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    At the Mountains of Madness
    At the Mountains of Madness
    At the Mountains of Madness
    Ebook151 pages3 hours

    At the Mountains of Madness

    By H. P. Lovecraft

    3.5/5

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    H. P. Lovecraft was one of the greatest horror writers of all time. His seminal work appeared in the pages of legendary Weird Tales and has influenced countless writer of the macabre. This is one of those stories.
    LanguageEnglish
    PublisherStart Publishing LLC
    Release dateFeb 3, 2014
    ISBN9781609772505
    Author

    H. P. Lovecraft

    Renowned as one of the great horror-writers of all time, H.P. Lovecraft was born in 1890 and lived most of his life in Providence, Rhode Island. Among his many classic horror stories, many of which were published in book form only after his death in 1937, are ‘At the Mountains of Madness and Other Novels of Terror’ (1964), ‘Dagon and Other Macabre Tales’ (1965), and ‘The Horror in the Museum and Other Revisions’ (1970).

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    Reviews for At the Mountains of Madness

    3.5/5

    327 ratings14 reviews

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    • 3/5
      I have read a few HP Lovecraft stories, and they have all disappointed me. This one is actually a novella, and I liked it much more. I can actually see form this story why people might enjoy his work.This story has all the usual Lovecraft themes--exploration (Antarctica this time), strange happenings, strange beings, fear. And the usual narrator saying "It was so awful I can't actually say it!" which drives me crazy. This narrator, though, did actually finally explain what he saw--but not what his co-pilot saw that caused a breakdown. An improvement nonetheless!I do think that the novella format allowed Lovecraft to get into the meat of the story. There is lots of description, and a map or illustration might have been nice--but I have my own in my head now. I also read this on the Serial Reader app, so maybe text versions do have some illustrations. I wonder how close what is in my head is what Lovecraft was trying to describe.I do still think I would have enjoyed Lovecraft's work a lot more if I had found it in middle or high school. I was obsessed with Agatha Christie at the time.
    • 5/5
      My introduction to H.P. Lovecraft, a fantastic read and a relatively quick one too. I’m looking forward to his other works.
    • 4/5
      This is my third audiobook of Lovecraft’s classic sci-fi story of Antarctic explorers who discover an abandoned alien city whose murals tell the true history of the earth. The narrator of the story is a New England college professor unnerved by having his beliefs about the past demolished. I heard Wayne June read the man as a sober middle class man of action and Edward Herrmann read him as an upper-class WASP scholar. Another reviewer took the words out of my mouth by noting that William Roberts told the tale in the air of a 1940s newscaster, say, Lowell Thomas. He meant that as a criticism but I think Robert’s tone fits the story well. He gives a very emotive reading, sounding like an old man who has lost his certainties at the end of his life.
    • 3/5
      Elder Things, Shoggoths, and Tekeli-li, Oh My!Felt more drawn out and repetitious in its audiobook format (which I picked up as an Audible Daily Deal) than I remember it in print, which I had read several times previously. Perhaps the shock factor has worn off.The professorial tone by narrator Edward Herrmann (in the Blackstone Audio 2013 edition) suited the material (which is an explorer warning a future expedition not to go to Antarctica due to the horrors that they will find there) but it reduced the level of excitement and fear.This edition contained only the novella of about 50,000 words/5 hours narration. Some editions contain other Cthulhu Mythos stories and/or bonus introductory material. I thought the Modern Library print edition of "At the Mountains of Madness" edited by S.T. Joshi with an introduction by China Miéville was excellent.
    • 3/5
      An expedition to the Antarctic uncovers an ancient race of beings and their civilization. Also, giant, sightless penguins.What can I say? I was curious about this author, having heard of Cthulhu references from my friends who are scifi fans, so I thought I should try him. Now that I have, I am perfectly willing to leave him alone. The writing is pedantic. I was listening to the audio version and found myself tuning out to large swaths of descriptions and not missing a thing. The author tries to give the impression of imminent danger and oppressive evil, but I couldn't take him seriously because everything he described as "blasphemous" and "diabolic" and "sinister" seemed like very interesting stuff to me. How could serious scientists see all that evidence for another civilization and only feel oppressed by evil? Where is the open mind? Where the scientific distance?Well, perhaps we are to think that they were upset by the bunches of dogs and men which were killed in the camp, but they don't seem so. They just poke around and get on with business, taking a flight to explore the next day. About that exploration? They deduce a lifetime worth of knowledge in one afternoon of looking at cartouches and statues about this civilization. Nope. I don't buy it. Also, the creature which drives them mad? Really? Scared, OK, but mad? Nah.And all of this was supposedly written to keep other explorers from going to the area. Are you kidding me? Any scientist worth their salt would be off there in a hot flash after reading this because far from proving there were "unnameable horrors" lurking there, they describe a fascinating culture with great possibilities. For all the foreboding (and there was a LOT of it) in this story, the climax of horror is a real letdown.The audio narrator, Edward Herrmann, was a pleasure to listen to, which is probably the only reason I listened to the end.
