I Read Books: At The Mountains Of Madness
An expedition to Antarctica begins promisingly with some extraordinary lifeforms discovered in the ice. Then they have a number of mishaps, losing a member, another going mad and many dogs vanishing. No full report is made until another expedition is announced. Now the narrator publishes in an effort to warn them off.
What they discovered are the remnants of a pre-human civilisation, and by remnants it seems they may have woken it by de-frosting some of the creatures they found. In the not-entirely abandoned city they find the secret history of the builders, the Elder Things, and how they colonised the Earth, fought other ancient aliens, and degenerated into this last city.
The novella lays out the detailed preparations of the trip – Antarctica being difficult to get to and as hostile as (perhaps) space is today – and the increasingly worrying events there, and then the final exploration of the ruined city. Each section is interesting and smart, and each is probably twice as long as is really necessary. Lovecraft’s love of his own writing and the long-winded way that writers of the time liked to work are on full display.
Read This: For a classic and masterfully suspenseful science fiction story
Don’t Read This: Unless you like old-fashioned lengthy passages or are a Lovecraft completist
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