Perhaps I had too high expectations. But then again, it's H. P. Lovecraft. I'd say his work is generally hyped a lot. This was my first encounter with his opus and it was decidedly meh.

I guess my main issue is that simply restating that a thing is terrible and scary over and over again does not make it scary. Majority of descriptions are second hand in so far as they describe the impact of events, setting, etc. on the main protagonist (i.e. he perceived them as scary), and not the inherent quality of themselves. Even the description of this second hand impact is somehow sterile.

The novella is written as a quasiscientific report from an old school research expedition. Perhaps that is what influenced the sterile delivery. Then again, I contrast this with Eversion by Alastair Reynolds which came out recently, adopts a similar style (and to a point theme), and yet manages to delivers far more compelling storytelling. Of course, it is also a much newer book. But if I am to judge Lovecraft as the master of the genre I can't really disregard this issue on the grounds of relative age of his works.

One thing I liked was the feeling of a larger prevailing mythos loosely connecting this and other Lovecraft's works. It gave the world a richer texture. But, for now at least, I guess I won't be exploring this world any further.