    • 5/5
      "At the Mountains of Madness" contains four tales from H.P. Lovecraft, one of the foremost writers of horror.The first tale is the titular "At the Mountains of Madness" which follows a team of explorers as they venture into the unknown territory of the Antarctic. The group splits into two camps, one establishing a base while the other begins exploring. The reports they radio back, of mountains higher than any they'd ever encountered, with strange crystalline formations that appeared almost manufactured rather than natural, of the cavern uncovered by accident and the strange creatures they found frozen in large blocks of ice, excite the team at the base camp, and they cannot wait to join the others. A strong overnight storm delays that meeting, and the next morning, worry sets in when no word is received from the explorers. The base camp can't even reach them on the radio. Fearing that the explorers might be in danger, a two-man team sets out from the base camp to find out what happened to the others."The Shunned House" presents a tale of a house with a troubled history. Renters don't stay for long, and those that do seem to quickly waste away into illness and death though they were the strongest, healthiest of people. A young man convinces the owner of the property to allow him to spend the night in the house and discovers the true nature of the evil residing underneath its foundation.In "The Dreams in the Witch-House", a student finds cheap room and board in a building known to locals as the Witch-House. Tales of the strange goings on spurred him into renting the room directly below the attic, hoping that his stay in such a house will further his studies into mathematics and their relation to magic. But he gets much more than he anticipated as strange dreams of an old hag and her rat-like familiar with a human face take their toll on him both physically and mentally."The Statement of Randolph Carter" is a quick tale of two young men who search an old cemetery with the hope of communicating with the spirits. Unfortunately for one of them, the spirits have something else in mind.These four tales provide a great example of early horror that relies more on atmosphere, glimpses of strange creatures or shadows, and the slow build of tension rather than page after page of blood and guts and gore to scare the wits out of you. As the characters in Lovecraft's tales slowly inch closer and closer to what you know is going to be something awful, you shift uncomfortably in your chair, feel like you're taking part in the tale rather than reading it, and wind up exhausted from the adventure. I still feel that way even after a second reading of the stories. This is a great collection of tales, perfect for fans of horror.
    • 3/5
      Um andere Wissenschafter von ähnlichen Expeditionen abzuhalten, legt ein Überlebender Zeugnis von den schrecklichen und phantastischen Geschehnissen ab, welche er anlässlich einer Antarktis-Expedition in den 1930ern erleben musste: Damals entdeckten die Wisenschaftler zunächst unerklärliche fossile Spuren, später Relikte einer vormenschlichen Hochkultur, schließlich kam es zu einer Katastrophe...In "Berge des Wahnsinns" vermischt H. P. Lovecraft die Genres: Es handelt sich um eine abenteurliche Horrorgeschichte mit phantastischen Science-Fiction-Elementen sowie sozialutopischen Ansätzen. H.P. Lovecraft knüpft dabei an den von ihm geschaffenen Cthulhu-Mythos an, verweist auf das fiktive (in seinen Werken immer wieder auftauchende) geheime Buch "Necronomicon" und stellt auch Bezüge zu E. A. Poes Roman "Die denkwürdigen Erlebnisse des Arthur Gordon Pym" her. Trotzdem bleibt das Werk auch ohne Kenntnis dieser Werke verständlich.Überzeugen kann das Buch jedoch nur ansatzweise: Während zunächst der rastlose, mit geologischen und paläontologischen Begriffen gespickte, nüchterne Bericht eines Wissenschaftlers Spannung erzeugt und den Leser fesselt, vertändelt sich H. P. Lovecraft im weiteren Verlauf seiner Erzählung mit der Wiedergabe einer Chronik jener phantastischen, vormenschlichen Zivilisation, die der Ich-Erzähler alleine aufgrund von gefundenen Reliefs detailgetreu wiederzugeben in der Lage ist. Dies wirkt wie ein Stilbruch zu Lasten der Spannung und Glaubwürdigkeit der Erzählung. Ebenfalls kritisch anmerken möchte ich die fast schon inflationäre Benutzung mancher Wörter und daraus resultierender Wiederholungen.
    • 4/5
