Showing results by narrator "Adriel Brandt" in All Categories

A lot happens in this very short story by H.P. Lovecraft, but it begins as the title might lend itself to imagine - with a terrible old man. As three thieves find out about this old man’s treasures, they decide to visit with the man with the intent to steal his riches. Their plan goes horribly wrong when one of the three hears screaming from the getaway car. When he enters the house, he finds the hideous, yellow-eyed man staring evilly at him, waiting to usher in his doom. 

Though The Street tries to remain in the realm of horror and the supernatural, what it really amounts to is one of the earliest written documents of Lovecraft’s political stance and stance on other races. In this story, the street is the protagonist. Lovecraft documents its growth from quaint and colonial New England town to downtrodden and dirty as immigrants move in after the first world war. When a “vast group of terrorists” living in the neighborhood plot to overthrow the federal government on July 4th, the street decides to take matters into its own (metaphorical) hands.

When the narrator accompanies a withered old Yankee back to his house, he is intrigued by the many old curiosities he finds around it - including precolonial furniture. One of these curiosities, an engraving, brings the old man on a terrifying reminisce about eating things that he was not allowed to have, and the narrator realizes that he could next on the plate. As blood drips from the ceiling onto the book, the narrator narrowly escapes when a bolt of lightning strikes the house, finally ending his streak of immortality.

Nyarlathotep: descendent of ancient Egyptian pharaohs and bringer of bad dreams. When the story’s namesake begins his travels to showcase his once dormant supernatural powers, he runs into a particularly tough crowd. When Nyarlathotep becomes angry, he sends the crowd in different directions - which brings a seeming horror about the city. By the end of it, the maddened crowd is the least of the world’s worries. Doom, it would seem, was here to stay with Nyarlathotep.  

The tomb is the story of Jervas, a little boy whose whole life begins to revolve around the tomb of the Hyde family. A childhood spent sneaking out to sleep beside the tomb eventually turns into a young adulthood of sleeping in a tomb with his name on it. After a stormy night and after heading for the tomb, he turns back and sees the Hyde mansion, which had been burnt down in previous years, aglow with splendor. Once Jervas went inside, the spectral mansion sets ablaze, and his vision is broken by his father. Jervas comes to find out he had never been inside the tomb at all.

Much like Celephaïs, the unnamed narrator recalls his dreams of drifting on a dreamy ship toward the west and exploring the mystical and ethereal land of the west. The narrator recalls that he always ended at an ivy wall with a gate in it. After years of unrelenting depression in the real world, the narrator decides that he will try and go through the gate of his dreams, wherein he swallows “the drug”. After opening the door, he realizes quickly (and to his delight) that his expectations of what lay beyond were completely wrong.   

Cthulhu lovers take note, this early story of the sea god Dagon is considered to be part of the Cthulhu mythos. In Dagon, the protagonist is lost at sea for days, wading through dead fish and other foulness, until he comes to an island with a monolith on a rocky hillside. After reading the pictographs, his eyes land on the terrible image of a monster rising from the sea. When he wakes up in a San Francisco hospital he thinks the ordeal is over - that is, until the sea god comes to haunt his waking and sleeping life.   

In this story by H.P. Lovecraft, the line between man and beast is blurred. The Beast in the Cave follows the story of a man who gets separated from his group of tourists. They’ve all come to see the mammoth cave, but the man fears that it might be the last wonder he sees as he continues to wander further from his group. Eventually, his torch runs out of fuel and he is left with no other choice but to fend off approaching inhuman footsteps with the toss of a rock. 

Kuranes, an English Nobleman ill-content with his real life, once dreamed of the city of Celephaïs. Many years later, at the height of his discontent, he manages to slip away permanently into his dreams. After a guided recollection of his childhood, he comes upon Celephaïs. While his psyche happily remains guard over the city, his body is found back in the real world, washed ashore on the banks of his family’s land.   

Basil Elton is a lighthouse keeper prone to fantasies - especially one recurring fantasy of a man in white robes on a white ship that only appears on a full moon. During this fantasy, Elton goes with the man on his ship, following an azure bird. Despite the man’s warnings that no man has ever returned from one of these realms, Elton asks that he take him to legendary land of hope. Their journey takes them to the end of the world, and instead of toppling over the side and dying, Elton wakes up on the rocks of his lighthouse next to the first shipwreck in his time as lightkeeper.  

