Not the actual book that drives men mad, the collection of short stories that reference the actual book. Which isn't "actual" at all, it's fictional, and...
anyway. I picked it up because I vaguely gathered that it had some sort of vintage lovecraftian horror pedigree. And my impressions, about 4 stories in, are that it's kinda like if Roald Dahl had written Lovecraft fanfic?
Ah! According to wikipedia, Lovecraft was influenced by this, since it was written before his time, and I guess that was most explicit with all the stuff about "Hastur, Aldebaran, the Hyades" and descriptions of The Lake of Hali and the Figure in the Pallid Mask
Okay, I see that a lot of elements from the stories in The Yellow King, including Hastur and The Yellow King itself were used by Lovecraft and are included in Cthulhu mythos. Cool. As much as I enjoy Lovecraftian horror, I've actually read very few of Lovecraft's own stories, so this had been an education :)
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