      At the Mountains of Madness is unusual among Lovecraft's works, as its two halves are very different from each other. The first half of the story concerns the initial stages of an expedition to the Antarctic. This part of the book is excellent. We have an interesting setting with environmental difficulties, a few colorful characters, and above all, a riveting plot.In the second half of the book, much of the protagonist's time is spent viewing illustrations carved into the walls of a dead city. This segment goes through the history of one or two of Lovecraft's monstrous species that lived on Earth in ages past. The history is covered methodically and with great detail (more than anyone could actually glean from interpreting wall carvings), interrupting the plot with a vast quantity of background information that is not used in the story. As an analogy, imagine if Tolkien interrupted "The Fellowship of the Ring" halfway through and inserted a bunch of material from the Silmarillion or the Appendices.The first half of the story is good for anyone who likes adventure and horror. The second half may be of particular interest to Lovecraft fans who want to know more about the workings and history of the Mythos; most of Lovecraft's original stories are far more vague and mysterious than "At the Mountains of Madness." While this background info has a certain utility, I think its length and detail weaken the story, and therefore I would only recommend "At the Mountains of Madness" to a person who has already enjoyed some of Lovecraft's other works and wants to know more about the Mythos.
    • 3/5
      I listened to the audiobook read by William Roberts. Roberts' narration is excellent. You can hear the stress and anxiety in the storyteller at all the appropriate times. This is a fun pulp horror story along the vein of Whiteout and Alien.
    • 2/5
      I actually think that to properly enjoy this book, you need to be a) a teenage boy who says "whoooa!" a lot (or have fond memories of being one) or b) on drugs. Its appeal, in that sense, is not unlike outdoor music festivals or a lot of '60s psychedelic rock - i.e completely lost on me. Whatevs, different strokes for different folks etc etc.There were some moments in this book that were... a bit frightening. Like when Lake and co were initally poking about the SPOOKY ALIEN THINGS and you're just like NO BRO LEAVE THAT ALONE. But then it's approximately several million pages of the narrator looking at FRIGHTENING SCULPTURES, and then encountering GIANT ALBINO BLIND PENGUINS (I can't lie, those were pretty cool). And then they run away from something that he later describes as "the primal white jelly" (and here I will be a teenage boy: hur hur hur). It's not my thing, but I probably just haven't got the right mindset for it, DUUUUDE.
    • 4/5
      A very detailed account of a scientific expedition into the Antarctic that serves as a warning to other expeditions. The story is written as a first person account of some horrific and fantastic events that uncover proof of the existence of an civilization that predates any previous civilization by millions of years. Lovecraft's attention to minute detail might dissuade some from finishing this novella, but it also helps add to the suspense that is built throughout.
    • 4/5
      A novella written in the early 1930s and set in Antarctica during that time period. A team of explorers discover a many-millions-of-years old city on the far side of known territory, encountering in the process two ancient races only hinted at in some of the oldest of human mythologies. Usually categorized as horror but to my mind equally science fiction, the story is told in florid language which nevertheless pulls the reader inexorably towards each new dreaded revelation. There are many references to places and myths common in Lovecraft's other works, and familiarity with those might make this more chilling. One aspect I found particularly meaningful was several references to Sir Douglas Mawson (my favorite Antarctic explorer), including a contemporaneous expedition he was on in a nearby area of Antarctica. Lovecraft also worked into the story the then-new theory of continental drift. All-in-all, quite enjoyable, although I imagined a couple of even more horrible disclosures than those produced by the finale.
    • 4/5
      At the Mountains of Madness is a tense and sinister novella that continually hints of dark things waiting in the shadows. Like all great (rather than simply good) horror writing it's not what Lovecraft does say but what he hints at that makes this so spine tinglingly goodA classic novella that has not dated and still works 80 years on from being written.
    • 5/5
      After decades of hearing about this writer, I've read him. There is not one line of dialogue in his writing. It is an amorphous mass of description, much like pointillistic painting with words. I like it, but it is a bit rich for my blood as a steady diet. I shall use him as my brandy alexander, my cherry cordial, my Black Forest cake slice, between more palatable writers.At the Mountains of Madness is a brilliant horrific story, building consistently, although much is left to the imagination, especially with the carvings and sculptures on the walls at varying levels of the narrator's descent. The reader who digests Lovecraft must, by necessity, have a vivid imagination, as he paints the picture with a light darkness and lets the reader interpret the depth of that darkness. I'm glad, though, that finally I took the plunge and am looking forward to reading more by this master.

