The story set in an 1894 mining camp in the American west. Lovecraft has here succinctly captured everything I hate about his work. We have a long exposition of not really creepy details leading up to a climax in which the horror is, well, not actually revealed, because it would be too horrible. (Random mention is made of Huitzilopochtli, Aztec god of war, but would an Englishman really have been able to decipher a name like that screamed by a raving Mexican about to throw himself in an abyss?) And then it could have been a dream, but of course we know it wasn't, because the malfunctioning jewelry is missing. People, serial killers are scary. This is not.

(Moved 2015 review to the individual work Sept. 2017 to make room to review the collection under its own entry. Bonus points because I do actually remember this story rather well, but as you can see the bonus points aren't good for much when the story is already starting at the bottom.) ( )

I'm not going to comment on every time Lovecraft looks down upon a race for its inferior breeding, because then I'd be here forever. Regardless, I did enjoy what is becoming a recurrence of events happening in a dream world will very real effects. Pretty neat idea, not that it's exclusive to Lovecraft. ( )

2,5 ( )