Lovecraft: The Shadow out of Time

[Darthwing Teorist]

Thanks for the suggestions!

[Muad'dib]

I love Lovecraft, but not because he is a good writer. He has interesting word usage and construction which are significantly different from most of what we read today, but much of his writing kind of sucks. What he did that is amazing is create a lasting mythos, that overlays our own, that there are other races and gods beyond our own, and hostile to us. That the world as we know it is basically a snack for cosmic forces beyond our capacity to understand, and that we exist due to the happy coincidence that we are so utterly insignificant that we are overlooked time and again. That even so, within our supposedly safe world, there are horrors, (poorly written/described horrors to be sure) of which we are blissfully ignorant, such as the deep ones, the ghouls, the subterranean tunnels in Brooklyn, etc.

[Josealb]

(poorly written/described horrors to be sure)

Danno...wanna put your opinion to the test?

Post a short paragraph of a better description of a monster, from any author, any genre, and me, or any other guy that wants to play, posts a short paragraph of a lovercraft description. If you win, i get to discover something cool to read.

Rule is, it has to be description of a monster. Thats it.

[Kato]

Check out Robert W Chambers if you have time. He was a forerunner, and influence on Lovecraft. His book, The King in Yellow, is a collection of stories that revolve around a piece of literature that drive all who read it mad.

Listen to the Repairer of Reputations when you have the time. It is different than Lovecraft, but good in its own weird way.
http://librivox.org/king-in-yellow-by-robert-w-chambers/

[river rider]

Only some of Chambers has this flavor, most of his work seems to be novels of society and manners. Robert Howard has lots of Lovecraftian monsters and magic in his Conan and other tales. And Clark Ashton Smith cannot be missed!

[RobP2]

Don't forget William Hope Hodgson - particularly The House on the Borderland!

For modern stuff has anyone else read the Black Wings of Cthuhlhu anthology put together by ST Joshi. I was a bit disappointed

[JusticeZero]

This was something I noted that seemed like it may or may not have been a case of inadvertent missing of a core point..

I was looking forward to learn more about them and the horrors that they unleashed but was very disappointed to learn that all they did was stirring some anomalous wind. When the main character fell into their domain through a chasm, what did he do? He actually swam upward THROUGH THEM and got away free! For beings that terrorized the mightiest race known to have walked (or shambled) the earth, they did not seem able to do much harm, if a tired, half-crazy middle aged scientist managed to get away unscathed from them. Yes, maybe they got weaker by the time these events occurred, but in this case they should not have posed any threat at all to mankind.

In general, "Lovecraftian" horror isn't about powerful things that hate humanity. It is about absurdly powerful things that do not particularly recognize humanity at all, doing things that are less than completely comprehensible. They are not malevolent, they are apathetic. You won't see much in the way of grand plots to destroy humanity. You'll see grand plots to... turn all the milk purple? perhaps, something strange, unnatural, and probably can't be a good thing but the reasoning is completely over your head.. and if you try to stop it, the reaction you'll get isn't "Those kids! Stop them!" but closer to "Fruit fly landed on my touch screen and clicked the wrong link, lol".
The reader is intended to feel akin to a very small animal in a patch of forest who is only vaguely becoming aware, with its animal-level intelligence, not only that humans exist, but that its nest and the forest around it is probably going to be affected by, say, the details of multinational Wall Street insider trading and a major real estate development controversy involving leveraged stocks and a court case regarding certain intricacies of Scientology that might affect the path of a planned freeway. That is, "You are all but powerless to do anything meaningful, none of the players involved recognize that you exist, you can mess with them, but they'll just laugh it off as a cute joke, and it's all based around a bunch of things that make no sense to you and that you will never in your life be able to grasp the most rudimentary basics of."

[Darthwing Teorist]

That's a good point.

[chud]

Have you seen this? Great discussion on every HPL story. Now they are working through Supernatural Horror in Literature

http://hppodcraft.com/

When you subscribe to a podcast in iTunes, do you know how to make it go back and start at the first episode, instead of just downloading the latest one?
EDIT: Never mind, I went back to episode 1 and retrieved it.
But if there's a setting in iTunes to make it start at episode 1 and have it feed episodes to you chronologically, I'd like to know it.

[JaMo]

Here's a link to all of H.P.'s stories,

As well as some poetry, letters, and essays.

Good stuff!!!

Enjoy!

http://www.hplovecraft.com/writings/texts/

[Felipe Bidó]

This guy has written a bunch of books and posts about Lovecraft and Horror in american literature: jasoncolavito.com

I love his blog (He spends most of his time debunking claims about ancient aliens).

[chud]

Here is a good documentary about Lovecraft that you can watch free online:

Lovecraft: Fear of the Unknown
http://www.snagfilms.com/films/title/lovecraft_fear_of_the_unknown

[Darthwing Teorist]

Thanks again guys!

[chud]

Zombie thread, ARISE!

Just came across this new book of Lovecraft-ish stories, thinking about ordering it:
http://www.darkregions.com/books/world-war-cthulhu-a-collection-of-lovecraftian-war-stories

[Taste of Death]

Yesterday was his 124th birthday.

http://www.biographile.com/the-cosmic-horror-of-h-p-lovecraft-on-and-off-the-page/35356/