    Book preview

    At the Mountains of Madness - H. P. Lovecraft

    I

    I am forced into speech because men of science have refused to follow my advice without knowing why. It is altogether against my will that I tell my reasons for opposing this contemplated invasion of the antarctic—with its vast fossil hunt and its wholesale boring and melting of the ancient ice caps. And I am the more reluctant because my warning may be in vain.

    Doubt of the real facts, as I must reveal them, is inevitable; yet, if I suppressed what will seem extravagant and incredible, there would be nothing left. The hitherto withheld photographs, both ordinary and aerial, will count in my favor, for they are damnably vivid and graphic. Still, they will be doubted because of the great lengths to which clever fakery can be carried. The ink drawings, of course, will be jeered at as obvious impostures, notwithstanding a strangeness of technique which art experts ought to remark and puzzle over.

    In the end I must rely on the judgment and standing of the few scientific leaders who have, on the one hand, sufficient independence of thought to weigh my data on its own hideously convincing merits or in the light of certain primordial and highly baffling myth cycles; and on the other hand, sufficient influence to deter the exploring world in general from any rash and over-ambitious program in the region of those mountains of madness. It is an unfortunate fact that relatively obscure men like myself and my associates, connected only with a small university, have little chance of making an impression where matters of a wildly bizarre or highly controversial nature are concerned.

    It is further against us that we are not, in the strictest sense, specialists in the fields which came primarily to be concerned. As a geologist, my object in leading the Miskatonic University Expedition was wholly that of securing deep-level specimens of rock and soil from various parts of the antarctic continent, aided by the remarkable drill devised by Professor Frank H. Pabodie of our engineering department. I had no wish to be a pioneer in any other field than this, but I did hope that the use of this new mechanical appliance at different points along previously explored paths would bring to light materials of a sort hitherto unreached by the ordinary methods of collection.

    Pabodie’s drilling apparatus, as the public already knows from our reports, was unique and radical in its lightness, portability, and capacity to combine the ordinary artesian drill principle with the principle of the small circular rock drill in such a way as to cope quickly with strata of varying hardness. Steel head, jointed rods, gasoline motor, collapsible wooden derrick, dynamiting paraphernalia, cording, rubbish-removal auger, and sectional piping for bores five inches wide and up to one thousand feet deep all formed, with needed accessories, no greater load than three seven-dog sledges could carry. This was made possible by the clever aluminum alloy of which most of the metal objects were fashioned. Four large Dornier aeroplanes, designed especially for the tremendous altitude flying necessary on the antarctic plateau and with added fuel-warming and quick-starting devices worked out by Pabodie, could transport our entire expedition from a base at the edge of the great ice barrier to various suitable inland points, and from these points a sufficient quota of dogs would serve us.

