Books like Necronomicon: The Best Weird Tales

All right, with this one under my belt, I think I can safely say that I’ve read everything Lovecraft has ever written in his life. I will then skip introducing the author––who doesn’t need any introduction, anyway––and go through a rundown of some of my most beloved horror stories of his, which you can find in this collection.THE OUTSIDER is my favorite Lovecraft story bar none. It is also one of his shortest. Written in the first-person narrative (as is often the case in his fiction), it tells of a man (or is it?) who, after having lived as a recluse for what seems like a very long time in his darkened and lifeless castle (or is it?), decides one day to go out into the world and explore. There ensues a series of discoveries––with a devastating although somewhat anticipated reveal––which will seal the narrator’s fate forever. As said, this story is super short but masterfully executed, woven around the themes of loneliness, abnormality and the afterlife. The prose is as it should given the genre––divinely gothic, deliciously verbose and darkly purple. All in all, a masterpiece.THE DREAMS IN THE WITCH-HOUSE is my second favorite and the only one that actually gave me goosebumps while reading it for the first time in bed at night. This story of a math student who decides to rent a room in a cursed house in which a witch and her hellish amalgam of a familiar are said to have lived is downright disturbing and creepy and just too well written for comfort. Which makes it yet another masterpiece in the Lovecraft canon.THE HAUNTER OF THE DARK is my third most beloved Lovecraft story and also the last one he ever wrote (that we know of). Eschewing the first person for the third limited, Lovecraft treats us to a chilling account of what the protagonist, Robert Blake, discovers when, driven by his penchant for the occult, he decides to go and explore a haunted church in the town of Providence, RI. Here again the writing is on point as Lovecraft knows better than anyone how to create an atmosphere of claustrophobia and paranoia, playing unashamedly with the fear of the unknown and impending doom. Deeply steeped in the Cthulhu mythos, this story is a prime example of how curiosity can kill a cat.THE CALL OF CTHULHU. Although not the first Lovecraft story to introduce an element of the Cthulhu mythos (that would be Dagon, also included in this collection), this one is the first to feature the foul-smelling, tentacle-wielding and potbellied deity in all its greasy and nasty glory. Written as an epistolary short story, it gives an account of the discovery of Cthulhu via a series of documents left behind by the great uncle of the narrator, Francis Wayland Thurston. Three words: groundbreaking, masterful, perfect. THE RATS IN THE WALLS is another gothic masterpiece recounting the tale of Delapore, an American who decides to cross the pond and move to England into his ancestral manor, the ill-fated Exham Priory. After restoring it, Delapore soon discovers that something isn’t quite right about the place and, prompted by scurrying noises in the walls, decides to investigate. Lovecraft juggles many balls in this one––the haunted house, genetic mutations, cannibalism, forbidden worships and eldritch (doesn’t Lovecraft just love this word?) cults, the inescapability of heredity, mental disorder, etc.––providing us with nail-biting scenes of exploration and horror, and tying it all together (albeit loosely) into his infamous Cthulhu mythos. Definitely a winner.THE SHADOW OVER INNSMOUTH is yet another effective horror story set waist-deep in the Cthulhu mythos, and from what I’ve heard, a favorite of many Lovecraft aficionados. Told once again in the first person, the story is about a student (whose name is never revealed) who goes to the ruined seaside town of Innsmouth, Mass., for what he thinks will be a one-day trip. Lovecraft spares no words in describing the cursed town, and we soon understand that the nature of the curse boils down to an invasion of Innsmouth many years ago by the Deep Ones, an ancient people that came ashore from the bottom of the sea. From the town drunk with whom the narrator has a long (perhaps overlong?) conversation, we learn that the Deep Ones used to practice human sacrifices in Innsmouth and also did not hesitate to mate with local women, hence the fishy appearance of many of the inhabitants. The whole thing ends up with a big reveal, which for once isn’t as bad as one might expect for a Lovecraft story, and the author even gives us a long, very-well-written action scene toward the end, which is something rare enough to be mentioned and relished.I guess I could go on like this forever, as there are many other stories in this collection that are worth reading and rereading, but I will stop here for now. It’s late, and I think I heard something scurrying in the walls. Wonder what it is…OLIVIER DELAYEAuthor of the SEBASTEN OF ATLANTIS seriesThe Forgotten Goddess