INJ Culbard returns to Lovecraft in Dream-Quest of Unknown Kadath - review

The Dream-Quest of Unknown Kadath is not one of the most popular or well-known works of HP Lovecraft's opus. Part of the 'Dream Cycle' rather than the more popular 'Cthulhu Mythos', the novella went unpublished in his lifetime, and its lack of polish is evident.

This is an interesting choice for INJ Culbard (Celeste, Brass Sun), who has created a small library of Lovecraft adaptations at SelfMadeHero. Following his take on sinister classics like At the Mountains of Madness and The Case of Charles Dexter Ward, Kadath is relatively light in tone, though not short of the wilder side of Lovecraft's imagination.

After becoming obsessed by his dreams of a fantastic golden city, Randolph Carter adventures into the strange world of the Dreamlands to beseech the gods to show him the way back to the place of his dreams. His adventure brings him to a string of strange and fantastical destinations as he hunts down clues that will point him back to the golden land he longs for.

Culbard's adaptation sticks fairly closely to Lovecraft's original, but brings some of the polish that the original lacked. He seamlessly weaves some peripheral stories of the Dream Cycle into the narrative, adding some extra depth and cohesion to the story. The symmetry and motifs of the book's illustrations bring a new richness and elegance to the long, densely-written tale.

The strength of this and Culbard's other adaptations is his ability to translate Lovecraft's verbose prose into images without compromising the rich atmosphere that has made these stories into classics. Ordinarily, the tone is horror all the way, and while Kadath is four parts fantastical to one part chilling, Culbard's work is just as strong. His weird and beautiful renditions of the cities and landscapes of the Dreamlands ground and enliven the source material's tendency towards long lists of alien locations and peoples. His colours stray from the typically dark to a whole spectrum that takes in dreamily pale and electric bright palettes, and feel very fitting for a story set in dreams.

As we have said, Kadath is an oddity that may surprise and/or disappoint readers in search of another chilling Lovecraft classic. Whatever the case, there is no denying that Culbard makes this story sing.

We are excited to get our hands on his next SelfMadeHero outing - an adaptation of Robert W Chambers's The King in Yellow stories, which were a big influence on Lovecraft and, far more recently, the first season of HBO's True Detective.

INJ Culbard and HP Lovecraft's The Dream-Quest of Unknown Kadath is released this week by SelfMadeHero.

Hugh Armitage

Hugh Armitage is Movies Editor at Digital Spy.