"Lovecraftian" is an adjective associated with several pieces of media that I enjoy. I decided to go straight to the source and read a little Lovecraft.

I won't make that mistake again.

Mountains of Madness is terrible. A glacial (hah!) start, a hint of action, and then a long investigation that basically goes nowhere.

"The greatest fear is that of the unknown." While this is true, here it is maddeningly frustrating. The narrator repeatedly expresses reservations about whether he should reveal the terrible things he's seen, yet when he actually does, there's little to be terrified of. The narrator is almost never in actual danger throughout the entire book. He is just following the trail of terrible things.

Lovecraftian prose leads much to be desired. I've played through Darkest Dungeon a few times and really enjoy the writing there... "You remember our venerable house, opulent and imperial, gazing proudly from its stoic perch above the moor." In Mountains of Madness, Lovecraft falls on the same adjectives over and over again. The word "decadent" is used so often, it might as well be a drinking game.

This book never has a payoff. It's like he wrote a middling tale of unseen horror, and then decided to sprinkle three Lovecraftian adjectives (abhorrent, grotesque, etc.) in each sentence.

Skip it.