H.P. Lovecraft is one of the most influential modern horror writers. Lovecraft's fiction is a category unto itself. Eschewing the traditional werewolves, vampires, and ghosts of most horror fiction, he wrote of dread Elder Gods and cosmic, earth-shattering horrors. Lovecraft mined rich veins of terror uniquely his own, and wherever in the known and unknown universe his imagination sped, readers followed--fascinated, enrapt, and terrified by the scope of his dark vision.

More than fifty years after his death, Lovecraft's fiction continues to influence each new generation of horror...

Weinberg's work is so ground-breaking, his research so arduous, and his precursors in this field so generally unhelpful that we must regard this as charting virtually unexplored waters. There is nothing really to compare the book to, and there is not likely to be a more complete such book in the near future. Weinberg deserves the thanks of anyone seriously interested in what we might call the cultural history of SF, and his book belongs in any collection that purports to represent that history. "Science Fiction Studies"

While there have been numerous books published over the past few...