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The Shadow Out of Time by H.P. Lovecraft is our November 2020 read in the Pulp Era of SF (1920-1939).

I didn't find this on Gutenberg or Librivox, but you can read it for free on Archive.org here:


Project Gutenberg Australia here:


Wikisource also has an online copy (Thanks, Ronald!) here:

I will be rereading this one!

His omnibus can be found here too . The Delphi collection. His omnibus is on public domain?

Copyright depends on country. In Europe, all of Lovecraft is public domain. In USA, only some of it is.

The formula for calculating copyright protection length in the U.S. is:

-all works published in the US before 1923 are in the public domain.

-all works published between 1922 - 1978 are protected for 95 years from the date of publication.

-if created, but not published, before 1978, then copyright lasts for the life of the author plus 70 years.

The Shadow Out of Time is still copyrighted in the USA until 1936 + 95 = 2031.

I started this one early, and finished it in no time. It's short and quick and has a lot in common with At the Mountains of Madness which we read recently.

I'm in for this! Love/hate Lovecraft (like most people I suspect)! Read bits and pieces over the years, but recently have started reading aloud with my partner on long drives ... she drives I read! We both enjoy it very much and laugh a lot at the prose and wince together at the problematic bits. last story read was The Dunwich Horror (which was my first reading of that particular story; now I know where the Wilbur Whateley references come from!)

looking forward to this!

Ed wrote: "Copyright depends on country. In Europe, all of Lovecraft is public domain. In USA, only some of it is.



The formula for calculating copyright protection length in the U.S. is:

-all works publis..."

Wikipedia claims that The Shadow Out of Time is in the public domain in the US:

"This work is in the public domain in the United States because it was legally published within the United States (or the United Nations Headquarters in New York subject to Section 7 of the United States Headquarters Agreement) before 1964, and copyright was not renewed."



On a related note, an acquaintance of mine who is an attorney, and a fan of Weird Tales triumvirate H.P. Lovecraft, Clark Ashton Smith, Robert E. Howard, told me that he wrote a thesis arguing that Arkham House had no legal basis in claiming copyright over Lovecraft's works.

I came across what I think is an interesting essay by science fiction writer Robert Silverberg about At the Mountains of Madness and The Shadow Out of Time :

I re-read the novella a few days ago. I'm inclined to rate it 3.5 stars. If I get around to putting up a goodreads review, I would round it up to 4 stars.

The story is told in the First Person point of view, Lovecraft's usual way fo writing stories. It is perhaps the most popular way of writing fiction today.

However, I don't recall dialogue in The Shadow Out of Time . There is telling, not showing, in the story. If Lovecraft submitted the story today, I think it likely that an editor would ask for a rewrite.

The ideas in the story are a big plus for me. I found fascinating the part where the protagonist said he had conversations with beings--some human, some not--from different times.

But we don't have their conversations.

"I talked with ... Australian physicist Nevil Kingston-Brown, who will die in 2,518 A.D."

Let's see what I can do with this:

"Hello, my name is Nathaniel Wingate Peaslee. I am a Professor of Political Economy at Miskatonic University. I was born in 1870."

"G'Day. I'm Nevil Kingston-Brown, an Australian physicist from the early 26th Century. Pleased to meet you. The maths I use in my work were created by a professor from your school. Those maths will be created in the late 25th Century."

"What is human society like in the 26th Century?"

"Most of our machines are powered by electricity. We have abandoned coal, oil, and gas. We can modify the weather a bit, preventing hurricanes and tornadoes."

Ronald wrote: "I came across what I think is an interesting essay by science fiction writer Robert Silverberg about At the Mountains of Madness and The Shadow Out of Time :

..."

That was interesting. Thanks.

Ronald wrote: "...Wikipedia claims that The Shadow Out of Time is in the public domain in the US:..."

Interesting. I knew there were more complexities in the copyright laws!

Still, some of Lovecraft is still not public domain in the USA.

I'll read this soon. I've been reading some classic horror stories in October, so I've had a chance to get used to the purple prose. Lovecraft's prose really annoys me sometimes, but it wasn't much more purple than Poe or Ambrose Bierce or other early horror writers.

Ronald wrote: "I came across what I think is an interesting essay by science fiction writer Robert Silverberg about At the Mountains of Madness and The Shadow Out of Time :
..."

It's too early in the month to discuss the story, but even more after reading this article (thanks) I wonder why he wrote this novella. Because imo it's a lot like Mountains of Madness. And apparantly, there was no one interested to publish that one so what to expect of a second novella in that style.

Well, I'm never going to be a fan of Lovecraft. I just don't like his style.

There are some ideas in this story that I like. I just wish there were more actual action apart from simply walking at night among spooky stones with a spooky wind under a fungoid moon.

While many spent the night watching election results dribble in, I lit a candle and read this and a few other spooky stories, then watched an opera about a man going to Hades where he fails to fetch his wife (Orfeo et Euridice.) I think I made the right choice.

This is reminiscent of Mountains of Madness, but I think it works well as a companion piece.
We have to remember that the narrator is recounting his experiences-real or imagined.
This is a reread for me, and I think I enjoyed it more on second reading because over the course of the last couple of years I've read almost all of Lovecraft's works and enjoyed the references to stories I'd read, like The Lurking Peril.

This was my first Howard Lovecraft book, I have to say I did enjoy it. That said I veer towards " hard " science fiction so I was less keen on the first part of the book which concerned dreams and time travel sequences, but I was riveted by the second part set in the Australian desert.

I suppose the dreams type unexplainable vehicle is sometimes unavoidable to move the story on, consider the transport of John Carter to Mars in the excellent A Princess of Mars for example.

It is to Lovecraft's credit that he avoids any sort of humanoid features in the description of The Yith, unlike Star Trek monsters. Aliens will be different ...

The only negative point I would make is that I found it hard to follow the evolution of The Yith.

But I will be choosing a second Lovecraft novel now, and
I am researching the man himself, so that says it all.

I decided to also read one of the comic book adaptations of the animated film: Howard Lovecraft and the Frozen Kingdom.

It's about a creepy little boy who is given the Necronomicon by his father and told to destroy it. Instead he reads it. Tentacles ensue. More fun for kids than adults, I assume, but personally I like this more than reading "real" Lovecraft.

Ed wrote: "I decided to also read one of the comic book adaptations of the animated film: Howard Lovecraft and the Frozen Kingdom.

It's about a creepy little boy who is given the Necronomicon ..."

I have a couple of Howard Lovecraft cartoon movies. Haven't watched them, though. Agreed on reading the original Lovecraft. I'm not a fan of his writing, but I do appreciate his inspiration.

I don't want anyone to feel like I think they are wrong to like HPL. I just personally don't like his style.

Ed wrote: "I don't want anyone to feel like I think they are wrong to like HPL. I just personally don't like his style."

Of course not. Each to their own reading tastes. He's never been to mine, but I've struggled through several over the years simply because they've inspired so many authors that I do like & it's interesting to see how his works influenced theirs. Zelazny relied heavily on his work for A Night in the Lonesome October, one of my all time favorites. He was a pen pal of Robert E. Howard, another favorite author.

Starting in Chapter 5, The Shadow Out of Time goes into an adventure plot.

Nathaniel Wingate Peaslee wrote about his dreams which were published in the Journal of the American Psychological Society. Dr. Peaslee later receives a letter and photos from an engineer in Australia which indicates that Dr. Peaslee's dreams have a basis in reality. Dr. Peaslee and others go off to Australia to investigate.