Cool Air, H. P. Lovecraft
Cool Air, H. P. Lovecraft
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Cool Air
The Price of Immortality: Cold as the Grave

Author: H. P. Lovecraft

Narrator: Scott Miller

Unabridged: 27 min

Format: Digital Audiobook Download

Publisher: Scott Miller

Published: 03/18/2025


Synopsis

When a struggling writer suffering from a heart condition seeks help from the mysterious Dr. Muñoz, he enters a world where the boundary between life and death grows disturbingly thin. Their odd friendship unfolds inside a frigid New York boarding house where the doctor’s obsession with cold, chemicals, and secrecy hints at forces far beyond normal medicine.As the narrator becomes entangled in Dr. Muñoz’s strange rituals and increasingly desperate need for lower temperatures, he uncovers a truth more unsettling than any fiction assignment he has ever written. What begins as gratitude slowly evolves into alarm as the doctor’s reliance on refrigeration spirals toward a revelation that defies nature itself.H. P. Lovecraft, master of atmospheric dread and cosmic unease, wrote “Cool Air” during a period of intense creativity in the mid-1920s. His ability to root otherworldly horror in ordinary urban settings—boarding houses, city streets, familiar routines—makes this story especially memorable. Lovecraft’s themes of forbidden knowledge, fragile mortality, and scientific obsession continue to influence modern writers, filmmakers, and podcasters.Though he died young and never achieved fame in his lifetime, Lovecraft’s work has since become foundational to weird fiction and cosmic horror. His imaginative reach shaped an entire literary universe and inspired generations of storytellers who still explore the unsettling spaces he opened.

About H. P. Lovecraft

Howard Phillips "H. P." Lovecraft (1890-1937) was an American author who achieved posthumous fame through his influential works of horror fiction. Virtually unknown and only published in pulp magazines before he died in poverty, he is now regarded as one of the most significant twentieth-century authors in his genre.


Reviews

Goodreads review by Peter on June 30, 2019

This is an extremely creepy and uncanny story. What is the mysterious doctor practising upstairs and why does he need such a number of ammoniac to cool down the temperature in his room. Accompany a lodger who pieces together sinister details on that strange doctor. The conclusion seems utterly absur......more

Goodreads review by Alejandro on December 04, 2018

Creepy cool reading! FREEZING HORROR This tale is about the peculiar friendship... ...between a cranky person and a medical doctor,... ...shaped up after the latter saved the life of the former. Set in an era way before of any modern air conditioning system,... ...the doctor is obssessed on devel......more

Goodreads review by Glenn on October 08, 2018

With this tale of horror set in 1923 New York City, H.P. Lovecraft (1890-1937) touches on two subjects that, judging from the proliferation of films and novels spotlighting these peculiar topics, have continually aroused our human imagination: cryonics and zombies. I say ‘touches on’ since Cool Air......more

Goodreads review by Bill on March 17, 2020

First published in Tales of Magic and Mystery (March,1928), “Cool Air” is one of only three stories that Lovecraft composed in New York City--and it is the only one of those three that is not racist. Moreover, although short in length and narrow in its range of effects, it is a very good horror stor......more

Goodreads review by Eloy on September 20, 2020

"Me piden que explique por qué siento miedo de la corriente de aire frío; por qué tiemblo más que otros cuando entro en un cuarto frío, y parezco asqueado y repelido cuando el escalofrío del atardecer avanza a través de un suave día otoñal" Un doctor que no concibe la muerte como un acto natural, ni......more