Tag Archives: H. P. Lovecraft

The Love Child of Chandler and Lovecraft

Casefile Arkham: Nightmare on the Canvas
Writer: Josh Finney; Art: Patrick McEvoy; Editor: Kat Rocha
01PUblishing
Paper $14.99; Ebook $7.99

I’d like to thank Patrick McEvoy and Kat Rocha for the review copy. If you like Raymond Chandler, or just classic PI stories in general, and are into all things Lovecraft, then this is a graphic novel for you.

The team of Finney, McEvoy, and Rocha have launched a series (yes, it’s a series; more on that later) that lovingly blends the best elements of both.

Set in Lovecraft’s fictional town of Arkham in 1946, the story follows former marine Hank Flynn as he tries to establish his life as a civilian in his home town. He’s working as a private investigator. When he’s hired by a beautiful and wealthy widow to find a missing painter, his life takes a turn for the eldritch. The painter’s name? Richard Pickman. Continue reading →

Clark Ashton Smith at 125

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Clark Ashton Smith was born on January 13 in 1893. He was one of the greatest fantasists of the Weird Tales era on indeed any era. Writing contemporaneously with Robert E. Howard and H. P. Lovecraft, Smith was considered one of the big three of what many consider to be the golden age of Weird Tales.

Unfortunately, he has not fared as well as those two in the years since he died. (Smith died in 1961, but he had stopped writing fiction years before.) He is still revered among fans of weird fiction, but he is not as well known among the general public. This is highly unfortunate.

There are probably several reasons contributing to this relative obscurity compared to his two contemporaries named above. For one thing, he never had any series characters, such as Howard did, with Conan being the most well known. Much of Lovecraft’s work was set in what has become known as the Cthulhu Mythos, uniting a variety of stories against a common background with common elements. Smith wrote multiple tales set in a number of story cycles, but for the most part these works shared a setting with no recurring characters and no mythos to link them.

Smith’s style is probably the biggest obstacle a modern reader needs to overcome. He started out as a poet, and with its lush prose, his work reflects that. Smith knew his way around a dictionary and wasn’t afraid to use it. While this might be off-putting and not in line with contemporary trends, I personally find it a good thing. While reading Smith might involve some mental work, and not something to be attempted at bedtime if you’re tired, I have always found reading Smith to be rewarding. Continue reading →

Another Lovecraft Birthday

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Another year has passed, and it’s Lovecraft’s birthday again. (It’s also my mother-in-law’s but that’s beyond the scope of this post.) I’ve been planning a post on Lovecraft (yes, Dave H., the one we discussed at Howard Days and Armadillcon), but it’s not the right time for it. It’ll piss people off. Trust me.

Howard Phillips Lovecraft was born on August 20, 1890, in Providence, Rhode Island. He was one of the most influential writers of the weird and fantastic of the 20th Century.

I was thinking the other day about my own writing, and I realized that I have written more fiction with lovecraftian themes in the last year than I have in all other years combined. No, you can’t read these stories. They haven’t been published, although not for lack of trying. Two are under consideration and one isn’t quite finished.

I’ve seen more anthologies devoted to Lovecraft’s works this year. Maybe I’m just paying more attention, but it seems like there’s not going to be a decline in interest in his works.

I will make this observation, though. I don’t see a lot of middle ground with Lovecraft these days. Among the people who are familiar with his work, and by familiar I mean have actually read his stories as opposed to hearing about them from others, people seem to either love him or hate him.

That is influence.

Happy Brithday, Farnsworth Wright

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Weird Tales editorial office, l. to r., unknown, Farnsworth Wright, Henry Kuttner, Robert Bloch

By the time of his death in 1940, Farnsworth Wright had become one of the most influential editors the field of the fantastic would ever see. Wright was born in 1888 on July, 29. I would argue his influence on science fiction, fantasy, and horror has been greater than any other editor, including John W. Campbell, Dorothy McIlwraith, Fred Pohl, Ray Palmer, or Hugo Gernsback.

Yes, I realize that last sentence could be controversial, especially the inclusion of Campbell and Gernsback. So be it. Farnsworth Wright edited Weird Tales during what is considered to be the magazine’s golden age. The authors he published have had a greater impact on the literature of the fantastic than those of any other editor at any time in history. Continue reading →

Chicken Fried Cthulhu

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Hey, folks, the Chicken Fried Cthulhu Kickstarter has 25 hours left as I write this and is still a ways from funding. This is an anthology of southwestern flavored Cthulhu and Lovecraft themed stories. It’s set to premiere at the World Fantasy Convention in San Antonio this year.

