An important book in both SciFi and Horror, and one that is public domain to boot. There are iterations in almost any format you can imagine.
http://en.wikisource.org/wiki/The_Call_of_Cthulhu
IA!
Ph’nglui mglw’nafh Cthulhu R’lyeh wgah’nagl fhtagn
Also, in more seriousness, I’m sure most of you have seen it but if not check out Neil Gaiman’s A Study in Emerald. (Warning: PDF)
There’s also a free audiobook version, read by the man himself.
After a photo-finish, the Book Club selection for May and June (2011) is the classic “The Call of Cthulhu” by H.P. Lovecraft (1928).
Though you may be interested in reading a paper copy, this is one of our selections that is widely (and legally) available online in various places (for example, here). Check it out!
The most merciful thing in the world, I think, is the inability of the human mind to correlate all its contents. We live on a placid island of ignorance in the midst of black seas of infinity, and it was not meant that we should voyage far. The sciences, each straining in its own direction, have hitherto harmed us little; but some day the piecing together of dissociated knowledge will open up such terrifying vistas of reality, and of our frightful position therein, that we shall either go mad from the revelation or flee from the deadly light into the peace and safety of a new dark age.
Theosophists have guessed at the awesome grandeur of the cosmic cycle wherein our world and human race form transient incidents. They have hinted at strange survival in terms which would freeze the blood if not masked by a bland optimism. But it is not from them that there came the single glimpse of forbidden aeons which chills me when I think of it and maddens me when I dream of it. That glimpse, like all dread glimpses of truth, flashed out from an accidental piecing together of separated things—in this case an old newspaper item and the notes of a dead professor. I hope that no one else will accomplish this piecing out; certainly, if I live, I shall never knowingly supply a link in so hideous a chain. I think that the professor, too, intended to keep silent regarding the part he knew, and that he would have destroyed his notes had not sudden death seized him.
SPOILERS AHEAD
Hey, If you guys are reading Lovecraft, I thought I’d plug one of my favorite podcasts.
Check out hppodcraft.com available on itunes. The two guys that host it no their Lovecraft and are very funny. They’ve also done some dramatic readings of stories. The format is to review a Lovecraft story each podcast, so I’ve been reading them and listening to the discussion.
Also check out “The Call Of Cthulhu” movie, available through netfilx.
Delaware Dean
i downloaded it from here
http://www.manybooks.net/titles/lovecrafthother06cthulhu.html
you can pick the digital format.