"The Colour Out of Space" by H.P. Lovecraft is a classic short story about a terrible alien presence that descends upon a rural area, with dire consequences for surrounding life. The narrative is written in a first-person perspective of an unnamed Boston surveyor who stumbles upon a mysterious patch of land, an abandoned farmstead completely devoid of life, while preparing for the construction of a new reservoir. As the story unfolds, the eerie and unnatural sense of dread builds up, leading to a climax where the mysterious color from a meteorite slowly poisons the farmer and his family, wreaking havoc on the local community.
The writing style of H.P. Lovecraft in this story is described as masterful, with vivid descriptions that paint a haunting scene easily visualized by the readers. The horror in the story builds slowly, almost unnoticed, until the climax, creating a sense of suspense and dread throughout the narrative. Despite some opinions criticizing Lovecraft's poor writing ability and lack of character development, "The Colour Out of Space" stands out as a prime example of Lovecraft's mastery of the macabre, showcasing his ability to craft a chilling and atmospheric tale that lingers with the readers.
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Sensitive Topics/Content Warnings
Content warnings for The Colour Out of Space include themes of mental illness, body horror, and environmental devastation.
From The Publisher:
H. P. Lovecraft was one of the greatest horror writers of all time. His seminal work appeared in the pages of legendary Weird Tales and has influenced countless writer of the macabre. This is one of those stories.
Ratings (26)
Incredible (5) | |
Loved It (13) | |
Liked It (4) | |
It Was OK (3) | |
Did Not Like (1) |
Reader Stats (41):
Read It (28) | |
Want To Read (6) | |
Not Interested (7) |
3 comment(s)
This is the creepiest of the Lovecraft stories that I've read. There is a bit more characterization, a really great sense of place, and nothing seems especially goofy.
One of the best atmospheric horror sci-fi stories.
Traces of the old [road] can still be found amidst the weeds of a returning wilderness, and some of them will doubtless linger even when half the hollows are flooded for the new reservoir. Then the dark woods will be cut down and the blasted heath will slumber far below blue waters whose surface will mirror the sky and ripple in the sun. And the secrets of the strange days will be one with the deep's secrets; one with the hidden lore of old ocean, and all the mystery of primal earth.
For some reason, I’ve always associated Lovecraft with a kind of pulpy, gory sci-fi horror populated by tentacled aliens and other weird monsters. I was in no way expecting the poetic, complex prose and richly drawn atmosphere of
The Colour Out of Space. The nature writing was especially surprising and enjoyable. There’s certainly some weirdness and disturbing moments (and I wouldn’t be surprised if some of his other work leans even more heavily in this direction), but Lovecraft leaves much to the imagination, instead choosing to focus on the horror of the unsaid and unknown. The result is an alien entity that feels truly
alien in a way that Lovecraft doesn’t spoil by attempting to explain, and an ending that leaves the reader with a deep dread about what will presumably happen next.
I loved the style, but where this fell short for me was character. The characters were all solid enough—and I really enjoyed the framing device and first-person narrative—but I didn’t feel any emotional connection to them or like they were particularly interesting or layered. Which, honestly, is fine: not every story needs to be a character study, and that’s clearly not what Lovecraft is going for. But that would have taken this story from being really good to absolutely amazing.
3.5 stars, rounding up.
Some favorite passages:
It is not because of anything that can be seen or heard or handled, but because of something that is imagined. The place is not good for imagination, and does not bring restful dreams at night.
Weeds and briers reigned, and furtive wild things rustled in the undergrowth. Upon everything was a haze of restlessness and oppression; a touch of the unreal and the grotesque, as if some vital element of perspective or chiaroscuro were awry.
I vaguely wished some clouds would gather, for an odd timidity about the deep skyey voids above had crept into my soul.
No sane wholesome colours were anywhere to be seen except in the green grass and leafage; but everywhere were those hectic and prismatic variants of some diseased, underlying primary tone without a place among the known tints of earth.
The asters and goldenrod bloomed grey and distorted, and the roses and zinnias and hollyhocks in the front yard were such blasphemous-looking things that Nahum's oldest boy Zenas cut them down.
Behind and below was only a darkness to which the men dared not return, and all about was a mounting wind which seemed to sweep down in black, frore gusts from interstellar space.
What it is, only God knows. In terms of matter I suppose the thing Ammi described would be called a gas, but this gas obeyed laws that are not of our cosmos. This was no fruit of such worlds and suns as shine on the telescopes and photographic plates of our observatories. This was no breath from the skies whose motions and dimensions our astronomers measure or deem too vast to measure. It was just a colour out of space—a frightful messenger from unformed realms of infinity beyond all Nature as we know it; from realms whose mere existence stuns the brain and numbs us with the black extra-cosmic gulfs it throws open before our frenzied eyes.
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The Colour Out of Space?
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