No cabe duda de que a August Derleth hay que achacarle muchas cosas, entre ellas la explotación de toda la obra de H.P. Lovecraft desde la muerte de éste. Derleth fue un adepto de Lovecraft, un miembro de su círculo más íntimo, lo que le permitió (junto a Donald Wandrei), hacerse con todos sus papeles, novelas y esbozos. Y bien sabemos que lo aprovechó, porque no sólo publicó toda su obra conocida sino que también se dedicó a dar forma y a terminar cualquier esbozo que encontró del Maestro.Aunque la perspectiva de Derleth respecto a la obra de Lovecraft era más económica que otra cosa, también le debemos mucho. Él acuñó el término "Mitos de Cthulhu" y promovió que otros escritores contribuyesen con sus relatos a la riqueza de este mundo. Pero por otra parte, también desvirtuó en buena medida la visión cósmica que tenía Lovecraft de su obra. Éste escribía sobre unos seres que dominaron la Tierra hace millones de años, para desaparecer posteriormente. Pero siguen ahí, pueden volver en cualquier momento; los seres humanos no significan nada para ellos, menos que nada; y todo aquél que intenté entrar en contacto con ellos, acabará mal parado. Sin embargo, Derleth diferencia a estos seres en buenos y malos, como si realmente les importasen los pobres humanos, y se centra demasiado en etiquetarlos.Los cuentos de este volumen fueron escritos casi en su totalidad por Derleth, basándose en lo encontrado entre los papeles de Lovecraft. Aunque parece ser que 'El que acecha en el umbral' sí que lo dejó más perfilado. El resto se pueden adjudicar a Derleth, pero esto es algo que nunca sabremos. El último cuento, 'Los que vigilan desde el tiempo', está inconcluso por la muerte de Derleth en 1971.Al acabar de leer este libro me queda la sensanción como si le faltase algo. Los relatos están bien escritos y documentados, y contienen todo aquello que destaca del mundo lovecraftiano, pero no llegan a crear esa atmósfera inquietante tan característica.Estos son los cuentos contentidos en el libro:- EL QUE ACECHA EN EL UMBRAL (The Lurker at the Threshold) (*****). En Arkham se encuentran unas tierras pertenecientes a los Billington, y que han sido heredadas por Ambrose Dewart. Tras tantos años sin habitar, Ambrose se ha propuesto rehabilitar la finca, algo que ha alterado a toda la comarca, ya que el apellido Billington es de infausto recuerdo. Reconociendo las tierras, Ambrose da con una torre rodeada por un círculo de piedras. Entonces se propone averiguar todo lo posible sobre su antepasado Alijah, leyendo los libros y papeles de la casa y consultando en universidades, así como entrevistando a los vecinos. Lo que descubre es terrorífico... y emocionante, para su desgracia. Buena novela corta, o relato largo, con muchos ingredientes de lo mejor de Lovecraft.- LA SOMBRA DEL DESVÁN (The Shadow in the Atic) (***). Para poder heredar la casa de su tío abuelo Uriah Garrison, Adam ha de vivir en ella durante noventa días seguidos. Extraña cláusula del testamento a la que Adam accede. En el ambiente se nota una amenaza, que Adam parece no sentir pero su novia sí. Este relato no contiene casi nada del mundo de Lovecraft, es más un cuento típico de terror.- ARCILLA DE INNSMOUTH (Innsmouth Clay) (****). El narrador nos cuenta la extraña desaparición del escultor Jeffrey Corey. A través de sus notas vamos conociendo el enigma. Lo último en lo que trabajaba llevaba por nombre "Diosa Marina", realizada con una arcilla azul que fue arrastrada hasta la orilla. Un cuento algo irregular, que podría haber dado más de sí.- LOS QUE VIGILAN DESDE EL TIEMPO (The Watchers out of Time) (***). Nicholas Walters ha heredado la hacienda de los Whateley, en la zona de Dunwich. Cuando visita la casa, se da cuenta de algo extraño: parece que haya sido construida alrededor de la habitación central. Entonces se decide a investigar sobre sus antepasados. Y cuando más interesante se ponía el cuento, se termina, porque August Derleth falleció antes de terminarlo.
