A Hellnotes Book Review: The Shadow Out Of Time
By William P. Simmons
The Shadow Out Of Time, along with At The Mountains Of Madness, may be Lovecraft's greatest embodiment of cosmic terror. Written in a four month period of low esteem (and a lower bank account), this last major work is a marvel of somber delivery, near seamless construction, and precise scaffolding of increasingly sinister events lent believability by the author's ability to lend impossible events a probability as capable of touching the mind of readers as his influential Ancient Races - nameless monstrosities beyond scientifically tracked gulfs of time, logic, and space - aroused in characters paradoxical emotions of fear and the desire to know more.
Originally published in Astounding Stories (June 1930), Hippocampus Press presents the corrected text of this macabre landmark for the first time, edited and discussed by scholars Joshi and Schultz. Nathaniel Wingate Peaslee, a professor of political economy at Miskatonic University, experiences a mysteries amnesia breakdown. After some time in the hospital, the professor, abandoned by his wife and two of three children, regains reasoning abilities accompanied by a what appears to be an alien personality hungering for human knowledge and experience. After years of intense research and superhuman intellectual accomplishment, his old identity returns, and through half-dreams and studies of experiences comparable with his own, he slowly recalls the exchange of physical/intellectual form he was forced to endure by an alien, tentacled race preparing for an attack by a species of demonic entities even more ancient (and more destructive) than they. Peaslee's memory recovery (the true story of this narrative) is instigated by delirious moments of gained memory and instinctive fear. Peaslee's meeting with Robert B. F. Mackenzi leads to an expedition to the Great Sandy Desert to investigate evidence of remaining artifacts of the Great Race and the Ancient Ones. The documents he discovers beneath a looming, ancient structure half-obscured by sand, confirm the worst fears of both himself and our race, providing a satisfying and commendably depressing end that refused to the false optimism of so much conservative horror fiction.
At its best, The Shadow Out Of Time examines the insignificance of an insignificant human species virtually defenseless against the amoral, unknowable giant of existence. There is no God in Lovecraft's universe, nor is there purpose to our sufferings, struggles, and petty triumphs. Therein lies the primary terror and artistry of this novella of burrowed identities, time travel, psychic impressions, and warring giants.