The Necronomicon by H.P. Lovecraft – An Audiobook Review

Blurb:

The only audio edition of Necronomicon authorized by the H. P. Lovecraft Estate!

Originally written for the pulp magazines of the 1920s and ’30s, H. P. Lovecraft’s astonishing tales blend elements of horror, science fiction, and cosmic terror that are as powerful today as they were when first published. This tome brings together all of Lovecraft’s harrowing stories, including the complete Cthulhu Mythos cycle, just the way they were when first released. It will introduce a whole new generation of readers to Lovecraft’s fiction, as well as attract those fans who want all his work in a single, definitive volume.

 

Author: H.P. Lovecraft

Narrator: Various

Publisher: Blackstone Audio

Run Time: 21 hrs 1 min

Audio Release Date: 14/08/2014

My Rating of ‘Necronomicon’: 2 out of 5

Purchase: Audible UK, Audible US

 

Review:

The Necronomicon was one of those titles that I just fully expected to love. I love all things dark, disturbing, horrory etc … and Lovecraft is one of those names that gets bandied about in the same sentence as the word ‘classic’.

What I expected and what I got were two very different things. I expected to love the stories within the Necronomicon and be chilled by some seriously good cosmic horror. What I got was a collection that I borderline hated, was bored to tears by and did not feel the slightest bit unnerved, let alone chilled.

I’ll start off with simply saying that Lovecraft is not a very good writer. He has great ideas and an unimaginable amount of talent for turning said ideas into a boring story. I have heard people say ‘he’s just wordy, that’s his style’. Yes, he is wordy. Very wordy. That isn’t normally a problem for me. What makes it a problem is when a wordy author has no skill for telling a dynamic tale. The parts where things were happening, felt like they were being told in such a way that nothing was actually happening. To put it another way; I wanted moving pictures and got cave paintings.

One good thing I will say about Lovecraft; is that although I felt 90% of the stories were just uninteresting, I feel as though I got something from all of them. After each one I could tell the story was written with a great idea in mind (and they were great ideas that kept me thinking) they were just executed in a terribly poor way that did the ideas no justice whatsoever.

A lot of the time, I feel the narrators were equally to blame. They were such a dull, morose, blandly boring bunch. One or two really tried and made an effort, but the majority read like they had been told monotonous and dull was what they should be aiming for.

As other reviewers have often pointed out, this is NOT a complete collection (mercifully so as it would have taken even longer to wade through if it was) as several stories are not included.

Even though it was only twenty-one hours or so in length, it felt like almost double that. I genuinely stopped after the sixth hour, deleted it from my audible app and vowed not to waste any more time on it. I then remembered I had also vowed to not quit on any book (read or listened). So I soldiered on and experienced what it is to feel as though you have passed fifty hours in only twenty-one.

As I said above, the ideas behind the stories were great and, not all were written in a dull way. There were a handful that were quite enjoyable and it is these few stories, and the good ideas behind the bad ones, that pulled this from a one star rating up to a two.

I will say that I genuinely feel the best parts of the Necronomicon were the cover (it’s pretty cool) and the feeling of excitement I had before hitting ‘play’ for the first time. Most everything after that just felt like one, long, never-ending nosedive.