The Colour Out of Space
H.P. Lovecraft
(CreateSpace Independent Publishing Platform, Sept. 8, 2017)
When Lovecraft set out to write The Colour Out of Space, he wanted to write about an alien entity, that was actually alien and unknown. Because Lovecraft realized that if you used the same caricature of a grey alien every time that you wrote an alien/UFO story it wasn't going to be scary at all. And besides, the word alien refers to something absolutely foreign and unknown, and after awhile being told something is alien, doesn't make it so. But Lovecraft did it. He created a terrifying entity that mere humans can't fully comprehend. The Colour Out of Space is a 1st-person narrative written from the perspective of an unnamed Boston surveyor. To prepare for the construction of a new Massachusetts reservoir, he surveys a rural area that's to be flooded near the fictional town of Arkham. He comes across a mysterious patch of land, an abandoned 5-acre farmstead completely devoid of life. At the centre of the farmstead is an old well. The site fills him with an unnatural sense of dread...