Audiobook Fix: The Dark Worlds of H.P. Lovecraft

H.P. Lovecraft is an author that I didn’t read when I was young. I’m not sure why, because I treasured a Poe collection I owned, and I liked Stephen King quite a bit. I was no stranger to horror. Whatever the reason, I didn’t pick up a Lovecraft collection until I was out of college, and judging from the impact he’s had on people who have been reading him since they first could read, I can say that the power of his stories was not dulled by my age. I found them deeply moving and as thought-provoking as good hard science fiction. The portrayal of the universe’s indifference in the form of his Old Ones remains a point of contemplation for a lot of science fiction writers. His influence is everywhere.

Audio Realms is a first-rate audiobook publisher, and they’ve produced the finest H.P. Lovecraft I’ve heard to date. Wayne June narrates, and he was born to read these stories. Narrating Lovecraft isn’t the easiest thing—there is not a lot of dialogue—but June is able to make these stories sound both dark and conversational. His deep voice and his spot-on inflection keep the exposition interesting, which makes this collection of audiobooks a perfect way to experience Lovecraft for the first time or the nth time.

The entire collection is titled The Dark Worlds of H.P. Lovecraft, and there are currently six volumes, each running 3-4 hours. The two popular stories included in Volume One serve as an excellent introduction to Lovecraft: “The Dunwich Horror” and “The Call of Cthulhu.”

“The Dunwich Horror” puts a lot of the main elements of Lovecraft’s Cthulhu mythos on display, including the town of Arkham, Miskatonic University, The Old Ones, and The Necronomicon. The story describes the birth and life of Wilbur Whately, who was born of a known mother and unknown father. He matures extremely rapidly, reaching adulthood within ten years. The horror of the title, though, doesn’t become apparent until Wilbur is killed while trying to get his hands on an unabridged copy of The Necronomicon, a book that would show him how to summon the Old Ones. This is a staple story, a must-read if you want to know Lovecraft.

As is “The Call of Cthulhu.” The first paragraph of this story sums up Lovecraft nicely for me:

The most merciful thing in the world, I think, is the inability of the human mind to correlate all its contents. We live on a placid island of ignorance in the midst of black seas of infinity, and it was not meant that we should voyage far. The sciences, each straining in its own direction, have hitherto harmed us little; but some day the piecing together of dissociated knowledge will open up such terrifying vistas of reality, and of our frightful position therein, that we shall either go mad from the revelation or flee from the light into the peace and safety of a new dark age.

Large, incomprehensible horror is a constant element in Lovecraft’s fiction. This particular story, if you are new to Lovecraft, will introduce you to Cthulhu, a:

“monster of vaguely anthropoid outline, but with an octopus-like head whose face was a mass of feelers, a scaly, rubbery-looking body, prodigious claws on hind and fore feet, and long, narrow wings behind.”

Keep your feet and hands inside the ride at all times.

The contents of all six volumes of The Dark Worlds of H.P. Lovecraft, all narrated by Wayne June:
Volume 1: “The Dunwich Horror” and “The Call of Cthulhu.”
Volume 2: “The Shadow over Innsmouth” and “Dagon.”
Volume 3: “The Horror at Red Hook,” “Herbert West: Re-animator,” “The Outsider,” and “The Statement of Randolph Carter.”
Volume 4: “The Rats in the Walls,” “The Music of Eric Zann,” and “The Shunned House.”
Volume 5: “The Lurking Fear,” “Haunter of the Dark,” and “The Thing on the Doorstep.”
Volume 6: “At the Mountains of Madness.”

Also available on audio are two stories that play in Lovecraft’s sandbox. Neil Gaiman’s Hugo Award winning “A Study in Emerald” is available for free over at Audible.com. Gaiman actually plays in two sandboxes there; the story features elements of Sherlock Holmes as well as the Cthulhu mythos. And from Infinivox is Charles Stross’s “A Colder War,” which directly references Lovecraft’s “At the Mountains of Madness.”