Cat haters beware. This piece by H.P. Lovecraft is largely memoirish, whereby the narrator is compelled to tell the listener about Ulthar after petting his own cat. When a travelling caravan passes through, a young orphan named Menes finds his beloved black kitten has gone missing and fears the worst - that his kitten had suffered a torturous end at the hands of the town cat killers. Annoyed by the lack of action on the part of the townspeople, Menes invokes a prayer that results in the cats of the town rising and slaying the cat-killing couple.

Lovecraftian themes abound in the tales of an intern at a madhouse and an illiterate madman. Slater, the madman whose unspeakable crimes led him to the madhouse, is continuously awakened in this story by surprisingly literate hallucinations of a glowing entity seeking revenge. Inspired by Slater’s uneducated background and the telepathic machine that he had made in his yesteryear, the intern delves deep into Joe Slater - who is receiving telepathic messages from a being of light.

20 terrorists. One bounty hunter. 14,000 years between them. Just how far will one man go to get his revenge? When the government fails to capture a techno-terrorist cabal, it outsources the job. Reluctant bounty hunter Leonard “Bad” Day, out for revenge for the slaughter of his family, agrees to go after the most dangerous killers.

Benaiah has joined David's band of outlaws and, in the process, has become a mighty warrior. When David finally comes to the throne of Israel, Benaiah and his family settle down for a life of peace. But little do they know; the true battle is only beginning. The family of Goliath seeks revenge, David's heart is distracted by temptations, and the unity of David's Mighty Men is pushed to its limit. When David does the unthinkable, Benaiah is faced with the fiercest challenge of his life. David is the Lord's anointed, but justice must be done.

The throne of Israel is in peril. A band of outlaws have pledged their allegiance to King Saul's son-in-law, David. Living in caves and deserts, the men of David try to keep hidden from the ever-vengeful wrath of their king. Meanwhile, in the small village of Kabzeel, Benaiah the priest lives peacefully with his wife and child. Against his wishes, providence continues to place Benaiah in the middle of Saul and David's battle. Rumors begin to spread that David has been chosen by God. Benaiah is told that he must pick a side. But whose side will he choose?

Laugh at the ironic jibes and the bumbling Detective Fix, gasp at the high adventure and perilous misadventures, and feel the thrill of haste and ingenuity, but no longer wince at badly aged language and harmful stereotypes. This gentle modernization changes only as much as necessary, retaining everything that has made this novel an immortal classic.

When Roman Anderson, a renowned professor, is invited to a weekend retreat at a remote hotel with the Hollywood actors set to star in a new movie based on his book, he feels like he is living the dream. But Anderson is unaware that his enchanting weekend is about to take a sinister turn. Staying at the hotel with them is a group of women from a public relations firm, one of whom, Amy Rogers, accuses Anderson of rape. Anderson immediately pleads his innocence, but the evidence is stacked against him and the noose around his neck tightens as the days go by.

After being guarded for centuries by the Order of Light, the map to the Grail of Fate falls into the hands of Darco, sovereign of all evil. He knows of the prophecy about the unborn Destined One—who is meant to put an end to Darco’s reign—and he has to get his hands on the Grail of Fate to prevent that from happening. On the day of the Five Shields’ 14th birthday, they discover the World Beyond yet again, and are sent by Melvyn, leader of the Forces of Light, to train ahead of their most important mission yet—to reach the Grail of Fate and destroy it before it’s too late.

With King Harold away at war, Lord Raburn has his eye on the throne. Those who dare to stand in his way fall beneath his power. All but one. A girl named Annabeth. Can a common, ordinary girl, with love for king, country, and her father, achieve the impossible? Trained by her father, a master swordsman, outlawed Annabeth has only her sword, her wits, and her disguises to keep Belterra from falling entirely into Lord Raburn's clutches. Can she rescue her captured father and Prince Alfred? Will one girl keep the kingdom from falling?

May and four other children lead normal lives, until on their 13th birthday, which they celebrate on the same day, they receive a present that is about to change their lives forever. From that moment on, they become the five shields of the world. As the fate of the entire world comes to rest on their shoulders, they are catapulted into a thrilling adventure for which they were hardly prepared. They know that time is running out and that only they can restore the balance between good and evil.