For a Halloween read, I pulled _The Lurker at the Threshold_ off the
shelves. Despite its being a relatively thin book, it took me a week
to get through it.

All kinds of things were hinted at or alluded to, throughout many
pages of diary excerpts, old newspaper clippings, conversations with
rustics, and so on. But, all that was ever described was "somebody
disappeared and his mangled body turned up months later." Since
these disappearances all happened a century or more before the main
narrative, they didn't really put a lot of terror into the story
for me.

Dewart goes into the tower that supposed to be left alone and removes
the stone that's not supposed to be moved. What happens? Nothing
much. His cousin, Baxter, comes to stay with him. What does Baxter
observe? Dewart's kind of bipolar.

Dewart pleads for help from some folks at Miskatonic U. They sit
around in their office talking, and the juior prof gets a reading
assignment.

<spoiler>

Finally, on the last two or three pages, Baxter gets killed, and
they kill the possessed Dewart and seal up the hole. They succeed
with relative ease.

Where's the suspense? Where's the terror? Did descriptions of frogs
croaking really do it in an earlier age?

I seem to recall liking "At the Mountains of Madness" in my
younger years, but now I hate to go back and reread it, for
fear that it was more of a "golden age" kind of enjoyment.

--
Michael F. Stemper
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