Month: March 2024

A newbie! Of course, every Cthulhu mythos fan wants to write Cthulhu mythos; some can, some can’t.

And so I listen…(gotta admit part of why is that I Luv the narrator’s voice and intonation).

Rule One: NEVER apply to Miskatonic University.
Rule Two: Leave Innsmouth well enough alone.
Rule Three: Follow advice to ignore anything smelling of Cthulhu at least as much as Denzel Washington’s character should (have) regarding Azazel in ‘Fallen’.
Rule Four: No Pickmans!
Rule Five: There is NO RULE FIVE!
Rule Six: No Pickmans.
Rule Seven: Allow the creepiness to wash over you.
Rule Eight: If you don’t follow Rule Seven, DON’T LISTEN TO IT, not worth it.
Rule Nine: Like most things Cthulhu-esque, not for the weak of heart.
Rule Ten: Nothing to see/hear.
Rule Eleven: No Pickmans.

Hmmmmm…gets better when it gets to the point. Surprisingly so, actually.

Nicely (and appropriately) wordy.

I was worried it would be a moody/wordy imitation of the best Cthulhu-esque-ness. Imagine my surprise when it got better as it went along, and I stopped thinking of how to say “meh” and how TO say “This is good stuff”.

The Puppy is a harsh critic. But this is good stuff.

Inspirational Quote: “We ‘Dreamswimmers’…took to the lands of dream like otters to a roaring brook…”

Grade: B+

Ok, so…really bad narration in the convenient version I listened to. Mechanical and with pause s in-the-wrong … places, at times.

And T does NOT equal I.

On the other hand, it’s got the text nicely printed out for you as well, if you’d like to inflate your view. It even simulates turning pages.

King goes with LOTS of exposition here. But the rather mundane and relatively boringly-normal lead-up doing the dueling banjo thing with the building horror aspects make them even *more* horrible (in a scary sense, I mean).

It’s also scarier as things get more and more unsettled in non-Cujo portions, knowing that the build is happening (and even more foreboding, that THE build is only paused…that for everything and anything that may happen, good or bad, to whatever degree…poor Cujo is suffering most of all).

Suffering from a painful and terrifying (to self and others) descent into intolerable pain – and then – insanity.

The disintegration that takes place is quite sad. He *IS* a good dog. But it happens nevertheless.

Interesting and well done, I think, in working the nominal plot with the under-plots.

Seems well-written in general, like King gives a sh1t (this time, at least).

Shock trauma, eh? Portent of ‘Survivor Type’?

Characters are fairly interesting, pretty well-defined, multi-dimensional.

Quite a bit of character behavior shows that some humans don’t require rabies to act with vicious/insane mental deterioration.

Yeah, I can still cry. Rarely, but still.

Inspirational Quote: “It was THE BOY, THE BOY, and THE BOY had never done him any harm. Once he had loved THE BOY and would have died for him had that been called for…The last of the dog that had been before the bat scratched its nose turned away, and the sick and dangerous dog, subverted for the last time, was forced to turn with it.”

Grade: A-

Love the narrator’s voice for the material (and also the basic subject), so very hopeful/eager for it to be good.

I find it interesting, when I’m in the right mood. Rather boring, when I’m not.

You want description? Talk about description. I mean, I find Tolkien’s (for example) verbosity mostly boring, but I enjoy a mild uneasiness through most of this (How long is it? That’s rather a personal question…about 4:49).

The best parts are in the beginning – a long lead-up that you know will lead to something odd and probably disastrous – and, after a long middle portion, a return to creepy insinuation and at last some payoff.

Good source of background info on the beginnings of various Cthulhu mythos ideas. So, if you plan on reading everything Lovecraftian, decide how much background info you want vs. how much total mystery you want.

This is more an extensive introduction to the Elder Ones, Shoggoths, Cthulhu spawn, etc… than it is a scary story. The lead-up to the scary story part is fairly interesting because you know something odd and nasty is going to happen. But after the odd and nasty happening, the speculation and evaluation go on for QUITE a while, serving the purpose of a biography for any further Lovecraft readings you may wish to do. So if you don’t want a whole sh1tload of that, you may find this rather tedious.

I think it’s worth listening to, once.

Grade: C+