Horror Story Review: "The Doom That Came to Sarnath" by H. P. Lovecraft

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Ten thousand years ago, the story goes, in the land of Mnar, the mighty city of Sarnath stood by the shores of a vast lake that was fed by no stream and out of which no stream flowed. Sarnath stands no more. From time immemorial before Sarnath stood a city named Ib, whose inhabitants were ugly and worshipped Bokrug, a great water lizard. In the day when the men of Sarnath destroyed the misshapen creatures of Ib, they cast not only their corpses but their stonework into the lake. The one exception was a sea-green idol of chiseled stone, that of Bokrug, which they put in their own temple as a trophy. But the very night they did this, weird lights were seen in the mist over the lake. In the morning, the idol of Bokrug was gone and the high priest Taran-Ish lay dead, apparently having scrawled the sign for DOOM on the altar of chrysolite before he met his end. The ending of this Dream Cycle story is not a surprise (indeed, the reader has been told how it ends at the beginning), but the magic is in author Lovecraft’s ability to hold the reader fast while the tale plays out. It might work better in other stories, and it doesn’t work at all for some people, but I enjoyed this little story. Lovecraft can weave his magic while the reader sits spellbound, fist under chin, in this tale of a ruthless people enjoying their time in the sun, gloating… for a while. The short story is available as an audio book from Librivox. The text is available here. ______ Title: “The Doom That Came to Sarnath” Author: H. P. Lovecraft (1890-1937) First published: written in 1919, published in The Scot No. 44 in June 1920. Source: ISFDB *An earlier version of this review appeared on another site. It has been updated and expanded for its inclusion on myLot*