If it funds. It’s from the same crew that brought you Skelos, and there’s an impressive lineup of authors listed, including Robert E. Howard and Joe Lansdale. Part of the reason the goal is so high is that the editors want to pay the authors professional rates, and that takes money.

So if you’ve been thinking about pledging, please do so. I would really like to see this project get off the ground. I am not an author in the anthology and my only connection to the project is that I’m friends with the guys putting it together. I just want to read the stories.

Reading A. Merritt on the Occasion of His Birthday

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Well, sort of. Merritt’s birthday was actually yesterday, but classes started the day before yesterday. I was kinda busy.

Abraham Merritt was born on January 20, in Beverly, New Jersey. He died in 1943. Merritt was arguably the most highly regarded fantasy author of his day, with a fantasy magazine named for him after his death. He was an assistant editor and later editor of The American Weekly, a position which apparently left him little time to pursue his own writing. Even so, his work cast a long shadow over the field and his influence is still felt today, although most readers are probably unaware of that influence. Continue reading →

What Do H. P. Lovecraft and John W. Campbell, Jr. Have in Common?

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Things From Outer Space
Hank Davis, ed.
Baen
mass market paperback $7.99
ebook $6.99 Amazon, $8.99 publisher’s website

This book came out at the end of August. I’m still reading it, so this isn’t going to be a review of the whole book. That will come after I finish reading it. I am going to discuss John Campbell, Jr.’s classic “Who Goes There?”, which is the lead story and the inspiration for the anthology.

I’m also going to discuss H. P.. Lovecraft’s “At the Mountains of Madness”. That’s not the Lovecraft story in the book, btw. Davis chose “The Colour Out of Space”. Probably because it fit the theme better than AtMoM.

I have read somewhere, and it was long enough ago that I don’t recall where, that Campbell may have been inspired to write “Who Goes There?” after reading “At the Mountains of Madness” in Astounding Stories in 1936.

I don’t know if this is true, but there are some strong similarities between the stories. There are some key differences as well. Continue reading →

A Review of Datlow’s The Best Horror of the Year Volume Eight

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The Best Horror of the Year, Volume Eight
Ellen Datlow, ed.
Night Shade Books
Trade paper $15.99
ebook $14.99

Since this is a review of a horror anthology, I’m going to run with that theme and say August has come from one of the circles of Hell. Just which one, I’m not sure. I need to brush up on my Dante. I finished this book two (three?) weeks ago, and I’m just now getting a relatively quiet and uninterrupted moment when I’m not too wiped out to put coherent sentences together. (The previous post doesn’t count. A careful reading will show I wasn’t in a good mood, and I don’t write reviews when I’m ~~cranky~~ crankier than usual.) The only part of the process that went the way it should was requesting the book and the quick response. Thanks to Brianna Scharfenberg of Night Shade Books. Delays in reading the book and posting the review are entirely mine.

Datlow is one of the most accomplished editors in the field. I know that any project, whether reprint or original, will have a top-notch selection of stories. That’s the case here. Not every story was to my taste, but then I don’t expect them to. The only anthology that will be completely to my taste will be one I’ve edited, and maybe not even then. Continue reading →

Some Thoughts on HPL, on the Occasion of His Birth

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Other than the Dublin Ghost Story Festival (which I can’t afford to attend), there’s not a lot happening this weekend of any significance. Which is fine, because there won’t be much to distract from observing HPL’s birthday today. I intend to read something by him later, provided both the two-legged and four-legged people in the house will leave me alone.

I thought I’d mark the occasion by sharing a few thoughts. It’s become particularly fashionable in recent years to bash the Gentleman From Providence. While this is nothing new, it seems to have gained momentum.

When I was younger, the most common complaint I heard was that Lovecraft’s prose was too purple. I didn’t pay that much attention to the criticism at the time because I was more into science fiction. It was only as my interest in fantasy began to eclipse my interest in SF that I really started getting into his work. I’ve always found his writing to be readable. While there is some merit to the complaints about Lovecraft’s style being outdated (which to a large degree boils down to matters of taste), they’re not a deal breaker for me. Continue reading →

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