If you are doing a comprehensive survey of HP Lovecraft's Cthulhu mythos, then it is worth it to read Derleth's short story, "The Return of Hastur", mainly so you can appreciate that other authors did not take the same path. Otherwise, you can skip it and not be missing much.

I had dithered about reviewing this short story, but I thought I would do it, in case it is useful to someone else.

Anyway, for the last year, I've been reading with a friend through the most influential stories from the world created by H.P. Lovecraft and other authors that is know as the Cthulhu mythos. In general, it isn't mind-shattering horror, so much as somewhat creepy (and often racist) pulp horror. After Lovecraft's death, August Derleth and another person published Lovecraft's short stories when no one else would. This is definitely cool. However, Derleth had a different vision of the mythos, which he apparently tried to push.

So, in the mythos, there are beings who are here on Earth, but they are from beyond time and space. They are ancient, incredibly powerful, and they don't care about us. They might kill us, make us slaves, or eat us. Maybe they would dissect us. We just have no value to them. These days, this isn't that shocking. Right? But is that true? When I think that AIs might become significantly smarter than humans, I feel a kind of existential anxiety, because I know that there are some really unpleasant possibilities there. Now, go back to these creatures who are not like us and are much more powerful. I think I am more capable of being concerned about theoretical AIs than I am about monsters, but I can see the reason for the fear.

Okay, so with that in mind, here's what Derleth did, which you can totally see in this story. He took these beings that are amoral and totally indifferent to humans and grouped them into "good" and "evil" and also according to elements, so that a fire-aligned creature and a water-aligned creature would fight, as would a good creature and an evil creature. What does this give us? Not only plenty of religions, but also fantasy conflict and pro-wrestling. It takes "this creature that you cannot understand could kill you and not notice or care" and turns it into "the good creature will protect you from the bad creature, and you might be able to play it off against the creature with the opposing element". These beings are supposed to drive people (okay, mostly men, since there are few female characters) crazy. I don't believe that anyone is going to go crazy from Derleth's creatures.

Other than that, how was the story? The ending could have been much better, but overall it at least had a plot. The characters were meh, and while there was a bit more development of the setting after what happened in some of Lovecraft's stories, there was very little description. The plot was like a poor version of something that Lovecraft wrote, but it was definitely readable.

What I found most frustrating was that in a story titled "The Return of Hastur" there was almost nothing about Hastur, and certainly nothing that would make him any different from a generic monster. I feel like Lovecraft often gave us some background on the beings in his stories. I was disappointed.

As for the future, I will continue bravely on through the mythos with my friend, but I am distinctly unimpressed by Derleth.

Should you read this story? Don't do it if you are just reading for fun.