Repetitive, derivative, and boring, I have slogged my way through another collection of August Derleth’s interminable pastiches of Lovecraft's fiction. I need to quit being such a completist. Oh well! This edition of “The Watchers Out of Time,” published by Derleth's own press Arkham House, includes also the novella “The Lurker on the Threshold,” through which glimmers of something interesting appear, perhaps holdovers from Lovecraft's notes. These glimmers are later drowned in turgid, uninspired prose and Derleth’s awkward refurbishing of Mythos as a binary battle between cosmic forces of good and evil, a designation that never really works. This addition of morality rings hollow throughout the rest of these tales which hew to almost the same formula in each, a riffing of one or more of Lovecraft’s stories retold in a more conventional, boring manner. The worst part of Watchers is the facade it presents of being at least partially written by Lovecraft himself, when less than 5% or so of the entire work was cribbed from his notebook by Derleth and it really shows. I imagine that if I had read this as my introduction to Lovecraft’s writings, I don’t think I would have gone further and in no way would I have understood what the fuss was about; they are, at best, passable, standard supernatural horror, not suspenseful in the least and adding absolutely nothing new to the genre, in direct contrast to the genre defying, eerie, idiosyncratic writing of Lovecraft himself. For anyone who has read any of Lovecraft, or even any of his better followers, one can already figure out where the story is going by the end of the first paragraph; no surprises, no suspense, it seems Derleth never tired of writing the exact same plot over and over.
What do You think about The Watchers Out Of Time (1992)?
First, let's be clear. These are all stories by August Derleth, not Lovecraft.Most of these stories follow a fairly predictable pattern: A man moves into a long-abandoned house of his ancestors, discovers a dark history of occultism, bad stuff happens. Most of these stories are variations on that theme, and I like the creepy rural setting, so I enjoyed this book despite the redundancy. There's some exceptions to this theme such as "The Fisherman of Falcon Point" which is a nice little tale. Some of the better stories were "The Survivor," "The Ancestor," "The Shuttered Room" and "The Shadow in the Attic." The story "The Shadow Out of Space" is a blatant retelling (how dare you Derleth?) of Lovecraft's "The Shadow Out of Time" and just pales by comparison. Recommended if you want some good, pulpy stories with the traditional "weird tales" feel.
—Andy
A bit of info for those new to Lovecraft-Despite August Derleth's claims to have 'finished off' these stories that Lovecraft had left incomplete, these are almost exclusively ALL Derleth-And it shows.For die-hard fans of the Lovecraft mythos there are a few treats, but generally speaking all of these stories are basically Lovecraft Pastiche.You've read the basic tropes used by Lovecraft himself, and they are done far less expertly, and much more obviously, here.If you've read the rest of the mythos writing and are desperately searching for something else related to read this collection MIGHT be worth your while. Otherwise you'd be better served reading something like Robert Block's "Mysteries of the Worm" which is mythos fiction done far better.
—The Artificer
First, I need to get some things straight: I love the works of Lovecraft and the Cthulhu Mythos. With the latter I do not just mean Lovecraft himself but also earlier works which inspired the great master himself, such as The King In Yellow by Robert Chambers (Which is where Hastur and the King in Yellow comes from). Because of this love for Lovecraft, I purchased not only Necronomicon, but also works such as The Great God Pan and The Hill of Dreams; The Complete Tales and Poems of Edgar Allan Poe and Walpole's The Castle of Otranto - because to truly appreciate an artist, you need to understand where his influences come from; but also this book, The Watchers Out of Time. I bought the book mainly because it was there when I ransacked the shelves of the local book store and because it contained stories written by August Derleth, the man who founded the publisher Arkham House and made sure Lovecraft's legacy lives on.However, there is one thing that you need to know about this book: the marketing is very misleading. Lovecraft's name is written at the top in huge letters, with Derleth's name beneath it in small print, but actually it should be the other way around. Because, to be honest, the quality is no where near Lovecraft's original work. In fact, if you are doubting whether to get this book or not, leave it on the shelves. Get another good horror or gothic story, such as those listed above.------SPOILERS BELOW, BEWARE!!!------You see, Derleth is a terrible writer. Whereas Lovecraft's original work never ceased to hold my attention, Derleth's work is very predictable and quite lacking in suspense. In addition, Derleth also seems to feel a need to show the reader that he is an expert in the Cthulhu mythos. Where other stories find it sufficient to show a book shelf containing, for example, the Necronomicon, die Unaussprechlichen Kulten and some other leather-bound tomes, Derleth needs to give an exhaustive list of eldritch tomes, resulting in a paragraph filled with italicised names which adds nothing to the story. Another problem with Derleth's work is it's originality. Too many of the stories are set in Dunwich and even if they are set elsewhere, many references to the Whateleys and 'The Dunwich Horror' exist within. And on top of that, the story starts too often with the protagonist inheriting a property which belonged to a evil warlock grandfather - in Dunwich for bonus points - in which the protagonist stays and eventually finds something evil inside.However, there is always the possibility that I have these complaints because I've read too much of the Cthulhu mythos and became genre savvy to a point where I can predict the story. I will soon find out if that is the case when I am done with reading Tales of the Cthulhu Mythos, containing stories by many different writers (including some by Derleth).Still, if you want to read this book, just for completion's sake, just so you can say that you have also read the fiction after Lovecraft himself, go for it.
—Joey