    We planned to cover as great an area as one antarctic season—or longer, if absolutely necessary—would permit, operating mostly in the mountain ranges and on the plateau south of Ross Sea; regions explored in varying degree by Shackleton, Amundsen, Scott, and Byrd. With frequent changes of camp, made by aeroplane and involving distances great enough to be of geological significance, we expected to unearth a quite unprecedented amount of material—especially in the pre-Cambrian strata of which so narrow a range of antarctic specimens had previously been secured. We wished also to obtain as great as possible a variety of the upper fossiliferous rocks, since the primal life history of this bleak realm of ice and death is of the highest importance to our knowledge of the earth’s past. That the antarctic continent was once temperate and even tropical, with a teeming vegetable and animal life of which the lichens, marine fauna, arachnida, and penguins of the northern edge are the only survivals, is a matter of common information; and we hoped to expand that information in variety, accuracy, and detail. When a simple boring revealed fossiliferous signs, we would enlarge the aperture by blasting, in order to get specimens of suitable size and condition.

    Our borings, of varying depth according to the promise held out by the upper soil or rock, were to be confined to exposed, or nearly exposed, land surfaces—these inevitably being slopes and ridges because of the mile or two-mile thickness of solid ice overlying the lower levels. We could not afford to waste drilling the depth of any considerable amount of mere glaciation, though Pabodie had worked out a plan for sinking copper electrodes in thick clusters of borings and melting off limited areas of ice with current from a gasoline-driven dynamo. It is this plan—which we could not put into effect except experimentally on an expedition such as ours—that the coming Starkweather-Moore Expedition proposes to follow, despite the warnings I have issued since our return from the antarctic.

    The public knows of the Miskatonic Expedition through our frequent wireless reports to the Arkham Advertiser and Associated Press, and through the later articles of Pabodie and myself. We consisted of four men from the University—Pabodie, Lake of the biology department, Atwood of the physics department—also a meteorologist—and myself, representing geology and having nominal command—besides sixteen assistants: seven graduate students from Miskatonic and nine skilled mechanics. Of these sixteen, twelve were qualified aeroplane pilots, all but two of whom were competent wireless operators. Eight of them understood navigation with compass and sextant, as did Pabodie, Atwood, and I. In addition, of course, our two ships—wooden ex-whalers, reinforced for ice conditions and having auxiliary steam—were fully manned.

    The Nathaniel Derby Pickman Foundation, aided by a few special contributions, financed the expedition; hence our preparations were extremely thorough, despite the absence of great publicity. The dogs, sledges, machines, camp materials, and unassembled parts of our five planes were delivered in Boston, and there our ships were loaded. We were marvelously well-equipped for our specific purposes, and in all matters pertaining to supplies, regimen, transportation, and camp construction we profited by the excellent example of our many recent and exceptionally brilliant predecessors. It was the unusual number and fame of these predecessors which made our own expedition—ample though it was—so little noticed by the world at large.

    As the newspapers told, we sailed from Boston Harbor on September 2nd, 1930, taking a leisurely course down the coast and through the Panama Canal, and stopping at Samoa and Hobart, Tasmania, at which latter place we took on final supplies. None of our exploring party had ever been in the polar regions before, hence we all relied greatly on our ship captains—J. B. Douglas, commanding the brig Arkham, and serving as commander of the sea party, and Georg Thorfinnssen, commanding the barque Miskatonic—both veteran whalers in antarctic waters.

