The Dream-Quest of Unknown Kadath by H.P. Lovecraft

Narrated by Jim Roberts

The Dream-Quest of Unknown Kadath is easily Lovecraft’s most ripping yarn, and a work of high fantasy, not horror. Well, there is an element of horror; eldritch beings do gibber and bubble and meep in inimitably Lovecraftian fashion throughout the story. But at its heart it’s definitely a fantasy story, if one with madness at its core.

The hero, Randolph Carter, dreams of a heartbreakingly beautiful city three times and never again. This dream affects him so deeply that he goes on a quest to beseech the gods’ help in finding it again—never mind that those self-same gods are probably the ones who decided they didn’t want him dreaming about it anymore. Along the way he encounters both help and hindrance in many forms, is captured and escapes, forms alliances, and generally exhibits the manly, chiseled-jawline sort of equanimity, resourcefulness, and determination we expect in a fantasy hero from the first half of the 20th century. Think of Edgar Rice Burroughs’ John Carter, or Flash Gordon.

The central conceit of this book, and of all the stories of Lovecraft’s Dream Cycle, is that we actually go somewhere, to a shared reality, an objective plane of existence, when we’re dreaming. (Well, not entirely objective; it looks a little different to each of us.) There’s a geography to it; there are denizens who are actual people, not just figments of our dreaming imaginations; and there are physics and natural laws, though different ones from those we’re subject to in the waking world. Our old and much-altered friend Richard Pickman is there, and ships that sail to the moon. Mountains walk (not in a good way), and cats talk.

Experienced dreamers—skilled dreamers—“old dreamers,” as Lovecraft calls them—are able to affect the reality around them, to a greater or lesser extent, in the Dreamlands. One truly old dreamer in the story was able to create an entire city, and retire there to rule over it after he died on the mortal plane. Ghouls—those rubbery, doglike creatures who inhabit Earthly cemeteries for reasons best not dwelt upon--also nibble at the edges of the Dreamlands.

Expect Lovecraftian language. Things are verdant and wholesome and fair, or else chthonic and cryptical and cyclopean. Bad guys are squat and swarthy and slant-eyed, and black men (always men, we never see any women) exist purely to be enslaved or worse. (Apparently their life in the dreamlands isn’t any better than their reality—hell of a raw deal, that.)

In between the racism and the gibbering horrors, though, it’s a beautiful place, and Lovecraft describes it to within an inch of its life, never failing to modify a noun or verb if he can possibly help it and never using just one adjective when two will fit. Here’s a fair sample:

“Down through this verdant land Carter walked at evening, and saw twilight float up from the river to the marvelous golden spires of Thran. And just at the hour of dusk he came to the southern gate, and was stopped by a red-robed sentry till he had told three dreams beyond belief, and proved himself a dreamer worthy to walk up Thran's steep mysterious streets and linger in the bazaars where the wares of the ornate galleons were sold. Then into that incredible city he walked; through a wall so thick that the gate was a tunnel, and thereafter amidst curved and undulant ways winding deep and narrow between the heavenward towers. Lights shone through grated and balconied windows, and the sound of lutes and pipes stole timid from inner courts where marble fountains bubbled. Carter knew his way, and edged down through darker streets to the river, where at an old sea tavern he found the captains and seamen he had known in myriad other dreams. There he bought his passage to Celephais on a great green galleon, and there he stopped for the night after speaking gravely to the venerable cat of that inn, who blinked dozing before an enormous hearth and dreamed of old wars and forgotten gods.”

Intrigued? You should be. If you haven’t read Lovecraft, this is a great place to start. If you have, but haven’t read anything from his Dream Cycle, all I can tell you is you’re missing out.