are episodes of Dark Adventure Radio Theatre, and he seems to issue them just as quickly. This is the 15th and most recent title in the series, and it would make me want to read more of them even if it didn't explicitly mention the HPLHS.

Review by Andrew Leman
Posted November 17, 2017

Innsmouth: The Lost Drawings of Mannish Sycovia

Mark A. Nelson and Stephen D. Smith have crafted a lovely collection of illustrations with an interesting backstory. The Innsmouth it depicts might surprise you.

Review by Sean Branney
Posted November 14, 2017

Pulp Cthulhu

Mike Mason and his team have forged an alternative set of rules for Call of Cthulhu which take the game out of an explicitly Lovecraftian milieu and move it into the broader world of the pulp stories of the '20s and '30s. In keeping with the tone of pulp stories in general, the protagonists are hearty, hard-boiled, and are up to the task of confronting the nefarious forces they face.

Review by Reber Clark
Posted October 12, 2017

The Fiddle is the Devil's Instrument

Talley’s use of the mythos is excellent and not heavy-handed like some Lovecraft pastiche creators. When Lovecraft’s creations and ideas enter Talley’s stories they seem perfectly at home and not thrown in. So far Talley is one of my favorites for this technique. Personally I would stick to...

Review by William Dean
Posted September 27, 2017

The Searching Dead

Acclaimed horror author Ramsey Campbell has written a novel that is part Lovecraftian horror and part memoir of his youth in 1950s Liverpool. This may sound ambitious but Campbell more than delivers – it is poignant, beautiful, horrifying and very Lovecraftian.

Review by Anders Lundgren
Posted September 18, 2017

Tour de Lovecraft: The Tales

Author Kenneth Hite (Trail of Cthulhu, Night's Black Agents and more) takes us on a trip through H. P. Lovecraft’s fictional output. While Hite’s erudition and enthusiasm for (some of) the material shines though at times, this publication would have benefitted from a harsher editor’s eye.

Review by William Dean
Posted September 11, 2017

Black Wings V

S. T. Joshi shouldn’t need any introduction for his immense (and ongoing) contribution to our understanding of HPL: his magisterial biography (I Am Providence, Hippocampus Press, 2010) is the standard reference text for the Old Gent’s life and will likely remain so for many years; his editing and publication of Lovecraft’s essays and correspondence has opened up study into HPL as never before. With this in mind then I was very curious to see what exactly he would choose to include...

Review by Sean Branney
Posted August 28, 2017

Meddling Kids

As someone who grew up with the original Hanna-Barbera Scooby Doo cartoon and as a lifelong Lovecraft fan, I was utterly hooked by this book's premise: a grown-up version of the Mystery Machine gang taking on a Lovecraftian mystery. And while thoroughly populated with the tropes of both Lovecraft and Scooby Doo (and some Hardy Boys and Nancy Drew to boot), the underlying mystery...

Review by William Dean
Posted June 16, 2017

Black Dog Traditions of England

This multi-disciplinary art experience utilises a variety of mediums - book, DVD, art-prints and 12" LP - to explore the traditional English folk-legends surrounding ghostly Black Dogs. Aesthetically and intellectually scrumptious, fans of experimental music and traditional ghost stories will find this a rare, and genuinely frightening, treat.

Review by Sean Branney
Posted June 5, 2017

The Call of Cthulhu and Other Weird Stories

This deluxe presentation of a curated collection of HPL's works makes it a very desirable addition to a Lovecraft lover's library. Edited by S.T. Joshi with a powerful preface by Alan Moore and exceptional illustrations by Dan Hillier, it is a truly lavish volume.

Review by James K. Nelson
Posted May 22, 2017

Hammers on Bone

Hammers on Bone is a remarkably skillful balancing act between genre-fiction playfulness and pit-of-the-stomach horror. Author Cassandra Khaw creates an engaging detective story with surprisingly raw emotional undercurrents....

Review by William Dean
Posted May 17, 2017

Alien: Covenant

Fast-paced, terrifying and exploring new and fascinating ideas, Alien: Covenant is a great contribution to the franchise. If it doesn't quite manage the sublime brilliance of the original Alien and is a little muddled in places, it is, as a stand-alone, still a good movie and well worth your time.

Review by Renee Baer
Posted May 14, 2017

The Dream-Quest of Vellitt Boe

The Dream-Quest of Vellitt Boe is on one hand a version of Unknown Kadath from the perspective of a woman who resides solely in the dream world. On the other hand it is something entirely different.