    As we left the inhabited world behind, the sun sank lower and lower in the north, and stayed longer and longer above the horizon each day. At about 62° South Latitude we sighted our first icebergs—table-like objects with vertical sides—and just before reaching the antarctic circle, which we crossed on October 20th with appropriately quaint ceremonies, we were considerably troubled with field ice. The falling temperature bothered me considerably after our long voyage through the tropics, but I tried to brace up for the worse rigors to come. On many occasions the curious atmospheric effects enchanted me vastly; these including a strikingly vivid mirage—the first I had ever seen—in which distant bergs became the battlements of unimaginable cosmic castles.

    Pushing through the ice, which was fortunately neither extensive nor thickly packed, we regained open water at South Latitude 67°, East Longitude 175° On the morning of October 26th a strong land blink appeared on the south, and before noon we all felt a thrill of excitement at beholding a vast, lofty, and snow-clad mountain chain which opened out and covered the whole vista ahead. At last we had encountered an outpost of the great unknown continent and its cryptic world of frozen death. These peaks were obviously the Admiralty Range discovered by Ross, and it would now be our task to round Cape Adare and sail down the east coast of Victoria Land to our contemplated base on the shore of McMurdo Sound, at the foot of the volcano Erebus in South Latitude 77° 9'.

    The last lap of the voyage was vivid and fancy-stirring. Great barren peaks of mystery loomed up constantly against the west as the low northern sun of noon or the still lower horizon-grazing southern sun of midnight poured its hazy reddish rays over the white snow, bluish ice and water lanes, and black bits of exposed granite slope. Through the desolate summits swept ranging, intermittent gusts of the terrible antarctic wind; whose cadences sometimes held vague suggestions of a wild and half-sentient musical piping, with notes extending over a wide range, and which for some subconscious mnemonic reason seemed to me disquieting and even dimly terrible. Something about the scene reminded me of the strange and disturbing Asian paintings of Nicholas Roerich, and of the still stranger and more disturbing descriptions of the evilly fabled plateau of Leng which occur in the dreaded Necronomicon of the mad Arab Abdul Alhazred. I was rather sorry, later on, that I had ever looked into that monstrous book at the college library.

    On the 7th of November, sight of the westward range having been temporarily lost, we passed Franklin Island; and the next day descried the cones of Mts. Erebus and Terror on Ross Island ahead, with the long line of the Parry Mountains beyond. There now stretched off to the east the low, white line of the great ice barrier, rising perpendicularly to a height of two hundred feet like the rocky cliffs of Quebec, and marking the end of southward navigation. In the afternoon we entered McMurdo Sound and stood off the coast in the lee of smoking Mt. Erebus. The scoriac peak towered up some twelve thousand, seven hundred feet against the eastern sky, like a Japanese print of the sacred Fujiyama, while beyond it rose the white, ghostlike height of Mt. Terror, ten thousand, nine hundred feet in altitude, and now extinct as a volcano.

    Puffs of smoke from Erebus came intermittently, and one of the graduate assistants—a brilliant young fellow named Danforth—pointed out what looked like lava on the snowy slope, remarking that this mountain, discovered in 1840, had undoubtedly been the source of Poe’s image when he wrote seven years later:

    —the lavas that restlessly roll Their sulphurous currents down Yaanek In the ultimate climes of the pole—That groan as they roll down Mount Yaanek In the realms of the boreal pole.

    Danforth was a great reader of bizarre material, and had talked a good deal of Poe. I was interested myself because of the antarctic scene of Poe’s only long story—the disturbing and enigmatical Arthur Gordon Pym. On the barren shore, and on the lofty ice barrier in the background, myriads of grotesque penguins squawked and flapped their fins, while many fat seals were visible on the water, swimming or sprawling across large cakes of slowly drifting ice.

    Using small boats, we effected a difficult landing on Ross Island shortly after midnight on the morning of the 9th, carrying a line of cable from each of the ships and preparing to unload supplies by means of a breeches-buoy arrangement. Our sensations on first treading Antarctic soil were poignant and complex, even though at this particular point the Scott and Shackleton expeditions had preceded us. Our camp on the frozen shore below the volcano’s slope was only a provisional one, headquarters being kept aboard the Arkham. We landed all our drilling apparatus, dogs,

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