There are three stories included alongside At the Mountains of Madness, all of them interesting but not among Lovecraft's greatest creations. "The Shunned House" is basically a ghost story, albeit one featuring Lovecraftian images, themes, and atmosphere. "The Dreams in the Witch-House" is almost stereotypical to some degree--a young man seeks out a place of mystery and dark history in an attempt to gain cosmic knowledge. In this case, the young man is a mathematics student hoping to combine possible ancient knowledge of curved space and time with his powerful mathematical formulae with some hope of transcending the barriers of earth's three dimensions. As can be expected, he soon finds himself in over his head, experiencing terrible things each night at the hands of a supposedly deceased old witch and her horrible rat-like familiar. This story seemed to have great potential, yet I thought it sort of broke down during the latter half, lacking Lovecraft's usual ending flourish and flair. The final story included here is "The Statement of Randolph Carter," which relates a pivotal experience in the life of Randolph Carter, who would become Lovecraft's master of dreams and seeker of Kadath in the ice-cold wastes.
All of these stories are a basic staple of a Lovecraft diet, and At the Mountains of Madness is compulsory reading. These stories can be found elsewhere and in more impressive packages, but this particular book is easy to acquire and relatively inexpensive.
When I first read these words in "The Shadow Over Innsmouth," my reaction was: Huh? I've been trying to find out what a shoggoth is ever since, and why they inspire such terror. "At the Mountains of Madness" reveals everything about these creatures, as well as unveiling a rather unusual chapter of the Earth's history.
Sure, Lovecraft was good at gut-wrenching terror, but I like him best when he writes about fantastical, otherwordly encounters. That's why "Mountains" is one of my favorites, along with "The Shadow out of Time." Written back when Antarctica was still largely unexplored, the story chronicles the adventures of a research team from Miskatonic University in Arkham, and their discovery of a deserted alien city millions of years old. Seems Humans aren't the only ones to populate Earth....but what if the former inhabitants aren't entirely gone?
Great story, truly. The shoggoths are certainly worthy of insanity -- don't read this while eating Jell-O.
As for the other three stories in this book..."The Shunned House" was pretty good, but not great. It's a stand-alone story -- no "Iä"s here. "The Dreams in the Witch-House" was quite good; nice and creepy. It even had a reference to "Mountains." Slick. "The Statement of Randolph Carter" is really short and doesn't explain itself at all. Maybe "The Dream-Quest of Unknown Kadath," which features Randolph Carter, has more info...I should read that next.
I think this book is worth the price, even though it's cheaply printed. As a hopeless Lovecraft fan, I'm glad to have learned more about the Cthulhu Mythos -- which, by the way, are at least as twisted and intricate as the X-Files conspiracy. Ah, insane genius! Heh, heh, heh....