Review by Sean Branney
Posted May 12, 2017

Bagthulhu

Just in time for our recent Call of Cthulhu gaming night at HPLHS Headquarters, Wayward Masquerade sent us a sample Bagthulhu, a project they are currently doing on Kickstarter. Bagthulhu is a fabric bag for holding gaming dice artfully sewn in the form of Great Cthulhu. The design is both charming and...

Review by William Dean
Posted May 8, 2017

Providence: Act 1

It was with excitement that I approached Act One of Providence, Moore's new graphic novel (illustrated by Jacen Burrows) based upon the works of our revered Lovecraft. I am delighted to report that after reading this first of three volumes that Providence bears every hallmark of being one of his greats.

Review by James K. Nelson
Posted May 8, 2017

Agents of Dreamland

If you’re familiar with your Lovecraft, you may wonder if the “Dreamland” in the title means this will touch upon the relatively whimsical Dunsany-inspired Dream-cycle stories. So...is this whimsical? Oh…, no. Heck no.

Review by Darrell Tutchton
Posted May 6, 2017

Call of Cthulhu: The Coloring Book

Chaosium Inc. has teamed up with the Russian artist Andrey Fetisov to bring you Call of Cthulhu: The Coloring Book. The book combines fond memories of favorite childhood pastimes with sanity destroying supernatural horror.

Review by William Dean
Posted May 4, 2017

The Void

It is an irony that any fan of Weird cinema must enjoy that, for all of the towering influence Lovecraft has had on the genre, Lovecraft himself detested horror movies. Yet the man who said “[a]s a thorough soporific I recommend the average popular ‘horrible’ play or cinema or radio dialogue” could not possibly have envisaged the degree of talent and creative energy that the ensuing century would see poured into these mediums...

Review by Sean Branney
Posted March 3, 2017

“The Call of Cthulhu” For Beginning Readers

Chaosium, Inc., the publishers of the celebrated role playing game, Call of Cthulhu, bring us a delightful mash-up of Lovecraft and Dr. Seuss. From the get go, the book does a marvelous job with creating the illusion of a genuine Dr. Seuss book. The size, color, typography and cover illustration all....

Review by Reber Clark
Posted February 24, 2017

The Night Ocean

What an infuriating book. And a lovely one. What a frustrating, ugly, poignant, fantastic, wildly crazy, nutso bag-of-shit fantasy and wonderful piece of writing this is. For any Lovecraft aficionado this will almost certainly be an exhilarating, exasperating and practically psychotic ride into the minds and worlds of Lovecraft and others....

Review by Troy and Kirsten Nies
Posted February 23, 2017

IÄÄ! Cthulhu! Fhtagn!

A fun, quick, quality Lovecraftian dice game. The English translation of the rules, however, is not entirely clear, and an online video tutorial would be very helpful...

Review by Reber Clark
Posted February 22, 2017

String Quartet No. 1: The Music of Erich Zann

A beautiful, eerie composition played by a very talented group of musicians. This is a serious Western Art Music adaptation of one of Lovecraft's works. If you know chamber music you will love this piece.

Review by Chris Lackey
Posted January 5, 2017

Lovecraft Illustrated, Volume 10

Lovecraft Illustrated Volume 10, "The Mound": PS Publishing has produced their tenth illustrated volume of HP Lovecraft’s work, this time tackling “The Mound.” This hardback volume contains a good introduction from S.T. Joshi which, I believe, can only be read in this book....

Review by Reber Clark
Posted December 30, 2016

Lovecraft Illustrated, Volumes 11 & 12

I love these books almost as much as I love the stories in them. My first impression of the entire product was if I was wanting to present a book of Lovecraft’s tales to someone new to his work, especially if they are younger, these are the volumes I would give them. However, they are perfectly worthy of any HPL fan’s attention....

Review by Reber Clark
Posted October 12, 2016

Necronomicards

Necronomicards is a light and rapid card game of battling powers that is a pleasant diversion and does not dive too deep. A good time killer for 2 to 4 players which can take 30 to 45 minutes. The production value of the box and card set is very good and the instructions are concise and clearly written. The artwork by Andy Hunt is worthy of the quality of the game....

The H.P. Lovecraft Historical Society is an international organization for fans of the author H.P. Lovecraft. The Society produces motion pictures, audio dramas, musical projects, publications, prop replicas and much more - all of which take Lovecraft’s creations to a whole new level. Our motto is "Ludo Fore Putavimus" (We Thought It Would be Fun).

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