This marks my premier venture into the world of Lovecraft. I've been longing to read this for a while, and I was both disappointed and pleasantly surprised; the good bits are the language, which is both varied and interesting, plus the eldritch feeling that hangs o'er the entire work. The bad things, is that this is a work that feels like reading an architect magazine crossed with Edgar Allan Poe. I'm guessing Lovecraft fans may want to crucify me for that.

Still, I read an annotated version of this book; Leslie S. Klinger has done a great job with annotating both the Sherlock Holmes tales and the "Sandman" stories, the latter by Neil Gaiman, and he continues in that vein throughout this relatively short story.

A man goes to Antarctica and finds some scary stuff. There's a synopsis for you. I shan't spoil anything for you, but I think it's safe to say that the film "Alien" and "The Thing" both have been heavily inspired by this tome.

I got tired of reading a bunch of "and the spires towards the skies from the unfathomable architecture of the Old Ones from 50 million years ago are scary" stuff, almost over and over again, so that didn't scare me; however, Lovecraft's way of weaving a gloomy, haunting atmosphere at the start of this book is admirable; he almost goes deep, headlong into describing landscapes and the recurring so much that it really hits home, when he goes into the oeuvre.

All in all, not my cup of tea, and it bored the pants off me from time to time, but it was at the very least well-written with a lot of nods to different cultures. And yes, I'd pick up the annotated-by-Leslie-S.-Klinger-version if I were you.